Downstairs, Mrs. Gable texted again. “It’s dripping faster now. It’s gone from ‘drip’ to ‘plink-plonk.’”

His mother, who lived three hundred miles away in a ranch house where the only thing that ever clogged was the garbage disposal (and that was always a fork), sighed a sigh of profound, hereditary disappointment. “Did you use the plunger?”

He sprinted up the narrow staircase, past the dusty bannister he’d been meaning to varnish for three years, and into the bathroom. It was a small, tiled space that smelled of lavender and his own delusion of competence. The toilet bowl was full. Not overflowing onto the floor, no—that would be too honest a catastrophe. It was just… full. Still. Ominous. The water sat at the very brim, quivering slightly as if breathing.

“Did you plunge with conviction ?”

He inserted the plunger with the solemnity of a knight drawing Excalibur. He pushed down. Nothing. He pulled up. A thick, gluttonous glug echoed through the pipes, a sound less like a drain clearing and more like a stomach digesting something regrettable.

“Okay,” Leo whispered to the rubber plunger he kept behind the toilet like a ceremonial sword. “We’ve trained for this.”

He poured. The hot water cascaded into the already full bowl. For a moment, nothing happened. The toilet seemed to digest the offering. Then, with a roar like a waking lion, the water level dropped . The bowl emptied with a violent, slurping gasp.

In the background, he heard his father mutter, “Tell him to pour a bucket of hot water from chest height. Breaks up the jam.”