getting Tom to get up

Hello! Lopsy here!

I went round to Tom’s this morning, as usual, to pick up the Baby for our run in the park.

I enjoy taking the little thing out. Trying to keep up with it keeps me fit.

Nobody answered when I rang the doorbell.

I banged on the window. No answer.

So I jogged home and tried to phone Tom. Still no answer.

Teddy and I were worried.

I went back to Tom’s, and climbed in through the window.

Oops, I should have been wearing a mask, shouldn’t I? I completely forgot about face, paws, space. I hope the Prime Minister didn’t see me.

It was very quiet. No sign of that little rascal, the Baby. At least, I didn’t see the Baby itself, but there were definitely signs that it had been around.

The place was so quiet, it was quite uncanny.

How could a house be so still, with that little rapscallywag loose in it?

Then I found Tom. He seemed to be fast asleep.

He wasn’t wearing pyjamas. He’d gone to bed in his clothes.

He didn’t answer when I called him.

I panicked for a moment, but then I heard him breathing – you know that sort of in-in-in-in-in way that people breathe if they’ve been crying.

Perhaps he’s having a sad dream, poor Tom.

Tom showed me a message that the Stork had left for him.

It did look as though Um and the Baby and the Stork had left.

Just then Tom’s phone rang.

I used Tom’s best tea-set, but that was a mistake. It upset him.

To be perfectly honest, I think the Baby was quite often a hindrance and an obstacle, actually. But of course I didn’t say that to Tom.

I helped Tom to get out the ingredients for the brownies.

Of course it was against all the rules for me to be in his kitchen, but sometimes you have to weigh one risk against another.

I decided that the risk of Tom going back to bed and never getting up again was worse than the risk of one of us giving Covid to the other.

I believe that as I climbed back out of the window, I heard the sound of his triangle.