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With a phone, I could send my family two crucial pieces of information.
First: Hidden under the mattress in my old bedroom was a collection of SD cards containing home surveillance footage from the past few years. It wasn’t complete, but it was more than enough to prove that Isabelle was the abuser, not me. Isabelle was cautious. After every one of her little ”
performances,” she would delete the security footage, even though my family never bothered to check it. I had learned her trick too late, but I had managed to save some clips. Unfortunately, every time Ltried to show them to my parents, they’d claim they were too busy and dismiss my accu-
sations. Liam even suggested I was the one with the “devious plots,” trying to frame his precious Isabelle. The memory cards I gave them were always snapped in two. Eventually, I gave up and stopped trying.
Second: Isabelle had colluded with our private doctor to fake my medical reports, hiding my cancer from everyone and ultimately driving me to suicide. They had to know this. They had to investigate. And I knew just the person to push them in the right direction.
My mother. Her Regret Meter was already at 40%. She was the most remorseful of the three. The chances of her investigating were high.
With a plan in mind, I just needed to figure out how to get a phone.
The zoo was crawling with tourists every day, and nearly every one of them was holding a phone. The question was how to get one into my hands.
Theni thought of my little messenger, Echo the blue macaw. That bird was the zoo’s resident kleptomaniac, notorious for snatching things from
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visitors. A phone would be child’s play for him.
So, I got up early the next day and waited. He had a weakness for fresh bananas and would fly by Monkey Mountain every morning to see if he
could pilfer one.
Sure enough, just as the sun began to rise, he landed on a post, his head bobbing as he scanned the area.
I pulled a banana out from behind my back and wiggled it.
Echo swooped down instantly, fluttering around me obsequiously.
I leaned in and whispered, “Get me a phone, and I’ll give you ten bananas.”
“What? The keepers will pluck me bald!” the macaw squawked, refusing the job.
“Thirty bananas,” I countered, raising the stakes. “A fresh supply every day for a week.”
Echo gulped. With a flutter of his wings, he accepted the mission.
