updated - 9.20.15

If Pallas was good at the market, she would get a blue gatorade. If she was really good, she would get to see the lobsters.

Today, she was really good.

Pallas' mother, Sally, left Pallas at the lobster tank while she went to grab (Smelly) Gabe's pork chops from the deli counter. Lobsters were fascinating - to Pallas, at least. Everything from their name to their claws to their red color had her hooked. It made her sad that they had to live in such dirty water, as opposed to the clear blue waters at Montauk beach.

Pallas tugged on her hair and scrutinized the lobsters. Sally said her eyes were ocean green. Smelly Gabe said they're green like the water her precious lobsters were trapped in.

Still pulling at her brown curls, she couldn't tell if her step-dad was right. Part of her didn't want Smelly Gabe nor Sally to be right. She didn't have a mirror, and while the tank glass reflected her face, it was a distorted and dim reflection, so she couldn't tell if her eyes really were dirty water green.

"Let me out," said the lobster.

He always said that. He could at least say please.

Pallas rubbed her hand against the glass like the tank was a genie's lamp and the action would stir up some magic. Maybe, somehow, she could get those lobsters out. They all looked so sad to Pallas, huddled on top of one another to make a tower up to the top, antennae twitching, claws rubber-banded together. They reminded her of, well, her.

"Are you buying one?"

Pallas saw the boy's reflection in the glass of the lobster tank before he spoke. Big blue eyes.

Blueberry blue.

No, that was too dark.

Ocean blue?

Too green.

Blue like all the blue crayons Pallas owned melted into one.

The straw Pallas had put down the neck of her plastic bottle dangled from her lips.

"Are you buying one?" he said again.

Pallas shook her head, causing her long braid to swing. The boy pushed his glasses up his nose, back into place on his golden-freckled cheeks. Pallas automatically labelled him as younger, because he was shorter by a few obvious inches. The sleeves of his worn sweater hid his hands, and hung off his shoulders, which were also freckled. He smelled like pond scum and fish.

"Did you know fossils of the clawed lobster date back to the Cretaceous Period?" Blue Eyes asked. Pallas shook her head - she would have to ask her mom what a 'Cretaceous' was - and took a long, obnoxious drink of the blue gatorade.

Blue Eyes was staring at Pallas and not the lobster. "Animalia Arthropoda Malacostraca Decapoda Nephropidae," he said. He tripped a little on the last word, but it didn't matter to Pallas because she hadn't understood a syllable that had come out of his mouth.

"I like scientific classification," Blue Eyes said.

"I dunno know what that means," Pallas admitted, her cheeks flaring.

Blue Eyes pushed his glasses up again. They were like grandma glasses: circular, with a golden-wire frame. "Plantae Sapindales Rutaceae Citrus."

"I don't know what that means, either."

"You smell like lemons."

Pallas felt a flurry of butterflies because he'd said, "You smell like lemons" instead of "Your eyes are green." Pallas knew her eyes were green. Everyone with working eyes could see her eyes were green. There weren't a lot of people with green eyes, but that didn't mean people had to keep reminding her of that - just another little fact that made her stand out from the common people to add onto her biography. The dyslexia and ADHD didn't help.

Pallas didn't, however, know that she smelled like lemons.

"You smell like fish," Pallas told him, as if You smell like fish was just a good a compliment as You smell like lemons.

Blue Eyes hunched his shoulders, causing the light to reflect off his glasses. "I know."

Sally was still standing in line at the deli counter, and didn't seem to have any plans to collect Pallas soon.

Grinning, Pallas grabbed the boy's hand. Blue Eyes jumped and stared at their joined hands like something both magical and dangerous had happened.

"Do you wanna be friends?" Pallas asked, her grin now maniacal\-like.

He looked up and reset his glasses once again, mumbling a timid "Okay."

"Cool." Pallas raised her drink. "Gatorade?"

"What?"

Pallas pushed the drink a little closer to Blue Eyes' face, in case he hadn't seen it. He took the bottle and inspected the straw.

"Mom says I shouldn't drink after someone else. It's unsanitary."

Pallas frowned. "But it's gatorade. Blue gatorade."

Blue Eyes looked uncertainly at the bottle before taking a wimpy sort of sip and shoving the drink back Pallas' way. He didn't move for a second, didn't speak, but, eventually, he took it back for another drink.

As it turned out, Blue Eyes knew a lot more than scientific classifications. He knew everything. He knew the prices of everything in the market. He knew how much it would cost to buy all the lobsters in the lobster tank ($101.68, sales tax not included). He knew the names of all the presidents and what order they served in. He knew the Roman emperors, which impressed Pallas even more. He knew that the circumference of the Earth was forty thousand kilometres.

But he really knew words. Blue Eyes had a word for everything. Words like sillage (the act of leaving a trail, like the scent of perfume in the air) and viridian (the colour of Pallas' eyes, according to him). Words that would've sat on Pallas' tongue like a drop of oil.

Pallas didn't understand most of what Blue Eyes said, but she didn't mind. He was the first friend she ever had. The first real friend.

Also, she liked holding his hand.

"Why do you smell like fish?" Pallas asked her newfound companion. The two walked along the length of the main aisle, repeatedly passing Sally, though she seemed to make no notice of the pair.

"I was in a pond," he replied.

"Why?"

"I was thrown in."

"Why?"

He shrugged and reached down to scratch at his legs, which were covered in all sorts of Band-Aids.

"Why're you hurt?"

"Animalia Annelida Hirudinea."

The foreign words sounded like a curse. His cheeks glowed red once more and he scratched at a green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Band-Aid fervently. His eyes had gone watery by the time they stopped at the lobster tank.

One of the market employees came out from behind the seafood counter and opened a hatch on the lobster tank. With a gloved hand, he reached in and pulled out one of the lobsters at the top. He closed the hatch and carried the lobster off back behind the deli counter.

And Pallas had an idea.

"Cm'ere." Pallas pulled Blue Eyes to the back of the tank. He wiped his glasses. Pallas stared at him until he stared back. "Help me get the lobsters out?"

Blue Eyes sniffed, then nodded.

Pallas set her gatorade bottle on the floor and held her arms high up over her head. "Can you lift me?"

Blue Eyes wrapped his arms around Pallas' waist and lifted the girl up. Her head shot above the top of the lobster tank, her shoulders almost level with the hatch. Pallas expected Blue Eyes to snap in half, but he only grunted, wobbling a bit.

"Just try to hold still," Pallas told him.

The hatch had a handle near the edge. Pallas grabbed the cold metal and pulled it open, shivering at the chilly blast of air that whooshed out.

"What are you doing?" Blue Eyes asked, his voice muffled by his strain and Pallas' shirt.

"Be quiet!" Pallas said, as politely as she could, looking around. No one had noticed them yet. The lobsters were piled up just below the hatch. Pallas hesitantly dipped her hand in, a violent shiver racing up her spine from the cold. Her small fingers closed around the nearest lobster. Pallas expected it to thrash its claws and curl and uncurl its tail, but it didn't. She felt like she was holding a heavy shell that she'd found on the beach. She pulled her arm out quickly.

"Thank you," the lobster said.

"You're welcome," Pallas mumbled. She dropped it on the ground.

Blue Eyes stumbled, but didn't lose his grip on Pallas. The lobster sat there for a moment, maybe in shock, but then started crawling along the tile. Pallas reached in for another. And another. And another. And soon the tank of lobsters was crawling across the tile floor of the supermarket. Pallas didn't have a clue as to where they were going, but they seemed to have a good idea.

Pallas felt proud of herself, to say in the least.

Blue Eyes dropped Pallas with a huff and they landed in a puddle of cold water. He stared at her, glasses clinging to the tip of his nose. "Do you do this all the time?" he asked.

"No," Pallas lied, a bit breathless. She started to tug on her haphazard hair as she had earlier - a nervous habit. "Just today." Most of the things that happened were on accident. This was the first time she'd acted out on purpose.

Blue Eyes smiled; a blinding, Colgate white smile.

Then the yelling started.

Hands grabbed Pallas' waist and tugged her out of the small puddle. Sally, scolding Pallas, pulled her away from the tank.

Pallas looked over her shoulder. The lobsters were already gone. She didn't seem to notice her arm was no longer numb from the cold and dry. Blue Eyes still stood in the puddle. He picked up Pallas' abandoned blue gatorade bottle and waved good-bye. Pallas tried the dig her heels into the ground, so Sally could stop and let her go back so she could ask Blue Eyes his name.

Sally just walked faster.