With the trauma of Madame Geoffery’s new diet and the continual efforts to find a way to introduce algae eaters into the algae-prone prison, authorities did not clean the neighborhood for a good two weeks. No one in the neighborhood complained since cleaning is a traumatic event, and the tank has been relatively peaceful since the departure of Smee, her babies, and Milktoast. Brain/Einstein and PUC are ever at each other, of course, but it’s nothing more than skirmishes and no scales or fins are damaged.
The cleaning lady sheepishly began to clean the tank and then gasped (dramatically, of course), shrieked in a tiny voice, and then yelled, “Oh no!” before yanking the siphon out of the tank and banging it on the side to make sure all the water and the tiny blob with eyes drained into the tank, not the bucket. She watched in disbelief as a translucent fry with beady little black eyes raced to the white gravel and wedged himself as far down as he could.
He was alone, which could only mean that she’d sucked up all of his siblings and dumped them down the drain. It took her a few moments to compose herself and find the breeder net.
This is how we found out that PUC and Sweettart are parents.
“I don’t know why anyone is surprised. We’ve been together for so long, why wouldn’t we have kids?” PUC said.
“We’ve been parents many times,” Sweettart sniffed. “The cleaning lady is just too dumb to notice that she’s sucked the eggs up with her stupid gravel cleaner. Well, all the ones that Milktoast hadn’t already eaten. Which is another point as to why we can’t understand why you are surprised. Didn’t Milktoast freely admit that she ate eggs? Why does Madam Geoffery get all the press on this? She doesn’t even have a mate!”
“Our eggs finally hatch, and the cleaning lady dumps all but one of our babies down the drain,” PUC sighed.
The cleaning lady says she’s traumatized, but no one feels bad for her.
It took some time for her to capture the baby and put him in the breeder net because of how deep he wedged himself in the rocks. Now everyone is cooing at Sweettart and PUC’s little one. By everyone, we mean Beetlejuice, who is “So happy to have a child in the tank again.” Brain/Eistein is indifferent stating, “As long as the brat stays away from me, I’ll stay away from him.”
—The Bubbly Review
Written In Ink 