“As a special treat, we're going to have dinner in the living room tonight - Kelly and Jordan, can you get the table set up please?”
“Ooh, how come?”
“Mum's on TV tonight! The new season of Past Patrol is starting, so we're going to watch the first episode with dinner, and you can see what she was up to when she went away this time!”
“Yay!”
“No! Buster! Drop it!”
The dog whined, looking guilty. Brawn dropped out of its mouth, wet with drool, and fell to the floor.
“I said drop it!”
The dog opened its mouth, and Brawn's arm joined him on the floor.
“No chewing on the kids' toys! Timeout for you!”
Dad took the dog by the collar and escorted it into the conservatory, shutting it in. With the coast clear, Brawn stood up, wiped off as much drool as he could, picked up his arm, and headed back to Jordan's room, hoping Phoebe would be able to reattach the arm. Again.
“Bye Jordan! Happy birthday! Thanks for having me!”
“Thanks for coming! See you at school tomorrow!”
Mum smiled. “Did you have a good birthday party, Jordan?”
Jordan grinned, still bouncing with excitement. “Yeah! It was great!”
“Good! I'm glad you've made plenty of friends at school, it was nice to meet them all. Dad told me you were worried about that.”
“Mm-hmm, I was really scared that I wouldn't make any friends. But then I met Cassidy, and they introduced me to more people, and now I have lots of friends!”