The Fly Must Die

Once she was gone I went back to Shrimp's room to clean up. I was leaving, arms full, when a glint caught my eye. It was under the radiator. A bottle, a long thin vial. The vial my father had used, that had held the McGrow! And there on the lip of the bottle, sucking—a fly!

A copy of Bouffant Times lay next to the chair. I set my burdens down, grabbed the magazine, rolled it up and went after the fly—so slowly, cautiously. Yet somehow I tipped it off, and it stiffened. Before I could swing, it had flown to the window shade. I stalked it again, scarcely daring to breathe. It flew, I missed, tore a hole in the shade. Twice more I swung and missed. Impossible! A creature with a brain so small—without even a brain at all, perhaps?—could foil me? Absurd!

Then it suddenly made for the door. I panicked. A fly that had drunk McGrow! If it flew outside …

***

The poet/grantsperson Fred Fudpucker tries to save his best friend, Sigmund Fish, who has Down Syndrome, from the clutches of the nefarious Mick McDiddle, head of the gigantic McDiddle hamburger chain.