I swim home, eat some kelp cakes and set Easel on my bed, then I go back to the store and spend the afternoon lowering prices on the price tags in the left half of the storefront. Eight yurees for a shirt, now reduced to six, written in yellow pencil on new stickers. Fifty-two yurees for a half set of bed posts, now forty.

Ange runs the checkout counter, Parro's off somewhere buying groceries for us. Customers trickle in and out and I avoid them, hiding in the aisles or waiting by tables faking like I'm folding already folded shirts until they leave the shelves that need new price tags.

I'm just the invisible store stocker of "Parro and Ange's," crushing hard over one of their friends and scoring the lowest in games of L-E-T-T-E-R-S, Parro told me this morning Mackere got beginner's luck while I got beginner's jitters, but I shouldn't worry about it because our luck would reverse at some point--but now, while changing price stickers, I do worry about it.

I didn't even know I kept scoring lowest until he said so, I definitely don't understand the points system and I want to play L-E-T-T-E-R-S again to figure it out but Hamme might not bring it ever again, though we won't know that until next week when the group meets in the store again. Again, again, again, I roll out my neck and a customer in the aisle stares at me funny so I swim from the aisle to a different row of shelves, filled with hats and spoons and decorative boxes.

My right arm twitches and makes me prickly, I tap my elbows to my sides, no more L-E-T-T-E-R-S, I write down numbers for price tags, three-point-five yurees for some point hats.

My stomach knots, these hats do cost three-point-five, right?

My stomach knots, if I can still not understand L-E-T-T-E-R-S scoring, what if my prices make no sense either, what if I've got the wrong numbers?

My stomach tangles, I write three-point-five and my hand sticks it to the shelf and takes off the old sticker and puts it on the wax roll sheet, my right arm's twitching, what if my handwriting in stubby yellow pencil isn't legible for all the customers?

I swim to the next cubby, check that I'm out of sight then I roll out my neck, quiver my back fins. I carefully write out the price for this cubby of round hats and picture them replaced by Monsters of the Deep merch--instead of beige rice cloth, the beanies would be dyed dark, with pairs of red eyes dotting the sides.

I stick the sticker neatly to the cubby, perfectly aligned with the wood edge. Plain hats for three yurees, I can read the glowing numbers clearly and I know that's the correct price--the pointy ones cost three-point-five, the round ones cost three, just like always--but my brain's itching that it might be the wrong price so I stick the pencil and price tags into the cubby and paddle jerkily for the store's middle door. Ange's tapping a rhythm at the checkout counter, calling out to one of the three customers around the tables, and he hardly glances at me; I shut the door, I tense up all my back fins. I scour the back shelves for the boxes of hats.

On a top shelf, I find a box, sliding it to the ground. I pop it open. Same round, beige hats. The label reads "three yurees." Just like I thought, I knew it, but my swim bladder flutters like maybe I've priced something else wrong, except I haven't, I know I haven't, I've known these prices for months and years and every time Ange or Wrass brings a new shipment I check the boxes for changed prices and I got the new price of the wood kitchen bowls--from two-point-five to two-point-seven-five--and I know that, I wiggle my wrist fins and tap my fingers together.

I put the box back on the shelf near the ceiling.

I haven't priced something else wrong.

I swim toward the middle door.

My fingers itch, my shoulder blades prickle FINE I'll go check FINE I paddle to the nearest shelf FINE I peer at a row of boxes, shirts and fabric and bowls and door knobs and figurines FINE I memorize all the numbers in the row by my knees and check the contents inside FINE and I know I wrote these prices down correctly but I go into the storefront and paddle about like I'm not checking for the specific things that I double-checked in the back room but I am, Ange's accepting sponge money from a customer with pointy arm fins, I check the price tags on the women's shirts and bolts of fabric and go to the other half of the store and check the bowls and almost can't find the door knobs but I do and I check Wrass's figurines near the ceiling for one and two yurees and I got all the prices correct.

I knew I did.

I slip into an aisle of shelves, quiver my back fins where nobody can see me, ask what I'm shaking for, I roll out my neck and tense up my wrists.

I knew I did it right, I knew it.

Fluttering from the aisle, I thank our store's new layout for giving me decent places to hide from people who might stare, however much I still think things belong in different places than where they are, and I dislike how I can't see the front door properly anymore since we put a shelf right beside it.

I paddle back to my pencil and price stickers inside the cubby of hats, I swim to the next cubby puttied to the ceiling, I knew I did them all right the first time, I scrawl out four-point-four yurees for some magenta dyed rice fabric, I take off the old sticker plaster the new sticky tag to the wood shelf and leave it even though the sticker's slanted it's FINE.

***

I daydream in the guys' clothing aisle, arranged top down by size, smaller up above and larger down below; also the shelves nearer the front door are for shirts, the shelves nearer the checkout counter are for shorts.

I daydream up our store selling Monsters of the Deep merch, Wrass's figurines start selling for ten yurees or more because she's gaining renown as an excellent wood artist. She can carve sculptures of teardrops with tiny wood people who live inside, the tiny people fit out the hinging tiny doors and bob around their houses and play tag like the kids at school do.

Anemon starts working at the store too, in my daydream he can buy one of the houses beside our home on the street, convert half of it into a studio where he creates paintings, dyes Wrass's figurines, makes his own shirt designs--we sell almost all of it in our store, the rest he hangs in galleries down in the Teardrops of the Volcano.

I daydream Sta's here too, Hamme's around somewhere, they come to the store for the group activities. I pretend Mackere's just not around but also Sta got to know her like in real life but also a bad breakup didn't happen to ruin Sta's life, Mackere's just not in this daydream.

Sta could sneak down the aisle and bump my shoulder and smile, and I could say something funny about how with all the Monsters of the Deep red eyes everywhere, she could never jump-scare me inside our store.

Parro and Ange could go off for a few days to spend time with each other and Sta and I could run the store together; her doing the cash-register and greeting the customers, me stocking the shelves and arranging table displays to feature all of Wrass's best figurines and Anemon's artwork and maybe Hamme's shells could fit in there too.

Sta and I could go to our house--mine, Parro and Ange's--and I could show her how to use our surface-designed kitchen supplies, our bowls with lids and the filter above the stovetop. Then I could show her a brand new pair of angler fish dolls I got, one for her and one for me but both with blue bioluminescent orbs, and we could sit on my bed and talk about how I'm afraid of towering jellyfish in the deep, but maybe she could fear giant birds in the estuaries so I could tell her those aren't real, or at least I've never heard or read about anyone getting attacked, and--

Sta probably wouldn't like my bedroom, would she?

I flutter beside a cubby of brown rice cloth.

Sta would ask confused questions about how I possessively keep three corners of the quilts carefully tucked under the mattress. She'd wonder at my empty table in the corner, the dresser with my angler doll, Easel. She'd find it boring how almost all my clothes are the same fabric from my mother, simple colors like gray and blue. And she'd stare at how bare I keep the floor and the walls; Sta--with her neon painted ceilings and glowing orbs dotting doorways--would give me funny looks for my bare bedroom.

In my daydream, Sta knows about my cave, and we go there sometimes, to sit in the quiet and hold each other and talk, but--

Sta in real life probably would look at the muddy walls, the shells on the floor tossed there like a kid threw a tantrum, the twenty-six kelp dolls meant for toddlers, and she'd want nothing to do with me.

In real life, we can't talk about deep stuff like jellyfish ripping up houses or birds on the surface; our fears can't ever sign in the waters between our hands and reveal themselves as gentle shapes.

In real life, I hardly go anywhere but our house, and the store, and my cave, and the open water over the hill, and Sta's got a job cleaning a concert venue and booking musicians to come there so why'd she ever want to leave just to swim around the muddy hill with me?

I stay up late at night because my brain and the quilt rubbing my cheek won't let me fall asleep.

Sta stays up late because she's writing to big bands and music acts, telling them the schedule when they can perform at the concert place where she works.

She'd never stay up late for me.

She's got a real girlfriend in life, who actually does fun stuff.

I just stock shelves in "Parro and Ange's," avoiding the customers who stare funny at my quivering my back fins, wishing to play L-E-T-T-E-R-S again so I can work out how the point system works, crushing hard over one of my brother's friends who's already in a relationship.

The daydream lingers anyway. I carefully write out prices for shorts and shirts, my heart thumping like Sta might just come around the aisle and sign "good afternoon, beautiful."