"Where have you been?” Nicole demanded of her son. “You’ve never been so irresponsible before! Always a good kid! And now you run off like this? Why? What have I done wrong?”
“I’m sorry Mom, I just needed to think...” Thomas mumbled softly. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get a word in edgewise until she stopped ranting.
He was right. His mother handed the soaking wet boy a towel. “Think? In the ocean? At two in the morning? That doesn’t sound like thinking to me! Sounds like stupidity! Pure and simple! And now? Why does it have to be now? Now, now that I’m left alone with you kids. Two babies! They’re bad enough! Plus your sister! I thought I could depend on you! But no! You desert me, too!”
“Mom, I’m not deserting you...”
“Bad enough your dad’s gotta be gone half the year! And now he’s sick! Sick! What a time to be sick! And nobody even asks me if they can help! And then Mike wants me to take care of Robert, too! Another baby! As if I didn’t have enough already! Bad enough my own brother doesn’t help me! Now he wants me to watch his kid, too!” she continued.
“Mom – “
“And what is there to think about in the ocean at two in the mornin’? Fish? You wanna think about fish? I’ll get you a stinkin’ aquarium. Then you can study fish. Watch the nature channel! What kinda fish you gonna see anyway?”
“Not fish Mom –“ Thomas began. He rubbed the top of his head with the towel and removed his snorkel and goggles.
“The salt then? You need salt? I’ll give you salt! How long has this been going on? All this time I think I’m being a good mom, think I have a good kid, and he goes out at two in the mornin’ to watch fish in the ocean. Fish! I’ve got half a mind to turn you into a fish. Take off those clothes before you freeze.”
Thomas didn’t bother to try to get a word in edgewise. He took off his soaking bathing suit and handed it to his mother.
“You’re not going out into the ocean again, that’s for sure! No!” his mother continued. “Oh no! You’re not leaving this room for a week! You go to school you come home and you go right in here! No sneakin’ out the window! I’ll put a lock on it if I have to! You’re stayin’ in here! None of this sneakin’ out in the middle of the night!” her voice trailed off as she left the room. Thomas changed into his pajamas with a sigh.
“Mom you’re not letting me explain!” he called as he stuck his head out the door.
“I don’t wanna hear it right now!” she shouted from downstairs. “It’s two in the morning, Thomas. I want to be in bed, not listenin’ to explanations of why you aren’t. Go to bed. I don’t care about the explanations. I wanna sleep. And don’t even think about comin’ out of there or goin’ anywhere tomorrow. Or for the next week, you hear? You’re waiting until your father gets home and then he can listen to your cockamamie explanations. I don’t have the patience for them.”
“But Mom! I was supposed to go visit Dad tomorrow!” he protested.
“I said I don’t wanna hear it, Tom, and that’s that. Now go to bed. I don’t wanna hear another peep for the next week about this. My decision is final and that’s that.”
Thomas heaved a sigh and shut his door.
Mike groaned and opened his eyes. He glanced at the clock. Seven a.m. Seven a.m. and the kid was already awake. With an exaggerated groan he rolled out of bed and made his way into the spare room.
The spare/junk room they had previously used to hold junk and other useless items was slowly but surely being converted into a bedroom for Robert. Mike was still opposed to having the baby stay with him, but he knew that something had to be done. The night before he had run out to a furniture store that was open late and picked up a crib so he would have somewhere to sleep. The rest, he’d decided, could wait till later.
The spare room was still mostly filled with junk. He and Davy decided it would be a great idea to have a yard sale to get rid of some of it, and move some of the rest to the basement. In the midst of all the junk was the plain wooden crib they’d bought and put together the night before.
With a sigh, Mike reached into the crib and removed the crying child. He lifted him into his arms and attempted to get the boy to calm down. It wasn’t hard, however to guess what might be causing him to cry. It was early morning, therefore he was probably hungry, and his bottom was soaking wet.
Mike sifted his way through the junk towards a table that (for the moment) was acting as a changing table for the child. Fortunately, Mike had remembered to pick up some diapers as well, and in a short amount of time, he had his new charge cleaned and into a dry diaper. Then he carried the boy downstairs along with the dirty diaper, which he deposited into the garbage can.
’Maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems,’ Mike thought to himself. It didn’t seem to hard so far. At least he’d gotten Robert to stop crying.
He wasn’t sure how long that would last if he didn’t get some food into his stomach, however, so Mike decided that feeding the kid was the most essential next step. However, they hadn’t bought a high chair.
And he wasn’t sure how to work a bottle or how to feed him any of those strained vegetable mushy things without a high chair. He frowned and tried to remember everything he knew about babies – which wasn’t much.
He remembered that you had to give the baby some warm milk. But it couldn’t be too warm. His sister had loaned him a few bottles, and went over the instructions of how to fill them up very quickly.
Somehow, Mike managed to get the refrigerator opened and the carton of milk out without dropping or disturbing the baby in his other arm. Robert was still amazingly quiet, though he was beginning to fuss. So it was with increasing awareness of his movements that Mike removed the baby bottle from the cabinet nearby. Carefully, he managed to set up the bottle and fill it with milk. Then he took out a pot and filled it part way with water. He set it on the stove and waited for it to heat up.
Robert was beginning to be a bit more vocal now, and Mike began humming softly in the hopes it would calm him down a bit while he went about putting the milk away. It seemed to do the job, because, sort period of time, Robert had calmed down again and was gurgling and waving his arms, looking altogether much happier.
Shortly later the milk was warm enough. Mike remembered his sister’s advice the night before, and poured a little on his wrist to make sure it wasn’t too hot. It didn’t seem to be, so he maneuvered the bottle towards the little boy, hoping he would drink.
Robert was barely old enough to sit up by himself, but he was almost able to hold his own bottle. Mike wasn’t willing to give him complete control, however, which meant that he now didn’t have either of his hands free. He sighed to himself and went into the living room, where he made himself comfortable on the couch and watched him drink.
He was a cute baby, even by Mike’s standards. Big brown eyes that stared, blinking often, up at Mike while he sucked happily on the nipple of the bottle. He seemed to be a happy baby, despite Mike’s first impression. Already a small tuft of light colored hair was shooting from the top of his head – an inheritance from his very blond mother, Mike assumed with a smile as he remembered Fiona’s blond hair and blue eyes. Robert might not have his mother’s eyes, but he definitely would have her hair. When his hair finished growing in, that is.
Around eleven that morning, Mike made his way to his sister’s house. “I know you’re busy,” he told her. “But I’ve got to get some more baby stuff and I can’t do it if I’m carrying him.”
Nicole was reluctant to agree, but finally relented, seeing the logic in her brother’s statement. “Alright,” she agreed. “And take Thomas with you. He’s driving me bonkers.”
In reality, Thomas had been doing nothing of the sort. He had been sitting in his room, thinking. But his mother noticed he was spending a lot of time looking out the window – all of his time that is – and figured that it wouldn’t hurt to allow him outside while supervised.
So Thomas went along with the others to go baby furniture shopping. The little caravan included Mike, Micky, and Jenny as well. Mike had invited Jenny to come along because he assumed that she might have a bit more knowledge of baby furniture than he did. Which was true, because Mike had almost none. Micky had come along because Jenny was coming along, and because he had nothing better to do. So they all piled in, leaving Davy at home, at least for the time being. Mike recalled him mentioning something about a girl, and that meant he wouldn’t be home for long.
The furniture store expedition went well. They managed to get a playpen, a changing table, and dresser to store the clothes in. Somehow, they managed to load all of these things (assembly not included, of course) into the big red car, and dropped them off. Then they went to another store to buy a high chair and a baby seat for the car. Mike found himself very glad they were enjoying fame, because if he’d had this child a few years ago he would have had a big problem paying for it!
They returned to the Pad and set up the high chair easily. Then they picked up the baby from the house next door and had a quick lunch. After lunch the group got to work. Jenny and Thomas worked on trying to put the playpen and the changing table together downstairs while Mike and Micky worked on sifting through the junk in the spare room. They moved the crib into Mike’s bedroom so Robert could nap there while they worked in the spare room.
“Man, I can’t believe all the junk in here!” Micky exclaimed as he filled a cardboard box. “There’s so much!”
Mike shrugged . “Doesn’t surprise me,” he replied. He was looking through a box of Thomas’ old clothes, hoping that some of them would fit Robert. Some of them he was already too big for, and others were too worn out by age and disuse to be much help.
There was certainly a lot of junk in the spare room, though, Micky thought to himself. Some of which should have been thrown out a long time ago. “I got a feeling cleaning out this room will take longer than one afternoon,” he stated. They’d already been working for a half hour and the room didn’t look much different.
“No,” Mike agreed. “It’s probably going to take at least a week.”
“Well, I got two boxes filled up that are obviously Davy’s,” Micky continued, gesturing to the two cardboard boxes he’d placed near the doorway.
“Obviously?” Mike asked.
“Yeah,” Micky replied. “They’re full of old fan mail, some pictures of girls, letters from home, a few books, and some really old Broadway records and show tunes.” He made a face as he removed a few of the old albums from the box.
Mike couldn’t help laughing at that. “Yeah, those are Davy’s alright,” he agreed. “What about that box?” He pointed to a box in the corner, marked DAVY in big red letters.
The box was stuffed tightly, barely holding on to it’s structure, and a few – no, actually, a lot – of strings were tied around it, holding it shut. Micky made his way across the room, stepping past several other boxes on his way, and wiped the inch high layer of dust from the box. “Do Not Open,” he read. “Private. Don’t Touch. Property of Davy Jones.”
“Better leave it alone, Mick,” Mike advised. Micky frowned. Mike could see he wanted to open it. “Don’t open it. Davy’ll kill ya!”
Micky sighed. “Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed. “I’ll just put it with the rest of his stuff.” He leaned over and attempted to lift the box. It was heavy. With a groan he dropped it again. “Man, I should work out more,” he commented. He tried again. “I didn’t know Davy was so big on saving bricks,” he said with a grunt as he lifted it off the ground.
“Mick, if it’s too heavy just leave it!” Mike warned. “You’ll hurt yourself!”
“No...I...won’t,” Micky gasped as he made his way across the floor.
“Micky I can help...” Mike offered. “Don’t...worry...I...I...got it,” he replied. He made his way across the room, slowly. Somehow he managed to make it past the junk in the rest of the room without tripping. He set in on the floor with a small thud. “See?” he asked, triumphantly while panting slightly. “I got it.”
Mike frowned slightly and went back to going through the pile of junk. Micky moved on to the next pile.
“Let’s see, this is Davy’s, this is Davy’s, this is Davy’s...” he mumbled to himself as he flipped through papers, tossing them all into the boxes behind him. “Hmm... ‘contemporary piano music’...I guess that’s Peter’s.” He flipped through the complicated pages of sheet music and found himself getting a headache attempting to decipher most of it. “We’ll let Peter have that.”
“Wow, I’m glad that’s finished,” Micky stated as he leaned back and looked at the spare room. It was relatively empty now. He and Mike had managed to clear a lot of the junk into piles in the hallway. Several piles now existed. One for Davy’s stuff, one for Micky’s, one for Mike’s, one of good baby clothes, one of general junk. General junk being, of course, anything and everything that appeared to either have no use or outlived whatever that use was.
Jenny and Thomas had also been successful. The playpen was set up now in the living room, and the changing table and dresser were up in the bedroom. There was still work to be done cleaning the room, of course, but it was after three o’clock now, and they’d decided that it could wait for a little while.
The four of them were standing there, admiring their hard work, when two things happened at once. The first was that the baby began to cry from the next room. The second was that the phone began to ring.
“I got it,” both Mike and Micky announced at the same time, meaning two different things. Mike stepped into the next room to tend to the baby, and Micky slid his way down the spiral banister to answer the phone.
Mike discovered nothing remarkable. The baby was wet, of course, but he could be changed easily and so that required no immediate concern.
Micky discovered something a bit more interesting.
“Hello?” he answered the phone and was surprised to hear a female voice he didn’t recognize on the other line.
“Hello, this is Theresa...I’m calling about the...er...um...dog?”
“Oh you’re the vet?” Micky asked casually.
“Yeah, that’s me. You are?”
“Micky. Micky Dolenz. How is he?”
“He seems to be doing just fine, actually,” she replied. “I was just wondering if you wanted to come and see if you wanted to take him home today.”
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On to the end.
