Zombie Goldfish and Other Catastrophes

My phone buzzed with the third text from Maya in five minutes. "Where r u???" it read, and I groaned into my pillow. The party of the year was happening three blocks away, and I was stuck at home watching my little brother because my parents had decided last minute that date night meant abandoning their teenage daughter with a seven-year-old who still believed the dog could understand English.

Speaking of the dog — Buster, our ancient golden retriever — chose that exact moment to barf up something green and suspicious-looking on the carpet.

"Buster, no!" I yelled, scrambling up from my bed. "That was literally my favorite hoodie."

The dog looked at me with zero remorse. Typical.

My iphone lit up again. Maya's text: "Jake's here. He's asking about u."

Jake. The Jake with the perfect smile and the way he actually listened when people talked about their passions, even if those passions were competitive gardening or obscure indie bands. The Jake I'd been crushing on since seventh grade. And I was at home, cleaning up dog vomit that looked suspiciously like the spinach my mom had forced on everyone at dinner.

"You're not going anywhere," my brother announced from the doorway, crossing his arms like a tiny bouncer. "Mom said you have to stay here with me."

"Leo, please. I'll be back in an hour. I swear."

"Fine. But you have to feed Bubbles first."

Bubbles was his goldfish, the latest in a long line of increasingly short-lived aquatic pets that my parents kept buying to teach him "responsibility." I swear, there was something cursed about that fish tank. Every goldfish Bubbles had ever lasted maybe three weeks before going belly-up in the most dramatic way possible.

I marched into his room, fish food in hand, and stared into the tank.

Bubbles was floating at the top, upside down.

"NO," I whispered. "Not tonight. Anything but tonight."

"Is he dead?" Leo asked, appearing beside me.

"He's..." I squinted. "He's swimming upside down?"

"That's what zombie goldfish do," Leo said knowledgeably. "I read about it on the internet. They come back but different."

I stared at him. "That is definitely not a real thing."

"Bubbles is special."

"Leo, we are not having a zombie goldfish. That is not a thing that exists."

But then Bubbles righted himself, did a weird little flip, and swam away like nothing had happened.

"See?" Leo said. "Zombie."

I stood there, staring at this impossible fish, suddenly realizing that this whole night was ridiculous. I was worried about missing a party where Jake might ask me to dance, all while dealing with a dog who ate everything in sight, a brother who believed in the undead, and a goldfish that apparently came back from the dead.

And somehow, that was fine.

"You know what?" I said. "Let's go see if Maya and Jake want to meet a zombie goldfish."

"Really?" Leo's eyes widened.

"Yeah. Bring the tank."

The dog vomited on my favorite hoodie, but somehow, by the end of that night, Jake was holding my hand and Bubbles was doing little zombie laps in a portable fish bowl, and I realized that sometimes the worst Friday nights turn into the best stories.

Especially when there's a goldfish involved who apparently discovered the secret to eternal life.