The girl detective is thinking of braiding her hair. The girl detective is thinking of borrowing her mother’s best lipstick. The girl detective is thinking of the sound of pigeon-call on the house rooftop, the chitter and hush. The girl detective is thinking of universes twisting together like DNA strands, thinking I am not alone, I am not the only one.
Yesterday, the girl detective solved a murder.
Today, she is going to the aquarium with her mother.
The murder was a complicated murder. The girl detective solved it by calculating the melting rate of ice cubs in a tall glass of scotch, left sitting in the sun.
She could tell you the details, but she is afraid they will bore you.
When the girl detective mentions the murder, her mother says that’s nice, dear. That’s nice.
The girl detective’s mother is very pretty. The girl detective is pretty too, but not in a way that makes people stop and look, like they do at her mother. The girl detective’s pretty is a kind that blends her in, that loses her in crowds, that makes her mother say if you tried harder.
The girl detective’s mother is tall and pretty and moves like the wind through reeds.
She tells her daughter: Watch your posture.
She tells her: You shouldn’t hunch.
Sometimes, the girl detective sits on her flowered bedspread and curves her body into a ball, chin tucked to knees, crisscrossed hands holding opposite feet. She sits and sits, and thinks.
She thinks of pigeon-coo and toe-scratch, thinks of universes and girl detectives just like herinhabiting them.
At the aquarium, the girl detective feels the gaze of a hundred fish eyes on her, tries not to hunch under their weight. She sees her reflection in aquarium glass, see-through girl, cloud girl, ghost.
Her mother says look at that one, with a tail and fins that flutter and swirl, like the skirt of a dancer’s dress. The girl detective’s mother puts her fingertips gently to the glass and no one tells her to stop despite the Don’t Touch signs, the girl detective’s mother gazes at the long-tailed fish, or perhaps she is doing like the girl detective, and watching her own reflection.
If the glass had been left where it was found, the ice cubes would have melted sooner. Someone moved the glass. Someone had to move the glass.
That’s nice, says the girl detective’s mother. That’s nice, dear.
Sometimes, like now, the girl detective will reach into her purse and stroke the side of her honorary deputy’s badge. Her thumb goes over and over the rub of it. She looks at the fish and they look back at her, bob to the tank sides, shimmer-float in the water. There is one with white spots on it. The girl detective thinks it could be sick. She thinks of saying something. The girl detective often thinks of saying something.
The girl detective says: Mother?
She says: All I needed to know was who moved the glass. All I needed to know was that, and then I knew everything.
Her mother runs her fingertips over the aquarium glass, and the fish come sliding, sliding along. The girl detective’s mother peers at them, or her reflection, smiles.
That’s nice, she says. That’s very nice.
Cathy Ulrich is the founding editor of Milk Candy Review, a journal of flash fiction. Her work has been published in various journals, including Black Warrior Review, Passages North, and Wigleaf and can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, Best Small Fictions 2019 and Wigleaf‘s Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2017 and 2019. She is the author of the flash fiction collection Ghosts of You (Okay Donkey Press, 2019). She lives in Montana with her daughter and various small animals.