Ange and I do a poor job decorating the house. We only got one seagrass garland (the money bought other, more important things), and we putty it to the wall opposite the doorway, so Parro sees it when he comes in.

Then we drag the kitchen table into the living room, barely fitting it through the doorway. We give it a nice gray tablecloth and push it against the wall, set the tower of birthday cookies on it (we bought him a tower of clam cookies, since he asked for those, but Ange's pretty sure Parro won't actually like them), and stick the wrapped present in the corner--it's an obsidian statue of a swamp bird. We settled for that after learning it was twice the price to carve a person than some surface creature most people have never seen up close before. Me included.

Decorations done, Ange and I wait. We start a poetry game, cross-legged on the floor, the house swaying in an ocean current. Ange comes up with the idea; spoken poems are poetic because the sounds rhyme, or words have a cadence to them like a dance, but obviously you can't convey any of that with hand signals.

So he tells me this idea for poems where your motions make the dance; signing "I love you" with grand flaps of your wrist fins, mirroring "I" and "you" simultaneously in opposite hands, he motions swimming fast by waving his entire body and gesturing with his whole arms, then morphs it into vomiting with the slightest flick of his fins.

We sign terrible poems to each other. I get out of breath after my poem proclaiming my love for the mud (love and mud use the same fingers and fin shapes, but moving different ways, so I used it poetically) and the rocks. Ange makes one up about stinky clam cookies tapping together in different places, then does another where he keeps repeating "concert tickets and you," and I repeat it back, then he gives up and signs that he can't think up any other lines even remotely related.

Vibrations pulse through the door, and Ange drifts up to get it. I flutter up from the floor, quiver my back fins; does our living room look decorated enough for a birthday celebration?

Sta comes in the door, mouth vibrating, silver-blue fins flapping. She's brought a brown box trailing the taste of brittle cookies, just like this is a club meeting in the store, but she takes them back to the kitchen instead of putting them on the table. I hover, hesitant, and Sta returns, and she and Ange laugh about something, keeping the door open until Anemon comes in, sideways, arms occupied with a box nearly wider than his arms.

Anemon nearly gets stuck in the doorway with the massive box and they all start laughing. Anemon, all bug-eyed and half squished, has to back out, then Sta pulls the box through, and sets it in the corner opposite the obsidian statue by our three-person couch, and Anemon comes swimming in, beads dangling from his wrists. They do a dance in a circle in the doorway and I hover there, in the middle of the room, my shadow a lumpy circle on the gray floor.

Hamme and Parro show up together, holding hands, I stare at Ange but he laughs about it, and they all huddle in the doorway, half in and half out, but Parro says something and they paddle inside and slam the door. Then Parro and Hamme talk over each other, arms wide, eyes bright, and Ange shakes his head and laughs the most.

Hamme hasn't bought a present. So maybe he and Anemon bought the thing in the giant box together. Or maybe he and Anemon and Sta all bought it together.

I check over my shoulder at the green seagrass garland hung over the kitchen archway. I glance at Parro. He's got eyes only for Ange, and whoever's talking.

I tap my hands together, all soft like, I sink to the floor but no, I shouldn't sit in the middle of the floor, so I paddle through the doorway into the kitchen. I pry open the lid to the brittle cookie box; a note in the corner reads "bappy hirthday, celebracion time!" and I put the lid back and I don't get it.

I go to the wood cupboards above the stove, but I'm not that hungry, but I scan all the packages on the shelves anyway, like I'm busy. A flicker of blue-gray enters the kitchen, I glance over my shoulder at Hamme, he waves "hi."

I sign back, "hi, Hamme."

He smiles, and swims to the box of brittle cookies and sneaks one, shoving it into his mouth before disappearing back into the living room.

"Bye, Hamme," I sign to the empty doorway. I slowly shut the cupboard.

Ange pops in, signing, "come join us, Nudibranc!" a grin plastered to his face.

I glance at the box of cookies and the lid now poking up in one corner, I hesitate, my fingers tap each other. "What are we going to do?" I sign.

"Do? It's a party, that's what we're doing!"

My back fins vibrate. "So you're going to sit on the couch and talk about stuff I can't hear?"

His eyes go half-lidded. "We can sign the conversation."

I roll out my neck. "But you weren't."

"Sorry," Ange signs. Vibrations float behind him. "Come on, at least watch Parro try the clam cookies."

I shrug, I paddle after him. I come up with more things to say, but too late, Ange's distracted by another vibration from the door and Sta yanks it open, dragging the figure inside and hugging her before I can even see who it is. "Who's that?" I sign to Ange. In Sta's enveloping embrace, the other figure consists only of long, trailing arm fins.

Ange's busy laughing at Anemon doing back rolls against the ceiling.

I lower my hands, fingers flexing and curling and flexing. I thought of more things to say; do Hamme, Anemon and Sta know signing? Would we talk about something interesting?

***

Parro tries a clam cookie. He spits it out and people point disgustedly at the blob floating through the water. Ange gets the kitchen trash and uses the lid to eat it like a shark eating a fish egg. Sta follows Ange back into the kitchen and returns, whipping open the brittle cookies. Parro laughs, mouth wide, hands on his cheeks. Everyone eats brittle cookies. I sit on the couch by Ange, halfway hovering off the fuzzy cushions since my swim bladder's all flip-floppy, and I nibble a brittle cookie, the rock hard texture trying to break my teeth and eyeballs and brain.

The giant box Anemon brought contains a yellow neon-painted wood sign, "Parro and Ange's." Parro unwraps our obsidian sculpture in the corner, my heart thumps against my ribs the whole time he's plucking at the gray peeling paper, then his mouth falls open at the sight of the pointy bird beak and my heart calms down. He swims over and sweeps Ange and I into a hug, tasting like the dregs of clam cookies, but my swim bladder quits flip-flopping for the first time all night.

Sta passes around more brittle cookies, the silver-finned woman who I don't know constantly at her hip. I don't take anymore cookies, my first is still a nibbled-into half weighing down my palms.

I go into the kitchen again, since it's been long enough that I'm hungry, and dig out a box of kelp cakes from the shelf by the stove, and I bob above the rectangle counter, eating. The box is mostly empty, so I get the oldest, soggiest ones, slightly brown and bitter. Vibrations bounce and war from the living room, shivering my skin.

Late at night, the people go home. I don't mind the lateness, since I can't fall asleep most nights anyway.

Anemon leaves last, the door shuts, my swim bladder sorts itself out and I sink to the kitchen counter; all plain, smoothed wood. I stare at the swamp green ceiling. The empty kelp cake box rests on my chest. I stare at nothing. My brain's tired, my bones are numb, my body gives up working after so many competing vibrations.

Ange and Parro come into the kitchen. Red-orange and darker red-orange spinning in circles. I stare at the ceiling.

Parro's pointy face shows up above me. "Are you okay?" he signs. I think he signs it twice; I blink at nothing.

"Tired."

"Oh."

"Why were you and Hamme holding hands outside?" I sign. "And why didn't Ange get jealous of another boy holding your hand?"

Parro's eyes go half-lidded. He pulls away. I sit up, I put the box between my legs, gray shorts fluttering about my knees. Parro drifts from the counter, and Ange waves an arm nonsensically. I glance between them. Ange's moving mouth might make words, I don't know, my body gave up sorting out vibrations.

Ange bumps his head on the doorway. "Nudibranc," his hand movements cut choppily, "Hamme's not a boy. Hamme goes by they."

"They?"

"Yeah, they. Hamme goes by they, it's not that hard, don't be rude and call our friend a boy again--"

Parro's lips move and cut Ange off. They stare at each other.

They?

I lift my hands, I hesitate, they sink back to my sides. I don't get it.

Parro and Ange talk over each other, or they must, both their mouths moving sporadically, unpoetically. Parro swings his arms and Ange swings his too and my face gets all hot and prickly. "I don't get it," I sign.

They're both in the doorway, in each other's faces, Ange's waving his fins in close little circles in front of his chest.

"I don't get it," I sign again, fingers tucked to my body. "I said Hamme's a guy because of everybody's shoulders, you guys have narrow shoulders and Hamme does too and Anemon," I stare at my quivering knees, motions shaky, "and Sta doesn't and I don't and that other girl doesn't and same with hips I read that in a book and Hamme doesn't have the extra upper arm fins either or the same pointy lower teeth and you guys have the flat bone ankles same as Hamme and you guys all sit the same with your legs apart and Hamme's not a woman but you said Hamme's not a guy and I don't get it they is pronouns for lots of people," My hands sink to my sides. The gills in my neck spread wide, sucking deep gulps, I poke my quivering knees to calm them.

I flick my eyes up and Parro and Ange aren't even in the doorway.

They must've gone to the living room.

I roll out my neck. I put the empty box in the cupboard. I avoid the living room doorway, the shadows on the gray floor, the bits of floating gray peeling paper no one's collected into the trash yet.

I go to bed.