Mum and Da come to our house in the morning, wake us all up, even me, and I'm always awake early, though for Mum and Da who live at the surface and usually do things by moons light, morning means super late for them.

Barely alert, we eat. We get ready. We leave. My heart jitters for whatever we're getting into.

We go down to the travelways, bustling with people in stiff clothes for work, people carrying grocery boxes, kids going to school, and people possibly like us, going places with their grandparents or cousins or friends from across the mountains.

My heart jitters, what if I left something important at home, like snacks for when the fancy restaurant has no good food? What if the sign on the store gets graffitied this morning and we're not there to paint over it for the whole day? Or what if it falls off into the middle of the street and since we're not there to put it back somebody steals it and then we have to get a new sign?

I try to forget about the sign, calm my heartbeat with slow breaths of my gills, but we swim through the travelways and my eyes compare Mum's maroon outfit (I never remember her wearing maroon before) with every person in a plain-gray stiff suit because her shirt's like the frosting to clam cookies but none of the shades of gray quite match that, cookie to frosting, but I keep searching; also, Da's sponge-yellow shirt (I never remember him wearing sponge-yellow before) keeps hurting my eyes. And people are shouting and vibrating and my skin tingles with all the vibrations, which is sometimes nice to get lost in but not right now. So much motion crowds the travelways--flicking fins, darting people, fluttering clothes, moving mouths, shifting faces--that my head starts to ache and we haven't even gotten to the war memorial. The war memorial that we swim directly to from our house.

I wanna go home.

The war memorial is less busy than the travelways, some tiny plaza in the city with an obsidian pillar jutting from the ground, it's just a plain obsidian pillar with a head on top, until I read the neon-blue plaque at the base, and it says the pillar is a neck. Like, an animal neck, giant in proportions, with a regular-sized head on top. Representing something about someone who died sometime at someplace.

I am confused about the neck. But more so, I am bored.

We visit a historical place, in a muddy field beside the war memorial. Ange's half-asleep, Parro nods to the things Mum and Da say, Mum and Da stay eagerly wide awake, I paddle behind them and my headache worsens from vibrations in the water clashing from all different directions--the travelways above us, the rhythmic pulses from the buildings swaying, the vibrations of my parents talking. We wander around the historical field, there's an old-fashioned rock hut and a recreation of the house belonging to the first glass-crafter and a pictorial board of our ancestors building this city from the mud and kelp forests.

I am bored.

We eat lunch at a fancy place, so fancy we look underdressed--Parro, Ange and I especially, in white and gray shirts and shorts, but even Mum in her maroon outfit and Da in his stiff, sponge-yellow suit--but they sit us at a huge table and bring out food in shiny bronze containers and a stranger squishes up to my left but Parro's squished up to my right so I can't scoot away so I just bottle it up and play ignore-the-fishy-taste-wafting-from-this-guy and pretend to enjoy the taste of the kelp mixed with spices and exotic seagrass juice sipped from a rubber-nippled bottle that also has a twist cap covering the nipple that I wrench off but my right arm flings the cap away by accident and two people squishing me where I sit.

The taste from the guy's clothes or his skin-cleaning chemicals clogs in my mouth and ruins all the food taste, so I don't eat much, and sit restlessly all while Mum and Da and Parro and Ange talk, lined up in a row at the huge, shimmering table, I ignore the person staring across the table at us who also isn't eating anything.

Parro starts signing their conversation to me, arms bumping mine, but I tell him this time to not bother because I don't care about Da's thoughts on the memorial statue and I have a headache anyway and we leave the fancy restaurant and I'm hungry.

Mum and Da lead us through the busy travelways, I trail at the end of our line and keep counting to five, checking that we're all here, no one's lost.

But then...I quiver my back fins, the motion invisible in the chaos of bodies flying every which way. But then, if anyone does get separated, they know the way back home.

I know the way back home.

I'm bored, I'm hungry, I have a headache; I almost paddle slower on purpose and let Ange's shape slip away from me.

Except then, if they notice I've disappeared, Mum will freak out and Da might say something to Parro about how he should be more responsible and watch out for me and they'll all try to search for me in the busy travelways, probably figuring I got ambushed and beat up.

So I stick close to Ange's paddling feet, head pulsing, bored.

We go to a shopping center, a sprawling thing with miniature shops arranged around a square courtyard, glass buildings tethered in columns rising five levels from the mud. The glass buildings sway like steam bubbles, maybe something's cooking in the mud below them but that doesn't make realistic sense, I copy Ange's paddling and stare at his fins.

Until he stops and I slither around him to avoid paddling into his backside. "Is that Mackere and Sta?" he signs. I glance up at our parents and Parro, full-body lengths ahead of us in the open courtyard of the shopping center.

I glance at Ange, at where he's looking. Sta and Mackere have their backs to us, silver-gray and silver-blue arms brushing. They hover in a cluster of colorful people, shopping bags thrown over shoulders. "It does look like them," I sign.

"Okay, um--" Ange bolts after Parro and our parents. I hover there, bending my fingers back and forth, sinking to the sparkling-clean glass floor.

Sta's never met our parents, not that I know of. And...I quiver my back fins. I don't think I want her to.

I dart after Ange, he's already signing in tiny circles to Parro, our parents paddle onward, pointing obliviously around the courtyard at beautiful displays of furniture and food and little kids' toys.

"--and her friends are right over there," I catch Ange signing, fluttering after our parents. "Don't look."

Parro nibbles his lip. "Did you hear anything they were saying?" he signs to Ange, then glances at me around Ange's shoulder, nodding slightly.

"Just some people laughing," Ange signs.

"Okay, um..." Parro checks on our parents, still ignoring us swimming in their wake. "On a scale of one to seven, how much do we want my parents to meet Sta and Mackere?"

"Like a two," Ange shivers. "I'd rather not have them laughing that we got dragged to visit a war memorial."

"Zero," I sign.

"Zero?" Ange asks.

I nod. I don't want them to meet our parents.

"Okay," Parro signs slowly, "and on a scale of one to seven, how much do we totally ignore what Sta said a week ago about handling it herself, and barge over there and tell off Mackere's friends for insulting our friend for her imposing figure?"

I falter, my heartbeat stutters.

"We can bring up her incredible artistic inclinations," Ange adds.

"And her baking skills," Parro says.

"And her loyalty."

"Okay we shouldn't actually say all that in front of people we don't know."

"A six," I interrupt.

Parro nibbles his lip. "But Sta did tell us she would handle it herself."

"But she isn't," I sign, mostly to myself. If she said she can, but she can't...is it bad for friends to listen to their friends who say they can handle it themselves, or is it bad to ignore what they say and help them handle it? "Is Sta okay?"

Ange shakes his head, swimming stroke faltering. "If Mackere actually cared about her, she'd stick up for her and we wouldn't have to have this conversation. Those are Mackere's friends. Bullying the person she's dating."

"You don't think Mackere cares about Sta?" Parro asks.

Our parents turn to face us, saying something. Our signing stops, like a secret half-uncovered. Da says something else, Ange says something back. Mum nods, leading us to a shop in the corner of the courtyard, through a grand, red-painted doorway, displaying...displaying musical instruments, drums and stringed things and megaphones and why have we come in here?

"Of course I think Mackere cares about Sta," Ange huddles close to Parro, hiding us inside the red-painted archway, "but does she care more about Sta or her friends?"

"Oof," Parro winces, "that's the issue, isn't it?"

I peer out through the archway; Sta, Mackere and her...friends talk by a public announcement board in the courtyard, wooden surface dotted with old putty blobs and neon ink, and hardly any public announcements. "Are we supposed to say hello?" I hide behind the archway again; our parents have wandered off into racks of stringed instruments. "Since we saw them in public? It's rude to pretend like you didn't see someone in public."

"Sure, under normal circumstances," Parro tugs me behind a row of drum sets, as high as our heads. Ange experimentally taps one and it doesn't vibrate. "But Mackere's friends are already rude to our friend. So it may or may not be good for Sta if we, with our parents, randomly go up to them in the shopping center. That might give them more things to bully Sta about."

"Especially if your parents say something weird," Ange says.

I fidget my fingers, head pulsing, stomach tight. "If Sta's being made fun of," I glance at the rack of stringed instruments, but our parents have disappeared. "Why doesn't Sta just leave?"

"Because she likes Mackere," Ange shakes his head.

"Do you think Sta spotted us when we came in?" Parro asks.

"No idea."

"What if," Parro stares out across the courtyard, "I pretend like I'm casually on my way to that toy store. I could be looking for baby toys. And I just so happen to bump into them and spot Sta and I can chat for a bit then totally invite her to come baby shopping with me. How's that? Then if Sta's having a bad time she has an excuse to leave, and if she isn't, then no harm done."

"Oh," I sign, heart pumping faster. "Would that work?" I don't know how this works.

"I'll keep your parents busy," Ange signs. "Looking at harps and...stuff. They're not actually considering buying a huge instrument down here, right?"

"What do I do?" I ask.

"Wait, where did they go?" Ange floats higher, scouring the store.

"I don't know," Parro glances around. "Go find them already."

"What do I do?" I ask.

"Come with me," Parro paddles through the archway.

My throat squeezes up. "What?"

But Parro's already going; Ange's already swimming deeper into the store, I roll out my neck which doesn't change my headache and I dart after Parro before I get left behind. "I have a headache," I sign. "I didn't eat enough."

He pauses, gaze searching. "Are you okay?"

I shrug, fidget my fingers.

"Actually, this works," he flashes his teeth. "We're going to swim over there and ask Sta and Mackere if they know of any places here that would sell things to help with a headache," he resumes swimming, low to the muddy courtyard, and I follow, swim bladder pushing me higher. "We were just here searching for some baby toys but you started feeling unwell..."

"Do they even have a store here to sell things for headaches?"

"Exactly! We're super new here, so we don't know if there's anywhere we could go for your headache."

"So...you're going to ask Sta to show us to a headache store?"

Parro nods. "Basically."

He plasters a grin on his face and stares at Sta and Mackere's group, waving grandly and shouting something.

Oh, we're going in right now. My swim bladder clenches, nearly plummeting me to the mud. I glance at Parro, we quit swimming close to their group, and my eyes refuse to turn to look at Sta or Mackere or anyone that Parro's talking to and my skin prickles and vibrations of voices bounce from Parro's mouth to the group and from the group to us, and Parro nods and wiggles his hands in not-signing and points at me and my feet sink to the mud and my mind freezes up I can't force myself to glance at Sta or Mackere or their group, my heartbeat pounds.

Parro nods, signs to me, I blink at it then the meaning registers, "come on, let's go."

I nod back. We swim up, I paddle hard, Parro leads us into a store with a tiny archway, named something about natural herbs, my head aches.

I sink to the floor, back against a poster of dark brown and black splotches. I stare at my hands, bright red pressed to the pale-tinted floor.

Sta's not here.

Parro's dragging a chair over.

I stare at the floor, hot prickles in my skin slowly fading, my heart and swim bladder cautiously sorting themselves out. My stomach twists into knots.

"I'm hungry," I sign. I glance up at Parro. "Why didn't Sta come?"

Parro shrugs, sitting sideways on the chair. "She didn't want to. I told them our story about baby shopping and how neat it was seeing them here and that you got a headache, but Mackere just pointed up here and told us the name so we could find it. So I thought about asking Sta if she had good ideas for baby toys, so she had an excuse to come with us, but they started talking about how she and Mackere were tired and thinking of going home soon."

"Oh."

Parro sinks into the chair. "Maybe that's their excuse to leave? Or maybe Mackere's friends have gotten a bit better? I mean, Sta did come here with them in the first place..." he grimaces. "Okay, now I'm getting worried like maybe Sta's embarrassed by knowing us in front of her girlfriend's friends."

"When did..." I sign, right arm twitching. "Sta told you when that Mackere's friends were rude?"

"When did Sta tell us about it? Like...she's mentioned Mackere's friends being kinda rude a lot of times. I think it started around when the three of us visited her place? Long time ago."

"Oh."

"Some more stuff happened a week or so ago and we talked about it, but she said she could deal with it. She laughed about it too, but it was pretty obvious their comments about her...figure affected her."

"About her figure."

"Uh..." Parro glances away. Stares at a shelf with little green bottles. We can't see the checkout counter from here, from where we sit just inside the wavy archway. "Okay, you were technically there when she said it, so this doesn't count as gossip. But Sta told us that one of Mackere's friends called her twice the whale of Mackere's last girlfriend," Parro glances back at me, nibbling his lip.

"But Sta's not a whale...she's a Sta."

Parro shows his teeth. "Yeah. Wow, you make it super simple. I'm jealous."

"Jealous of what?" I have a headache and can't barely think through words.

"Jealous of...you, I guess."

I stare at my feet, long in front of me on the floor. "You want a headache?"

"Okay, I'm jealous of your ability to simplify something that's been causing me grief for a long time."

"Mackere's friend calling Sta twice the whale causes you grief?" I tilt my head, and an aisle of orange brushes behind Parro wobbles in my vision.

Parro nods. "Basically, yeah. That's why Ange and I worried about seeing them here today."

"Oh."

I stare at my lap. My arm twitches.

"Okay, let's find medicine for your headache," Parro paddles up from the chair. "And get you something to eat too. Did you not eat anything at the restaurant?"

"I ate some," I push myself from the floor, my head spinning. "I think I just want to go home."