Jake's phone buzzed at 11:47 PM, and he knew immediately that his life was about to get complicated.
BRING MY FISH BACK OR ELSE!!! his sister Emma had written, followed by seventeen angry face emojis and one picture of Mr. Bubbles, the orange goldfish that had apparently launched himself out of his bowl sometime around nine o'clock.
"Your sister is unhinged," Marcus whispered from across the room, having already squeezed himself through Jake's window like a particularly awkward cat. He was wearing camouflage pajamas, which he insisted were 'tactical.'
"Mr. Bubbles is her whole world," Jake said, dragging a hand down his face. "She literally made me sign a contract saying I'd protect him with my life."
"That was a binding contract?"
"I was seven! I didn't know legal terms!"
Marcus checked his waterproof flashlight. "Okay, so the fish jumped ship. Where would a goldfish even go? They're not known for world travel."
Jake remembered something. "The backyard. Emma was crying about having to do homework instead of feeding him, and she left the window open when she went to the kitchen." He paused. "Also, we have a pond."
The two boys stared at each other.
"Operation: Midnight Goldfish," Marcus said solemnly, and they bumped fists.
Sneaking out through the kitchen was surprisingly easy, mostly because Jake's mom had fallen asleep on the couch with a bowl of popcorn balanced on her stomach, the TV glowing with a nature documentary about salmon.
"She looks like a mom zombie," Marcus whispered.
"Shh!"
They inched past her, holding their breath. Jake's socked feet slid on the hardwood, and he grabbed the back of a chair to keep from faceplanting. The chair creaked. His mom mumbled something about migratory patterns and shifted position.
They froze.
One full minute passed.
Then she started snoring again.
"Coast is clear," Jake breathed, and they crept toward the back door, moving with the stealth of ninjas who had absolutely never practiced ninja skills but had watched a lot of movies about ninjas.
The night air hit them like a cold, damp towel. The backyard was impossibly dark, the kind of darkness that city kids forgot existed. Marcus clicked on his flashlight, and the beam cut through the night like a glowing sword.
"Spread out," Jake commanded. "Check near the windows first."
They crept around the house like secret agents, peering under bushes and checking behind the patio furniture. Marcus found a garden gnome that gave him a heart attack. Jake tripped over the hose and fell into a pile of mulch.
"You okay?" Marcus asked, trying not to laugh.
"Fine," Jake said, mulching falling out of his hair. "This is fine. We're finding a fish."
The pond sat at the far corner of the yard, a murky oval surrounded by cattails and decorative rocks. Moonlight reflected off its surface, making it look almost magical, if you ignored the smell.
Jake knelt at the edge and shone his phone light into the water. Lily pads floated on the surface like little green rafts. Tiny fish the size of his fingernail scattered at the intrusion.
"Are those..." Marcus leaned in.
"Minnows. Not Mr. Bubbles. He's a fancy goldfish. He'd stand out like a... like an orange guy in a fish tank."
"So he's not here?"
Jake's stomach sank. If Mr. Bubbles wasn't in the pond, where was he? The backyard was fenced. There were no other bodies of water. Unless...
"The storm drain," they both said at the same time.
They ran to the side of the house, where a small drainage grate sat near the driveway. Marcus knelt and peered through the bars. At first, he saw nothing but darkness and dead leaves.
Then something glinted.
Orange.
"He's in there!" Marcus whisper-shouted. "He's like, six feet down, just sitting there!"
"How are we going to get him out?" Jake asked, staring at the grate. "We can't lift this thing. It's bolted down."
Marcus stroked his chin, which was a gesture he only did when he was about to suggest something either brilliant or completely unhinged.
"Remember when your dad tried to flush the toilet and it flooded the whole basement?"
"The snake situation?"
"The PLUNGER. The plunger fixed it. We're going to make it rain, Jake. We're going to make it rain so hard that Mr. Bubbles floats up to us."
Jake stared at him. "That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard."
"Is it though? Is it, though?"
It was, in fact, not the dumbest plan. It was arguably the dumbest plan, but it worked.
They spent forty-five minutes running back and forth from the garden hose to the storm drain, creating a small indoor river that flowed directly into the grate. Marcus had wedged the plunger into the drainage pipe like a makeshift pump, and somehow, impossibly, the water began to rise.
And rising with it was Mr. Bubbles.
The little orange fish floated to the surface, looking profoundly confused but very much alive. He blinked at them with his enormous goldfish eyes, his fins fluttering lazily.
"You're a genius!" Jake hissed, grabbing the fish gently in his cupped hands. Mr. Bubbles flopped once, then seemed to decide that this new arrangement was acceptable.
"Tactical genius," Marcus corrected. "Now let's get this fish home before your sister commits first-degree murder."
They snuck back inside with the stealth of highly trained operatives, or at least of boys who were very motivated by the fear of teenage girl vengeance. Jake carefully lowered Mr. Bubbles into a bowl of room-temperature water, adding a pinch of the special flakes from the kitchen cabinet.
The fish immediately began eating, as if nothing had happened.
"You saved him," Marcus said, exhausted and covered in pond mulch and drain water. "You saved your sister's fish."
Jake grinned. "We saved him. Operation: Midnight Goldfish was a success."
Emma appeared in the doorway at exactly 6:15 AM, her hair a wild bird's nest, her eyes squinting suspiciously.
"You found him," she said, her voice dangerous.
"We found him," Jake confirmed.
Emma marched over to the bowl, verified that Mr. Bubbles was alive and well, and then did something neither of them expected.
She hugged them both.
"Thank you," she said, and then, without warning, "but you're both in so much trouble for sneaking out. Mom! MOM! JAKE SNEAKED OUT!"
Marcus and Jake looked at each other.
"Worth it?" Marcus asked.
Jake watched Mr. Bubbles swim in lazy circles, completely oblivious to the chaos he'd caused.
"Totally worth it."
