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I finish my ice cream, except there’s a bit still at the bottom the spoon can’t reach so I lift my cup up and stick it to my face and poke my tongue in to try and reach it.
“Alright, that’s quite enough,” and Papa takes the cup from me and lifts me up and puts me on the floor. I frown. “I wasn’t done.”
“You have ice cream on your eyebrows,” Papa says. He takes a napkin the ice cream man offers him and wipes my face. He grins at me when I squirm.
“I still wasn’t done,” I tell him, but I take his hand and wave bye bye to the nice ice cream man like he tells me to. We walk to the car. It’s a nice sunny day. Maybe Kellogg will want to go for a walk. I ask Papa if we can and he says, “That’s a good idea! When Daddy comes home.”
He straps me to the car and clicks in the seatbelt. We drive off home listening to the radio. Daddy and Papa used to be on the radio. They still are sometimes. It’s all recorded on the Internet so anybody can watch them talk a lot about a bunch of silly things. It’s a bit embarrassing when people at school say they’ve heard it.
When we reach our house Kellogg comes out to say hi to us. She runs around all concerned around our ankles. “Stand down, girl,” Papa says, taking the groceries out of the back. Kellogg’s even older than me. When I was younger I used to try to ride her like a horse until Daddy said I’d break her back and she wouldn’t be able to walk anymore. Kellogg’s always running around happily everywhere so I stopped ‘cause I’d never want her to stop.
“It’s almost two o'clock,” I inform Papa. He looks at the clock.
“So it is,” he says. “D'you mind helping me unpack a bit first?”
I put the juice in the fridge and climb up to put the biscuits in the larder. Then I run to the couch and turn on the tv. Hangtails is on every day at two. It’s about a dog who solves mysteries.
Papa comes in and sits beside me after a while. He has his phone out and is texting Daddy. Daddy’s saved as Dan Howell on his phone and Papa is saved as Phil Lester on Daddy’s. Kailyn’s mum saves her Dad as Bae heart emoji tongue emoji on her phone. Kailyn peeked. When I told Daddy this he said, “Oh, gross,” and Papa said “Dan!” but he was half-laughing.
“I hope they’re doing it ironically,” Daddy said.
Speaking of Daddy he pulls up in our driveway ten minutes later. “Hello, baby,” he says to me and ruffles my hair. “Shh,” I tell him because Hangtail has almost solved the mystery and found the shoe. Daddy laughs at this and tells Papa, “god. I’d be concerned for her manners, but it’s so us.”
“I told you we’d be terrible parents,” Papa says. “You wanted one anyway.”
Daddy settles in between me and Papa and puts his head on Papa’s shoulder and yawns. Hangtail finds out it is Mrs Gremwick who is cutting off the heads of Alice’s petunias, so I switch off the tv and hug Daddy and tell him, “We’re taking Kellogg out for a walk in the park!”
“Are we?” Daddy says, who doesn’t like exercise as much as me and Kellogg do.
“It’s a lovely day,” Papa says.
“I guess we are,” Daddy says and kisses the top of my head. So he goes up to change and Papa gets the keys and then we’re singing along to Beyonce in the car. Papa said once he didn’t know whether it’s a good thing or not I know so many Beyonce lyrics. Daddy said Papa should be proud, thank you very much. Kellogg pants in tune beside me.
We reach the park and Kellogg’s excited again so we run and run. Daddy huffs and says, “Hey, not so fast,” after only like a few metres. Me and Kellogg spare him a Look. Papa laughs at him.
“Why is she so active?” I can hear Daddy asking Papa. “I swear to god I was not this way when I was a child. Phil, did we get, gasp, a sporty kid?”
“We’ll wing it,” Papa assures him. The next time I look back, I can see him gesturing with his hands, telling Daddy a story, and Daddy grinning at him. They look very happy. I suppose they don’t need Bae heart emoji tongue emoji to show that they’re in love. That’s nice. Me and Kellogg continue to run.