“Deborah I could really use a hand right about now. Would you mind doing the nails while I finish up this balayage,” Sally asked as she was approaching the limit of her multitasking capabilities.

  Deborah was also multitasking, sitting with both butt cheeks and watching Big Brother on the store’s television while scrolling through picture after picture on her phone and surreptitiously using a laser pointer to get Mr Whiskers to run into Sally whenever her back was turned.

  “Also, can you sterilize the tools you used earlier and put your rubbish away? It’s right where customers can see it,” added Sally.

  “God. You sound just like my mother,” huffed Deborah, still not moving.

  Your mom probably sounds like she’s having the time of her life right about now, thought Sally. “Now please. You’re not being paid to scroll on your phone, and if I found out that you’ve brought that laser in to mess with Mr Whiskers again, I’m going to kill you.”

  “This is such bullshit,” said Deborah as she took her feet off the chair she had swiveled around to face Sally and stood up in a huff.

  The bells over the door chimed as another customer entered the shop. Deborah hastily put the rubbish she was moving back down on the reception desk instead of the bin that was next to it, spilling the last few sips of a Diet Coke on a dog-eared booking diary.

  “Hi Brad. I don’t get off until nine,” said Deborah, chewing on a twirl of hair that she had wrapped around her finger, her gaze shyly vacillating between her shoes and Brad’s eyes.

  “And again at ten if I’m lucky,” replied Brad with a devilish grin.

  “What?” Deborah asked, looking confused.

  “I thought I would surprise you. I’m just a customer here for whatever,” said Brad.

  “You’re so random,” Deborah laughed. “What do you want?”

  “Deborah we haven’t got time for social calls,” called Sally without taking her eyes off what she was doing.

  “It’s not a social call, I don’t even know him,” snapped Deborah as if she was yelling at a sibling instead of talking to her manager.

  With a sigh, Sally carefully put down the dye brush she was using and walked to the reception desk to take over, sending a protesting Deborah to the back of the store to finish painting the toenails of two ladies who were in for a pedicure.

  “How can I help?” asked Sally in a tone that was curt but still passably polite.

  “Umm, I’m here for the thing,” replied Brad.

  “What thing would that be?” asked Sally from behind the reception desk.

  “Um, the usual?” said Brad, looking very pleased with himself.

  “Okay,” said Sally. “That’ll be two-hundred dollars and take three hours,” she bluffed.

  “Yeah, sure. That,” replied Brad.

  Dammit, thought Sally. She really didn’t think he would agree to that. Then an idea struck and her smile widened.

  “After the Brazilian and leg wax, would you like your nails done in classic red, or perhaps french tips?” asked Sally. The shop didn’t even offer waxing, but she doubted the young man knew that.

  “Umm, Brazilian waxing?” squirmed Brad. His face was visibly turning white. He tried peeking over Sally’s shoulder to see if Deborah was coming back. Sally decided she’d had enough fun. She opened the booking diary to a random page and noticed it was now stained and still slightly wet.

  “Oh darn,” said Sally, feigning disappointment. “It looks like we can’t fit that in tonight. Would you like to come back tomorrow?”

  A wave of relief washed over Brad’s face and the color came back. “How about the fish thing? Can I do that now?” he asked.

  Persistent little bugger, Sally thought. She could barely keep her customer-service face on. She hesitated for a moment, considering refusing service entirely.

  “Sure,” Sally replied reluctantly, knowing that if she said no, he would probably just hang around the front of the store and Deborah would just keep finding excuses to walk outside. “Take off your shoes and socks and take a seat right there. Nice and close to me so I can take real good care of you.”

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  “Is Deb coming back? I want Deb to take care of me,” said Brad.

  “Deborah is busy working,” replied Sally, losing patience at this point. “Come on – shoes off and feet in the tank.”

  The young man did as instructed and put his feet in the tank near the front of the store without taking his eyes off Deborah, who hastily painted toenails at the back of the store, glancing back every few seconds to exchange winks and smiles.

  “Watch out Murder,” warned Spots. “This one’s a kicker if I’ve ever seen one.” The two fish held back, swimming some distance from their potential dinner while the rest of the school nibbled away, save for Dr Flibbles, who was two strokes ahead of everyone and already sleeping in his castle.

  Sure enough, when Deborah looked away to concentrate on the nails, the young man would raise a foot and then violently bring it down into the water with a loud, thunking splash, sending water and fish everywhere. The thud of water rapidly meeting reverberated through the tank like thunder. With an unexpected jerk, the young man rapidly brought the back of his heel against the side of the tank, but the impact sounded off, dampened. There was no sudden thump. Instead, there was a squelch and a hint of an involuntary whimper as the giant heel crushed something soft and alive against the side of the tank.

  Spots had heard that sickening sound before. The sound of life being squeezed from a living being; the sound of a friend dying. Then he saw them, two bodies, mangled and lifeless, slowly sinking to the bottom of the tank. They were his schoolmates. He had grown up with them, eaten blister, arch and dermis with them every day. After briefly scattering, the rest of the school returned to the feet, unable to grasp the danger they were in. Grasping things was not something fish were naturally good at, especially danger.

  “Come with me,” ordered Murder.

  “But we’ll get kicked,” protested Spots.

  “He can’t kick us if we bite his legs off!” said Murder before swimming towards the thrashing feet. Murder found a nice spot on the top of the foot. Somewhere above a nice blue vein where the skin felt ever so slightly warmer and more oxygenated than other parts. Then the little fish tucked in and fought not just the boy, but the feeble instincts of the body he had been spawned into that told him to not eat the warm parts and not stay in one place too long. Murder gnawed and gnawed on the living skin.

  Murder felt the odd sensation of being someone else. He felt the wind flowing through his hair, his strange new lungs rasped, his feet frantically pedaled on the BMX bike. The sensation of speed was fantastic. A short, sharp hill approached and the world seemed to drop away. Murder looked down to see that he was in the air, flying like a bird. His stomach went light as he reached the apex, then he landed smoothly on a downward-sloping hill. He pedalled hard into the next mound of smoothed dirt and again felt the exhilaration of weightlessness. This time he spun his handlebars around a full rotation before landing smoothly again. He looked up to see four more young men, teenagers on their BMX waiting a few dozen meters beyond the final jump, who cheered as he landed. He felt proud, he had faced his fear and he had landed the jump. The experience flowing through Murder came to an end.

  Great, thought Murder, now I know how to ride a bike.

  “Ouch!” cried Brad. “Oi, these things hurt!” He could hear everybody in the shop tittering at his outburst. They were all women, and he couldn’t help but think they were playing a cruel trick on him. Had they given him the wrong kind of fish on purpose? he asked himself.

  “That’s why women are the ones who give birth,” said one of the customers having their nails done. “Higher pain tolerance. Can you imagine how much they would complain if they had to go through half what we do every month. We would never hear the end of it. Just sit there and bear it, lad. It will do you some good.”

  Brad closed his eyes and tried to steel himself against the pain. He had heard this didn’t hurt at all. His little sister had done it, for Christ’s sake. Just bear with it or you’ll never hear the end of it, Brad told himself. Ouch, ouch, ouch!

  A scream broke Brad’s concentration. He opened his eyes to see that his feet were soaking in a pool of blood. He pulled his feet out of the water, sending droplets of fresh blood and a few small fish flying across the room. Blood gushed out of what looked like a small hole drilled directly into the top of his foot.

  Sally rushed over to Brad’s side. “I've never seen that before,” said Sally. “Deborah quick – get the first-aid kit.”

  Deborah didn’t move. Her face turned white. She just stood there, staring at the blood pouring out of Brad’s foot, a vacant expression on her face. Then she closed her eyes and slowly began to fall.

  “Deborah, are you okay?” asked Brad, but it was too little too late. All he could do was watch as her body toppled forwards. Eyes closed, her now sleeping face was almost smiling. She hit the side of her head with a sickening crack on the unpadded corner of Murder’s pool. Bright-red blood began rhythmically jetting out the side of her head, mixing with the darker blood that was already pooling on the tiled floor.

  A scream and the taste of blood in the water drew Dr Flibbles out from his castle.

  “Murder you absolute bloody pollock! What have you done? You do not bite the foot that feeds you! You’re lucky you can’t actually hurt anyone. What did you do, nick a vein?”

  “Dr Flibbles,” interrupted Spots nervously; if he had a hat, he would have been holding it over his chest and twiddling the rim with his fingers. He didn’t because fish don’t own or wear hats and he didn’t have any fingers, so he just pointed to the dying girl on the floor with a fin.

  “Oh, bloody hell, that’s a gusher! How in the nine hells did you manage that?” asked Dr Flibbles, eyeing Murder cautiously.

  “I didn’t,” said Murder, gesturing towards the foot that was beside the unfortunate girl and slowly leaking dark venous blood. “I did that and gravity did the rest.”

  “Hmm,” said Dr Flibbles. “I suspect a dead girl might distract them from an injured foot. But there will be questions. And humans only have one way of asking fish questions – and it doesn’t end well for the fish.”

  “The high priestess will protect us,” said Spots, who had started copying some of Murder’s less-odd behaviors.

  Dr Flibbles sighed, looking through the tank at the girl on the floor with a head wound.

  “The high priestess doesn’t know what’s coming,” said Dr Flibbles.