Remarkably Bright Creatures(22)

This did not please Terry and Dr. Santiago. They frowned and they argued. I gathered they anticipated my dismantling of the box to take longer.

I am a smart cookie. Well, of course I am intelligent. All octopuses are. I remember each and every human face that pauses to gaze at my tank. Patterns come readily to me. I know how the sunrise will play on the upper wall at dawn, shifting each day as the season progresses.

When I choose to hear, I hear everything. I can tell when the tide is turning to ebb, outside the prison walls, based on the tone of the water crashing against the rocks. When I choose to see, my vision is precise. I can tell which particular human has touched the glass of my tank by the fingerprints left behind. Learning to read their letters and words was easy.

I can use tools. I can solve puzzles.

None of the other prisoners have such skills.

My neurons number half a billion, and they are distributed among my eight arms. On occasion, I have wondered whether I might have more intelligence in a single tentacle than a human does in its entire skull.

Smart cookie.

I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine.

What a preposterous thing to say.





Maybe Not Marrakesh


McMansionville is too quiet. No footsteps thumping on the ceiling from the upstairs apartment. Cameron’s phone battery blinks red, nearly drained. He digs in the bottom of his duffel for his charging cord, but it’s sitting on Katie’s nightstand. He can practically see it there. Left behind, leaving him literally powerless.

Maybe Brad or Elizabeth has a spare. He creeps into their kitchen, opening drawers as quietly as he can. Silverware in neat rows, an entire pull-out devoted to oven mitts. Who needs that many oven mitts? Are they cooking for an infantry unit? Most are monogramed. Elizabeth and Bradley Burnett: EBB. Like an ebb tide. As if the two of them are headed right on out to sea, waving to him as he’s left alone on the shore.

“Hey,” comes a voice from the hallway.

“Elizabeth!” Cameron slams the drawer shut. As if mocking him, it closes slowly and softly, the way these fancy cabinets do.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.” She smiles, an empty cup in one hand. The other rests on her belly, which is trying to bust out of a pale blue robe. “Up for a drink, which means I’ll need to pee again in an hour. My bladder is the size of a jelly bean these days.” She flicks on the light then pads over to the refrigerator and presses her cup under the water dispenser.

“I can’t believe you guys are going to have a baby,” Cameron says. Brad and Elizabeth have been married three years, and of course Cameron was best man at their wedding, but it’s still just . . . weird. Elizabeth was his best friend since kindergarten, and Brad was a good guy, but always hovering on the periphery of their friend group. Never good enough for Elizabeth in high school, but somehow, they got together a few years later. Now married, now a baby.

“A baby? I thought I was just bloated.” Elizabeth’s eyes crinkle, teasing. “How come you’re awake, anyway?”

“Phone’s dead.” He holds up the moribund device. “You guys have an extra charger?”

Elizabeth gestures. “Junk drawer.”

“Thanks.” He pulls out a neatly coiled cord.

Grimacing, Elizabeth eases herself up onto one of the bar stools lining the island counter and takes a long drink of water. “Sorry to hear about you and Katie.”

He slumps onto the stool next to her. “I screwed that up.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Thanks for the sympathy, Lizard-breath.”

“Anytime, Camel-tron,” she says with a grin, returning the childhood nickname. “So, what happens now?”

Cameron picks at the fraying spot on the cuff of his favorite hoodie, depositing the greenish thread bits in a pile on the counter. “I’ll get a new place. Maybe that apartment over Dell’s.”

“Dell’s? Gross.” Elizabeth wrinkles her nose. “You can do better than that. Besides, who wants Uncle Cam smelling like stale beer when he comes to see the baby?”

Cameron drops his head, letting it rest on the cool granite for a moment before looking back up. “I’m not exactly flush with options here.”

Elizabeth leans across the counter and sweeps the thread bits into her palm. “That sweatshirt is also gross, by the way. Brad threw his out a long time ago.”

“What? Why?” It’s not official Moth Sausage gear, exactly, but the whole band got them. Years ago. Always planned to get them screen printed.

“When was the last time you washed it?”

“Last week,” Cameron says with a huff. “I’m not an animal.”

“Well, it’s still gross. It’s falling apart. And I’ll never understand why you guys picked that baby-poo color.”

“It’s Moth Green!”

Elizabeth studies him for a long moment. “Why don’t you, like, travel or something?” she says quietly. “What’s keeping you here?”

He blinks. “Where would I go?”

“San Francisco. London, Bangkok, Marrakesh.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just summon my Lear. Fly halfway around the world.”

“Okay, maybe not Marrakesh.” She lowers her voice. “To be honest, I’m not even sure where that is. It was part of a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune last night.”