Worried Fabia will come find me if I take too long, I leave Hyatt to his tantrum, then peel out of the house.I hurry down the street to her home.Despite us being best friends, I don’t want her next door in case she hears my monsters, and she doesn’t want me close enough to stop her from doing her “writing research”.It’s kind of a toss up about which one of us gets covered in blood more.
“Fabia!I’m here!” Isayas Icrashthroughher front door without knocking.The bright colours foundall throughoutBrownston are nowhere to be seeninhere.She claims thereis dark teal, dark purple, and dark grey, butreally, the only splash of colour inherliving room is me.Her home’s like a dark, stormy cloud, and I’m her visiting rainbow.
Unlike in my house, where I have lots of rooms to divide my pets into if they’re feeling overly loving, Fabia likes the wide openspace.Her sitting room makes up the entire floor, with one bathroom at the back.Her voice drifts down from the spiral staircasein the middle of the room.“I’m up here.”
I climb up the stairs, passing through thekitchen and dining room on the second floor.There are more colours here –purplealongside the black.
I find herat the top.The bathroom door is open, and she’s sitting on thetiledfloor, beside the bathtub.Her head down, she’s chewing on the end of a pencil.Another one graces her left hand, and she scribbles away at the notebook in her lap.Every so often, she huffs hard, trying to blowastubborn curl of lilac hair out of her silver eyes.
“How many babies do you need to fill a bathtub with blood?”she asks without lifting her head,andthe pencil in her mouthfallsto the floor.
“Um, how old are they?”I ask, my face scrunching up in thought.
“Newborns.”
I shake my head.“I don’t think that’ll ever work.They can’t even crawl, Fabia.How are they going to carry the blood?Let alone stand up to pour it over the edge?”
Her pencil stills.“What?”
I stroke my chin as I peer up at theblackceiling.“Maybe if you stacked them up one on top of the other, then put a slide on them, leading into the tub, and then poured blood down it, you couldtechnicallyclaim they were filling it…” I shake my head.“But, Fabia,they’d wriggle so much.I think you’d be better off with toddlers.At least theycancarry buckets –Youwillgive thembuckets, right?”Loweringmy eyes, I look atmy best friend, who is now looking at me as if she is trying to figure out what the heck I am talking about.
So I cup both my hands together, my pinkies touching so she can see.“It would take them forever, carrying blood like this in their little hands.Think of all the spillage.”I glance at theblood-redtileson the floor.“And they wouldn’t even seeany puddles, sothen they’d slip and fall.”I throw my hands intothe air,mimingthe liquid going everywhere.“I don’t know how much would actually reach the tub.”
“Arienna…” she says slowly.“I am not asking you how many babies can carry blood to a bathtub in a bucket or in their little hands.I’m asking how many babies would you have to drain of their blood to filla tub.”
“Oh.”I glance at the tub.My eyes widen as a baby’s head pokes over the edge.“Whosebaby is that?”I ask.
She waves a hand dismissively.“Not relevant.”
“But –”
“Don’t get attached toher, Arienna.I’m not keepingher.”
“Um…”
“Come on.Help me with this,” she says in exasperation.
I open my mouth, then close it again.A good brownie is always helpful.“Well,” I start as the baby sits back down in the tub.I can still see her, and I don’t know how I missed her before.Granted, I’m not the most observant, but now she’s really hard to miss.
“Well,” I try again.Looking at Fabia, I remind myself that I cannot go to jail today.“How muchblood is in a baby?”
“Well, there’s blood in every part of them.”She looks down at her notebook full of scrawls.“If you subtract the estimate of their bones and organs – I reckon about atenth?But the only way to really be sure is to drain a baby and then weigh the volume.”
Isneak a lookat the baby in the tub again.She giggles happily as she stares at me.
Glancingback up at the ceiling,Ipicture my wasps.My babies would not do well if I was in jail.They need to be fed multiple times a day, or they get grumpy.Besides, a good brownie always follows the rules,andthereisn’ta singleonethat says wecan’tdrain a baby of all their blood.Butthereisone that says we mustalwayshelp those in need.
And Fabia is in need.
Isn’t the baby?
Well, she isn’t crying right now, so… no?
Unable to refute that logic, I sigh in relief.I am doing the right thing.
“Right,” I say.“Well,how many babies do you think can fit in a tub?”
“Thirty-four if you stack them two on top of each other, with the top one’s head between the bottom one’s legs.”She waves a hand.“But that only helps me with knowing how many dead babies can fit in a tub.Not how much blood I’dneed to fill it,and I did the maths about how many could fit if you blended them first, but then you’ll be bathing in their bones and brains and” –she wrinkles her nose– “thatdoes notsound very appealing.”
