Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish by Betsy Byars

together and laugh at the past.
    “Let us pray,” the minister said.
    It must be a second prayer, Warren thought, because his head was still bowed from the first one. He looked up at the minister through his eyelashes.
    Suddenly he noticed a figure in the distance, over by some trees. The figure hadn’t been there before. His head snapped up. He drew in a breath so loudly his aunt Pepper glanced at him.
    He started to get to his feet. “Warren.” Aunt Pepper reached over and patted his leg. “Sit down, hon.” She tried to press him back into his seat.
    He remained in a crouch. The figure had long red hair! The face was turned away, but the long hair, pulled back in a ponytail, was his mother’s hair.
    “Warren.” Aunt Pepper was pulling at his pants now. “Sit down.”
    He reached out, and clutched Aunt Pepper’s hand. He squeezed it hard. He said, “It’s her,” beneath his breath.
    “Who?”
    “It’s—”
    He did not finish because the figure turned around then, and it was not his mother. It was a man with a red beard. He was holding a shovel. Warren realized it was a workman who was waiting in the trees for the funeral to end so he could come over and shovel the earth back into the hole.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Yes.”
    He sank back into his chair. He bowed his head, not knowing if the others were still praying or not. Tears filled his eyes, and he began to bite the insides of his cheeks so he wouldn’t cry. Just once, he thought as he bit harder, just once he would like to cry for the right reasons.
    “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the minister was saying.
    The sounds of his own sobs surprised Warren. He had burst out crying the way volcanoes erupt. He could feel people looking at him in quick sympathy. He tried to close his mouth, to choke back the sobs, but they only burst forth louder. He could barely hear the words of the minister now.
    “—watch over you and keep you and bring you peace. Amen.”
    “It’s over, hon.”
    Warren was the first person to get to his feet. He rose so quickly that his folding chair tipped over backward and snapped shut over the artificial grass that covered the mound of dirt. He bent to pick it up.
    “Honey, everything’s going to be all right,” Aunt Pepper took him by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. “You’ve got me. I’m going to move in with you and Weezie, and we’re going to fix up the apartment. This isn’t the end of the world. Don’t cry. Please.”
    “I can’t help it.” He swallowed, straightened and then bowed his head as one final burst of sobs came out. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s just that …” He did not finish. He could not tell. He wept into his hands.
    The minister put one arm around his shoulder. “Come and see me if you want to talk, son.”
    “I will.”
    Warren was the center of attention now. Everyone was stepping forward to comfort him. Ginger and Pepper had their arms around him. The old fingers of his grandmother’s gin rummy club tapped him on the head.
    He tried to twist away. It was like a scene in one of those old monster movies, he thought, and the monster is trying to get away from the peasants, to get back to his hiding place. The monster twists, turns, struggles and finally is caught and carried to a laboratory cage. The scientists peer at him through the bars.
    “It looks human, Professor, but underneath that human exterior, there is something not quite …”
    “Not quite what? Human, perhaps?”
    “Exactly.”
    Yes, exactly, Warren thought. And with his head bowed he followed his aunts and sister down the path to the waiting cars.

“There’s nothing that can stop the monster now. His growth cells have gone wild!”
    T HE NEIGHBORHOOD DOG PACK of two was making its way down the sidewalk. The yellow dog had a bread wrapper in his mouth, and the spotted one was rubbing against him, trying to dislodge the package and get one of the pieces of green bread inside.
    The only