Balls

33

Iqball had to wait almost a minute before Ballqis answered.

"Think of me sometime. I hope you'd pay most of your attention to studies."

Iqball smiled.

"Do you know who I think about the most?" he asked.

Again, Ballqis gulped. But then she took a guess, "Your mother?"

Iqball's head turned so fast she nearly thought he was going to kiss her, as they were standing very close, side by side at the edge of the end-rail at the wooden estuary walkway.

"How did you know that?" he asked.

Ballqis became a little pensive.

"Because I do of mine too. She left us because she thought my father doesn't love her as much as before. That the spark in their marriage was gone. At least that's what she said. We heard rumours she was having an affair with her superior at work. I try not to but sometimes I pretend that she's dead. But that only got me even sadder," she answered slowly.

Iqball sighed.

"My mom was a fighter. She never lose hope and no bad news would get her down. She fought the sickness for years. Till she finally told us to prepare for her departure," he said.

"How could anyone prepare for such a thing?" Ballqis blurted out without thinking.

Iqball let out a little snort.

"Oh my mom could. And she got us ready, believe it or not. She made a story about how a queen is supposed to rule a new Earth, and is she is successful then she would ascend to a realm where she would be able to control our actions like a puppeteer," he revealed.

Ballqis mouth dropped.

"Oh yes. She would jokingly make us do stuff for her and call us with names like 'My Mighty King', so that's my dad. And I get 'My Handsome Prince'."

"Well that you are," again Ballqis forgot to stop her mouth.

Iqball laughed.

"Why thank you! I guess my mom was right after all, she did say one day I will be able to recall her rule with a laugh! I'm glad you made me."

Ballqis went red.

"Hey, I didn't say 'mate' like T7 did. How come you're blushing like that?"

Her ears felt like it was on fire.

"Maybe because you're saying things that made me feel proud to be your friend," she quickly supplied.

"My friend is a mate, yeah?" Iqball said in full Aussie twang.

Ballqis laughed out loud. She almost forgot that Australians use that word like that.

"Always," she confirmed.

"That's nice to know. I will be abusing all sorts of different definition and usage of that word from now on," he said with a wink of an eye.

He was not willing to be sent back into the friend zone. Not after he had already admitted his crush.

Ballqis huffed.

"You and T7 should start a club. Teach that friend of yours how to properly use words like that," she faked a haughty tone.

Iqball laughed. He never thought he'd see Ballqis go red then joked about it like that with him.

We're making progress! He celebrated internally.

***
The girls from last night came to their tent at about 2pm, just as Mrs Jogh began tapping the mic and patriotically spoke about Anzac.

She then spewed details about her research and how far the subject of their interest had evolved.

"As the generation change, these fish are showing signs of intelligence. We believe the genes that were infused into their make up had matured, and that their offsprings had become better at projecting it," she said.

She then signalled Micah to bring Tank A and Iqball to the bring Tank 6.

"These fish are both females. Tank A is the first generation of tilapia that was born from parents who each carried infusions of dolphins and shark DNAs. Now look at Tank A please."

Micah dropped a hoop into the tank, just half above the surface. The massive fish promptly bit the rim a little. Then it figured out it wasn't food, and left it alone.

"The fish is unable to tell if it is food or otherwise. And once it figured it wasn't edible, it no longer has interest in the object," she explained.

She then requested that everyone watch Tank 6.

Iqball dropped a hoop into the tank, just as how Micah did.

The fish in Tank 6 also nibbled it. It then swam around the object speculatively. Then it jumped through the hoop.

The crowd cheered.

Mrs Jogh then approached the tank.

Ballqis' stomach clenched. Oh no, will she rip T6's guts out? She wondered but hoped otherwise. T7 seemed interested in T6. He was always swimming on T6's side of the tank instead of Tank 8. Maybe they are already in love!

Mrs Jogh took the hoop from Iqball and raised it higher above the water surface.

T6 did a little U-turn in the tank before jumping through the hoop successfully.

The crowd cheered.

"While fish jumping hoop isn't a new trick among pet fish, it has never been done by tilapias. What's more, the sixth generation fish are trainable. I bet we just broke the record for tilapia hoop jumping," she joked.

"So if you don't eat fish, you can even keep these as pets. In fact, another interesting development we have observed is that the scales of the newer generation are more silvery and shows potential that it can be engineered to have colors if we infuse them with DNA of pretty coloured fish. Isn't that fun?" she ended her presentation and bowed.

Micah and Iqball bowed too and the crowd went wild when T6 jumped again without anyone's bidding.

Iqball was relieved that it went straight back into its tank instead of hitting the ground.

Mrs Jogh got the media interested in her again. She even made another demonstration on T7, and T7 did exactly what T6 did. He jumped through the hoop and ended on TV that night.

"Ah, he was just showing off," Ballqis joked that night when she and Iqball found themselves alone at the campfire. The rest of the team had gone to see fireworks at the field nearby. They were content to see the display amidst branches of trees.

"How did you know that?" Iqball inquired.

When Ballqis blushed yet again he prodded til she had to repeat exactly what T7 said the day before while talking about Mirna.

"That darn fish!" Iqball blurted and laughed out loud.

Ballqis laughed too, but she was happy that Iqball could laugh that hard.

I bet he hasn't had much laugh since his mom passed, she thought as she watch him laugh.