Meet The Gang

Well, it sure looks like today's gonna be another wet one here in the fish tank! Ha ha, just a little goldfish humor there, folks. Every day's a wet day.

I'm Carlotta. I'm a fish. And I talk, and think, and write, and have other intellectual pursuits. So don't laugh; fish don't have good senses of humor. Zippy is my pet. Well, okay, I guess its the other way around...but not in my little world.

I've been chewing on these stupid rocks all night. Where's Zippy with my food? Damn it, I'm starving. I guess calling for pizza is out of the question. Maybe I'll nibble on these nice leaves here. Rats, I forgot the plants are plastic. Artificial food. Chalk another one up for the ape. I imagine Zippy serves friends wax fruit!

"Hey there, fishie! How are you?" Zippy grinned.

"Humph! For your information, I'm famished. Starving. Weary. Hungry. Wasting away to almost nothing."

"You are not!"

"Okay, but I have the munchies."

Zippy was just about to get Carlotta some fish grub, when Janeless Lament knocked on the front door. "Hey there, Zip-ness! Like, how's it falling?"

"Into place, I guess."

"Coolness. Mind if I come in out of the cold?"

"It's seventy degrees outside."

"Babe, everywhere's cold when you think you're from Venus." She stepped in. Carlotta groaned loudly. "Hey, how's the little talkin' fishie?"

How to describe Janeless? Well, let's just say that dumping her into a river would be illegal in most areas.

"Carlotta, you remember Janeless, don't you?"

"Do I remember Janeless? How could I forget that great day when she had a runny nose but not a tissue and decided to remedy her situation by hanging her face over my tank!"

Janeless sniffed. "I'm sorry. But you sure hold a grudge."

"You did this last week, foolish ape."

"I'd be mad too if you snotted all over me," Zippy said.

"Don't be gross!" Carlotta snorted.

Janeless changed channels. "Fishie, I have a question for you..."

"Uh oh."

"I promise. It's not too dumb."

"You don't know what my thresholds are."

"Can I ask you something or not?"

"If you must."

"How do you know you're female?"

Excerpt from By Way of the Dodo...

Carlotta turned bright red. "What...do...you...mean?"

"Just that. See, by looking at you, I wouldn't know. So I was wondering how you can tell."

"I don't know! I just can, okay."

"How?"

"Well, how can you tell you're female? I sure can't!"

At this point, the conversation was getting to be too much for Zippy. She threw three slices of leftover pizza into Carlotta's tank. The fish shut up.

"What the gerf kind of fish is she, anyway?" Janeless asked.

Zippy peered into the fish tank. Carlotta had a golden body, with ruby-red fins, a violet tail, and dark blue eyes. Actually, Carlotta was Her Imperial Highness Princess Carlotta, in line for the throne of the water planet Xanthus 12. In the midst of a political coup against her father the emperor, Carlotta had been sent to earth. But by some bizarre stroke of fate, she had ended up in the pet department of Fluffy's. That's how Zippy got her...for seventy-nine cents.

"Uh, she's a...rare species of goldfish from Tanzania."

"Wow. Now that's really Perdue."

Janeless wore a barbarian smile.

"What's with you?" Zippy asked.

"Do you notice anything different?"

"About you?"

"Yeah."

"You smell better than usual."

"Thanks. I showered. But other than that."

She hadn't lost or gained any weight...Janeless was as scrawny as always. She hadn't pierced her ears again. There were no new tatoos on her arms. Zippy didn't see it. "I give up. What'd you do?"

Janeless frowned. "You can't tell?"

"No, I can't."

"You can't tell I had my hair dyed electric violet?"

"Janeless, your hair's always been purple."

"No, not purple. Bogus, Zippy! It's violet now. See?"

Zippy saw no real difference in Janeless' hair color; it was still dark purple. Poor thing! She'd been taken again. Zippy bit her lip in invocation, and Janeless' hair became a brilliant mane the color of Carlotta's tail. "Yeah, okay. I see it now."

Janeless, thinking her hair had been dyed correctly the first time, was oblivious to the
magical change. "I have another surprise, too!" Janeless grabbed the zipper of her snakeskin jacket. "Now don't go squirrely on me. Are you ready?"

Zippy nodded.

Janeless unzipped the jacket to reveal a neon-yellow t-shirt underneath. The words "Sugar Bangs" were printed in paisley across the front. "Is this Perdue, or what?"

"Wow! You guys got your own shirts!"

"Pretty bitchen, isn't it? This guy in Purgeberg is printing them up for us. We're selling them at the gig for ten bucks a piece."

"Cool."

"So, are you coming or what?"

"Am I coming where?"

"To hear us play at the Summit Club tonight or what? We're gonna be like Party Central."

Party Central, in Delaware Valley terms, loosely meant any place where more than five people would gather at a time.

Zippy had to shudder at the thought of a Sugar Bangs concert. They group couldn't quite play their instruments; the amplifiers were always turned up twice as much as for other bands; Nuclear Vikki often jumped into the audience and attacked; and rare was it when Ginger could remember all the lyrics to a song.

Zippy supposed a magic without a sense of ethics could have turned them into the greatest most popular rock band in the world. Zippy wasn't such a magic. Success was something they needed to achieve on their own, however improbable it was in their case.

Yet Janeless was her friend, and this was their first concert with the new shirts. Besides, Zippy reasoned, she could always change the music for her own ears into something she could listen to. "I wouldn't miss it."