Chapter 167: 167: Academy Life Starts XXIV

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Fizz froze mid-twirl, one leg out, eyes wide and guilty. "I would never," he said, then set the leg down like a cat returning a stolen ham.

They took a break. Fizz declared it "snack o’clock" and ate a cookie in four thoughtful bites. John drank water, rolled his shoulders, and let the ache move through to the other side.

Back to work. Fizz added a little heat to his water with a small fire kiss. Steam rose. Old grease sighed and let go faster. "See?" Fizz said, proud. "Hot water is just water with ambition."

"Less heat on the bolts," John warned. "Do not make them soft."

"I am a professional," Fizz said, offended, and then bumped the lantern into his own ear.

"This is the worst ballroom," he told the room. "Ten out of ten, never dance here."

Time passed in slow squares. The tin lantern crawled along the wall as Fizz moved it. The chalk numbers on the sections became smudges on John’s sleeves. The little void ate a thousand tiny things no one missed.

Fizz’s third song arrived around the time his back started to ache in a way he did not know backs could ache. He sang it to keep his mouth from complaining.

Bristle Hymn (Short Version)-

Brush goes left, brush goes right,

Fizz makes day from beastly night.

John’s doom pebble sips the gross—

We’re the heroes. Hold your nose.

At some point deep in the night, John found a rhythm he could keep forever: scrub, rinse, wipe, step. He could feel the room get lighter in the hand, if not yet in the eyes. Work does that. It lifts the weight off the air and puts it into your arms.

Fizz flagged. He yawned a yawn so big it almost turned him inside out. "Five minute nap," he said, falling face-first onto a folded rag like a fainting dramatic actor. He counted to sixty in a whisper, declared it five minutes by Fizz math, and popped up again to pour.

"Snack o’clock," he added, and ate half a caramel. He held the other half up to John like a priest holding a holy thing. "Bite," he commanded.

John took a very small bite. Sugar hit his tongue like a gong. He chewed, swallowed, and kept moving. "Thank you," he said. He meant it.

They cleaned hooks. They cleaned floor cracks with a little brush John nicknamed "the tooth." Fizz found a long hair baked into a corner and gave a speech about ghosts who needed barbers. John did not laugh. He also did not tell Fizz to stop because the speeches made the minutes move.

The back door caught Fizz’s eye, a short square door half-hid in the wall. A black iron plate above it read: STORAGE.

"We will have to do that too," he said, making a face.

"Later," John said. "When we can stand the smell."

"Never," Fizz offered.

"Later," John repeated.

They reached the first drain and pulled the grate. Fizz held the lantern low. The pipe down was clear. "No clogs," he reported. "Only sadness."

"Good," John said.

They pushed through two more sections. Fizz’s songs got smaller and sillier. He started to rhyme anything with "scrub." "Tub, grub, flub, cub," he chanted, then gave up and hummed the first tune again at half speed.

They broke for water. John rubbed his wrist. The line inside him—his new line, the deep humming one—sat calm. The void tucked itself small when he did not ask for it. It felt like a friend who knew when to shut up. He liked that.

Fizz came back from the trough with wet whiskers. "I washed my face," he said proudly. "My face is clean. The rest of me is a crime scene."

"Do not wash your fur with lye," John said. (Lye is the common name of various alkaline solutions, including soda lye, a solution of sodium hydroxide) and potash lye, a solution of potassium hydroxide.)

Fizz looked briefly guilty. "I would never," he said again, then patted his cheek to make sure it was not tingling.

They worked until the lamps did not need to pretend they were stars anymore. Dawn slid under the door like a pale cat. The air shifted. Outside sounds crept in: a bucket, a voice, a cart turning.

Fizz sagged in the air like a wet scarf. He surveyed the wall they had cleaned and the chalk marks that still waited. He put a paw over his heart. "Do not panic," he told John, very solemn. "But I think we did... ten percent."

John looked. He did not argue. "Ten," he agreed. "It will be hard to clean everything in 3 more days."

Fizz let himself fall until he bounced a little on a folded rag. "Ten is a number. Ten is not zero. Ten is a small cake."

John put the brushes in a neat pile and rinsed them. He wrung rags and hung them on the hooks to dry. He checked the little void one last time and let it go until it was not there at all, not even like a thought. He felt the room exhale without it.

Fizz drifted toward the small square back door again and made a face at it. "The storage room is laughing at us, it’s full of beast parts," he said. "It smells like a midden with a degree. We will make it cry later."

"We will," John said.

Fizz’s eyes were at half-mast now. "We should rest," he said, voice gone soft. "I need beauty sleep. If I do not sleep, I won’t be handsome and cute. I want to be cute all the time."

John nodded. He pulled his coat into a bundle and sat with his back against the least stained patch of wall. He patted his knee. Fizz didn’t wait for the invite; he folded down on John’s lap like a warm loaf. He was out in two breaths, tiny snores like the softest purr. The lantern flickered once and slept too.

The room, without scrub or song, felt very large and silent. John let his head tip back. The ache in his hands throbbed. The ache from the work in his shoulders hummed. The ache in his head did not ache; it felt... clear. Work does that too.

He reached into his inner pocket and touched the hard round thing Fizz had given him on his birthday—the "rock / egg" that was not a rock, it only looked like one. He took it out and turned it in his hands.

It was the size of a tennis ball, a shade of black that did not shine and did not swallow light either. It was not smooth; it had a skin like very old wood, tight and fine. When his fingers rested in one place long enough, he thought he felt... not a heartbeat, but a patience.

He held it up near the lantern’s last glow. It looked back at him the way some stones look back when they remember they were once part of something that moved.

John did not know if it was an egg. He did not know if Fizz had spent a gold coin on a clever lie or a miracle. He knew only that the world had a thousand things called impossible and he had seen many of them.

He set the "egg" in his palm and spoke where the speaking mattered. To his system. He needs to know what egg and which type of egg it is.

"System," he thought, steady. "Tell me about this egg. How should I hatch it?"

He felt the cool, clean ring of the answer arriving.