Fish Finelli Book 1: Seagulls Don't Eat Pickles by E.S. Farber Page A

the rats and cockroaches.”
    I had to bite my lip so I wouldn’t start yelling.
    “Excuse me!” Roger called out to the waiter again.
    “That food’s not for you,” said Bryce. “You weren’t even invited to this party.”
    “How do you know?” I was starting to get mad.
    “Duh!” said Bryce. “The plumbing equipment is a dead giveaway. I was invited because my dad’s a successful real estate developer, and you weren’t, because your dad’s a dumb old plumber, so—”
    “Take back what you said about my dad!” I glared at him.
    “No way!” retorted Bryce. “Especially since it’s true.”
    My ears started burning. I was so mad I felt as if my whole face was on fire.
    “Is not!” I shouted. “Plumbers are supersmart. My dad knows all about engineering and math and—”
    Heads turned. Conversations stopped. Waiters halted with trays in their hands.
    Bryce just laughed. A waiter walked by carrying a tray of glasses filled with punch. Bryce reached for a glass.
    “Whatever, loser! Just make sure you have my money ready, since you know I’m going to win the bet.”
    “You don’t know that!” I yelled.
    “Oh, yeah,” smirked Bryce. He took a sip of punch. “Like you and your loser friends have a clue how to find that treasure.”
    “Quit calling us losers!” I said.
    “Losers!” said Bryce.
    Before I could think about what I was doing, I grabbed the closest weapon I could find. Then I stepped closer and waved the mop at him.
    “Fish!” said Roger in a warning voice. “Don’t.”
    “Oooh, a mop,” sneered Bryce. “I’m so scared!”
    He jabbed me in the chest with his finger. I was so mad that I pushed him back pretty hard. Bryce lost his balance and toppled backward right into the waiter. His glass of punch flew up in the air. The waiter’s whole tray tipped. Punch got all over Bryce.
    “I’m going to get you for this.” Bryce’s white outfit was splattered with red punch. It looked as if his clothes had developed a bad case of the chicken pox.
    Someone gasped. Someone else laughed.
    Before I could say a word, a stern voice said, “Boys, that’s enough. This is a garden party, not a boxing ring.”
    I looked up into the icy blue eyes of an old lady dressed all in white. She wore a big white hat with big white flowers on it.
Oh, no!
It was the Lioness. My stomach felt like it dropped to my shoes.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
    She stared at me for a long moment. I wasn’t sure if she even heard me. But before she walked away, I swear I saw her smile.
    A little while later, my dad stuck his head out the door to tell us it was time to get started. Lucky for me, Bryce and the Lioness were nowhere in sight and the punch was cleaned up, so there was no evidence of the fight.
    Roger and I followed my dad into the bathroom with the leak. We both stopped short.
    I’ve seen a lot of plumbing problems in my life, but this one was such a mess it even made me forget all about big-mouth Bryce Billings. Not only had the toilet overflowed, but the sink and bathtub had backed up, too. There was water and black goop all over the floor. The leak was so bad that part of the floor had sunk in.
    “Let the games begin!” said Uncle Norman, handing Roger a mop.
    My dad motioned me over to where he was busy unbolting the toilet from the floor. I sighed and knelt down to open the black case and let out the snake. Don’t worry—it wasn’t a real snake. A snake is the coiled metal wire plumbers use to unclog pipes.
    “Just a little farther,” said my dad, after I had uncoiled almost the entire snake for him to send down the pipe. “Turn it again.”
    I sighed and turned the crank again. But whatever was stuck in the pipe was too far down for the snake to reach.
    “Carmine, come on,” said Uncle Norman. He stuck his head out from under the sink, where he was tightening a ring nut on a new section of pipe.
    “Come on, what?” My dad pretended like he didn’t know what Uncle Norman