Ugly

My mom eventually started talking about schools. It was summer, but we'd have to pick a school in our district sometime. We browsed curriculum and electives, debating a lot, though the one school I really liked had a German class. I had attended a German class outside school before, which I very much enjoyed, but since we moved it would be too much of an effort to keep going to it because of distance. I was dead-set on this school.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do," Mom said. "This'll be your junior year, so if you hate the people there you'll only deal with them for a short amount of time." She chuckled. "Now we'll have to find a grade school for Ethan..."

"What?" Ethan yelled. He was playing with Ugly in the living room.

"Just trying to find you a school!" Mom shouted back.

I decided to go eat something then.

---

Later in my room, I meddled around with my camera. It was a cheap digital one, not having much quality to the photos it took, but it was my prized possession. Ugly watched me. I frowned at it, but then sighed and went over to the cage.

"If you haven't noticed, I like photography," I said. "I suck at it, but you know, I always have room to improve."

Ugly began to groom itself.

"Yeah, you don't care. But I don't care about you either, so we're even."

Ugly stopped and looked at me with it's beady eyes.

I scowled and turned away. I focused on the picture of me and my dad on the wall above my bed. I was about four in the picture, he was in his late twenties, early thirties, maybe. For some reason I thought he looked a little unhappy.

I looked back at Ugly. "Do you want some carrots?"

Ugly seemed indifferent.

I went to get it some carrots.

---

I had cut them up into small pieces and handed them to Ugly through the door, carefully making sure the rat didn't touch me. Ugly grasped them with its oddly human-like hands and nibbled on the vegetable nonchalantly.

"Hm, I had no idea rats had paws like you do," I mused. "I thought they'd be claws or something; they look like a person's hand without opposable thumbs. And gross fingernails."

Ugly chewed on the carrot chunk.

"My mom wants to name you Robert," I changed the subject. "Or Philip. Ethan wants to name you Pikachu or something cartoony. I don't care what your name is."

Ugly finished. The rat looked at me and.... wiped its paws together. As if it were dusting the crumbs off its hands.

I stared at it and convinced myself I didn't see that happen. It was probably a normal rat movement, not a strangely human gesture that a rat wouldn't have the intelligence, or care, to do.

And then Ugly did something that completely shocked me.

He stood up on his hind legs, nodded, and leaned forward in a deep, courtly bow.

"I very much appreciate you giving me those carrots," he said.