Eye of the StormStardate 1.6 19:02
Nerdier Than ThouSo, who would you say was the geekiest member of our household? Yeah, me too. Wrong. Dead wrong. In fact, Little Ted was the first to be officially recognised as a nerd and I was almost the last. Jane Eyre was slower but I only beat her by a few hours. How embarrassing. And Gates, of all people, has zipped ahead of the rest of us and is well in with the local nerd population. What are they basing this on?
He and Turkish Delight are both rebels as well. TD, fair enough: criminal’s a pretty rebellious career choice and I can see her as a graffiti artist. But stodgy old Gates?! OK, he claims to be having a midlife crisis… Crisis? What crisis? He bought himself a new outfit – although it took me a while to notice. It’s not much different from his old one. He’s been talking about growing a beard. Hasn’t actually grown one, notice; just talked about it. He wanted to spend a chunk of our savings remodelling the house until we pointed out that there’s no room for improvements. We’d have to tear the whole place down and start again and I don’t think the landlord would be too happy. So he spent the money on a car instead. He’s gonna regret that when he comes to his senses. The rest of us are regretting it already. We really don’t have the money to spare – and he’s the one that’s usually going on about the importance of saving. Anyway, a motorbike would’ve been
way better for making his point. Or at least a boy-racer-type car. Sorry, mate. Eco-friendly family saloons are not approved rebel transport.
My nerdy little wife dragged me out to the comic shop today. Obviously making the most of her new status…
* * * * *
“You were right, Rosy. That shop might not have been the best place to choose for our talk. I thought he’d like it. I didn’t realise how sensitive he was about the whole nerd thing. It’s silly.
“No,
of course I didn’t tell him he was being silly. I just tickled him until he stopped looking serious.
“Then I brought up the subject of names. I really don’t want our kids to grow up as Sw0rds. Hank already rang to congratulate me and ask when we were going to hear the clattering of tiny daggers. He thinks he’s so funny.
“So I asked Cy – Dave – what’s wrong with his name. Did he get teased at school? Not really, he said. He was ‘Double’ for a while at primary school and then there was a woodwork teacher who called him ‘Black and’. I think he was upset about the teacher, in fact. But he insists it’s just that David Decker is a boring name. I think it’s nice and told him so. He can carry on being Cycl0n3 in public if he wants but I’m going to call him Dave.
“Well, yes. I suppose it does serve him right after all the bear names. Bad Rosy.
“And then I told him what I’d like to call our daughter, if we have one, and he realised why we were talking there. In fact, he pointed at a display across the room and came straight back with a boy’s name to match. Dave thinks our kids should have themed names – it’s one of the things those ‘special’ families often do. Maybe it could become a tradition. Then gave me one of his silly grins and said, ‘Come on, Honey Blair. Let’s go home and found a Decker Dynasty!’
“So we did.
“Well, we tried, anyway. Neither of us heard chimes, though. We were hoping that the treatments might have worked by now. Oh well. I suppose we’ll have to try again tomorrow.
“Hush, Rosy. You’re a very naughty bear.”
* * * * *
“Rosy, I was telling Emma about wanting to have a baby and she said we needed to eat better food. She’s started adding all sorts of herbs and spices to her recipes. She says they’ll help. And she says I have to eat lots of fruit once I’m pregnant. ‘Apples for a boy, watermelons for a girl’, she said. I asked her whether she’d learnt that at catering college and she looked confused, as if she wasn’t sure how she knew.
“The food’s good, though. Very moreish. In fact, I think I’ll go and see if there are any pancakes left.”
* * * * *
Eye of the StormStardate 2.1 18:04
Say Hello to Mummy BearI’m going to be a dad! Little Ted leapt out of bed early this morning and woke me up. I thought maybe we’d finally succeeded and she was rushing off to throw up, but no. It seems she’s already past that stage.
She charged straight off to the supermarket. Apparently Jane Eyre’s told her to eat baby watermelons. Sounds odd to me – but then Jane’s been generally pretty strange for the past few days. I wonder what’s happened? Still, can’t complain about her cooking. It’s amazing.
LT came back looking a bit queasy at last. Full of watermelons. Apparently she’s not that keen on melon at the best of times and chomping through ten of them was hard going. Maybe she shouldn’t have eaten the skins.
Now she’s ‘taking it easy’ at home. Which translates as beating me at video games, mostly.
* * * * *
Stardate 2.2 23:19
Thunderbird Is Gone!Tamtam was never going to have a quiet wedding at the beach. She decided a big formal do was more her style – at Mick’s, since that was where this all started. Jane was at work and LT wriggled out of it – said her back ached and she wanted a bubble bath and an early night. Her dad was there, though, along with the rest of us and an assortment of friends and gatecrashers. Tamtam looked great. The groom, not so much. Inappropriate git.
OK, OK. Pots and kettles. But at least I didn’t turn up to our wedding in shorts and scruffy old sandals. Gates looked quite shocked. At least the X-Man managed to get through the ring-swapping and kissing without messing up.
That was last night. Today Tamtam told us that she’s moving out. I knew she’d gone back into politics, not to count someone else’s ballot papers but to start her own campaign. She’s asked me to design her a website. Now she says she thinks she wants to move. Thinks she’ll do better out on her own. The reasoning sounds dodgy to me but whatever makes her happy. She’s not gone far, anyway, just a couple of doors down the street.
X-Man went round to see her as soon as she’d settled in. Typically, he didn’t help her with the actual move.
Then he phoned to say he’s not coming back. He won’t be missed. It’s not as if he was contributing much. All he’s done since he arrived is dance, hog the computer and mess up Gates’ neat piles of leaves. Tamtam’s welcome to him.
* * * * *
A Night With the Starswww.starryabductees.org.svYou are not alone!2/2/13
EmmaH
Experimental subject
Posts: 31I had another nightmare. I dreamed I told Ayesha, my best friend, about the abduction and she said I’d lost my mind and laughed at me.
It felt so real. I woke up shaking with anger. When I met Ayesha over breakfast, it seemed odd that she was as friendly as usual. Suddenly I realised I couldn’t keep hiding this. Even if she did make fun of me, I had to tell someone what had happened.
I think she was a little sceptical at first but I convinced her. She said they’d all been worried about me and knew something must have happened. She thinks I should write down the things I remember; the odd snatches of information that come back to me unexpectedly, like knowing how to help our housemate Blair have a healthy baby girl. Maybe we’ll be able to make sense of it together.
* * * * *
Tuesday, Week 2Dear Edie,
I’m an uncle! Well, it’s a courtesy title really but I like the idea of being Uncle Stiles.
All of us apart from Emma were up very early today. We were just about to have breakfast when Blair started crossing her eyes and panting. We all knew what that meant. Panic time! Poor old Cyco was a nervous wreck. I finally managed to convince him that the baby wasn’t about to pop out on the kitchen floor and Ayesha took Blair to hospital while I bullied Cyco into eating something. The last thing they need in the labour suite is a fainting father.
It all went fine. Mother and baby are both doing well, although the new father still looks as though he’s been hit over the head.
Of course, the first thing I asked, after checking that everything was OK and asking what the baby weighed (why are women so obsessed with that? She’s obviously kind of baby-sized) was what my new ‘niece’ was called.
I don’t believe her answer. At least, I really, really don’t want to believe it. I wouldn’t put it past Cyco to call his daughter X but surely Blair has more sense, however much she protested that the baby is an unknown quantity at the moment and so X is the only logical name.
She kept her face straight but I’m sure she’s kidding. Almost sure anyway.
I think they liked the mystery over Blair’s married name altogether too much and are just pulling the same thing again.
At least I hope so.
Next chapter
Yes, it was Cycl0n3 and Blair who had the glitched pregnancy in the previous attempt. Except maybe it’s just normal for them. As before, there were no chimes and Blair wasn’t even sick once. The first warning I had that she was pregnant was when she started craving foods, not long before she spun into maternity clothes. At least they succeeded a lot sooner this time, although, having left it late to avoid a winter childhood, I was thinking that the dynasty had probably failed by the time everything turned out to be OK after all.
Bringing the baby back from hospital caused me some amusement. Blair started out by walking, while Cycl0n3 ran to catch up.
Then they both got into (separate) taxis. Given that they live just around the corner from the hospital, they were already halfway home, so why bother? Ayesha, who was following, just carried on running…
…and arrived at about the same time.
On another topic entirely, Emma, who’d been lagging behind the others in the happiness point stakes (partly because of the abduction) became the first to complete her lifetime wish and was suddenly rolling in points.
Ayesha achieved her LTW shortly afterwards but I didn’t manage to get a screenshot. Tamara and Xander left the active household with their wishes still a long way from completion.
