A piece of toast in one hand and the morning’s mail in the other Sage wandered into the living room. The brat, AKA Morgan, was at grandma’s while their parents were in a small town for a funeral. Sage had had the house to herself. There had been no party or destruction of property. She had merely been given “root beer money” by her father, which was odd since she nor any of her friends were old enough to even buy “root beer”.
As she set the Sunday Sun on the coffee table she caught sight of something green. This was bewildering since the only house plant that survived was in the kitchen. No plant ever lasted more than a month in the house. Turning to survey the room Sage choked on her toast.
“Oh…” Toast slipping from her hand to land on the floor. She cringed. The neglected fish tank had become a breeding ground for green, sludgy life forms. She could see little orange objects floating on the top of the tank despite the grime.
In a panic she hurried to the kitchen and grabbed the phone. Someone answered in the middle of the tenth ring. Barely registering the mumbled greeting Sage began rambling, “Aya! You have to help me! I killed them! All of them! They’re floating like buoys!”
“Sage?” was the only thing Aya managed.
“Yes! Are you even awake yet?”
“It’s ten-fucking-thirty! No I’m not! I was up until 6 am playing online games. But what did you off? Please say it’s that drama teacher from hell.”
“No! It’s Morgan’s beloved fish.”
“You woke me up to say you killed some fish? I’m going to bed.”
There was a click and the line went dead. Sage phoned back four more times until someone picked up again.
“Fuck you!” was Aya’s greeting.
When Aya was in a foul mood she swore like a one eyed carpenter. “If I don’t do something quick then Morgan’ll never forgive me! She’s four and has a freaky emotional attachment to them.”
“It’s your fault for killing them.”
“I’ll buy you some cheesecake if you help me.”
There was a long pause, during which Sage worried Aya had fallen asleep. Aya finally did speak up after a while, “Fine! Start cleaning the tank. When I get there we’ll head to the mall and get some new fish. Be sure to put the dead ones in a Ziploc bag so that we can match them as close as possible.” For the second time Aya hung up the phone.
Relief washed over her. Sage set down the phone and went about cleaning the tank.
Nearly 45 minutes later Aya arrived. “This better be a big piece of cheesecake. I want a triple chocolate one too,” she grumbled as greeting.
Quickly Sage shoved the bag of deceased fish in her purse and proceeded to put on her shoes. “Yah, sure. Thanks for coming.”
“Just be happy I like you so much. I wouldn’t drag my arse out of bed for anyone else.”
“I feel all warm and fuzzy.” Sage rolled her eyes and followed her friend to the car.
Aya shifted into gear and sped off down the crescent. Aya had long since perfected the fine art of road rage. Lucky the only casualty thus far was a garbage bin.
Perhaps today would be different… perhaps Aya in her sleep deprived state would manage to be civil towards other drivers…
“Fucking stupid drivers…”
Or perhaps not. The driver in front of the two girls was driving slowly.
“Now, Aya, there’s-”
“Gong half their fucking ages…”
Noting that Aya was lost within the road rage Sage sighed. She had long since given up trying to reason with her friend’s anger.
Managing to lose the woman by taking a right turn Aya continued on her reckless journey.
After a few moments of peaceful driving things became more problematic. While stopped for pedestrians an obnoxious driver came up behind them. Instead of stopping, like any sane person, he continued on his way and laid heavy on the horn. As the car came increasingly closer it only slowed marginally. Sage thought for sure they would all be killed but to her great joy the driver screeched to a halt, missing rear ending them by mere millimetres.
The pedestrians safely out of the way Aya opened her window, gave the other driver the finger then drove on. “Arsehole,” was the only thing she said.
Sage dared not utter a sound until after they had parked in the mall lot. After finding herself safely on pavement she said, “Well, that was fun.”
Aya didn’t even respond.
In silence the two headed in. Being a Sunday morning the mall wasn’t usually busy. Since retirement homes were plentiful in the area the elderly were the main patrons of the mall. They seemed to be out in droves on this particular day. The mall, even on its best days, was far from easy to manoeuvre through. Even the patrons with scooters were slow. It was like everyone became zombie-like after passing through the glass doors.
Ahead of them two old ladies pushed their carts at the speed of dead turtles. They chatted happily about their pets and how they were doing some bake sale for the SPCA the following day. If only the two teens could cut past the old ladies… yet on the other side of the mall was no more promising. The elderly walked slowly on that side as well.
Aya seemed pained to be moving so slow. In a desperate attempt to get around the ladies she ducked into the card shop, only to catch her foot on a sign and find herself falling to the floor, sign following shortly after.
Sage couldn’t help but find it amusing. It’s one of those situations that aren’t really funny but when you’re that stressed it just makes you keel over. However, the little old ladies didn’t find it too amusing. They stopped their death crawl and turned to look at Aya.
“Oh dear! Are you all right?” One of them looked at Aya with concern.
By now the group of boys that sat in the shop playing TCGs gathered around and were laughing at Aya’s predicament.
Eye twitching slightly Aya tried her best to smile up at the old ladies while moving the sign off herself. “I’m fine, really.”
“You sure you’re not hurt, dear?” the second lady asked.
“Oh no m’am,” Sage said between giggles. “Only thing she’s injured is her pride.”
“Ooo, my pride won’t be the only thing hurting if you don’t stop laughing, you loser!” Aya spat at Sage then smiled at the ladies. “No, I’m fine, just head off to your shopping.”
With that the disgruntled Asian got to her feet, dusted herself off and headed back the way that she’d come in.
“Ah! Aya! Wrong way!” Sage grabbed her friend’s arm.
“No, right way. I’m going to go lock myself in the Zellers washroom.”
“Fish now or no cheese cake.” Sage said sternly.
With a pout Aya allowed herself to be dragged through the mall to the pet store. Upon entering the small pet store Sage made her way to the sales clerk. “Excuse me, but I have a bit of an emergency. I need to replace these fish!” She grabbed the Ziploc bag from her purse and held it in the air. In the excitement Sage had failed to close the bag properly and all the fish had fallen out.
The sales clerk gave Sage an odd look but before the clerk could say anything Sage had made her way to the counter and emptied out her purse. Gingerly she picked the deceased fish from her belongings. She began putting all her things away while Aya put the fish back in the bag.
“Right, I need to replace these fish.”
Smiling softly the woman led them to a fish tank; within minutes they had found replacement fish and had significantly lightened Sage’s wallet.
The two girls made it back to Sage’s house with nearly an hour to spare before the rest of Sage’s family returned. When the three of them walked through the door they were greeted by the smell of burnt French toast and the sound of the two teens playing video games. Upon entering Morgan immediately scampered to see George, Gus, Ginger, Gary, Gwen and Bob – her precious goldfish. An unearthly wail pierced the peacefulness of the house and within seconds everyone was gathered in the living room.
“Wah! Bob go blooey!” Morgan pointed at the fish tank, tears in her eyes.
Sure enough there were little bits of fish floating in the tank. Now that Sage thought about it she had only bought five fish. That meant that Bob had been sucked into the filter and that’s what had caused the grungy tank.
Going to comfort his daughter Mr. Evans stepped forward onto something that squished. Looking down he found Sage’s discarded piece of toast. The raspberry jam was now ground into his sock and the carpet. Anger overwhelming him Mr. Evans looked to his eldest daughter.
Before he could say a word Sage started into the story that she had devised with Aya. “I was putting the mail away when I saw that the tank was getting filthy so I dropped my toast and immediately cleaned it. I guess I didn’t get the filter that well though…”
“At least Sage saved your little fishies, isn’t that right, Morgan?” Mrs. Evans hopelessly tried to comfort her daughter
Through her sniffles Morgan did manage to murmur, “Yes.”
“Look what I found!” Aya exclaimed. She pulled out Mr. Bear from behind her back. Nobody had even seen her leave. She approached the sobbing girl, holding out the well-loved stuffed rabbit.
Morgan sprang from her mother’s arms and grabbed Mr. Bear. She immediately started chewing on his left ear. Why he was called Mr. Bear Sage had never determined. Telling Morgan that he was a rabbit only resulted in Morgan biting you.
“How about we’ll go buy a new fish for you later, Morgan?” Mrs. Evans offered.
Smiling again Morgan nodded. “And I’ll name this one Greg!”
With a smile they all went about their business: Mrs. Evans set about trying  to bathe Morgan, Morgan to evading taking a bath, Mr. Evans went to relieve stress by “resting his eyes” and Aya and Sage returned to their video games. The whole fish incident was not mentioned until two weeks later when Sage was running errands.
To her dismay Sage found that one of the fish had oozed a bit on her wallet. Handing the clerk the fish covered bill she smiled. However, Brenda – as her name tag stated – wasn’t impressed in the least. She plucked the bill from Sage’s hand by the corner as if it was diseased then grabbed a roll of paper towel from under the counter to wipe it off, all the while smiling at Sage through gritted teeth.  
After cleaning the bill she put it in the till and slammed the drawer. “Have a nice day,” Brenda smiled with gritted teeth. She handed Sage her purchases and gave her a look that screamed “get out”.
“Well, she wasn’t very courteous,” Aya muttered as she came up to walk beside Sage.
“One of the dead fish of two weeks back leaked on the bill.”
“Mmm…” She smiled. “Oh well, Wal-Mart is a foul place anyway, they deserve a fish soiled bill. Hey, how about we go to Mickey D’s and get some fillet of fish?”
“I should push you into that fountain,” Sage muttered and pushed at her friend playfully.
“Hey!” Aya yelped. “Push me in and you come down with me. And we’ll be swimming with the fishies.”
“Enough with the fish! I never want to deal with fish again.”
The fish incident was virtually behind her now and all traces were disposed off. Unless of course one counts the tail fin that had attached itself to the bristles of the hair brush in her purse. That was a present waiting for later.