Fred stared at the creature. She pegged the woman at about nineteen. Short—she came up to the middle of Fred’s chest. Maybe—it was hard to tell from all the bouncing around she was doing. Elbow-length platinum blonde hair. No roots. A natural wave—almost a ripple—running through it, giving her hair bounce… unless it was the woman’s actual bouncing giving her bounce.

A flawless complexion, of course. Big, wide blue eyes, of course, the color of the sky. A small, perfect nose. A small pointed chin. Not a freckle or a pimple to be seen. A perfect little figure beneath the lab coat that (groan) Dr. Barb had no doubt made her wear.

Tiny (because of course her feet: were small and comely), perfect high heels. Black, of course, because interning was a Serious Business.

“—and ohmigod I’ve wanted to work here since I—”

“Was a little girl.”

“Ohmigod, yeah! Because I—”

“Loved dolphins.”

“Yeah! Wow, they said you were, like, super smart or something but you’re rilly rilly smart, like a genius! Yeah!”

“You’re not,” Fred asked with deep suspicion, “going to do a cheer or something, are you?”

“How did you know?” Perfect Girl gasped, “that I was on the cheer team back home in Yarmouth?”

“I’m rilly rilly smart.” Fred started backing away but Perfect Girl had taken that as an invitation to follow, and was stuck to Fred’s side like a barnacle. “Why don’t you, uh…”

“Dr. Barb said I should watch you and Dr. Pearson and Jamie and all the others on my first day to figure out where you need me.”

“What if we don’t need you?”

“Oh Dr. Bimm, you’re rilly a riot! Ohmigod! Dr. Barb didn’t tell me you were so funny!”

“Dr. Barb,” Fred warned, “is in a world of trouble when I see her again.”

“So ohmigod you’re in charge of the big tank? You feed all the fish n’ stuff?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s, like, gotta be more to it than that, right?” Perfect Girl tossed her hair. “Because just anybody could feed fish, right?”

“No, you pegged it. That’s all there is to it. That’s completely, totally all.”

“Oh Dr. Bimm, you crack me up.”

“I’d like to crack you up,” she muttered.

“Ohmigod! I totally forgot.” Again, she stuck out her hand. “I’m Madison Fehr.”

“Fair?”

“No, F-E-H-R, but yeah, it’s pronounced like that. And Madison. You know. Madison.”

Fred sighed. “As in the mermaid from Splash?”

“Exactly!” Madison squealed. “I mean is that, like, all serendipitous or what? It totally totally is.”

Fred was fairly certain she was rocketing toward an insulin reaction of some sort. She had to get away from this gibbering teenager before something terrible happened. To both of them.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Madison, but I have to get back to work.”

“Oh, can I come with you? It’d be rilly rilly neat to see you work!”

“No,” Fred said, recoiling. “You can’t.”

“Well, poop.” Madison pouted, then instantly recovered. “I guess I’ll go see if I can learn the register in the gift shop, then.”