*******

WEDNESDAY – AFTER MIDNIGHT

“Mum!”

A shadow hovered about me. I slide the headphones off my ears and attempted to look up.

“What’s up Kitty?” I asked, still dragging my eyes away from my PC screen. I’d been talking to Hugo, reading and listening to music.

“So, the fish was just in the sink, already broken, when you went in to brush your teeth?” I asked a pensive looking Kitten. “Okay, then, that is weird. Have you picked up all the pieces and put them aside? Dad might be able to fix it.”

He looked relieved. “Yeah. I told you, it was weird. You like weird stuff.” Kit Kat gave me a fancy bow and a wave…

*A bit more Rimmer, Clicky… /thinks… Like he was doing me a favour… How the fuck do you describe that? Thanks anyway… /pats snout…*

“Goodnight, mother dearest.”

“Do I have to go to bed?” Loopy called over, without breaking from his battle with a hoard of pixelated whatevers.

“No, you can stay up with me. You’re on holiday this week, remember?” I told him.

“Cool.”

Kit Kat and I synchronised eye rolls – Loopy would sit in that chair forever, if we let him. I kissed the top of Kitten’s head ‘goodnight’, and he left for bed.

*******

FRIDAY 28th October 2016  – between about 1600h to 1611h

Conversation between Roo B Doo and son Kitty Doo about where fought/thought/fault/fort/forte lies…

“But technically, it wasn’t me. It was gravity. I just gave it a little nudge.”

*******

THURSDAY – AFTERNOON

Thoughtful Man was sitting at his computer and I at mine. All was peaceful in the Library as I started to read the latest post from my good friend, Cade. I’d only got to the bit about inserting the lie, when I remembered…

*Yes, Clicky, that clown… Don’t do that! You’ll make me lose my concentration…*

“Shit! I forgot to tell you,” I told Thoughtful Man. I rushed upstairs to see Kit Kat. He was doing whatever teenage boys do in their bedrooms. I always knock… well you never know…

*Clicky, stop trying to distract me… Writing…*

“Where’s that fish you broke? Come show it to Dad. He might be able to fix it.”

Kitten was lounging in his Captain’s chair and got up begrudgingly, as teenage boys are want to do. He collected the fish pieces from the bathroom, handed them over and then followed me back downstairs, with a gracelessness that only 15 year old boys can truly muster.

“This fish…” I turned the body of the fish over in my hands and stopped. “Oh, it says made in Mexico. Did we buy this in Grenada or Phoenix? I thought it was Grenada.” I passed the broken pieces across to Thoughtful Man.

“Arizona,” he replied, attempting to fit them together. Part of the head had smashed off and a fin. He inserted the few straggler shards and held it up for inspection. “Traveled a long way, this fish to come live with us. Yeah, I’ll glue that back together. How did it happen?”

I felt Kit Kat stiffen from across the room, where he was taking a suspiciously long pause in the doorway…

*He wasn’t smoking! Clicky, please, go do something else…*

“Oh it’s really weird,” I explained to Thoughtful Man. “The other night when Kit Kat went to brush he teeth, he found it, broken in the sink. An earthquake is a more likely than it spontaneously leap of faith, wouldn’t you say, Kitty?”

I turned to my son,  inviting him to give his opinion on the flying/jumping/shaking fish phenomenon he’d tried to palm me off with the other night.

Kitten looked at me before answering. “It was really weird,” the Boy That Breaks Things offered his father with a shrug and knowing smile.

*******

THURSDAY – AFTER MIDNIGHT

Kit Kat slouched into the Library and sat in Thoughtful Man’s chair.

“Mum, do you want anything from the kitchen?” he asked me. He’s always been thoughtful like that, especially if he wants something in return. Usually food.

“No thanks. Listen, come over here.” I beckoned him over to show him the image I’d created. “I’m writing a LoL post for you, ‘cos I wrote Loobie one, the other day,” I said brightly.

He sat on the arm of my big chair and gave a nod. “S’okay. You writing a post for me? Am I in it?”

“Will you read it?” I asked him.

“I don’t like reading,” he countered. He can be brutally honest went he wants to be.

“Then that’s your punishment for breaking my fish.” I pushed him off my armrest and he returned to his father’s seat. “I’ll tell you what, though, you provide me with three things, any three random things, and I’ll include them in it.”

“Accidentally broke your fish, which is actually my fish because you gave it to me for my toothbrush.” Kit Kat sighed, resigned to playing along to make me happy. He thought for a bit. “It’s about a cheaply made fish that I accidentally broke, so… The first thing is a really expensive fish…”

*******

Friday 28th October – Middayish, an hour after getting up

Opens unsolicited email from MJM, friend from the Blue and Y’Ello Universes.

‘It reminds me of Antismokers eternally blowing hot air about smoking and vaping destroying the known universe…‘

*******

“An expensive fish? Of course, what else?” I asked. He furrowed his brow before answering slowly.

“Benjamin Franklin…”

*******

Friday 28th October – Middayish

Ninth email, from Frank, friend from the Red Universe, in an electronic missive chain discussing… well, that’s between him and me but it involves some of characters of the MEROVEE crew… They’re a fun crowd…

‘Come On Franklin. It’s going to be a fun trip.‘

*******

Kit Kat’s ‘I-really-couldn’t-care-less’ concentration was suddenly broken by the entrance of a mad dooshund, wrestling with a limpish sock from side to side. It had been quietly lying in the dirty laundry pile.

“Poppy! Let that go, let that go,” Loopy cried, springing up from his chair and attempted to gently prise the white material from the jaws of certain shaken death. “Come on, Poppy, give it to me.”

“And a sock!” Kit Kat exclaimed. “Expensive fish, Benjamin Franklin and a sock,” he finished with a flurry that matched jerky movements of the reluctantly dancing sock…

*Oh for gawd’s sake… /looks skywards…*

“Yes. This sock,” Loopy stated, giving me the sopping wet item before returning to his chair with our darling Popstar for a licky cuddle.

“Okay,” I said, putting the sock down and grabbing my headphones. “Anything else?”

Kitten looked at me thoughtfully. “Yeah, can you remind dad that my game comes out tomorrow?”

“Oh, I’m sure he already knows,” I said. “You’ve been heralding its arrival every bloody day since your birthday.”

*Ha! He saves his money and look at the fuck off size book it comes with, Clicky… /sighs at the irony… He’s never gonna read all that… /looks around… What’s left to do?*

*A Song? Nah, I don’t think it’s finished yet… Hey! Where are you going? Don’t piss off now… /huffs… Fuck it… /lights up, sits back, smokes…*