I couldn’t believe I was crying. Over a goldfish.

I crammed my fists into my eyes, hoping to squeeze hard enough to turn off the tears and erase the evidence that they’d ever been there. When it didn’t work, I sank to the floor and buried my face in my knees, trying to hold my breath so my shoulders wouldn’t shake.

Even girls didn’t cry over goldfish.

I remembered exactly how Ashlynn Jones had described her dead goldfish to our first-grade class, her grin getting wider and wider as she moved from what it’d looked like when they found it to the way it’d flopped and turned circles when her dad flushed it down the toilet. I had laughed along with the others because that’s what boys did when they were grossed out. The girls had all squealed and covered their ears, except a couple that still liked being grossed out as much as the boys. Our teacher, Miss Kline, had looked sort of sick and made us line up for lunch early instead of letting us ask questions like she usually did.

But she hadn’t cried. Nobody had—not even Ashlynn.

I was a boy. Nine years old now, and in fourth grade. I shouldn’t be crying. Not over this. But I couldn’t stop, and it scared me.

“Hey, Jake?”

The little voice came from the bedroom door—the one I hadn’t shut when I came in to feed Orange Peel. There was no way she wouldn’t see me and no way I could pretend I hadn’t been crying. I didn’t look up.

“Hey, Jake, Mommy took Sef to soccew pwactice, and Daddy said I can do bubbles. Wanna come?”

I didn’t have to open my eyes to picture Mellie standing in the doorway to Seth’s room, her yellow curls bouncing up and down as she rocked back and forth on her feet. Mellie was only six and still couldn’t say her brother’s name right, let alone anything with an r. If she saw me crying, she’d probably run for her dad, and there was no way I wanted Mr. Clair to know.

I opened my mouth to say no, but the second I stopped holding my breath, my words broke in a sob. The next minute, Mellie had her arms around my neck and was hugging me tight.

I don’t know why it worked, but some way that hug seemed to let loose a big lump in my chest, and after a couple more sobs I’d already been holding in, the tears ran faster but didn’t sting so bad.

“Awe you sad about youw mommy and daddy?” Mellie whispered in my ear, and I shook my head and tried to stretch my short sleeves far enough to wipe my eyes. Mom and Dad had gone on a business trip, leaving me with my best friend’s family for a week, but they were coming back, so it would have been silly to cry about them.

Almost as silly as crying over a goldfish.

“What’s wong?” Mellie’s arms tightened around my neck, and her soft hair pressed up against my ear.

I shouldn’t tell her. Even six-year-old girls didn’t cry over goldfish. But she just stood there holding onto me like she wasn’t planning to let go, so I swallowed hard and pointed.

Mellie let go of my neck, and I lifted my head and watched her walk to the dresser and stretch up on her toes to see better. After a minute, she turned, eyes wide.

“Owange Peel can swim upside down?”

I shook my head, swallowing something that felt like a golf ball in my throat.

“He’s—he’s dead.” With the words came more tears. I tried to brush them away but only made my cheeks wetter.

Mellie left the fishbowl and sat down next to me on the floor, leaning her head against my arm but not taking her eyes off the fish.

“Why did he die?”

“I don’t know.” The words opened up an aching corner of my heart that I’d been afraid to let myself think about. I’d forgotten to feed him one day last week. The bowl had wobbled a little yesterday when Seth slammed the bedroom door. Was the air at the Clairs’ house a little colder than mine? I was afraid to ask a grown-up, but Mellie wouldn’t know anyway. “Maybe—maybe I didn’t feed him enough. Maybe I didn’t take care of him right. Maybe coming here made him sick.”

“But you take good cawe of him, Jake!” Mellie’s little voice sounded angry at the idea. “And coming hewe didn’t make him sick befowe.”

She was right, and I breathed a little bit better. I’d forgotten Seth and his family had taken care of Orange Peel when we went to visit Grandpa a few months ago. And I’d also forgotten to feed him the day I’d taken him home. So it couldn’t have been those things that killed him now. 

Thinking of Grandpa made my tears start again. I’d known all along why losing Orange Peel hurt so bad. He hadn’t just been my pet. He’d been my last Christmas present from Grandpa—maybe the last one ever.

Mom said Grandpa was dying—that our visit this summer might be the last time I got to see him. If Grandpa died, I’d never get to walk with him again, never hear him tell me stories, never feel his scratchy beard on my cheek when he hugged me. And now I wouldn’t even have Orange Peel to remember him with. I put my head down on my knees again. Mellie kept her head against my arm.

“Owange Peel was a good fishie,” Mellie said quietly after a minute. “He had a vewy pwetty tail.”

I swallowed and felt something wobbly that might have wanted to be a smile pricking the corners of my mouth.

“He—he always ate his food really fast. Like, one second it was there, and then boom! Gone. Like I’d never even fed him.”

“I liked when I put my face by him and he came ovew and looked at me.” Mellie sighed, and I put my arm around her.

“I liked that, too.”

“What do fishies do aftew they’we dead?” Mellie looked up at me with big, trusting eyes, and I shuddered a little.

“I think—you’re supposed to—to flush them in the toilet.”

I waited for Mellie’s eyes to get big and grossed out, but she just looked at me for a minute like she was thinking, then nodded.

“I guess they like to stay in the watew.”

I knew Orange Peel wouldn’t be liking anything anymore, but for some reason, the idea of leaving him safe in the water made my heart not hurt quite so bad. Mellie’s lips suddenly wobbled, and her eyes filled with tears.

“If we flush him, we can’t evew see him again.”

I shook my head, and a couple new tears rolled out the corners of my eyes.

“I can’t keep him if he’s dead, though. He’ll get—nasty and gross-looking—and won’t be any fun.”

Mellie nodded and grabbed my hand.

“Can I say bye to him?”

I nodded hard and had to wipe my cheeks on my collar, since I was out of dry spaces on my sleeves. I stood next to Mellie as she pushed herself up on her tiptoes at Seth’s dresser and watched Orange Peel not moving for a long minute. Finally, she said, “Bye, Owange Peel. You wewe a good fishie,” then turned and threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my chest. I could feel the wet spots her tears made on my shirt, and I wondered if she could feel the ones mine were making in her hair.

“You want to help me?” I asked finally, and Mellie nodded. I carefully lifted the fishbowl and carried it to the bathroom, then set it on the side of the tub and looked down at it for a long time. “Bye, Orange Peel,” I said finally, not even minding that Mellie could hear my voice cracking. “You were a good fish.” I wiped my eyes again so I could see, then I dumped the whole fishbowl into the toilet and, without letting myself think, pushed the handle. Then I sank down on the floor and cried, not sobbing like I had at first but letting the tears quietly start and stop and start again until I was worn out. Mellie had disappeared somewhere, and I finally pushed myself up, returned the empty fishbowl to its place on Seth’s dresser, laid down on my sleeping bag, and closed my stinging eyes.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there before a little hand on my shoulder made me look up. Mellie was kneeling next to me, blinking down at me with one hand behind her back.

“I made somefing fow you, Jake. So you won’t be lonely ‘til you get a new fishie.”

I almost told her I didn’t want another fish, but she held something out toward me, and I took it without a word.

It was only a piece of blue construction paper with a lopsided fish shape done in orange crayon. But at least I could tell it was a fish, and I wondered how many tries it had taken her to get it right. At the top of the page, she’d written “Jaks fisy” in big letters, the J backwards as usual. And suddenly, I knew I did want another fish. It wouldn’t be Orange Peel, but it would remind me of him—and Grandpa—and that would be enough. I looked at the paper for a long minute, then stood up and propped it against the empty fishbowl.

“Thanks, Mellie.”

“You wanna do bubbles?”

“Yeah.” My voice cracked just a little as she slipped her hand into mine. “Well, I mean, I’m kinda tired. But I’ll watch you.”

Mellie’s face lit up, and she pulled me out to the porch where Mr. Clair had set up the bubble maker. I turned it on and sat on the steps, leaning against the rail while I watched Mellie chase and catch the shining bubbles that swam and broke in the breeze. And somehow, I didn’t feel so bad anymore—even if I had just been crying over a goldfish.