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Perry thought he knew what he was getting for Christmas. Heinz wasn't used to having to hide his plans from someone else. Perry had done his best to avoid spoilers, but what with the blueprints left lying around and the phone calls to ThinkTanks, Inc, the secret of the custom aquarium had leaked by mid-December. That gave him a week to practise his 'somewhere in the ballpark of what I wanted' look. Sadly, not enough time to hunt down the fool, whoever he was, who'd persuaded Heinz that a platypus needed pet fish.
Two days before Christmas Heinz suggested Perry should visit his family. "They haven't seen you since this morning, I'm sure they miss you. Don't hurry back!" He was pushing Perry out the door as he spoke. The van with the ThinkTanks logo passed Perry while he was walking down the street.
On Christmas Eve Perry dropped in to hand over his present and allow Heinz to trap him under the mistletoe. He didn't get further than the living room before he was shooed out again, mildly confused as to why Heinz needed so much time to assemble one measly aquarium.
Back home Phineas and Ferb had built a cloud seeding machine to make it snow. The next morning a soft white blanket lay over Danville and the boys were able to try out their new skis after breakfast. Perry would have liked to join them, but without a mission in the offing he had no excuse for skipping the OWCA office party. He sat through charades supervised by Monogram in a Santa hat while increasingly urgent text messages piled up on his cell. Heinz had designed a platypus sized phone for him when they first started going out. A gift that, much like its giver, was thoughtful and a massive nuisance at the same time.
As soon as he figured his exit would go unnoticed Perry left the party and headed to the DEI building. He jumped up to ring the doorbell. The door was thrown open before he hit the ground.
"Well, hello, Perry the Platypus." Heinz was playing it casual, as if Perry might not realize he'd been waiting for him behind the front door. "What brings you here?"
Perry showed him his phone, screen bristling with messages.
"Oh, right." Heinz stepped aside to let him enter. "Just a heads up that I redecorated the lab. Since you're here we could, you know, go check it out." He led the way, practically bouncing with casualness. Perry tried to look expectant.
To his horror, the object that confronted him when he entered the lab was about the size of a shipping container. One thing he hadn't clocked about those blueprints was the scale. Underneath a vast tarp his new aquarium appeared to be thirty feet long and twelve feet high. A great white shark could fit in there, and knowing Heinz it very well might.
A cord hung from the tarp with a sign attached: "To Perry". Heinz held it out, beaming. He'd be so disappointed if Perry walked away from his monster fish.
Perry pulled the cord. The tarp fell and showed him how wrong he'd been.
The aquarium had three metal sides and one of transparent acrylic. A school of turtles swam past, but not in the water. They were part of a seascape projected on the walls. The tank's bottom sloped downwards, like in some public pools. At the deep end aquatic plants surrounded a kind of recreational area with exercise gear, a curved-screen TV and two game consoles, all underwater.
He'd lived on dry land for so long, it hadn't occurred to him the aquarium might be for his personal use. Even his boys had never given him anything like this. Granted, if they had they wouldn't have confused semiaquatic with amphibious.
Heinz, who'd clearly been biting his tongue, couldn't hold back any longer. "It's a man cave! Except it's not a cave and it's for a platypus. But you get the idea. How do you like it?"
Perry circled the aquarium to view it from all sides. Behind its bulk he discovered the Christmas spread, a table laden with about twice as much food as one man and one platypus could eat. Next to that, the rest of the presents under a tree. His gift to Heinz suddenly looked very small.
The aquarium was mounted on a steel platform. At the back an inset ladder ran all the way to the top, continuing down the other side into the water. Perry climbed the ladder and dived.
The tank was no more than half full, but Perry could do a lot with five feet of water. He plunged down and zoomed along the bottom, optimistically carpeted with real moss, which seemed unlikely to thrive in the ninety-plus degree water. A length of colorful plastic tube appeared in front of him. Was he supposed to swim through it? A four-year-old would enjoy that kind of thing.
Perry swam into the tube. A button popped up and he pressed it, not without misgivings. The tube extended itself another four feet, adding a U-bend. He went through and pushed a second button. The new section curved up and sideways. The one after that looped back on itself to form a spiral. With each extension the challenge stepped up, forcing him to twist and turn madly to stay the course. When he finally stopped pressing buttons and exited, the tube had become a large multicolored crazy straw. Four-year-olds were on to something.
He broke surface and breathed in. Heinz squatted in front of the tank, his face and hands pressed against the transparent window.
"That looked like fun." He sounded wistful. Perry swam up to him, touched his bill to the spot where Heinz's nose was, and jerked his head towards the water.
Heinz pulled away. "I can't swim, remember? I wouldn't fit in the tube anyway. It's your playground. Platypuses only."
Perry raised his arm and waved for him to come on in.
Maybe he should have known better. But he just felt pleased when Heinz did as he was told and got in the tank. He'd make him semiaquatic yet. As soon as he could pry him away from the ladder.
Heinz began to relax when he found the water only came up to his collarbone. Perry swam around him, nudging and tickling and darting away when Heinz tried to catch him. In no time they were splashing each other with gusto. The constant observer at the back of Perry's mind took note. This is fun. We're having it. Mission accomplished.
Right then Heinz stumbled and set his foot down hard. He jerked away as if he'd stepped on something pointy and landed heavily on his other foot. "Oops," he said in a small voice. "That was --"
The metal platform rumbled. A self-destruct button, really? Perry thought, and then the lab wall exploded.
"-- the rocket launcher," said Heinz. "Brace for the --"
One side of the aquarium swung open like a garage door. Forty tons of water gushed out along with the crazy straw tube, the TV and all the rest of the furnishings. Collecting the Christmas table, the tree, the decorations and the presents on its way, the deluge poured through the hole in the wall to crash down on the street below.
"-- emergency water release."
***
Still wearing his Santa hat, Monogram glowered at Heinz from the lab's computer screen. Heinz rubbed the back of his neck and wiped his wet hand on his bathrobe.
"It was an accident!" he blurted. "I stepped on the launch button by mistake. Also the water release button. Not an evil plan, an evil oopsie!"
"Yes. We get it," Monogram said. "But why did you put missiles on a fish tank?"
"Why not?" Heinz said, puzzled. "And they were rockets, not missiles. I wasn't trying to bring down that poorly positioned clock tower. Who needs clock towers anyway? You want to know the time, check your phone."
Monogram inhaled slowly. "Does 'New Year countdown' ring a bell?"
"Oh."
"Yes, well. Luckily we've got a resourceful mayor" -- Heinz flinched -- "who's already arranged for a temporary replacement. The New Year celebrations will proceed as normal, provided there are no more accidents. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Heinz indicated he did.
"Very well. Merry Christmas, Heinz, what's left of it." The screen went blank.
It had begun to snow again. The temperature in the lab was dropping fast. Heinz walked over to the hole in the wall and stood with his back to the gutted aquarium, looking out at a leaden sky. A snowdrift had already formed at the edge of the hole and more snowflakes were gathering. The icy wind fluttered his bathrobe.
"Look at me," he said. "I ruined Christmas without even trying. Isn't that something? Doesn't it make you want to laugh?"
Perry didn't see why it should. He could take or leave Christmas, as long as Heinz came away from the hole and put a sweater on before he caught a chill.
Heinz turned around, facing Perry but not quite looking at him.
"So," he said. "Most of the food was liquidated, as you probably noticed, but there's a wedge of Stollen left in the kitchen that didn't come out right. You can take it with you if you like."
That threw Perry for a second. Heinz wanted him to leave? No. The strained, carefully neutral expression on his face meant something else. Even though they were dating he didn't expect to be cut any slack for his good intentions and all his hard work. He assumed Perry would ditch him because he'd screwed up again.
It was up to Perry to salvage their holiday. He turned the problem over in his mind.
"It's not that bad," Heinz ventured, misinterpreting Perry's lack of response. "There's marzipan filling."
Perry had developed the outlines of a plan. Nothing fancy, but it would do. He grabbed a corner of the tarp and signaled Heinz to do the same. Before anything else they needed to seal the hole in the wall or the apartment would become an icebox.
Heinz understood, or imagined he did. "Oh, I get you! We should throw out the tarp as well, cover up that mess down below. Sweep it under the... tarpet?"
After Perry managed to get his message across they nailed up the tarp together. While Heinz was putting in the last fasteners Perry fetched a couple of blankets from the bedroom and thrust them under his nose.
"We won't need those. It's all done," Heinz told him. Although the wind was beating it like a drum the tarp had been solidly fastened, covering all of the hole by a wide margin.
Perry had a different objective in mind. Using the blankets and the broom he'd swept out the snow with, he acted out his inspiration. The concept was less straightforward than patching a hole and he was impressed that Heinz got it on his third try.
"You want to build a blanket fort? With me?"
Perry handed him a blanket in reply.
"And you're not mad that I flushed your Christmas present to me into the street where it was mysteriously carried off by caracaras?"
Of course Perry wasn't mad. If he couldn't deal with the occasional present lost to caracaras he wouldn't be with Heinz in the first place. Or living in Danville.
Heinz hugged the blanket to his chest. Perry thought how attractive he was when he smiled.
"Well then, what are we waiting for?"
They built their fort in the living room. Heinz knew the technique, though no one had ever asked him to build one until now. He ran from room to room gathering armfuls of couch cushions and comforters, happy and out of breath, dropping half the things he carried. Perry followed behind, harvesting, like a seagull in the wake of a fishing boat. Once the foundations were in place they hung up flashlights for illumination and decked the fort with strings of popcorn, which Perry sampled when Heinz wasn't looking.
"Perry the Platypus! No eating the decorations!"
Okay, so he was looking.
The finished fort incorporated the overturned couch at one end and the TV at the other. They'd agreed there could be no better way to end the day than watching DVDs until their eyeballs fried. The two of them sprawled in front of the TV on a bed of cushions. Perry had the remote. Heinz was lying with his head in Perry's lap. A bowl of slightly overcooked pieces of Stollen sat within reach. Life was good.
"Wait. If that guy's the Pumpkin King, why wouldn't he have a pumpkin for a head? What's so Halloweeny about a baseball?"
Perry fed him Stollen and peace returned.
In between movies Heinz asked, "Did you really like the aquarium?" Perry nibbled his ear to convey that he did, very much.
"We could do it over, add some new fixings. How about a water slide? Yeah, me too. But no more rockets. I'm thinking lasers... That's a no, then. Well, it's your tank. Dibs on picking the next movie!"
Perry didn't take much notice of the next movie. He was too busy furnishing the world's first human-and-platypus-adapted aquarium.