Assassin

I'm kinda worried about Nadroj. Remember those sleek black stripes on him I mentioned yesterday? Well, when I first dumped the fish into his minimalist fish tank, I noticed that only the bare tips of his slightly raggedy dorsal fin was kind of black, and that under his head was a bit of a dark gray smudge. I use his extra-white eyes and that dark smudge to tell him from Niffirg. But now, there is a prominent black stripe going the length of his dorsal fin, and dominant black stripes in all of his other fins. And while it may just be me, that dark smudge seems a little bit darker. I've tried Googling possible diseases. Either he's healing from nitrate burns (which is unlikely, because he'd have other scars in other places), or he's caught the elusive and mysterious Black Smudge disease. Which, strangely enough, is also unlikely because he's not really smudging in the right places.

I guess we'll see. Either he dies in a couple weeks because he's caught an incurable disease, or the smudges fade because he's healing from a disease.

I was supposed to go to the school today and complain about my schedule. But when I got there, it was crowded. I mean, seriously crowded. There were school buses out front and everything. I must admit, it freaked me out, so I turned around and went back home. I'm easily frightened these days. So I spent all day all fidgety, wondering how I was going to explain that to my father (even when I was really young, he didn't understand that I'd get scared of people), and also wondering if, by chance, I missed the first day of school. The school called today, at the same time they'd call if I skipped school. I didn't pick up, but now I wonder if I've got detention.

Tomorrow, we're supposed to bring the new kittens home. Dad asked me if I would like to come pick them up. I tried my best to say "yes" in a why-yes-of-course sort of way without sounding all like durr. I was getting that feeling that I'm in trouble, so I was already over thinking what I say. And in best you're-not-in-trouble-now, but-you-will-be-soon voice, he told me that I could come along if I go to the school first. We leave to pick up the kittens at 10. The part of the school I need to go to opens at 9:30. I plan to get there as soon as they open, but if the process takes longer than five minutes I won't have enough time to get home. It's very likely I'll miss out on the entire kitten thing.

And I have to wonder if my dad knows this and planned it out.