Ellray Jakes Walks the Plank (2 page)

Since we can’t go on vacation, my mom got the idea of “taking a vacation at home.” So far … it has been pretty fun, I have to admit. Here is how we’ve spent our time.

1. Alfie and I take turns choosing what cartoon show to watch in the morning, which means that every other morning we get to watch something good.

2. Also, we have been on a couple of picnics with Mom, and two hikes, until Alfie complained that her feet were too short to hike any more. Ever again.

3. And we went to see a movie one afternoon, but it was for four- year-olds like Alfie, not
eight-year-olds like me. The popcorn was good, though.

4. We even went to the San Diego Zoo one day, and then we surprised my dad by visiting his office at the college. It really
was
a surprise for him, too! And when my mom went to get a cup of coffee, Alfie sat on the office photocopy machine and copied her own rear end. Luckily, she was wearing shorts at the time. And then I dropped a giant box of paper-clips on my dad’s office floor, and they went
everywhere
.

5. Dad said he had a meeting pretty soon after that, so Mom and Alfie and I went home.

“Swimmy is confused already,
EllWay
,” Alfie tells me, pronouncing my name wrong, as usual. “And I
like
the name Swimmy. It’s in my favorite book by Leo Lionni. And our family should be the ones who get to name him, because we’re the ones who decorated his fish house.”

This part of her crazy explanation is actually
true. Ms. Sanchez already bought Zip a bigger bowl, because his old softball-sized one was so small, and Zip was growing. My mom is the one who bought him a castle to swim through.

Mom writes fantasy books for grown-ups. That’s why she loves castles. And that’s also why Alfie and I have such weird names: “Alfleta,” which means “beautiful elf” in old Saxon, which no one even speaks anymore, probably not even old Saxons, and “Lancelot Raymond” for me. Lancelot was a guy in a famous old story.

L-period-Ray. EllRay. Get it?

And yes, a substitute teacher did say my real name out loud in class once last fall, and it was a disaster—especially because I’m the shortest kid in Ms. Sanchez’s third grade class, even counting the girls. So how could I fight back when kids started teasing me? Especially the sometimes-mean ones like Jared Matthews and Cynthia Harbison?

But getting back to Zip, even Dad got interested in fixing up his new bowl. He gave me half a geode to make the whole place sparkle.

A geode is like a trick rock, and it’s one of the coolest things in the world. All geodes are round,
gray, and boring on the outside, but if you cut them in half with a special saw, there are beautiful crystals growing inside where the hollow part is.

It’s like there’s a surprise present inside each one.

So now Zip’s sparkly geode sits right next to Mom’s castle, but Zip doesn’t even seem to notice it. I guess he misses Ms. Sanchez too much, or maybe he’s still mad about Texas.

But Zip does care about food, and that’s where I come in. Feeding him is my job this spring break. I give him two shakes of goldfish food first thing in the morning and two more shakes of food just before bed.

I have to admit it’s not as much fun as I thought it would be.

“Call him whatever you want to, Alfie. I don’t care,” I tell my little sister, giving up. “You’re not the one who has to feed him. I’m the one doing all the work around here.”

“I could feed him for the rest of the week,” Alfie says, excited.

“Nuh-uh,” I say, turning back to my video game. “It’s way too hard.”

“Please?” Alfie asks, and her face crinkles up.

Uh-oh. This is a bad sign with her. It’s the crying sign.

“PLEASE?”
she begs.

“Well,” I say, giving in, “maybe just at night. But I’ll have to show you how.”

“I know how,” she says. “I’ve been watching you.”

“Just two shakes,” I remind her.

“Just two shakes. And I only get to do it at night,” she repeats, so happy that she even makes
me
smile—which I am also doing because I have accidentally tricked her into doing one of my chores.

“So, I’ll see you later,”
I say, hoping she’ll take the hint and scram.

“Okay,” Alfie says, hopping off my bed. “See you at supper. Bye, EllWay!”

That was easy, I think, getting back to my game’s space creatures and their terrible fate.

What could go wrong?

The first thing I see the next morning is the last thing I ever wanted to see.

It’s Zip, and he’s not zippy
or
swimmy. He’s floating.

Not in a fun way, either.

He is on his side, and he is surrounded by gummy brown fish food that is all stuck together. The fish food covers the entire surface of the water in Ms. Sanchez’s newly decorated bowl, which is sitting on my desk.

Zip is dead.

Zip, with the white spot on his stomach.

Zip, who was smart, you could just tell.

Zip, who knew me.

Zip, who was counting on me to take good care of him.

What happened?

Alfie. That’s what happened. This is a disaster.

“Alfie,” I shout. “
Alfie!
Come in here right now and see what you did!”

Instead of Alfie, Mom comes rushing into my room. “EllRay, what in the world is going on?” she asks. “Alfie is brushing her teeth.” And then she sees the fish bowl—and what is floating in it.

Zip is so dead that he practically has little Xs where his eyes are, like in the cartoons.

“Oh, my,” Mom says, covering her mouth with her hand. “And this
would
be the morning your father left early to go to the gym.”

“Alfie murdered Zip,” I say, in case Mom has missed seeing the empty fish food container lying next to the bowl. “She
fed
him to death. She begged and begged me to let her help, and I finally said yes, but I told her
two shakes
. And look what she did!”

Alfie trots into my room, her pink toothbrush
drooping in her hand. “What’s the matter, EllWay?” she asks.

“A dead goldfish, that’s what’s the
matter
, Einstein,” I tell her, pointing.

PLONK
goes her goopy toothbrush onto my floor. “Swimmy!” Alfie cries, throwing herself against the bowl and hugging it with both arms.

“His name’s Zip!” I say, shouting again. “At least it
was.
What did you do?”

By now, of course, Alfie is sobbing—like that’s going to help Zip. Or me. “I wanted him to have a
pa-a-arty
,” she wails. “I felt sorry for him! And I thought if I fed him all at once, I wouldn’t have to do it anymore from now on. I could just
play
with him.”

“Well, congratulations,” I tell her. “Because now,
no one
has to feed him. He’s dead forever!
And what am I supposed to tell Ms. Sanchez next Monday? ‘Sorry I killed the brand-new pet that your boyfriend won for you at the church festival, but I couldn’t keep a goldfish alive even for a
week
?’ How is that gonna make me look, did you ever think of that, Alfie? Huh? Everyone in my class is going to hate me!”

“Who cares how it makes you look?” Alfie yells back at me, tears spurting out of her eyes. “Think about Swimmy!”