Page 55 of One Adult, Please

The decorative pond, a shallow, stone-lined water feature with lily pads and a small fountain that's still running because the pump is solar-powered and the sun doesn't care about the apocalypse. It's two feet deep, which is more than enough to completely submerge a woman who wasn't expecting to interact with water at this particular juncture.

I go in face-first. The water is cold. The lily pads are slimy. The stone bottom hits my palms and my knees, because my knees are the first responders of every disaster my body produces.

I come up sputtering. Water streaming off my face. Wondie hoodie soaked through. Ponytail upgraded from "gave up structural integrity" to "actively decomposing." And on my head, draped across my hair like a large green beret, is a lily pad.

A goat is standing at the edge of the pond with the expression of an animal that's accomplished exactly what it set out to accomplish and feels no remorse.

"What," I say to the goat.

The goat chews.

"Why."

The goat chews.

"Joel, the goat pushed me."

"I saw."

"Beck, the goat pushed me."

"I also saw."

"Grant, is this your goat? Is this a goat that belongs to you?"

Grant's lips are pressed together. His shoulders are shaking. His eyes are bright behind his taped glasses and he's making a sound that might be crying or might be suffocating or might be the first time he's laughed in days.

"That's Kevin," he manages. "He's... he does that."

"Kevin." I point at the goat. The lily pad slides forward on my head. I push it back. "Kevin, you and I are going to have a conversation about boundaries."

Kevin chews. Kevin doesn't recognize the concept of boundaries.

I climb out of the pond. Water pours off me in sheets. My shoes squelch. The lily pad falls off my head and lands on the floor with a wet slap.

Joel hands me a towel. From where, I don't know. Joel produces the towel from an invisible inventory of useful things that he maintains at all times for reasons that are practical and efficient and make me want to scream.

"Thank you," I say.

"You have pond on you," Beck says.

"I have pond on me, Beck. Thank you for the observation."

Grant is laughing into his hand. His laugh is rusty and helpless and unfairly attractive. Apparently being assaulted by livestock is my contribution to courtship.

I towel off what I can, squeeze water out of my ponytail, and glare at Kevin, who has wandered over to the round friends and is now standing near Fernando with the casual air of a criminal returning to civilian life.

"Kevin is on probation," I announce. "Effective immediately. Kevin is on probation and the terms of his probation include not headbutting the Glue into water features."

"He won't understand that," Grant says.

"Kevin understands everything, Grant. Look at his eyes. Those are the eyes of a creature with full comprehension and zero conscience. Kevin knew what he was doing. Kevin planned this."

Kevin chews. Kevin is the most unapologetic being in the rescue center and that's saying something because Captain the angry pirate bird screamed at me five minutes ago.

"Okay," I say, dripping onto the rescue center floor in a puddle that's expanding around my squelching shoes. "Tomorrow we clear the garden part. Tonight we plan. In the thinking box."

Grant adjusts his taped glasses. "That's on the crime boat?"