Page 92

Big spoon, little spoon

Owain

Filled with renewed vigour for the rest of the day, I got my feet on the floor, my bum nudging the side table. It knocked Ryan’s discarded phone off and I looked down at it, an idea forming as I heard Ryan get up behind me and stretch.

I picked it up secretly and slipped from the room with my clothes. “I’ll shower in the shared bathroom!” I called back.

“Alone?” Ryan sounded horrified. “I’m not allowed to wash the arse?!”

I blushed but ignored him, hurrying into the bathroom. I couldn’t get distracted from my plan. I made quick work of washing and dressed in purple shorts and a yellow turtleneck with matching socks.

I entered the kitchen ten minutes later and sat down on the cold floor in front of the microwave. I saw that Bronwyn’s favourite flowers had been picked and put in a vase. Harold, no doubt, but I didn’t have time to check.

First things first to get this place in order.

“Good afternoon, Popty.”

The room was void of a ping.

He hadn’t come out last night, despite the chaos going on, which let me know I had some work to do.

“They don’t mean to be scared of you, they just don’t understand yet,” I said softly. “Please don’t be sad.”

Popty still didn’t even twitch. Not even a hum or light on the microwave.

“You’re a great help around here; I couldn’t do it without you.” I tilted my head to see if he would twitch. “People will come around. And eventually we’ll have so many guests just like Ryan! Not the early part where he tried to shoot you or was sent here to destroy us, but the part after we stole all his things and locked him in a room full of pirates!”

When silence still reigned, I brought out my trump card and laid it on the floor between us.

Ryan’s phone.

“Fine.” I sighed extra loud. “I guess if you’re going to stay in there, you won’t want this.”

There was a beat of silence and then the microwave door popped open with the tiniest noise, like Popty was inching it and hoping not to make a sound.

I schooled my expression and pretended not to notice, keeping an eye on a shadowy tendril slithering across the floor, which turned into a long-fingered hand. The digits crawled their way one by one, making no noise.

When they grabbed the phone and began dragging it back, I hummed. “You know, phones blow up in the microwave.”

Popty froze.

“If you want to look at it, you have to come out,” I sang.

An annoyed ping! sounded but Popty poured himself out onto the floor in a brooding lump, cradling the phone at the centre of his mass.

I grinned at him. “Hello, sunshine!”

Popty was ignoring me to look at the phone, pretending to be annoyed.

“What do you like so much on there, anyway? If you want a phone you could always borrow mine.”

Popty made another annoyed ping at the suggestion.

“Only Ryan’s phone will do?”

Ping, ping, ping!

I craned my head to see what he was so taken with and was surprised to see the face of an unknown guy flipping someone off.