Chapter Six
Finally, the door swung in and arms far stronger than Old Papi Fluckey yanked me inside.
I squeaked, pulled back a fist to fight, but the chameleon cage started tumbling, and I dove after it. My attacker switched grips and let go of me to catch and cradle the animal cage. I wasn’t making any noise, but his other hand clamped hard over my mouth anyway.
Roro Fluckey, home from the School, glared at me with his face a bare inch from my nose.
“Papi is sleeping.”
I’d never known those simple words could be said with such menace. Roro might, technically, be a grown-up but his wild red hair stuck out in the tufted protrusions only super straight hair can do, with essentially the same hairstyle he wore in the schoolhouse picture from when he was twelve and earned the first ever perfect score on the kid’s engineering readiness exam. He’d been tall when he left for School and I’d grown a little bit in the last four years too, so an extra six or eight inches shouldn’t have made a huge difference in how fair back I had to lean my head to meet his frustrated eyes.
I’d gotten used to ducking my head and hunching down just a bit to play together with Xavier. But Roro wasn’t just non-dwarfism adult tall, he was Earth movie star action hero tall. I hadn’t realized Fluckeys came in that size. How could he even fit into standard spacecraft?
I still thought I could take him. I’d just need to find a way to cheat.
I’d been fighting with bigger-than-me brothers since they arrived, after all. And I had expected to have a verbal fight with Papi Fluckey.
Roro didn’t seem to view me as someone worth fighting with. His other hand was gently lifting up the cage to peer in with concern at little Chameleon.
But I really ought to be fighting, given that he was a Fluckey and I was a Sadou.
I bit my lips inside my mouth. I did not cite the parts of the Station Code necessary to get access to his medical evaluator and use it to check on the chameleon myself.
Don’t argue when someone is already doing what you want, advice from Jules cautioned me. Just say thank you.
I stayed silent rather than make noise and risk waking up Papi Fluckey. And it’s hard to say thank you when a grown-up has his hand over your mouth. My own Susu and Babu took extra midday naps too, and it was weird seeing a Fluckey acting concerned for another human being even if it was another Fluckey.
I signed to Roro that I’d keep my mouth shut, and he let go of me.
The inside of the building was more of a warehouse than a normal shop or home. The Fluckeys owned a beneath-the-surface warehousing space three full levels deep a stone’s throw away under the stunted copse of gaboon ebony trees beside the rerouted New Main West.
That deluxe basement area had been constructed for the Fluckeys a couple generations back with the idea that surely one of these generations a Fluckey would agree to move the building to sit on top of that very fine substructure. I’ve seen them. They were a very nice set of under basements. Mr. Fluckey, just like all his predecessors, refused to move.
The Fluckeys had planted those trees over top it instead. And naturally trees would like a somewhat deeper root system, so they were carefully tended but very stunted botanical specimens, which further enraged certain members of the Station Council.
Since members of my family were usually in charge of the Council and often also in charge of the gardeners, Sadous and Fluckeys didn’t get along. And this was without Papi Fluckey even knowing that I was the kid who kept flipping his glass panes backwards.
Roro angled his head at the cage and leaned in and whispered, “You realize this little guy is unauthorized animal life per station regulations, don’t you? How’d you even get him?”
I flushed, realizing that I was the one on the wrong side of Station Code.
Well, technically it was Dorian who was in the wrong. Or my dad for rescuing the disallowed animal and giving it to Dorian. But you just don’t rat out family.
Roro held up a hand and continued in low voice, “No, no, don’t tell me. What I don’t know, I can’t be charged with not reporting on.”
He lifted Chameleon out of the cage and gently placed him into the animal scanner and began deftly turning knobs and dials as he ran a far more skilled assessment of the creature’s health status than I would’ve been able to get out of the machine.
Roro continued his soft monologue, “Though actually they’ve tried charging my poor Papi with plenty of things over the years, so that’s not strictly true, but it’s still good policy.”
He lifted Chameleon out of the tester with gentle fingers and the creature curled his tail around the vet’s thumb. Animals always adored the Fluckey family. It was like they could sense that these people liked them despite actively disliking most of their accompanying humans. Roro clucked and fussed while running medical sensors over the chameleon and convincing it to eat a small dead fly and then to produce a pelt of dung which he also scanned and analyzed.
It was when Roro looked something up on the screen and my little punk brother’s scrawled sign announcing that Chameleon had been abducted and an offer of a reward for his safe return that he turned shifty.
I grabbed my cage back and scooped up Chameleon before Roro could declare that he was keeping my animal overnight for tests and then demand I ransom Ladybug to buy back the chameleon.
“It’s a stupid joke,” I said. “He’s not actually going to pay anything for the chameleon. You know how Dorian is. He has a pet of the week, and Chameleon was from two weeks ago.”
“That’d pay for a lot of dog food,” Roro said, but Papi Fluckey called out from the other room. Roro pointed at the door, telling me that I should go, and I scooted.