The construction of Brenda two didn’t go as fast as Richard had hoped, in part because, strangely enough, designing a complete breakthrough in engine technology was really hard, and in part because, despite their continued promises to give him space to work, his parents and sisters couldn’t help themselves and their curiosity about the project’s development.

When his family finally left him alone, Jack climbed through the window to help, managing to distract Richard so much with his constantly wandering chatter that he usually ended up abandoning the portion of work he had scheduled for the day and spent all the time listening to his friend’s latest finds of fresh gossip.

Brenda two looked almost exactly like its older sister, if only a little smaller, but having to adapt the look of the old prototype to accommodate the functions of the new one presented an additional challenge that Richard could gladly have done without. From a design standpoint the structure and general aspect of the new prototype made absolutely no sense, and because of that when the big day finally arrived the boy showed up in the kitchen with an object that related to plumbing just as much as rope pertains to needlework.

“I’ll be darned!” his father exclaimed at the sight of the smaller and overly designed mechanical jellyfish. “To be completely honest with you, I didn’t think you were going to pull this off. I know you weren’t designing a water heater, Ricky, but now that you actually made one, let’s see how it works, shall we?” he drew closer, looking forward to the demonstration. The rest of the family joined him, barely leaving Richard enough room to move around.

Richard tapped the jellyfish on its head to make it release its grasp on his fingers and placed it on the long goose neck sprayer, right on top of the bend. Brenda dutifully attached itself to the spout, its display turning every color in the rainbow in a swirl of pastel pudding hues.

“How on earth does this work?” his father couldn’t stop laughing, unsure if that was because Brenda looked absolutely hilarious, or because he was excited and emotional about his son’s innovative spirit.

Richard waved a few passes over the surface of the display, brushing off the color with his palms and making it shift from rose to aqua and every nuance in between.

“I assume rose stands for hot and aqua for cold,” Tom said. “A bit involved for a water heater, don’t you think? Although nothing to sneeze at, that’s for sure,” he commented, all the while thinking that constraints often yielded the greatest discoveries and extremely proud of his son, even though he had a bit of a moral quandary showing it at this time, all lies considered. “You should enter this in the science fair for real this time,” he suggested. “Why didn’t you tell us about it?”

Richard was instantly grateful to Jack and his constant pestering to get their story straight, and he eagerly produced the latest and greatest version of their joint scenario, version which was guaranteed to satisfy both the curiosity and the pride of the family members.

Upon finishing the demonstration, Richard tapped Brenda gently on the head and the colorful jellyfish released the spout from its transparent tentacles.

“You mean you can attach this to any pipe anywhere?” Tom’s pride at his son’s inventiveness went up a peg or two.

“Yes,” Richard said, relieved that his many hours of stress sweating over Brenda two at least earned him a reprieve from uncomfortable questions.

“You know, in better days I would take this to the factory and show it off, but now I have no untouched pipe branch to demonstrate it on, the darn plant is managing all the environmental controls now, it would be redundant. I can’t stand the darn thing, it makes me feel superfluous,” he frowned. “The system balances itself, and keeps within the tolerance range, even if I wanted to control it myself, it wouldn’t allow me. To think that I’ve been replaced by a plant, it’s so embarrassing!”

“It’s no worse than automated controls,” Richard felt the need to defend the good work Brenda number one was so evidently doing, hidden from view inside the plant’s vascular system. He wondered what the jellyfish looked like right now, and if the plant warped it in some way, to adapt it to its needs.

“I don’t like it one bit, it’s like the factory is going to manage itself soon, we’re just there to enjoy the view. I guess we’re lucky we’re still needed, that fiendish plant is keeping us all on our toes, you never know what you’ll run into from one day to the next. Did I tell you it built itself a secondary system, ready to take over in case anything goes wrong with the main? I’m not comfortable handing over the controls to a plant! It’s a plant!” Tom suddenly recalled the source of his frustration.

“I’m sure its inner workings are infinitely more intricate than any piece of machinery anybody can devise,” Richard protested, to his father’s great surprise.

“What do you mean?” his father asked.

Tom looked at his son, a little surprised by the youth’s excitement over something that so far had engendered nothing but tension and discontent in the grown-ups. He hesitated for a second, to evaluate whether his own feelings about the current situation were reasonable, and after recalling that he and his team members had to cut a tunnel through the hot foliage last week in order to be able move from a section to another, he concluded that his irritation was completely warranted.

Later that day, Richard and Jack met at the malt shop to celebrate their narrow escape from perpetual detention with two vanilla floats.

“To tell you the truth, this stuff is getting kind of tiresome, man,” Jack complained. “I love making up a good story as much as the next guy, but it’s exhausting having to come up with fresh excuses every day to keep up with the darn plant! Any day now that lovely librarian is going to run into our parents at the least convenient moment and volunteer the story of the floating stem, and we’re going to have to invent ourselves a fairy godmother for that one!”

“The demonstration went very well, thank you for asking!” Richard replied, staring at his friend with reproach.

“Sorry, Snake! I didn’t mean to snub the jellyfish,” he slurped his beverage with a thoughtful look on his face. “So, I take it that Brenda two was adequate to the task,” he questioned.

“How is it that nobody cares about a machine made almost entirely of modified plant cells?” Richard asked, revolted.

“That’s your gig, why should anybody care? Do you care how the hydrophore regulates the water pressure on the second floor of your home? You just turn on the tap and expect water to come out,” Jack argued.

“Maybe if I cared more I would find a way to make that stack quieter, that would save me a lot of sleep,” Richard retorted.

“Maybe it would,” Jack agreed.

“Any news from the factory?” Richard asked him.

“Same old, same old. The output went up again, the foundry turns up steel profiles around the clock and everybody blames the plant for destroying their lives,” Jack said, without grasping the irony of the statement, which, taken out of context, would have been evident.

“That’s because biological systems are a lot more efficient than mechanical ones,” Richard noted.

“Whatever,” Jack devoted his attention to the remainder of his vanilla float.

“What’s wrong, Jack?” Richard asked. He knew his friend well and he couldn’t help notice how much his mood had changed lately. He seemed quieter, withdrawn, very unlike himself.

“Nothing, it’s just…” Jack hesitated. “Ever since this stupid plant appeared in our lives, we’ve been doing nothing but babysit it. It’s like nobody has a life anymore, maybe our parents are right, you know?”

“What would you be doing instead?” Richard asked.

“I don’t know, hang out, play some ball, catch up with gossip,” Jack started recalling his old habits.

“But we do that now, don’t we?” Richard asked.

“Yes, we do. And somehow we manage to make it all about the stupid plant! It’s just a plant!” he protested.

“Well,” Richard frowned, moved by his friend’s distress, “so what do you want to do about it?”

“You know, sometimes you sound just like my mother,” Jack replied. Jack’s mother was a psychologist, and the main reason Jack had developed his spectacular ability to make up the most unlikely stories right off the cuff, at will. He surprised himself sometimes, when the glut of fictitious events came to him so easily he almost believed half of them. “You don’t want me to reassure you too that I’m ok, do you? It’s, like, extra work on top of the upset.”

“I’m not saying this to rattle you, but I thought about this for a long time, for all the time since the plant appeared, in fact, and for the life of me I can’t figure out what anybody could possibly have done about this situation that we haven’t already tried. I don’t want to wake up every morning just to fight the new day. There are so many things about this change that are really good, actually.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack challenged. “Like what?”