The shop's closed all weekend, just like every other weekend. Only, this time Ange put up a sign in the door about it being Parro's birthday.

On weekends Parro and Ange usually sleep in, but I wake up the same time as the other days, trying not to make noises.

I scrape my skin clean outside the back of our house. I read in a book once how our ancestors used sponges to clean the dirt and tiny critters off their skin. But then we started using special sponge types for money, and society decided cleaning dirty skin with a cousin to money was distasteful.

So society switched to brushes--sea urchin needles ground to a soft point. Hard corals with tines carved in. Pointy leaves from surface-trees, glued into a wooden handle, softened by salt water.

I read a book one time, the cover featuring some rich folk posing like they're plotting how to murder you. I picked it up for the strange murder plot, and instead I got baffling stories about rich folk who bathe in poly-blended fish oil to keep their skin fresh and healthy for longer, and who spray silver-ash pretty perfume on their tailor-cut clothes to leave an enchanting taste in the water that also wards off salt stains, and who whiten their teeth with burnt wood that's been preserved for years in red-glass bottles to purify it.

So one time I tried saving the tuna oil from my plate and rubbing it on one arm, to see if my skin would stay cleaner longer so I'd have to brush it less. But the oil's taste putrefied the water around me after just half a day, and even though Parro and Wrass and my parents said nothing--possibly they didn't even notice--I scraped it off before going to bed, but the taste still lingered, so I asked Mum to wash my quilts the next day with her soap, and I had that oily taste stuck in my throat for three days after.

There wasn't any murder plot in the whole book. I know; I read until the very end. The only murder plot would be if it successfully tricked someone into bathing in oil and that ended in the poor soul suffocating on the taste.

I brush myself clean, bits of dirt float away in the sea, I go back inside. I change from pale pajamas into gray clothes, I drift into the kitchen and check the cupboards above the stove, under the counter, but we've got nothing for breakfast. There's only one bottle of milk, half full, the two expanding pouches inside the bottle equal in size--one filled of milk, the other that fills with water when you drink the milk so the glass doesn't implode with negative pressure. There's also some diced up eel, which is always too chewy. And there's a clear bin with the clam cookies, but I grimace at it.

So I boil some wheat in a pot of milk and scallop oil. I've done this before, but my back fins quiver because lots of flour and oil float up out of the pot before I twist the lid on, making me worry the proportion in the pot will turn out all wrong, my hands jiggle the filter above the stove even though it's already in place to catch the flour crumbs and oil blobs, I tense up my back fins.

I bob up and down in the water, waiting, the oil and milk and wheat bubble under the clear lid, and Parro comes into the kitchen.

"Good morning," he signs, red mouth yawning.

"Hi," I sign. I study the pot on the round stove, water meeting acid in the pipes beneath the silver stovetop to heat it up.

"Hey, so, about last night," he signs, and I swallow. "I think we should talk."

"Okay."

"Nudibranc, Ange's kind of upset with you referring to Hamme as a guy. Alright? I think you two need to talk and apologize. Did it just slip out wrong last night, or what?"

"How was I supposed to know?" my right arm jerks twitchily.

Parro hesitates. Carefully signs, "how were you supposed to know what?"

"How was I supposed to know Hamme's not...?" my fingers fidget, to say more, but my brain's lost words because it got stuck analyzing Parro's face for something and is the stove done with the food and my heart's slamming my ribs and has Parro's face changed and the pot bubbles I tense my back fins.

Parro slowly signs, "the club--" he stops. "We've known Hamme for--" he stops. "How did you not know that?"

"No one ever talks to me," my fingers shake.

Parro's mouth opens. "That's not true," he signs, leaning against the counter, bright yellow pajama shirt waving with his motions. "We talk all the time. You told me about the lockbox thing, remember?"

I stare at the pot on the stove. It's almost done. But not quite. I keep staring at it.

"Nudibranc?" Parro signs.

"What?"

"How did you not know Hamme uses they and them?"

"I told you."

"You just said no one ever talks to you," Parro's lips go flat. "And that isn't true."

A thought pops in my head. I slowly sign out, "I only know Hamme's name because of when you or Ange say you're going to a concert with Sta, Hamme, and Anemon." My fingers stop. It's more than when they go to concerts, right? It's not just going to concerts--

"Okay, so," Parro pauses. "I'm not following."

"Who was with Sta all of last night?"

"That was Mackere. What's that got to do with Hamme?"

"Nobody told me her name," my right arm jerks across my body and jerks back. "Is Mackere even a woman? Is Sta in love with her? Why did she come to your birthday party? I've never seen her, is she part of the club that meets in the store sometimes?" my fingers fall flat. My heart's pounding, interrupting my thoughts, my heart's pounding too fast in my ribs, the pot on the stove looks almost done does Parro know we're almost out of milk?

I duck to the cupboard under the counter and grab a protecting pad and twist and pluck the pot off the stove and I twist the dial so the water and acid stop mixing and I thunk the pot onto the pad on the counter.

Parro's already signing, "...the first I've met Mackere. She's a woman," he pointedly stares at me, "and Sta just started dating her like two weeks ago. I said it'd be great to meet her on my birthday, so she came."

"Hooray," I sign, double checking the stove's heat is twisted off; it is of course it is I wiggle out my fingers.

"How does this relate to Hamme?"

Because...I shrug. "It's the same way," my fingers flex, my back fins tense up. "Mackere and Hamme."

Parro sinks to the floor, rests on his shins. "So you mean, nobody tells you what Hamme's doing there? We just," he glances at the ceiling, then back down, "assume you know?"

I hold a hand near the pot's lid. Still hot. "Yes," I sign. "Mostly."

"Oh, but," his hands trail to his sides.

"Why don't Hamme, Anemon or Sta know signing?" my heart stutters and my knees quiver, I can't glance at Parro's face.

"Oh," his hands sign in my periphery. "Because," he shrugs. "I mean, I don't want to force them to learn it. I don't want to be rude and enforce a bunch of rules and ruin the mood when we're just hanging out with some people, you know?" he slightly smiles.

"No," I sign toward the counter, fingers shuddering, "I don't know."

"Oh, sorry. That totally came out wrong. Sorry, Nudibranc."

I bend over to the cupboard again and take out a heavy wooden bowl and set it on the counter and I yank off the pot's lid despite how it tingle-burns my palm I drop it to the counter I ignore that tingle-heat and grab the pot's black handle and dump out the lumpy bread I've made into the bowl and set the hot pot back on the protecting pad and I pick up my bowl I roll out my neck.

"...could teach them signing sometime," Parro's signing and I haven't been paying attention. "Like, two days from now when everyone comes over to the store?"

I shrug. My hands are full I don't want to let go of the warmth seeping through the heavy wood to my shaky palms so I shrug again. I carry my bowl through the front room to the door and swim outside I don't know where I'm going but not here.