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“Are you absolutely sure there is no one else?” Tao asked as soon as Charlie opened the door.
“There is no one else, Tao!” Charlie muttered distractedly while trying to pack his bag. “Nick is helping Sarah today and the author I’m editing for has thrown a fucking fit and is insisting I’m there for a meeting. You and Tori are the only ones available. She will be here in ten minutes.”
“Do you usually need two people to look after them?” Tao enquired.
Charlie quirked an eyebrow back.
“Okay, good point.” Tao conceded.
His bag packed, Charlie tried to add last minute reminders while he shoved his feet into his Converse, gesturing to a note of instructions he’d left on the kitchen bench.
“You’ll be fine, Tao. I will only be gone for about three hours and they don’t bite.”
“What about that time…”
“God, Tao! That was one time! You can’t hold it against her forever!”
Charlie picked up his keys and slapped Tao on the back as he went out the door, chuckling when Tao, unprepared, stumbled forward a little.
“Nelson is changing you, Charlie! We don’t do bro slaps!” Tao yelled after him as he got in the car.
“Maybe we should start?” Charlie called back, laughing. “They are all in the living room watching a movie. Tori will be here before it finishes. Good luck!” he smirked, before driving away.
Tao approached the living room cautiously.
The four bodies he was now responsible for were all piled on the sofa relaxed and facing the television. They were all tipped to the side in various degrees of slouch, mostly lying on each other. One with a thumb in their mouth and one on their back with their legs in the air.
“Hi,” he ventured, shakily.
Shit, they can probably smell fear.
“Hi, everyone,” he said again, more confidently this time.
One set of eyes turned at the sound of his voice and looked at him unblinkingly. The other three sets of eyes gave no indication they heard, or if they did, they did not care enough to pay attention to him.
A quick look at the screen showed Lightning McQueen speeding around a racetrack. Tao had no idea how long there was left of the movie, but he wisely decided not to ask any questions or disturb the peace. When he heard a key turn in the door and footsteps come up the hallway, it occurred to him that he had never been so pleased to see Tori Spring in his whole life.
The two of them stood at the kitchen bench looking at Charlie’s scrawled note of instructions with lists of snacks, crafting suggestions, and other ideas that looked like they were straight out of a mindfulness book. Tao hoped they would be able to ignore most of it.
“So…” Tao began, when it appeared that Tori was not going to say anything. “What do you want me to do?”
“What makes you think I’m in charge?” Tori challenged.
Tao looked at her unsmiling face. He had been petrified of her since he had met Charlie in year seven, but he decided to keep this fact to himself.
“Well, you are their aunt – I know you babysit all the time.”
“Michael and I babysit all the time,” she countered. “There is not a Nelson-Spring in this house that can resist that man. I am literally no more qualified than you are to steer this ship.”
Tao, thinking of the way the four creatures flocked to Elle each time they visited, conceded she was right.
“So what do you want to do then?” he asked.
“Not this,” she deadpanned, scrunching up her brother’s list and throwing it towards the bin.
As if on queue, the music signalling the ending credits of the movie started playing. Both adults unenthusiastically went into the living room.
As they stood in front of the Nelson-Spring brood, rising up from their slouched positions to stare at the two adults in charge, it occurred to Tao that he was looking at miniatures of his friends.
“It’s freakish how they’ve managed to clone themselves, isn’t it?” Tori said dryly, clearly thinking the same thing.
Wallace, the black miniature poodle, rose to all fours and took up a protective position on the lap of Ed, still with a thumb in his mouth, who was distractedly pushing his floppy blond fringe out of his eyes with his other hand. Alice, whose dark hair was tied back in two plaits, stared at them with her intense blue eyes, while threading her fingers through the belly fur of Daisy the golden retriever, who was the only one who had not reacted to the end of the movie, still with her legs in the air and her tongue lolling out of her mouth.
“Where is Uncle Michael?” Alice wanted to know. “And Elle? Why are you here without them? What are we going to do?”
Tori and Tao looked at each other blankly.
The kids’ request for painting was vetoed by Tao (it was too messy and was accompanied by traumatic memories of failed GCSE art classes) and the suggestion of ‘dress up’ was shot down by Tori (Nick was likely to own adult sized costumes and even the comedic value of seeing Tao in a princess dress did not seem worth it). When the children couldn’t agree on a different activity everyone could do together, they decided to divide and conquer. Alice took Tori to her bedroom, leaving Tao alone with Ed and the dogs in the living room.
Ed declared he wanted to build a tower, but sadly did not share Tao’s enthusiasm for strategically sorting the blocks by colour and size before starting in order to optimise their building potential. Not that it really mattered, because Daisy kept walking over the top of their build, sending the blocks flying with her huge paws and flappy tail. Flustered at the continued destruction of his carefully laid tower foundations, Tao decided to try and distract the four-legged demolition monster with her own toys instead.
It hadn’t been Tao’s intention to turn Ed into a dog, but in between throwing a ball for Daisy and passing blocks to Ed, he had somehow mixed them up and patted Ed on the head adding “good boy”. After tilting his head to the side, in a manner he had either picked up from Daisy or his father, Ed immediately got on all fours and began panting with his tongue out. Tao looked at him bewilderedly, and then at the pile of blocks they had been building that was now apparently forgotten. God, kids were fickle beasts, Tao thought to himself.
He tentatively ruffled Ed’s hair and said “good boy” again, earning a furious bottom wiggle and some barks. Wanting to test the kid’s commitment, he then proceeded to make Ed sit, roll over, and play dead. When he threw the ball and both Daisy and Ed ran for it, Tao suddenly felt like he might not be too bad at this babysitting caper after all. He felt even more smug when he worked out that if he threw the ball under the couch the two of them would scrabble around futilely trying to reach it with their paws, both real and imagined.
He was just considering all the other places in the living room where he could put the ball that would be just out of their reach when he felt a pair of beady eyes trained on him.
He looked down to see Wallace sitting at his feet, and the dog’s little chocolate eyes appeared to be judging him harshly.
“Fucking hell, Wallace,” he grumbled under his breath, “no need to look at me like that. I’m just having a bit of fun!” Honestly, all that dog needed was blue eyes and the ability to quirk an eyebrow and it would be exactly like Charlie was in the room.
Declaring them ill, Alice lined up a queue of her toy animals on the play table and opened her medical bag. “Next patient!” she called out officiously. When Tori failed to respond to the cue, she called out “Next patient!” again, a little bit more sternly this time and poked Tori in the leg with her toy stethoscope.
Picking up a stuffed zebra, Tori passed it to her.
“What is wrong with you today, Zebra?” the doctor questioned her patient, nudging Tori with the stethoscope again.
Tori patiently described how the zebra had broken a leg while ice skating, followed by the cow who had gotten an upset stomach after eating too many donuts, and the glitter fish who had been stung by a vicious anemone after swimming in the deep end of the ocean.
After watching the doctor heal every patient with a mix of bandages and nose kisses, Tori glanced down at the table and noted that there would be at least another eight injuries to be invented and treated. God, role playing with kids was so boring. Had she only been doing this for five minutes? It felt like an hour already. Overcome by a strong desire to snap the toy stethoscope in two, Tori tried to convince Alice that the other animals in the line were not patients, but in fact friends waiting to take the three former patients home. She floated the idea of closing the hospital for the day and taking a trip to the park instead.
Tori watched her niece flick her two dark plaits behind her shoulders and set her two blue eyes into a determined glare.
“No,” she said quietly, but firmly, “they are very ill patients who need to see the doctor now.”
Tori sighed. This was the fucking problem when using Spring DNA. Their stubborn streak and competitive nature was unrivalled.
Alice was probably just as unwilling to give in as Tori had been about refusing to wear a dress to Grandma’s.
According to Charlie, despite being only four years of age, Alice probably already had the skills required to negotiate for the UN. Thinking of her own obtuse behaviours, Tori realised there was really only one guaranteed method to crack a Spring’s defences – getting their respective golden retrievers involved.
“Daisy!” she called over her shoulder, before turning back to give Alice a smug look when she heard the thud of large paws hurtling down the hallway. She felt momentarily petty for being satisfied by outplaying a four-year-old, but it was the feeling immediately following that one that took her most by surprise. A sudden flash of empathy for a younger Jane Spring arriving totally unbidden in her head.
“Do you want to go to the park, Daisy girl?” Tori asked the dog, doing her best impression of the ridiculous baby voice Nick used when talking to his second 'daughter'. The tone sounded traitorous as it was coming out her mouth, but she needed to garner as much enthusiasm as possible for her plan to succeed. Fortunately, despite being crap at every other command, Daisy knew exactly what the word ‘park’ meant and started barking enthusiastically.
“Look, Alice,” she attempted to cajole her niece, “Daisy wants to go to the park. How about we ask Daddy to help all these other patients when he gets home from work?”
Daisy was unintentionally helping her cause by nudging all the patients off the play table with her large head in an attempt to lick Alice’s face.
Alice was not immune to the dog’s licky charms and giggled as the golden head rubbed against her cheek, agreeing that taking Daisy to the park first would be acceptable.
Tori leapt up to pack some snacks and a picnic blanket before her niece could change her mind.
The hour of pushing the swing, throwing the ball and hovering below Ed’s legs in case he fell while climbing had depleted Tori and Tao. Watching the kids play, and simultaneously trying to avoid talking to other parents in the park, was an exhausting business. They finally managed to convince the children to sit down and have a break and a snack.
Daisy, who could smell a roast chicken from a mile away, suddenly realised that there were other humans somewhere in the park who were having more exciting snacks than the ones to be found on her own human's blanket and took off to find them.
Tao called out “Daisy!” a few times in an attempt to recall her, but she ignored him completely in her quest to discover the chicken.
“You have to go and get her,” Alice informed him. “She never comes back when she smells something good.”
Tao looked at Tori briefly, asking a question with his eyes. She scoffed at him, which was not unexpected, so he picked up the lead and strode over to the poor park goers who were trying to fend off Daisy.
To his surprise, Wallace was trotting along beside him in solidarity with a seemingly resigned look on his face – Tao liked to imagine Wallace was also thinking that Daisy must be the stupidest dog on the planet.
When he got to the begging retriever he clipped the lead on, mumbled an apology to the people, and started to pull her away. Wallace, he noted, had not been the least bit interested in the roast chicken.
“You are the best boy, aren’t you Wallace?” he said.
Wallace looked up at him briefly, giving “I can’t believe you are only just figuring this out now!” vibes.
While Tao was capturing Daisy, a flagging Ed decided to crawl onto Tori’s lap. He wrapped his legs around her waist and rested one ear against her chest. One small, pudgy hand grabbed hold of her shirt while the other clutched the piece of apple he was taking bites out of. She looked down at his golden head, taking in the long blond eyelashes and the smattering of freckles dusting his cheeks and nose.
Bringing one of her arms up around him, she placed a hand on his back to hold him tighter. Beneath her hand, she could feel the pulse of his heartbeat. It startled her that his heartbeat should feel so strong, when his tiny ribcage felt so fragile. She perceived her own heart beating in close proximity to his, the two of them taking breaths together.
Tori looked over at Alice, who was watching her with curious eyes. God, these two kids had wormed their way into her heart.
“Do you want a hug too?” Tori asked. She was expecting a refusal but knew from experience that it felt nice when people didn’t assume. Even someone who said ‘no’ most of the time occasionally wanted to say ‘yes’.
“No,” the girl said, shaking her head quickly. The only three people in the world that were usually allowed to hug Alice were Charlie, Nick and Sarah, although Michael and Olly were occasionally permitted to spin her around and throw her in the air.
“Do you want to help me try to push Tao over when he gets back?” Tori tried again.
Alice’s face broke into a huge grin, as if she had been suddenly granted all her Christmas wishes at once.
“Yes, I want to do that!” she hooted with laughter.
“What do you think, Teddy Bear?” Tori asked Ed, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “Do you want to help me and Alice jump all over Tao?”
“Like Daisy does when Papa gets home?” he asked, wide-eyed with amazement.
“Yep, like that,” Alice cheered.
When Tao came back with Daisy, he was instantly suspicious. Tori and Alice were standing on opposite corners of the rug. Tori was as expressionless as ever, but Alice looked like a mini Dr. Evil, wringing her hands together with a maniacal grin on her face. Ed was squealing and jumping up and down like a kangaroo clapping its hands. Daisy, sensing a game she should be a part of, started barking. Tao barely had enough time to tell Daisy to be quiet when they pounced. Tori went straight for his legs and Alice jumped on his back. He was so surprised that he folded in half immediately and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. As soon as he fell flat, he felt Daisy sprawl on top of him and Ed flop down on top of her. Horrified, Tao let out a shriek that was not befitting of a grown man. Finding himself pinned, he immediately lamented his lifetime disinterest in sports and physical activity. He couldn’t even reach his beanie to use as a weapon to swat them away.
Traitorously, Wallace sat watching him from the other side of the rug.
“Wallace!” he pleaded, feeling Alice’s knees coming very close to his groin area. “Wallace help me, I’m under attack!”
Wallace looked on indifferently. Clearly their moment of bonding on the way to get Daisy had been forgotten.
“God, Tao!” Tori scoffed from the position she had taken up sitting on his feet. “Asking the dog to help you? That’s really pathetic!”
Knowing it would be the first thing Alice told her dads as soon as they got home, he managed to hold in the “Fuck you, Tori!” that was threatening to spill out of his mouth.
When Daisy started licking his face, and Ed’s face came remarkably close as if he was going to join in too, Tao finally found the inner strength needed to roll to the side and tip them off. In reality, he only succeeded in tipping Daisy and Ed off. Alice was still clinging to his back like a rabid koala.
He thought Tori might have finally taken pity on him when she released his feet, allowing him to get to his knees to try to extract Alice. He realised Tori’s motives were less pure when he heard her say “Aaaaaand…..send. Elle and Charlie will love this!”
He spun around and saw she had her phone in her hand.
“You did not film that?!” he sputtered, despite knowing she had.
“I did” she said flatly. “It has amazing cinematography – I suggest you show it at your next film night.”
“Do you give up?” Alice said into his ear, her arms still wrapped around his neck.
“Are you going to tell Elle you beat me?” he asked, his voice sounding whiny - even to his own ears.
“Yes,” she said candidly. “I think she will enjoy this story a lot.”
She was not wrong. Elle was going to love this story. She was also going to love telling this story to their friends and his mum and probably his colleagues too. He imagined the joy on her face, and all the little embellishments she would add, almost 100% certain she would describe his twig arms flailing and Daisy’s tongue going into his mouth. Not wanting to deny his lovely wife the pleasure of roasting him, he capitulated.
“Okay Ally, you win. I humbly surrender,” he said, rolling his hand a few times and putting on a posh voice as if he was bowing to the queen.
“Good,” she declared, finally letting go of his neck. “And it’s Alice, not Ally. Only my daddies and Ed are allowed to call me that.”
Tao pretended he couldn’t hear Tori’s snort.
By the time they got back home, Tao was carrying an exhausted Ed, whose thumb was back in his mouth, and Tori had both dogs and the bags. Even Daisy seemed too tired to pull, which was a miracle in itself. Alice was walking ahead of them all, although her pace was a bit slower than usual.
Thankful that the trip to the park had made them too tired to talk, they plopped both kids down on the sofa and turned the tv back on. The dogs jumped up after them and the Nelson-Spring brood assumed virtually identical positions to the ones they were in several hours ago, when the intrepid babysitters had first arrived.
As she surveyed the mess they had left behind before the picnic, it crossed Tori’s mind that they should probably clean up before Nick and Charlie got home.
“I guess we should tidy up a bit?” Tao asked.
“Nope,” she replied dryly. “We need to look like we were incompetent so they don’t ask us to do this again.”
Tao agreed with a laugh, but both of them silently began to tidy the house anyway.
Epilogue: Tao
When he walked in the door that night Elle was waiting for him with a glass of red wine in her hand.
“How was it?” she asked, passing a second glass to him. “Did my darlings behave?”
He took in the sight of his wife, curling into the corner of the sofa. She always seemed so peaceful and relaxed. Just looking at her made him feel calmer. She soothed all those parts of his personality that were inclined to feel anger and fear, communicating with just a touch of her hand when he was letting his propensity to hate people cloud the fact that he really was a very kind and loyal person.
He loved her so much, and he felt incredibly lucky to share his life with her. There was a lot of love in this house, and it suddenly became apparent to him that there was space for someone else to share it.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, taking her hand. “I agree with you. I think we should get a cat.”
Epilogue: Tori
When she walked in the door that night Michael was waiting for her on the sofa. He leapt up straight away and went to get her some lemonade from the fridge.
“How was it?” he asked, passing it to her. “How were my favourite Nelson-Springs?”
She took in the sight of her person. With his effusive cheer and energy he was the complete opposite to her, but they balanced each other out. They understood and accepted each other’s quirks and shared a connection so strong they rarely needed words to communicate their feelings. They had found a wonderful sense of peace together, and Tori knew how rare it was to find that. She loved her life with him, and nothing could make it more perfect.
“I’m so glad we decided not to have kids,” she said, flopping down onto the sofa. “Being an aunt is fucking exhausting.”
Epilogue: Nick
When Nick got home Ed was already asleep and Charlie was reading Alice her bedtime stories. He briefly considered going upstairs to say goodnight, but ultimately decided it would probably only derail the process. By now Charlie had probably completed the long debate to determine the number of books being read and Alice had likely already been told not to expect her papa until the next morning.
He glanced around the house and noted that everything was surprisingly neat and tidy. For some bizarre reason, Daisy’s basket of toys had been placed on top of a bookshelf, but apart from that, the house was much neater than it would be if it were him and Charlie at home with the kids. He made a mental note to ask Tori and Tao to babysit more often.
“Did you see them yet?” Charlie asked him a few minutes later when he came down the stairs.
“See what?” Nick asked, squeezing his husband in a tight hug to recharge, while planting kisses on Charlie’s neck.
“The present our menace babysitters left us.” Charlie replied, taking Nick’s hand and leading him into the kitchen.
A series of post-it notes had been stuck to the family portrait that adorned the fridge door.
Initially Nick tried to cover his mouth to mask the snorts that escaped as he read Tao and Tori’s messages, but by the time he had read the last one both he and Charlie were giggling like a couple of school kids.
The note pointing to poor Daisy said “I fell out of the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
Wallace, however, had a picture of a medal awarding him the title of “the BEST Nelson-Spring.”
Alice had two speech bubbles radiating out from her photo. The first one read, “Remember to take my stethoscope to Nanna Jane’s and play doctor with her.” The second one said, “Do not leave those idiots in charge unsupervised EVER again!”
Ed’s speech bubble, rather cryptically, only had the word “Woof” inside.
Charlie’s face had been covered by a magnetic clip that was holding a wrinkled piece of paper that looked like a list written in Charlie’s own handwriting. The words “Fuck off, Charles!” were scrawled across it in thick black marker.
Nick’s own message read “I will bake brownies to repay Tori and Tao for all their hard work.” A second note, in different handwriting, was added to the bottom of the first one. It read “TWO batches for EACH of them.”