chirped convincingly like all experienced actors
could. He beamed at Antoinette who returned the
gesture with ease. Axle laughed heartily, which
did little to lighten the mood in my opinion.
“Especially not a girl,” he joked. “If you haven’t
noticed,” he gestured to the solar system suspended just over his abundance of hair, “Theodore isn’t cut out to be as popular as you might think.”
Antoinette formed a lopsided mile in my
direction. “Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t think he was
that popular in the first place.” Strangely enough
it didn’t come across as harshly as it should have,
especially as she proceeded to comb her fingers
through her sheep’s wool afterwards.
The corners of Axle’s mouth crept further
towards his ears. “You’ll have to excuse me, but
how did you meet my son?”
“At the beach,” she offered readily. “Goat
destroyed Theo’s computer and also ate his flashdrive, so now Goat and I are here so-“
Axle’s eyes widened, burning toxically
above his clenched jaw. “Theodore!” he bellowed, obviously too disappointed in his only son
to regard his internal cue cards. “How could you
be so foolish? Don’t you know how important
this school is for us?”
I took a deep breath, about to respond
when, “Maaaah!”
“Um,” Antoinette announced nervously, “I
think the ice cream worked.”
My nose sensed the manure before my
eyes even had the chance. I followed the trail of
the wretched aroma with my vision, landing on
an oozing pile of sludge placed directly on top of
the carpet.
“Hm,” Antoinette mused, “I don’t think
we thought this through. We should have got a
towel or something, am I right?”
“There’s no time for that!” my father
urged. “Is it there? Do you see my son’s song?”
Antoinette being the only human willing
to get near the feces, examined it with her eyes
squinted in searching. “Ah-ha!” she exclaimed. “I
think I see something!”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” My father shot as his neck twisted towards me. “Hurry,
Theodore, get the paper towels!”
Upon rising from my perch on Pluto, I
grabbed a role of paper towels off my desk as ordered. Though once I reached the spot where Antoinette was crouched by the dung, I ceased to
hand her the towels.
“Theo?” she puzzled with her head lifted
towards me. “Is everything alright?”
Or maybe, Antoinette’s words echoed in
my head, this was just the perfect excuse.
“You’re right,” I admitted with a grin.
“Of course I am!” Antoinette agreed.