Dead. Gone. Finished.
Max’s little fishy body floated belly-up and still. I hunched over his bowl, tears springing to the corners of my eyes.
“Oh, Max.” My voice caught. “I’m sorry. I tried. I really, really tried. You’ll have the best fish memorial there ever was. Promise.”
I opened the cabinet and found a teacup with delicate poppies painted inside its rim. We only used it for holidays or special occasions anyway, say when the preacher and his wife visited (which hasn’t happened in a while because of the skunks). I scooped Max into the cup and set him on the kitchen counter while I tried to figure out what to do with him.
What do you do with your librarian’s dead pet fish? Oh gosh. Oh gosh. I couldn’t think. I mean I could, but it was only about how dead I’d be on Monday when I showed up to school with an empty fishbowl. What would I tell Mr. Reyes? What would I tell my friends? My dad? How was I ever going to get a dog if I couldn’t take care of a fish? One thing at a time, Vi. Breathe.
I leaned against the counter and did just that. I took a deep breath.
Most people flush their dearly departed fish. But that didn’t seem right. Max was no ordinary fish. He belonged to Mr. Reyes. He belonged to the library. He belonged to all of us, in a sense. And he deserved a better send-off than a trip down the toilet.
I pulled out Mama’s kitchen junk drawer—the drawer where keys without locks, pens without caps, and packs of Juicy Fruit resided. Looking for something, anything that’d work as a suitable casket for Max. Then I saw it. A toothpick box. I shook the remaining 127 toothpicks (or so it seemed) out into the drawer. I carefully lined the tiny box with a bit of paper towel before placing Max inside. Now, most people at this point would bury him.
I’m not most people.
First, I needed to prepare a eulogy for the service. I sat his bowl in the sink, because I couldn’t bear to look at it any longer, as empty as it was. I carried Max in the toothpick box up the stairs to my bedroom. I fished a notebook out from under my bed and found a fresh page. Sitting at my desk, I scribbled today’s date, April 22, across the top of the page in orange ink. Max’s color. I skipped a space before writing MAXIMUS TROPICANA in capital letters. I drew a double line under his name for good measure, then scrawled underneath that: A Eulogy by Vilonia Renae Beebe, age 9 3/4.
Max’s tribute came fast and out of nowhere, much like his death. To fill up the white space at the bottom of the page, I drew a picture of Max inside a giant heart bubble. It just seemed right.
I set my orange pen down, and at that exact moment it sunk in what I’d done. I don’t mean writing my first eulogy. Nope, I’m talking about the heinous, though unintentional, crime I’d committed: I, Vilonia Renae Beebe, Library Helper and entrusted pet sitter, killed Mr. Reyes’s fish.
• • •
I jumped up from the desk, my brain reeling. I paced back and forth from my bedroom door to the window overlooking AC’s house and back again, my hands clasped over my mouth and my mind screaming one word. Help!
My room grew stuffier by the minute. I opened the window. Picking up my walkie-talkie, I propped my elbows on the windowsill and held down the talk button.
“AC, are you there? Over?” Maybe she hadn’t left for her nail appointment.
Silence.
“Nine-one-one, Ava Claire Nutter! Code red. I repeat, code red.” Code red was our term for very important matters that required immediate action, like the time Ava Claire spilled a bottle of Big Apple Red nail polish on her mom’s ivory sofa. Thank heavens for the invention of rubbing alcohol and reversible cushions.
“Forget it,” I said, and flung the walkie-talkie onto my bed instead of putting it back on my nightstand where it belonged. I grabbed a striped pillow and flopped myself across the bed as well. I needed to do something with Max, but it didn’t seem right to be the sole witness and person performing his memorial service. But I sure wasn’t going to waltz into class fishless on Monday morning and write my real answer to the “What I Did Over My Spring Break” essay.
“VB, you copy?” The walkie-talkie crackled.
“Copy. AC, is that you? Over.”
“No, it’s your fairy godmother here to grant your wildest wish.” Giggles floated over the airwaves. I walked over to my window, the window that faced Ava Claire’s room. That was the whole reason I let Leon have the bigger room, so I could have the window that faced my new friend’s. “Roger, Vilonia. It’s me.” AC’s curtains fluttered and she waved behind the glass. “How’s the patient?”
“Um. Remember Mrs. Tooley?”
Ava Claire and I looked at each other through glass panes for a solid minute before she piped up, “I’ll be right over.”
“Roger that,” I said, and placed the walkie-talkie where it belonged on my nightstand next to a tower of books.
With a gentle rap-tap on my door, AC poked her face through the crack.
“Sure.”
“So. Where’s Max?” she asked as gingerly as she could.
My shoulders fell. “On my desk. In the toothpick box.”
AC shot me a quizzical look.
“Don’t ask.”
“Okay . . . what are you going to do with him now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What about Mr. Reyes?”
“I don’t know!” I threw my hands up. “I don’t know! What am I going to do? I killed the library fish! Do you know what this means? Not only will I be ridiculed at school for the rest of my days, I’ll lose any chance of adopting Ray Charles!”
Ava Claire’s eyes grew wide. “Are you having a nervous breakdown? Because if you are, I can call Neely. She does Dr. Menlow’s nails, and she specializes in child psychiatry. Remember how Trent Spacey started plucking his eyelashes out one by one after his parents’ divorce? He doesn’t—”
“Stop. I do not need a psychiatrist, AC. What I need is a goldfish!”
Ava Claire glanced at me and then Max. “Preferably a live one.”
I flopped onto my bed and groaned.
“Well?” Ava Claire clicked her nails together. “Are you ready?”
“I am not getting a manicure.” I peeked at her from under my pillow.
“Don’t be silly,” AC said. “What I meant was are you ready for some shopping?”
I sat up and flung my pillow aside. “Ava Claire Nutter, sometimes I underestimate your brilliance. Do you think your mom would drive us to the pet store?”
“Are you kidding me? Does Neely ever pass up a trip to the mall?”
And that’s how I let my best friend and next-door neighbor talk me into the most pathetic shopping experience of my life.