Cyberia by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

“You can’t make me,” I tell Hugo once I’m home. When I got back, he looked at me with such expectant eyes. But what was he thinking? How could I be anything but a disappointment?

“Then make yourself,” he replies.

“No. You can’t make me, and I can’t make me. Hugo, I’m sorry, but how many animals do you really think I can save? I can barely save myself. Hire somebody else. Get all the animals to march on the White House. I have studying to do and I need a bath.”

Hugo is giving me the soulful and scathing stare, but I’m not having it. I go into my bathroom and ask it to get my bath running. The bathroom knows exactly what temperature I like.

But I stop before I can get a word out. My bathtub is … occupied.

“Why are there fish in my bathtub, Hugo?” I ask. “Who put fish in my bathtub?”

Yes, there are fish in my bathtub. Those fat bubble-eye orange-and-black Japanese goldfish. I have never met these fish before. This is my private bathroom, which nobody uses but me, so there is no reason unexplained bubble-eyed fish should be in my tub.

“Hugo?” I call.

He comes ambling in and stands next to me looking into the tub.

“You’ve got some fish,” he says.

“I know I do. Where did they come from?”

“My guess is Japan.”

“I am not in the mood, Hugo. I want these fish out of here. I need my bath. I need my warm bath right now.”

Warm baths are kind of my salvation. I really like warm baths, and in almost all instances when life or whatever else is overwhelming me, I retreat to the security of my enveloping warm bath.

Without fish.

“Hey,” Hugo says, “they’re only animals, right? If they are inconveniencing you, flush ’em.”

“Flush ’em?”

“Yeah, flush ’em.”

The stress and the lack of a warm bath are really getting to me now. I can sense the bathrooom’s about to ask me what’s wrong. And the last thing I want is my bathroom to talk to Room, which will then talk to my parents.

“Maybe I will flush them,” I say.

“Maybe you should.”

“Don’t tempt me, dog.”

“I’m tempting you, kid.”

Arrgghh. Everybody knows I am not flushing anybody.

I groan and slump to the floor with my back to the bath, which should now contain me and warm water and not fish.

Hugo sidles up to me, sits down, and lets his warm little body press against my side.

“Those dogs were so sad, Hugo. I can still see their faces, hear their moaning…. I need a bath.”

“There is no other guy, Zane. You are our guy, and you know it. You’re just going to have to be a little brave about it.”

“I hate being brave. Being brave scares me.”

Beep. In the bedroom I hear Gizzard™ calling. It’s a text-beep. I have yet to hear my father’s voice through the noodle. He likes texts. He likes the precise thought that goes into them, and the control, like baking a cake from scratch rather than from a box.

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