My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish (8 page)

Mom leaned over the watering can. “Is that fish staring up my nostril?” she said.

Pradeep and I looked into the can. “Phew … I mean, yes, I guess,” I said.

“You said the goldfish was trying to kill you, Mark?” Mom said, going back to him and feeling his head for bumps again. “Was that before or after you bumped your head?”

“Definitely after,” Pradeep said.

“Yeah, he started talking weird just after he fell,” I said.

“Bouncy, bouncy, bang,” Sami said, nodding her head.

“The kid was in on it. She was all goldfish starey and she was out to get me too,” Mark said, backing away from Sami.

Sami giggled. “Swishy little fishy.”

“Argh!” Mark yelled, and ran and hid behind Mom.

“OK, we need to go to the hospital to get them to look at your head. I think you've got a concussion.” She led Mark over to the edge of the sandbox to sit him down. “I'm going to go speak to your mom, Pradeep. I'm sure she won't mind looking after you all until Mark and I get back from the hospital.” She took Sami's hand. “You come with me, Samina, to see Mommy.” She turned to me and Pradeep. “I'll be back in a second. You boys please look after him, OK? Keep him talking.”

Pradeep and I looked at each other nervously. It was like we were being left with a tiger that was just waking up and we knew he was going to wake up pretty mad.

“How you feeling, Mark?” I said quietly.

Mark growled in that
EVIL SCIENTIST
big-brother way. Then he jumped up and leaned over Pradeep and me.

“You morons and the stupid goldfish won't win,” he said. “But it doesn't matter, because as soon as I get home that fish is flushed and I'll stick your moron heads down the—”

But he didn't get to finish his threat. Frankie leaped out of the watering can, his eyes glowing a shining green. He started flapping his tail back and forth, whacking Mark across the face.

“Ow, ow, get it off! Get it off!” Mark said, and fell backward into the sandbox.

I scooped up Frankie in my hands and plopped him back into the watering can.

“I don't think you'll be flushing anything, Mark,” I heard myself saying in a really strong voice, like I was on some TV cop show or something. “I think you are gonna leave me and Pradeep and Sami and Frankie alone,” I said.

“Who's Frankie?” Mark said.

“My goldfish,” I said, looking down at Frankie swimming around in the can. “And I wouldn't mess with him, because he can kick your butt.”

Pradeep stepped forward. “Um, yeah, right. Like Tom said,” he mumbled, and smiled at me.

 

 

Mom raced back over from Pradeep's house. “OK, boys, thanks for looking after Mark.” She winked at me and ruffled my hair. “You can act very grown-up sometimes, can't you? When you put your mind to it.”

Frankie splashed in his watering can.

“I think we should get Frankie back into his bowl for the night,” I said. “He's had enough air.”

“Pradeep's mom said you can have your dinner there and then sleep over. It might be best. You never know how long the hospital will take. Remember when you had a concussion from running into that door? Why is it always my boys?” She shook her head. “Come on, Mark.”

She helped him up from the sandbox and took him to the car. He was still talking about the fish being out to get him. Mom just nodded.

“Oh, and Mark,” I yelled to him as Mom was pulling out of the drive, “don't worry about the pictures for your experiment. We'll take some good ones for you.”

The last thing I saw as Mom rounded the corner toward the hospital was Mark banging on the back window mouthing the words, “Moron … No!”

Pradeep and I went in and got Frankie's goldfish bowl from upstairs, washed it out, and then headed over to Pradeep's house for the night. We decided that Frankie deserved a sleepover too. And Sami wanted to play with him again. After dinner, we got into our pajamas and had the marshmallow-popcorn earths with the white chocolate melting ice caps. And we took lots of cool pictures of Frankie.

Mom phoned Pradeep's house to say that she was staying with Mark because the doctors wanted to keep him overnight so they could keep an eye on him. I told Mom to make sure it wasn't a very big eye if they could help it. He is my big brother after all. And I think from now on he'll probably go back to just being mostly evil. As long as Frankie's around—my big fat zombie goldfish friend (and bodyguard).

When Pradeep's mom put Sami to bed, Pradeep and I got out our sleeping bags and told each other scary zombie stories. Telling scary stories is one of the top things about sleepovers. But THE top thing about sleepovers now is if we scare ourselves too much, we've always got a zombie goldfish nightlight to make everything seem brighter, and a bit green. How cool is that?

 

 

You know how your voice sounds different when you're doing different stuff? Like, you have a “running” voice or a “jumping” voice or a “stuck in a pretzel shape because you tried to fit into a tiny box” voice? Well, I heard Pradeep shouting outside this morning and he definitely had an “upside down” voice.

“I'm a moron and you're a genius,” he mumbled.