My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish (2 page)

I remember the doctor shining a tiny flashlight into my eyes and then asking me if I could name all the Teletubbies. I told her that Teletubbies were lame and then threw up on her shoes. Not to be evil, just because I had to, you know. She said I had a concussion and needed to stay in the hospital overnight so they could keep an eye on me.

So, the day after Mark got the chemistry set he came home after school with a goldfish in a little plastic bag and headed straight upstairs. Mom and I followed.

“Did you go to a fair?” I asked.

“Moron.” He shot me a look as he pulled his earphones out of his ears. “It's from the pet shop. For school. Science week.”

“Why do you need…?” Mom started to ask, when Mark shoved a letter from his bag into her hand.

She read aloud: “Class 7M will be doing experiments on the effects of pollution on marine populations. Students will show photos of their experiments to the class tomorrow.” She looked at Mark. “OK, if it's homework,” she said as she headed down the stairs. “At least you're doing something green.”

Mark put on his white scientist coat and took out his chemistry set. As he unpacked the box, I got that crawly-millipede feeling in my stomach again. Mark should have done one of those “Mwahaha!”
EVIL SCIENTIST
laughs at that point, but I guess he was still learning the ropes.

Mom shouted up from downstairs, “Mark, look after your brother while I run to the store. I'll be back soon.” I heard the door close and looked over at Mark.

Normally, as soon as Mom left, Mark would start acting mostly evil to me. Like when he caught me reading his mint-condition
Return of the Attack of the Undead Zombie
comic. He wrapped me in beach towels and wedged me in the dog flap till the neighbors complained about my shouting and Mom had to come home from work to un-wedge me. Oh, the good old
mostly
evil days. But now that he was an actual
EVIL SCIENTIST
, he was too busy to think of things to squeeze me into or trap me under. There was definitely less torture, but more shouting.

“Touch nothing, moron,” Mark growled at me as he went out to the hall closet.

He came back with the old goldfish bowl, filled it in the bathroom sink, and dumped the fish inside. I pressed my face up against the glass. This goldfish was fatter than the ones from the fair. It had big bulging eyes and a long wavy tail with three fins. It kind of looked like a really ugly bug-eyed mermaid, if you squinted enough. Then, as I squinted at the fish, it squinted back. Mark was too busy reading the back of a jar from his chemistry set to notice. The fish swam up to the side of the bowl and peered at me through the glass, its little mouth opening and closing. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it looked like the fish was saying, “Help me.”

Mark unscrewed the lid of the jar. My millipede feeling got worse. He took out some test tubes and mixed up a bottle of a truly evil-looking green mixture.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Polluting,” he grunted, and tipped some of the green stuff into the water with the fish.

“Stop! It could hurt the fish!” I shouted, and tried to grab the bottle.

Mark shoved me back on the carpet with one hand while he added some brown powder and gray flakes to the fishbowl. I tried to get up, but he held me firm by pushing his size-7 sneakers down on my chest. He grabbed his phone and snapped a picture of the fish swimming around in the gunky water.

“What will … it do to … the fish?” I gasped with the last bit of air left in my lungs.

“Dunno,” he said. “That's the experiment.” He laughed an absolutely perfect
EVIL SCIENTIST
laugh. Man, he was a fast learner. Then he put his phone back in his pocket. “I'll come back later to take another picture, and then I can flush it.” Mark lifted his foot off my shirt and I sucked in a lungful of air.

“Flush what?” I spluttered.

“Duh, the fish.” He put his earphones in again and headed back down the stairs, shouting back, “Remember, touch nothing, moron. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said. But I totally didn't get it. I stood up and tried to rub off the footprint Mark had left on my T-shirt. Then I glanced over at the fishbowl. It didn't look good. The fish was squirming in the bowl and sucking in gulps of mucky water. Then it swam up to the glass again.

I stared through the cloudy green water, right into the fish's big bulging eyes, and did the most dangerous thing I've ever done in my short life.

I touched it.

 

 

I did more than touch it. I reached into the bowl and scooped it up with my fingers and ran to the bathroom.

“Come on, fish. Hang on. You'll be OK now,” I muttered as I ran.

The fish was covered in the green gunk and it was flipping about in my hands. At least it was still moving, but it wouldn't last long, all gunked up like this. I tried to hold it in one hand while I turned on the tap and tried to wash it, but I could feel it wriggling through my fingers.

Then,
slurp!
It flipped out of my hand and landed in the toilet.

Splash!

I dropped down next to the bowl. The fish kind of bobbed around and swished its tail, but then it went still and leaned over. Our other goldfish all did that leaning thing too, just before they went belly up and died.

I raced to my bedroom and got my walkie-talkie. “Tom to Pradeep. Come in, Pradeep. Over,” I said.

“Roger,” Pradeep answered. “I mean Roger, Tom—or Tom, Roger. Anyway, I'm here. Over.”

“Pradeep, it's a Code Red!” I shouted. “Over. Quick!”

We have this code of important stuff we both agreed on when we were back in first grade.

Yellow is stuff like: Girls are nearby.

Blue is stuff like: There's a dog digging up the gross food from our lunchboxes that we buried.

Orange is stuff like: There's a teacher/parent coming.

Red is the most important stuff you can imagine, like: Aliens are invading the neighborhood. Or escaped elephants are trampling the playground. Or somebody is murdering a goldfish.

If you're trying to figure out the system, it's not like traffic lights or anything. It's the color of jelly beans from least good to best.

“I'll be there on the double,” Pradeep said and hung up.

I was still staring at the leaning fish in the toilet when Pradeep ran up the stairs. “In here,” I called.

“What's up?” he asked.

I pointed to the fish.

Pradeep bent down and looked closely at it. “Did you go to a fair?” he asked.

“No, it's Mark's,” I said. “Part of his
EVIL SCIENTIST
plan to murder a goldfish with green
EVIL SCIENTIST
stuff.”

We leaned over the toilet bowl and stared at the fish again.

“Did you learn anything on your Cub Scout first-aid day that could help him?” I asked hopefully.

“We didn't do goldfish,” he said.

The fish tilted to one side, then the other, then onto his back.

“Oh no, he's going belly up!” I shouted. I reached into the toilet and turned the fish right side up, but he just floated upside down again when I let go. “Pradeep, we need to do something! Quick! I told him he'd be OK. He's counting on me.”

“It needs CPR,” Pradeep said. “On a person you would press on their chest and count or you would shock them with those battery packs attached to paddles that they have in hospitals. I saw it on TV.”

“We have batteries,” I said. I ran into my room and took the battery out of my alarm clock. Then I raced back to see Pradeep laying the fish on the shelf by the sink. I put the openish end of the battery on him and
FLIP!
The fish jerked. I looked at Pradeep and I did it again.
FLIP, FLOP!
This time the fish started wriggling like it did when I first grabbed it out of the bowl. We quickly filled up the sink and dropped the fish in.

And it started swimming around!

“We did it!” I said. Pradeep and I did our secret celebration high five. Two slaps up, two down, elbow bumps, knees, fist bumps, left, right, left, right, then “We rock!” said at the same time as we bumped fists in the middle.