Finally, there it was - a long green stretch of smooth water. It looked perfect for a little sea-mouse!
“You’re free, little buddy,” Boba said as he dropped the tiny creature into the water. The sea-mouse stared up as it fell, as if it wanted one last look at its benefactor, its protector, the great giant Boba who had rescued it from its bowl….
It hit the water with a little plunk.
Then Boba saw a dark shape in the water, and a flash of teeth from below.
And the sea-mouse was gone.
Not even a stain on the water was left.
Boba spent the rest of the day playing hologames and staring out the window into the rain. He was tired of books. He was tired of reading about happy families and kids with friends. And pets.
He was tired of being home alone.
He missed Zam’s jokes (even the dumb ones). He missed his father’s sayings (even the ones he had heard a million times).
The next morning he picked up the last sea-mouse out of the bowl. “Sorry, buddy,” he said as he dropped it into the eel’s tank. “It’s just the way the world works.”
Then he sat down to eat his own breakfast and wait for his father and Zam to get home.
CHAPTER FOUR
All day Boba was excited, waiting for a certain sound.
Or a bunch of sounds.
Finally, late in the afternoon, there they were: a symphony of little clicks and clacks, all coming from the locks that hung on the apartment door.
Then the door slid open, and there was Jango Fett, looking strong and bold in his Mandalorian battle armor, standing in a puddle of rainwater in the hall.
“Dad!” Boba said. “Where’s Zam?”
“Later,” his father said.
Jango Fett took off his battle armor and laid it out on the floor of the bedroom while Boba watched. He called it “the suit.” He was much smaller without it.
Jango’s face under the helmet was sad and grooved with old scars. The face on his helmet was ruthless and cruel. Boba never wondered which was his father’s “real” face. Both were real to him: the worried father, the fearless warrior. “Where’s Zam?” Boba asked again.
“Why are you asking all these questions, son?”
“I have a joke to tell her.” He didn’t really, but he figured he could always think of one.
“You’ll have to save it for somebody else.”
Somebody else? There wasn’t anybody else! But Boba knew better than to argue with his father.
“Okay,” he said. He hung his head to hide his disappointment and started to leave the room. He could tell his father wanted to be alone.
“Zam won’t be around anymore,” Jango said. Boba stopped at the door. “Ever?”
“Ever,” said Jango.
Only the way he said it, it sounded like never.
When Jango Fett wasn’t wearing the Mandalorian battle armor, he wore regular clothes. Without the helmet, few recognized him as Jango Fett, the bounty hunter.
The armor was old and scarred, like Jango Fett himself. He always took it off and cleaned it after returning from a job, but he never polished it. He left the scratches alone.
“You don’t want it to shine,” he told Boba as they worked together cleaning the armor later that afternoon. “Never call attention to yourself. “
“Yes, sir,” Boba said.
Jango Fett’s face seemed even sadder and older than usual. Boba wondered if it had to do with Zam.
Finally he got up the courage to ask.
“She was about to betray us,” Jango said. “It couldn’t be allowed. There are penalties. She would have done the same if it were me.”
Boba didn’t understand. What was his father trying to tell him? “Did something bad happen to Zam?”
Jango nodded slowly. “Being a bounty hunter means you don’t always make it home. Someday the inevitable will happen. And when it does..”
“What does inevitable mean?” Boba asked.
“Inevitable means a sure thing. Death is a sure thing.”
Suddenly Boba got it. “Zam is dead, isn’t she, Dad?”
Jango nodded.
Boba fought back tears. “How - how did it happen?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Boba felt sadness wash over him like a wave. Followed by a colder wave of fear. If it could happen to Zam, could it happen to his father?
Boba didn’t want to think about that. His dad was right: He didn’t want to know.
After he had finished helping his father clean the battle armor and reload the weapons systems, Boba went out and walked all the way down to the end of the street and back.
Zam, dead. No more dumb jokes. No more bright laughter. Boba Fett’s lonely world had just gotten even lonelier.
Kamino is a good planet for feeling sad because it’s always raining. When you’ve been in the rain, nobody can tell you’ve been crying.