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The girl pointed her gun and fired. Lowitja fell to the ground, body convulsing with shock. His green skin glimmered in the laser lights.
"Got you, Lo. You're caffeinated bacon!" Ally crowed victoriously, dashing from side to side with a grin. She was athletic for an eight year old. Stronger than Lowitja. She liked to lift heavy objects and run around with them, building up muscle and agility. In contrast, Lowitja preferred to create game-plans and strategies as preparation for these activities.
Ally's long pony-tail whipped close to Lowitja's hand and he grabbed hold, tumbling her down to join him on the rubberised dolomite mat. He wrestled her into a stranglehold.
"Got you, Ally. Got you, got you, got you."
Ally shrieked. "Ow. OW! Get off me, you nasty little squelch-mark."
Lowitja wasn't letting go, he held on and on until, finally, he was the winner. His snee-sha had stopped struggling and she was quietly sniffling.
"I hate you," Ally said, wriggling out of his loosened hold. "I wish you'd never been born!"
Lowitja watched her run away, confused and upset. He didn't know what he'd done. He rolled onto his hands and knees and then stood up, taking a deep breath, only just realising how much his chest ached. He hobbled down the hallway from the rec room and collapsed onto his parent's bed.
"Are you feeling all right, Lowitja? You look sad, my sweet child."
Lowitja puffed his cheeks out and blinked up at a kindly green face. The sensitive, calm countenance was too much. He cried, long and loud.
"She's never going to like me," he sobbed, body wracking. "Doesn't matter what I say or do. I'm not like her."
"There, there." A hand petted his bald head. "You have much to learn."
*
According to Ally, it wasn't normal for a fifteen year old to want to hear the story of their conception twice in one day.
"It's creepy, Lo. Splurgh! Take a page from the Expanded Psionics Handbook--- only ask to hear about your conception when your parents are blasted."
"Blasted?"
"Stunned? Sullied? Bananad? Owled?"
Lowitja stared blankly, eye fixated on Ally, but not truly looking at her, more through her to the yellow wall behind.
"She means drunk, you know, like Uncle Bender and Uncle Zapp always are," Judd supplied, leafing through Nez Noeen magazine, pulling out the centrefolds and examining them carefully. Perhaps too carefully.
"My story isn't like yours," Lowitja said, blinking slowly to get back into focus.
"No, yours is super gross!" Ally returned, screwing her face up and flipping her long, purple and red streaked hair. "Who wants to hear about porous membranes and male pregnancy? At least our conceptions involved orgasms."
"Don't be a butthead, Alison," Judd said. "Lo's perfectly within his rights to wanna hear about the day our parents fought Evil Lincoln. Robot Hell, we can have a play-by-play of the Quickening for all I care."
Lowitja stuck his arm forward and he and Judd fistbumped in solidarity.
Ally scowled. "Your bromance sickens me."
"Your face sickens me!"
Ally punched her brother in the shoulder, but Judd caught her wrist straight after and flipped her into the air. She rested there for a minute, her hoverboots humming and glowing light green.
"You're not fighting again in there, are you?" Snee-ma called from the television room.
"No, Mom," Ally yelled back. "We'd never do that."
"Good, because if I find out you kids can't get along in the rec room, I'll send you to the Corners of the Universe!" Snee-pa added.
Lowitja smiled to himself as he heard his snee-ma quietly admonish his snee-pa.
"Fry, do you really think making them go get dinner is going to change anything? Anyway, we had Martian two days ago."
"Leela, I'm hungry."
"You just ate."
"Like ten minutes ago. I'm a growing man."
"Growing wider by the second."
Judd was still staring at Nez Noeen, and as Lowitja had been distracted, Ally had hopped onto the internet. Her flailing arms suggested their spam protection needed updating and she was in the middle of a war. He contemplated putting on the spare suit and helping, but his annoyance won over his innate need to be kind.
It was not sick or weird or even slightly strange to want to hear about the touch that had started his life. It wasn't always easy having a malan-ma, a malan-pa, a snee-ma and a snee-pa. Definitely not always easy having Ally and Judd as his snee-sha and snee-la. It was crowded in their house near the Tranquilibrius Sea, very hard to find a place to be alone -- which often led to fights of some description, and also led to long, rambling conversations (that led to fights of some description.) But it was kinda nice always having someone in his family around.
When his malan-pa and Uncle Zapp were off fighting wars on distant planets, or when Snee-ma and Snee-pa were at the other end of the galaxy delivering packages, he knew there'd always be Malan-ma, Judd, Ally, Uncle Bender, or, hey, even Zoidberg to talk to. He could call up Uncle Dwight and Uncle Cubert, discuss filing with Great-Uncle Hermes, get a permit to visit snee-shu and snee-lu Leela, go and visit Professor Farnsworth at the Head Museum. It wasn't the kind of family people read about in Spacewoman's Weekly. If other kids in the academy had two moms it was usually because they were gay, not because one had inadvertently provided her DNA and the other her love. But it was his family and he loved them, obnoxiousness and all. And at the moment, he was in the process of beginning an assignment as part of his Growthing. It was a shame his malan-ma and malan-pa were on their fifth honeymoon on Rigel 7, but he figured he'd find enough information from everyone else.
"I think I will go out there and ask Snee-ma to tell the story again," Lowitja finally said. "I know I heard it this morning, but I didn't take notes, and maybe there's something I've missed. A nuance or an anecdote, a perspective I never considered before."
Judd had a goofy smile on his face as he stared at his magazine and it was clear any and all attention he'd given Lowitja was now well and truly centred on pictures of hot rods and babes from Nez. "Whatever, bro."
Mind set, Lowitja hovered into the living room. "Snee-ma, could you once more tell me the story of how I came to be in this world?"
Snee-ma's gaze wandered from the television for a second. "Not right now, Lo, the show's just getting good."
Lowitja looked at the screen. Hypnotoad was perched on a small rocky island that seemed to be in the middle of an ocean, as a gull flew overhead, paused, dived, and quickly became entranced. Only to be eaten.
"Go and ask Zapp," Snee-pa suggested, scratching his groin.
Lowitja resisted the urge to sigh and hovered into the conference room.
*
Judd's sunglasses were light blue and awesome. He looked like some kind of movie star. Thirteen years old and as stylish as Xerxes Cohen. Ally whined about it as soon as she saw him. Judd offered to let her wear them, but they wouldn't fit. Two-eye style glasses never did. All monocles had to be custom made and they never had much money, so the few monocles they had were to be shared between Lowitja and Ally. Usually, Lowitja let Ally have the shaded glass with no complaint, but today he and Judd were meant to be meeting their friend Horrible Gelatinous Blob Jr III to go hover ripstiking.
"Can I have it, please, Ally?"
"No, get your own."
"This is my own. And your own. The point is, I need it today, I'm going to be in the sun, and you know the strain that puts on a sensitive pupil."
Ally stuck her tongue out. "I'm older, so I get first priority."
"I'm smarter, so I should instead."
"Smart but disgusting."
"I'm not disgusting!"
"You look like a freakazoid cross between a gecko and a frog."
"Yeah? Well, you're pink and hairy like a Valernution Mole. And you smell like one too."
"Dad! Lowitja's calling me names again!"
Snee-pa appeared at the doorway, hands deep in his jean pockets. "Lo, you know better than that."
"Yeah, see? You know better than to take my monocle too."
"I just want to borrow it. Just for one day."
"So you admit it's mine?"
Snee-pa gave Lowitja an exasperated look, as if to say 'just admit it, please'. He ruffled his thinning red hair and squinted at Lowitja with a tiredness he usually didn't display.
"Yes, I do."
Ally acted as if she was handing the monocle over with a smug smirk, but at the last second pulled her hand back and ran from the room.
"It's mine and you can't have it!" she sing-songed.
Lowitja stared at his snee-pa, anger turning him red. "She's always doing this. She's a mean mistreater."
"She's your sister. She's meant to be."
"She's not my sister, she's my snee-sha."
"Lo, same diff. I know it's hard having to be a child of two worlds, but one day you're gonna have to accept that you can call Leela and me these other names, we like that, but we're always going to think of you as our son, that Judd and Ally see you as a brother."
Lowitja scowled. "This has nothing to do with that."
Snee-pa patted his shoulder. "I think it does. Brothers and sisters don't always get along. Sometimes close friends don't even get along. Has anyone ever told you how much your malan-pa hated Uncle Zapp?"
"He hated him? But they go space golfing all the time. Uncle Zapp practically lives here."
"Dude, one day, I thought Kif was gonna explode."
*
In the conference room Uncle Zapp was sitting watching black and green pixels dance across the screen. It was only when he heard the moaning that Lowitja realised what it was.
"Intercepting encrypted messages from Orion again, Uncle Zapp?" he asked, settling onto an egg-shaped chair.
"It's a risky position, but someone has to be in it, and I am a true missionary," Zapp replied, switching the screen off and adjusting the lower half of his uniform. "What is it that you needed, Lowitja?"
"I was hoping you could tell me about my conception and birth. Snee-ma told me all about Atilla and the moon and the transference, but I... I wanted to hear it from another angle."
"I see. Well, it all began when I met your father," Zapp began, rocking back in his chair and smoothing a hand down his ample stomach.
Lowitja interrupted, ensuring he started his recording device. "Really? I thought you'd been working together for years before the transference?"
"We had, but trust me, it all began when I met your father.
"The year was 2986. I was a young, handsome, talented and decorated Lieutenant serving the Democratic Order of Planets. I had it all. My future looked brighter than the milky way and twice as creamy. I was a poster boy for the Order, my face plastered on the walls of teenage boys and girls. But I had a dark secret. I was deathly, deathly alone. Oh, I had lovers, many sensual lovers, but no friends. Everyone I came into contact with was awed by my brilliance and panache. I had no one to talk to. Can you imagine the horror of having so much to say and no one to say it to? Until one day I met a weird squashy green alien. I say met -- I stepped on him as I was climbing out of the shower.
"I pulled him off the tiles I had accidentally squished him into and offered him lunch. He enthusiastically agreed, already walking towards the mess hall at a pace I was unaccustomed to. This was true zeal. As we sat there, eating lunch, talking about ourselves and our goals, I could tell – Kif was one of a kind.
"We formed an unlikely friendship. No one would believe that I, Zapp Brannigan, would want to spend time with an ugly, weak little runt of a midshipman, and ordinarily I would say I wouldn't, but your father wasn't like other ugly weak little runts. Most people at that time were jealous or nervous around me, but not Kif. Whenever he saw me he would puff up, head growing larger than the fine posteriors of the women I bedded. Several times he showed extraordinary skill and manners in navigating out of my way by climbing onto the ceiling. On occasion he would even change colour for my amusement. Red, orange, yellow, and one memorable time, purple. I believe he swallowed a fly, just to see me smile.
"Our first mission together was on Bakura. We were there as part of a strike force sent to free DOOP prisoners. That battlefield was the first itchy grasshole where I risked life and limb in a daring display that would later be rewarded with a shiny pewter medal. Kif and I were in a forest clearing, surrounded by enemies on all sides, when suddenly I had the idea of using Kif's inflatable body to rise into the trees. We hid for what seemed like hours, my stomach growling fiercely. Finally, the cowardly bastards entered the clearing and I struck. I conveyed my intentions using hand signals, encouraged by the understanding between your father and myself. He spun, crawled away, presenting his feet to me so that I could take him by the ankles and swing him down. The next twenty minutes were a blur as our enemies were distracted by his shiny green form and then stunned by him, me, or us both.
"When I was promoted and medalised, I asked that Kif be promoted alongside me, to be my right hand man. And we've been together ever since. When I have fallen, he has fallen. When I have flown, he has flown. When I have sexed up many beautiful ladies he has –" Zapp faltered, seeming to realise his audience. He brushed a hand over his poorly attached blond wig. "He has been faithful to your mother, Amy."
Lowitja raised his eyebrow and gave a small, patient smile. "I fail to see how this is relevant to the transference and my birth, Uncle Zapp."
"Good Zombie Jesus, Lowitja, has no one ever told you?"
"Told me what?"
"If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't exist. It was because of me both your mothers and father met. I single-handedly saved your father from a froad the day of the Quickening. I am the reason you are who you are."
Lowitja took a deep breath and worked very hard on letting it out slowly so that he wouldn't deflate. "Thanks, Uncle Zapp. Good luck with your mission."
"You're not staying? Wait, there's more."
Lowitja vigorously shook his head. "I'm going to go... give Nibbler a bath."
He had no intentions of giving Nibbler anything, but he knew his uncle. Zapp had a unique way of looking at the universe. Lowitja wasn't sure what he'd been expecting – for his uncle to get straight to the point, or for him to deviate from past behaviour and talk more about his father than himself? His expectations hadn't been realistic in any way, he realised this now.
"Enjoy yourself," Zapp said. "But not too much. Nibbler's teeth are sharp as tacks."
Lowitja left the room and headed toward the kitchen. He was hungry and feeling like his safest option for getting this assignment finished on time would be to write up what he could remember from the morning's recount. He grabbed a bowl of Bachelor Chow and opened up his holographic word processor, dragging Zapp-filled audio files onto the screen and hitting auto-transcribe with one hand as he typed what he could remember from the morning with the other.
*
Ally was crying, so Lowitja and Judd made her cookies to cheer her up. They were ninety percent love and ten percent soylent green.
"He asked me on this date, but then he didn't even show? He sucks like a blackhole."
"Actually, Ally, blackholes don't su..." Lowitja began, before Judd's shaking head made him stop. "Did you wanna go play laser-tag? We could be on the same team?"
"That sounds surprisingly good," Ally said, wiping the snot from under her nose.
*
Two hours after he finished transcribing the day's conversations, Lowitja was sitting watching holomovies from the first time he had met his parents. He could only vaguely remember the first twenty years of his life. They had been spent swimming with his Amphibiosan brethren in the Ancestral Birthing Swamp. It was a natural progression that only one or two tadpoles from the spawning would survive long enough to climb out of the water, but he still sometimes felt great sorrow and shame when he thought of the others in the Kroker clan who never made it. He would have liked to have had a malan-sha or malan-la. Judd and Ally were great, but most people mistook them for friends above family. He sometimes wondered why he had been so lucky – how he had been so lucky. He would have thought one of the other tadpoles with depth perception would have had more chance, but he distinctly remembered growing his legs and climbing out of the swamp, only to be met by the entire Planet Express crew, and many people from the Nimbus.
In the holomovie he saw the first time he and his malan-pa had hugged, Kif's eyes shining with tears of joy. He saw his malan-ma Amy patting his head and telling him how cute he was. His snee-ma Leela was wiping at her eye and sniffling as his snee-pa Fry held his arm tight around her. Judd, seven years old, was looking at him curiously, head tilted to the side. And six year old Ally had wanted to make her dominance known even then, faking a karate chop.
Physically, Lowitja looked approximately five years old. He was small, green, and naked, until Uncle Bender yelled something about biological creatures and their indecency and covered him with a blanket. The aging process was four times slower in the swamp, an arrested development that Guardians such as the Grand Midwife said was intended to ensure that those who came into the universe were strong of heart and mind. Emotionally and socially, Lowitja was even younger than five at that stage, communicating with his brethren through a hive telepathic connection. Touch and movement were the only forms of communication he had with his new family. In the movie, he was pointing to his mouth and opening it wide, then pointing to his throat and making it billow out to signify he was swallowing. He was asking for a drink. His throat had been so dry.
Twenty years was a long time to wait for a child. He knew from his snee-ma's recount of his conception that his malan-ma had initially been nervous, unsure if she was mature enough to take care of a child. But to wait so long? He wondered if his malan-pa and malan-ma had looked at Judd and Ally when they were born and longed for him. There was always a chance none of the tadpoles at the Birthing Swamp would survive -- how had they felt then?
*
"I never had any malan-sha, malan-la, snee-sha or snee-la when I was growing up," Malan-pa said one year, watching carefully as Lowitja helped him wrap their Freedom Day presents. "It must be challenging."
"It is," Lowitja said, surprised the sentiment was being expressed. "I try to act like them, but I'm different. There will always be a space between us. Judd doesn't see that. Ally always seems happy."
"I think you should accept those differences, but recognise what makes you the same as well. It's better to have family that annoys you than no family at all."
"I know. I just wish – I wish it wasn't always so complicated."
"As you know, my parents died shortly after the Growthing. I joined the army to exact vengeance and keep my mind off the pain. It was another kind of complicated."
"I'm sorry, Malan-pa."
"Don't be. If this hadn't happened, I'd never have met my smizmar and I wouldn't have a smizian like you."
Lowitja thought about it. Was it true that everything happened for a reason?
*
"Felonious Five to Squish-squash, Felonious Five to Squish-squash, do you read me, over?"
Lowitja looked up to see Uncle Bender standing in front of his holomovie, arms spinning in their sockets. Bender hadn't called him by his full name since -- forever. He was sometimes cruel, often intentionally, but he'd come through for him on numerous occasions – teaching him how to cheat in math tests when he'd started to get distracted by girls and was on the verge of failing, helping him fix his malan-ma's hoverboard when he and Judd used it as the portcullis to their fort.
"Oh, ah, a do-da-wa, la-ba-ka ah-ziggity-za," Bender continued, not exactly being patient as he waited for Lowitja's answer. His legs were kicking up now. Lowitja had asked him to teach him how to dance at least once every Xmas.
"Hi, Uncle Bender."
"What are you doing, Squish-squash? Not thinking about the best way to steal my junk?"
"No, never."
"Good, because Cubert and Dwight tried once and they became even squishier than you."
Lowitja visualised it and a shudder ran through his fluid-filled bladders. "Were they married then?"
"No, that was when they were kids, if you can believe it. They learned not to mess with me or my stuff so fast, their feet almost spun off."
Lowitja ignored the somewhat disheartening and disturbing glint in Bender's eyes. "I have a question for you, Uncle Bender."
"How can I be so awesome? The answer is simple. I'm the best robot in the world, oh mama." Bender began dancing again, shaking his shiny metal ass to an imaginary beat.
"No, I already know that. You're the awesomest -- always have been, always will be. My question was about Malan-pa and Malan-ma."
"I thought you knew about the mechanics of lurve? You really wanna know what they're up to, 'cause I could hook into the live streaming video feed?"
"No, thanks, that's – I really don't need that. I wanted to ask you what they were like before I came to live with you all."
Bender stroked his chin, pupils converting to rewind symbols as he scanned his memory banks. Finally, he spoke.
"Boring. Really boring. The most boring meatbags ever. Kif was always in the far reaches of the galaxy and Amy always complaining she never got to see him. They'd video conference, leave each other messages. To be honest with you, they never really lived together until a few months before you were due to spring out into the universe and at first it was not what you'd call domestic bliss."
Lowitja didn't like the sound of that. He set his recording device going again. "How do you mean?"
"Well, he may be kinda insanely patient, but Kif had expectations for his Smizmar that Amy did not want to fulfil, and she had expectations for her husband that he couldn't fulfil. Then there was that whole time when Kif died and Amy did the horizontal rumba with Zapp – that came back to bite her on the ass every time they fought."
"I still don't understand."
"You have a lot to learn, kiddo."
"Yes I do. So teach me."
Bender looked for a moment like he'd just walk out the room, but he changed his mind and pointed accusingly at Lowitja's head, poking him. "Don't say I never do anything for you.
"So it's like this. The Grand Midwife had told Kif that there was a strong chance his kid – by which I mean you, Squish-squash -- would be turning up any month now, so he transferred to a desk job and bought this house. At that stage, Amy was Hermes' assistant at Planet Express because her parents had fallen for an awesome scoundrel robot's Ponzi scheme and lost all their money. It was lost real quick too. Professor Farnsworth had just been jar-ified and they were dumped with a bucket load of trash to sort through. She said she didn't have any time and she was sure she'd love whatever he did with the place, so he designed the decorations and flowers and stuff and made the place all pretty. When Amy arrived two weeks later, she hated everything and changed it. Which Kif put up with, because, as the sap said, they would finally be together.
"The next week, Amy did nothing but complain. Kif was meant to be fixing this, Kif was meant to be doing that. Kif said he thought she should cook, she spent the little money they had on hiring an Andalothosian chef. Kif asked her to iron his uniform, Amy bought him eight new uniforms. And apparently, when it came to making sweet, sweet love..."
"I don't need to hear that," Lowitja interjected, flailing. "That part can be left out."
"... Kif thought all he had to do was lie there and think of the stars and how much he loved Amy. That was it. No in, out, shake it all about, a bop-dop-do-wah-diddly-dah. He was a dud in the mud. They started to fight, like, all the time. It'd make boy-meatbag and girl-meatbag cry whenever they were in their care – which happened a lot, because they were trying to learn how to look after a kid. But every now and then Kif and Amy would have dinner at Fry and Leela's. They'd start out spending every second glaring, but as the evening would go on, Fry would do the cooking, Leela would show Amy how to fix appliances and Kif would have time to iron and read up on ancient and modern sex techniques.
"They realised that this worked better if they all did it together about a week before we went to Amphibios 9 to watch you crawl out of the sludge."
"It wasn't planned?" Lowitja asked. "We were never meant to all live together like this?"
"Hell no. You think people plan this kind of chaos?" Bender asked, looking disproportionately furious. "Anyway, kid, I'm gonna blow this popsicle stand. I'll see your fat face whenever."
"Thanks Bender," Lowitja said. "By the way, I have something I think you'll like." He reached into his pocket and took out his gift.
"Cold hard cash? My favourite! Don't tell anyone, Squish-squash, but out of everyone, you're not the one I hate the most."
Lowitja smiled to himself as Bender left the room. He'd just given up a month's salary from his part time job working at the nearby manatee-hunting resort, but it was worth it in the long run.
*
Zoidberg was eating the cheese off the bottom of the top of a pizza box.
"You were born as part of a collective, weren't you, Zoidberg?" Lowitja asked, a week before he started the Growthing process.
"Indeed!" Zoidberg exclaimed, squealing with excitement as he found some pineapple. He slurped it up, then spoke with obvious pride. "I was one of the bigger polyps."
"Do you ever think about your siblings?"
"Think about them? I talk to many of them once a month, sometimes once a week. They are equally as successful and joyous as I."
"Really?"
"If not more!"
Lowitja unwrapped the manwich he had made, waving it temptingly before Zoidberg's eyes. "Tell me the truth, Zoidberg. Do you miss them?"
"Of course I do. But it is my people's custom for siblings to make their own way in the world, create a new family, live their own fulfilling life."
"Yeah, mine too," Lowitja said. "Both of my peoples."
"You are having an existential crisis, yes? Tell the Good Doctor," Zoidberg said, snipping his claws.
"Yeah, I think I am. I think I'm meant to. It's all part of the Growthing."
"My advice? Do not worry so much. I can have the manwich now, can I not? I have been a very helpful lobster."
Zoidberg sounded so plaintive, Lowitja couldn't help but give him what he craved. The only problem was, he didn't have a single answer he hungered for.
*
Ally was off the internet and practicing on her holophonor. She'd gotten good the past year, getting past The Grumpy Snail and progressing to The Twirling Twigs. Lowitja perched on the end of her bed and listened, holding her pillow to his chest. She finished the song and raised her eyebrow at him.
"Why are you here?"
"I wanted to ask you something."
"As good a reason as any. What'd you wanna ask?"
Lowitja sucked in a breath and frowned simultaneously. "Do you think I don't belong? I thought, for a while there, that we'd progressed to being close, that I was finding my place. But lately it really seems like you hate me again. Uncle Bender told me the story of how we came to live the way we do and it got me thinking. I was never meant to be in your life."
Ally's eye widened and she went pale. "You think I hate you?"
Lowitja played with the tassels on the pillow. "You don't?"
Ally screwed her nose up. "Not even slightly. You're my brother."
"I'm not, though. Not really."
"Bleurgh! Of course you are." Ally gave him a soft punch. "Not only do we share DNA, but we share our experiences. They're not always good. We're not always nice. But they're ours, they're what make us who we are."
"Uncle Zapp says he's what makes me who I am," Lowitja countered, still frowning at the floor.
"And he is, in some ways. Everyone is. Don't you like having us as your family? Is this why you're so confused?"
"No, I do. I love you all. It's just that sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the universe who is the way I am."
"Because you are. We all feel like that. It's what makes us humanoid. Or even non-humanoid. Sentient? Sapient?"
"All of the above?"
"Yeah. There's only one you. Unless you travel to one of the parallel dimensions, and then there may be several, but they still wouldn't be exactly the same in every way."
Lowitja smiled at his snee-sha – his sister. "Thank you, Ally, you've helped me greatly. I think I'm ready to write my Sacred Official Biography for the Growthing now. I have divined my purpose in life."
"Dude, that's more than most people manage by the time they die, let alone when they become an adult. How detailed you are planning on getting, anyway?"
"As detailed as possible. It's what's expected."
"You worry too much about expectations," Ally said, pulling Lowitja's pillow away and hitting him over the head with it. "When you have to read it out at the ceremony, you won't mind too much if I engage the cone of silence, will you?"
"Only if you don't mind if I cut a hole in that cone."
"You're no fair."
"Neither are you!"
"I guess we're more similar than either of us like to think?"
"I guess so."
At that, Lowitja captured the pillow and hit Ally over the head. He felt at peace for the first time in a long time.
*
Lowitja stood in front of a crowd of Amphibiosans and Non-Amphibiosans, complete strangers and people he loved, wearing the Sacred Dressing-gown and holding the Sacred Twirling Baton. He performed the Sacred Dance and recited the Sacred Oath. And when he did all of that, he pulled his shoulders back and spoke in a loud, clear voice.
"My people, I am expected to tell you the story of my life. How I came to be and who I came to be. It should be a story of my emotions and struggles, my endeavours and experiences. But I prefer to buck tradition. I could tell you about the time I almost floated into Mom Corporation's blimp because I ate too many inflating marshmallows. I could go on and detail my first day at the academy. But I won't. I don't want to talk about myself. I want to talk about the people who mean the most to me. It's a story that starts in 2986, or 1999, depending on who you talk to, but that's not important. What is important is that it's a story about my family -- how we came to be, and who we came to be. My people, there is an old adage from Earth culture which states that you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. I would say that this is true, but who would want to?"
"Me!" a voice called from the audience.
"Well, not me, Uncle Bender," Lowitja called back. "For even though my life was born out of many small accidents, there are none I would reverse."
"This is all very sweet," the Great Adjudicator declared. "But can we speed it up some? I have an appointment with my beak-tweaker in twenty minutes."
Lowitja spread his hands wide. "Snee and malan relations, you all know who you are. Let the family festivities commence. Other people, feel free to join in."
The party finished three days later, with the Great Adjudicator piercing Lowitja's third nipple and declaring him a man. He and Judd devised a special handshake for congratulations. Even Ally looked proud. Malan-pa and Malan-ma were crying, Snee-ma and Snee-pa had long since finished crying and were now wiping each other's tears. Uncle Zapp was chatting up a happily married Ceremonial Secretary as Uncle Bender stole her wallet.
"The Growthing has concluded," the Great Adjudicator said, her beak finely tweaked and her smile wide.
"I am now grown," Lowitja responded, but he knew he still had much to learn. It would come with time, patience, and the love of those around him.