Chapter 24: Later Sunday Morning

Mum appeared in my open bedroom door. She was still wearing the caftan and the outrageous hat.

“Hello, honey,” she said, hesitantly.

“Hi Mum!”

Mum came in and sat herself on the bed next to Sam. Sam was propped up against a pillow, engrossed in one of my Harry Potter books. Mum put her hand on Sam’s knee and rubbed it gently. Sam looked up and smiled and then went back to the book.

“What are you up to?” Mum asked me.

“I’m finishing an English essay about War of the Worlds.”

“Oh!” said Mum.

Her conversation was strangely stilted, as if she was wanting something but was embarrassed to ask.

“Honey?”

“What is it, Mum?”

“I can’t seem to find your father. I’ve looked everywhere. I thought maybe he’d gone out but the car is still in the drive.”

“Dad spent the night with Aunty Penny and Aunty Ally. They’ll bring him home in an hour or so. That’s why Sam is here. We did a swap.”

Sam looked up from the book. “I’m a hostage to guarantee they take care of Uncle Peter properly. If they don’t bring him back in one piece you get to lock me in the dungeon and keep me forever.”

I looked at Sam thoughtfully. “Hmm. Actually, I was under the impression they were keeping Dad as a hostage to guarantee that we took care of you properly.”

He grinned at me and then turned a page in the book.

I looked at Mum. “Are you okay about that? Are you okay with Dad spending the night with The Aunts?”

Mum looked back at me with calm eyes. “Peter loves me very, very much. But he also loves Penny – he loves her totally and without reservation. I knew that when I married him. I told them both back then that I never want to come between them. He was the only man she could have any sort of relationship with. Since then she’s gotten a little better but it’s still difficult for her to interact with other men. Our Dan and young Sam here have helped her enormously.”

She smiled at Sam and leaned to kiss his knee where she was rubbing – it happened to be the closest bit of him that she could reach. She looked back at me and continued.

“Peter and Penny have my absolute and unreserved blessing to be together. As for Ally – well,” she shrugged, “Penny loves her. We all love her. I guess he gets to be with her as a kind of bonus. I don’t put limits on what Peter does for Penny. I thought we explained this to you.”

I dropped my eyes. “Sorry! I wanted to be sure.”

“Mama Penny loves you, too,” said Sam to Mum. “I see the way she is around you. And she thinks you’re the best thing that ever happened to Uncle Peter. I’ve heard her say it. You’ve helped him, too.”

Mum smiled at Sam and rubbed his knee.

Mum sighed. “But there are times when I can’t give Peter what he needs – times like yesterday. Is that what happened? Did Peter need someone and I was too far out of it to support him?”

I hesitated but then I nodded. “Yes, Mum. That’s what happened. But it was okay! Dan was here. And then Aunty Penny and Aunty Ally came over. Everything turned out okay.”

“Well, good then,” said Mum.

At that moment, a completely naked Angie ran squealing past my bedroom door. She was followed, an instant later, by an equally naked Tara galumphing after her and making gorilla-like noises. There was some extra squealing out of sight but roughly outside The Parents’ room where the hallway ran into a dead end. Then the chase came back the other way, heading back into the rest of the house. They passed the door of my room in reverse order with Tara running and squealing while Angie galumphed after her.

Mum watched this all happen and sighed. “I still can’t believe I stripped Tara naked in the middle of the kitchen.”

“It doesn’t seem to have done her any harm,” I said. “In fact, I think Tara kind of enjoyed it. I’m more worried about how we’re going to keep Angie dressed now that she’s discovered she likes being a nudist. I’m not sure Dad can cope with Angie wanting to run around naked all the time.”

“I wonder if I could sew her into her clothes,” mused Mum – not at all seriously. “It wouldn’t be that difficult. Then we could wash her and her clothes in one go by tossing her into the bath as is. I swear she produces more washing than the rest of you combined.”

She sighed. “On the other hand, if she stops wearing clothes, that would reduce the amount of clothes washing too. Maybe we’ll have to work on helping Dad cope with a naked Angie. You made a start on that the other night.”

“A small start along a long road,” I added. “I think it will be a while before Dad can cope with Angie as a full time nudist. She’ll probably have grown out of it by then.”

I had been copying my file to a disk as we talked. “There! I just have to go along to Dan’s room and print this out and I’m done.”

“Is that the last of your homework for the weekend?” asked Mum.

“Yep! This is it. Except that I’m going to Phil’s place later this morning to scan some drawings for a class speech.”

“You are? I didn’t know about that!”

“It was planned yesterday – while you were painting! Dan said it would be okay.”

Mum frowned and then nodded. “Who is Phil? Have I met him?”

“I introduced you to him when you were at school on Wednesday. He’s a nice guy.”

“Do you – like him?” asked Mum.

“Not like that! He’s a friend. We started being friends a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh? Well, good. You can never have too many friends!” said Mum.

She came over to me and leaned over to hug me while I sat at the computer.

“I’m going to take a little nap,” said Mum. “I don’t think I got much sleep last night. Will you wake me when Dad gets home?”

“Okay, Mum.”

She kissed the top of my head and gave Sam a little finger-wave as she left the room.

I stood up. “Sam! I’m going to Dan’s room to print this.” I waved the disk in my hand.

He smiled at me. “No problem. I’ll stay here, if that’s okay?” He turned a page.

“Sure! Be back soon.”

As I walked past the living room, I saw that Tara had dragged out Tracey’s Dance Mat. She was on her hands and knees plugging the PlayStation in to the TV while Angie jumped up and down impatiently beside her.

“Hey!” I said to the naked bum that was wiggling at me. “Mum’s taking a nap so keep the volume down, okay?”

Tara looked over her shoulder at me and frowned. “Maybe we should do something else, then.”

Angie pouted.

“You could always go out and play in the front yard,” I said helpfully.

Tara glanced down at her naked self and rolled her eyes. “Maybe not!”

“Come on, Ange,” said Tara. “Let’s go to your room and find something to do. We’ll play with this later.”

Tara walked Angie as far as the kitchen and then picked her up and threw her over one shoulder. Tara ran down the hallway to Angie’s room while Angie squealed in delight.

Dan was in his room. He looked freshly showered and was dressed in clean clothes. He was rummaging around, tidying up his room and throwing his bed into some semblance of being made.

I pouted at him. “You got dressed!”

He grinned at me. “So did you.”

“But it’s Wear What You Want morning. I thought you wanted to wear your boxers,” I whined.

I liked having him walking around in his boxers. It was nice.

“Can I use your computer? I have to print a thing for school.”

Dan waved me at his computer. I sat and wiggled the mouse to make the computer wake up.

“I thought you wanted to wear your pj’s all morning,” he said.

“Nah! I hadn’t gotten around to having a shower and getting dressed, that’s all,” I said. “Things kept getting in the way of that. I wanted to wear my jeans and a sweatshirt – so that’s what I’m wearing.”

“Ah!” said Dan. “I heard the other two heading into Angie’s room. Are they still running around as naked as jay birds?”

“Yup!” I snorted. “As naked as jay birds! What does that mean, anyway? Jay birds would be covered with feathers! – not naked at all.”

“You know, I don’t know. It’s just a saying,” said Dan. “I guess we could Google it!”

I had my document loaded and had hit Print so while I waited for the printer to whir into action I opened up the internet and Googled “naked as a jay bird.”

By the time the printer had finished doing its thing, I had an answer. “Apparently baby jays are born without any feathers,” I said as I read from the screen. “Or it might come from jay being old-time slang for a country hick – like the word jaywalk comes from country hicks wandering around gawking at the buildings and not taking any notice of traffic signals or where the roads were or anything. Or it might be some clever combination of the two ideas.”

Dan grunted – a kind of internal laugh. “Well! So now we know.”

I grinned at him as I closed down both my file and the Internet and claimed my disk and my printout.

“I’m done here. Thanks Dan,” I said. “By the way, have you remembered that I need you to take me over to Phil’s house later this morning? He’s going to help me scan some drawings into the computer.”

Dan shrugged. “I’ll be here. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

When I got back to my room, I saw that Sam hadn’t moved.

I found my stapler and stapled the pages together then tucked the essay into my schoolbooks and put them into my bag, ready for school tomorrow.

I went over to the bed and propped my pillow up next to Sam. Then I sat next to him and draped an arm over his shoulder.

“In case it gets too crazy when The Aunts arrive, I wanted to say I’ve loved having you here,” I said.

“It’s been good,” said Sam.

“It’s been awesome to spend so much time together. And, as a bonus, you got to see Tara nude.”

“I’m not likely to forget that in a hurry,” said Sam. “She’s really pretty. But I still think you’re prettier.”

I blushed and kissed the side of his face – just under his ear.

“And you got to see my room – and all these pictures of me.”

He grinned at me and pointed over his head. “This one is my favorite – the one with you riding a magic carpet.”

“You’ve been so good about all of this. A lot of boys would’ve been all disgusting about it – drooling or sniggering or whatever.”

He shrugged. “I try to keep my drooling on the inside. When I’m not sure what to do, I try to think, “What would Dan do?” Dan would never snigger about a girl.”

I nodded. “That’s true.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“You can’t tell people about all this stuff,” I said. “You can tell your mums, of course. In fact, you should tell your mums. But don’t tell other people. Some people wouldn’t understand – I mean about the paintings on my wall and about Tara’s tying up game and about what happened in the kitchen this morning and about Tara running about in the nude. We could get into trouble for some of that.”

Sam nodded. “I know! I wasn’t going to.” He hesitated. “Some of the boys at school, they get together and whisper about seeing some girl’s panties or wishing they could touch some older girl’s boobs. I watch them and I think they’re losers trying to impress each other. Like you said – drooling and sniggering and being disgusting. I never want to be like them.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed. “You’re one of the good guys, Sam. I’m so lucky. I’m surrounded by good guys – you and Dan and Dad. You set pretty high standards. Every guy I meet gets judged in comparison to you three. I don’t always do it consciously, sometimes my brain whirs away in the background. Then it sends me messages...”

I trailed off and sat up straight.

“Crap!” I said.

“What?” asked Sam. “What is it?”

“I’m just listening to my brain. Sometimes I can be so stupid. My brain has been sending me all these messages...”

I clambered my way off the bed and went over to the computer. “I need to do some research.”

“Isn’t Google awesome?” asked Sam.

“Actually, in this case, hopefully all I need is MySpace.”

A little while later, I heard the phone ring in the kitchen. Before I could move, Tara yelled out “I’ll get it!” and I heard her thudding her way to the kitchen with Angie in hot pursuit. The ringing of the phone cut off, and a moment later I heard them both come thudding down the hallway.

Tara and Angie appeared in the doorway of my bedroom. Sam and I were sitting in front of the computer – pressed against each other because we were sharing the one chair. We looked up at Tara.

“It’s for you!” said Tara to me. “It’s Lance Jenkins. Isn’t he the boy you were making out with yesterday?”

“Yeah!” I said and frowned at the computer screen where I had Lance’s MySpace page open. “I wonder what he wants?”

Tara snorted. “Why don’t you talk to him and find out?”

Sam gestured at the computer. “Can I check my email while you’re gone?”

I shrugged. “Sure!”

I went through to the kitchen with Tara and Angie trailing curiously after me.

I picked up the phone. “Hi! This is Bec.”

“Hey! This is Lance. How’s it going?”

“Good! I was just thinking about you.”

“All good thoughts, I hope.”

“I was thinking about what happened yesterday – at the reception.”

“Awesome! I was wondering if you wanted to hang out this afternoon. You know? Catch a bus to the mall. Check out the shops. Grab some food. Do whatever. You know? Hang out. Do ya wanna?”

I frowned at the phone. “That sounds a bit like a date? Are you asking me out on a date?”

Tara was giving me happy thumbs-up signals.

“Um, yeah!”

“My parents won’t let me go on dates,” I said. “Besides, I have to stay home this afternoon. It’s only me and Tara. We have to babysit our little sister.”

Tara was looking both surprised and confused.

“You could come over if you want,” I said – trying to sound indifferent. “Hang out at my place for a while.”

“Uh! It’s just you and your sisters?” he asked.

“That’s right. But that’s okay. You can visit.”

“Sure! I have to come by bus. How does a bit after two o’clock sound?”

“That would be okay. You know the address?”

“Yeah! I’ve got that here. I’ll see you sometime after two – depending on the bus.”

“Okay! I’ll see you then. Bye!”

I hung up and turned to Tara.

“Okay, what gives?” said Tara. “One! How do you know our parents won’t let you date? Have you ever asked them? Two! Since when do you and I have to babysit Ange this afternoon? Where is everyone else going? Three! Did you invite a boy over to the house when nobody will be around? You know The Parents won’t let us do that.”

I sighed. “One! Blaming The Parents seemed better than me saying, “No I won’t go out on a date with you.” Something tells me not to trust Lance that far. Inviting him over here to visit means I can control the situation a bit. Two! They aren’t going anywhere, yet. I need your help to get them out of the way this afternoon.”

“What’s wrong with Lance? I thought you were in luurv!”

“So did I! But my weird brain has been telling me not to trust him.”

At that moment, we heard a car scrape on the drive outside our house. I went through to the entrance way and peeked out of the window.

“The Aunts are here with Dad,” I said. “You better skedaddle and get some clothes on. I’ll get Angie dressed. I’ll talk to you more about Lance later.”

Tara skedaddled and I hustled Angie into her room. Angie whined a little about having to get dressed, but we’d been telling her all along that this would happen when Dad got home so she didn’t complain too much.

I noticed Lucy sitting on Angie’s bed in a nice little outfit – along with several of Angie’s other dolls, all of whom had their outfits changed. Tara and Lucy must have spent some quality doll time in the last hour or so.

Once Angie was dressed, she went charging down the hallway to the kitchen where she took a flying leap into Dad’s arms for a hug. I followed at a more sedate pace and went to Aunty Penny. We hugged.

About the same time, Sam came into the kitchen from the other direction. He went to Aunty Ally and they hugged.

“Thanks for looking after Dad,” I said quietly to Aunty Penny during the hug. “He looks better.”

Penny smiled at me and kissed me on the side of my mouth. “Have things been okay here?”

“We had a few bumps, but we muddled through. I’ll leave it to Sam to tell you all about it.”

Aunty Penny smiled and nodded and let me go. Sam and I swapped Aunts and we got more hugs. I pretty much repeated the conversation I’d just had only this time with Aunty Ally.

I let go in time to see Tara come into the room and welcome The Aunts. Then Dan was there, prising Angie loose from Dad and shaking Dad’s hand.

“Hey Dad. It’s nice to have you back,” I said. I reached up to kiss Dad’s cheek and give him a brief hug.

I ducked away as soon as I could and went down to The Parents’ room. Mum was under the covers and out like a light. I sat down on the side of the bed and gently shook her shoulder. It took a few times of calling her name and shaking her shoulder before her eyes blinked open.

I smiled when I saw her looking at me. “Dad’s home. Aunty Ally and Aunty Penny are here. You wanted me to wake you.”

“Oh yes! Thank you, sweetie.”

I leaned down and brushed a kiss across her lips.

“See you soon,” I said as I stood and headed back to the kitchen.

Tara had started making a large pot of tea so I helped by setting out a row of mugs and slicing up some cake that was left over from Thanksgiving. Angie had found her way back onto Dad’s hip and was gleefully explaining how she’d been nudie all morning – much to the quiet fascination of both Dad and The Aunts.

Dad looked at us and we shrugged.

“Face it, Dad,” I said. “Angie is developing into a hard-core nudist. Mum’s thinking of sewing her into her clothes. Personally, I think we should just paint some clothes onto her skin and be done with it.”

Dad looked across at Penny with a sort of helpless look on his face. She smiled back at him and winked – expressing a confidence in his ability to deal with it. Dad shook his head and sighed. Then he smoothed Angie’s hair down on her head and kissed the top of her head.

“Only on special occasions, okay kiddo?” he said.

Angie nodded. “This morning was Wear What You Want morning. Mummy wore a funny hat.”

Tara and I rolled our eyes at each other. “And a caftan,” I said. “Don’t forget about the caftan!”

Mum harumphed as she walked into the kitchen – once again wearing the caftan but fortunately there was no sign of the hat.

“I was living the stereotype. I am an artiste! Artistes wear caftans and expound on the virtues of felafels.”

Dad grinned at her. “The only virtue of felafels that I can think of is that they are far, far from here. I tried a felafel once, it was disgusting.”

Mum harumphed again. “It was obviously not one that I cooked. Any felafel I cooked would obviously have many virtues.” She swirled around in a circle – making the caftan billow out around her.

“Yes Dear,” said Dad – obviously knowing when to quit.

He took her in his arms and kissed her soundly – which had the double benefit of stopping her swirling around and stopping her from expounding about felafel.

“Tea’s ready!” called Tara in a blatant attempt to stop The Parents embarrassing us by getting carried away with the kissing.

Tara started pouring and I walked around offering cake to everyone. The Parents broke off their kiss – so Tara was successful – and there was general movement into the living room.

Aunty Ally oohed at the sight of the Dance Mat spread out on the floor.

“A Dance Mat? Peter, I didn’t know you owned a Dance Mat,” said Aunty Ally.

“I didn’t know we owned a Dance Mat, either,” said Dad with a little frown. “There’s another thing whose only virtue was that I thought it was far, far away from here.”

“We don’t actually own it,” explained Tara. “It belongs to one of my friends. Tracey left it here the other night. She said we could keep it for a bit and use it as much as we want but we have to give it back eventually.”

“Goody!” said Aunty Ally, putting her mug of tea down and rubbing her hands together. “I want a go. Are you up for it, Penny dearest?”

“Up for it?” said Aunty Penny, putting her own mug of tea down and eying her partner through narrow eyes. “The real question is how badly do you want to embarrass yourself by challenging my superior skills.”

She walked over to the TV where the PlayStation was set up. “So, how do you make this work?”

Tara went over and pressed the ON button for her.

“Ah, yes! That would do it,” said Aunty Penny.

I heard Sam groan quietly to himself. He was standing right next to me. I turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

“She knows perfectly well how to turn a PlayStation on,” whispered Sam. “She’s playing the ignorant and incompetent Mom role. She thinks she’s being funny.”

Soon The Aunts were madly working their way through the beginner level. They were both overacting as if their lives depended on it.

I watched them for a moment, then leaned sideways into Sam. “They kind of are being funny.”

Sam shook his head and looked at me with sad eyes. “Please don’t encourage them.” Then he swallowed a laugh – unable to keep up the act any longer. He leaned into me and tucked an arm around my waist as he watched his mums with a happy look in his eye.

“You realize that it will be our turn next, don’t you?” said Mum, turning to Dad.

Dad sighed. “Somehow, I knew that was coming.”

We younger folks did what teenagers have done since the beginning of time when their parents try to recapture their lost youth. We rolled our eyes at each other and tried to fade into the background hoping we wouldn’t get caught up in their madness.

Dad turned out to be a fairly reasonable dancer once he got the hang of the Dance Mat moves but he got worn out fairly quickly. Mum was a little less coordinated but maybe she was hampered by the caftan getting in the way of her legs. Angie joined in, bouncing up and down on the floor beside whoever was dancing at the time and letting out the occasional gleeful shriek.

This went on for a while. When the adults got worn out and wanted a rest, we got recruited to get up and have a go. Then they would get back into it again. One Dance Mat simply wasn’t enough to keep eight people busy (not counting three-year-olds). That didn’t matter too much because there was a lot of happy chatter going on as well.

A bit later I checked the time and waggled my eyebrows at Dan. He stood up and left to put his shoes on while I quietly slid out to go to my room. I grabbed the backpack containing all of my bits and pieces and went back out to the living room. I waited for an opportunity then announced that I was going out.

The game got put on pause while another round of hugs and kisses ensued. Eventually Dan and I were in his car as he drove me towards Phil’s place. I’d looked up the directions before we left because I hadn’t been there before.

“So,” said Dan. “What sort of a boy is this Phil? Do I have to come in with you and make big manly grunting noises at him to make sure he behaves himself?”

“He’s nice! He’s a bit quiet. I don’t know a lot about him but he’s a bit of a geek. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to grunt at him or anything. We’re only starting to be friends, so having you behave like an ape would probably do more harm than good.”

Dan grinned at me. “Okay then. I can be civilized when I need to be.”

I pointed to a side street. “Turn here. It should be the third house on the right.”

Dan pulled up outside of the house and we both got out. I walked up the path with Dan ambling beside me. The yard looked nice. We’re heading into winter so there weren’t any flowers, but it looked like somebody had spent a fair amount of time caring for it.

I pushed the button and heard a buzzing inside the house. A moment later the door opened and a woman stood there looking at us.

“You must be Bec,” she said, looking at me. “Please, come in.”

“Hello, Mrs Webster,” I said politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

I introduced Dan and they were shaking hands when Phil came trotting up from the back of the house. I introduced Dan to Phil and I saw Phil’s eyes widen slightly when he realized how big Dan is. They shook hands and then Dan put his hand on my shoulder.

“Have you got your cell?” he asked.

I nodded. “Sure!”

“Okay! Give me a call when you’re ready to come home.” He smiled at Phil and held the smile for a fraction of a second longer than he needed to, then he nodded at Phil’s mother and left us standing there.

I shook my head after him. Message delivered and without a single grunt. Bec has a big brother looking out for her. If you mess with her, you mess with big brother!

I noticed that Mrs Webster had a bit of a twinkle in her eye. Maybe she’d noticed the subtext and found it a bit amusing.

“Come on,” said Phil. “My room is back this way.”

“Sorry about my brother,” I said – without really being sorry. “He can be a bit protective.”

Phil shrugged. “He was fine. I guess I should take notes. My sister’s only six but I guess I’ll have to play the protective big brother when she starts thinking boys are something other than pests.”

Then he stopped and blushed. “I didn’t mean – um!”

“Where is your sister?” I asked, to change the topic.

“She’s down the street visiting a friend. It’s a good thing because otherwise I’d have to barricade my bedroom door to keep her from annoying us while we work.”

I shrugged. “I don’t mind little kids.”

“She’s not that bad, really,” he said. “The main problem is that she wants to know absolutely everything, and that can slow you down when you’re trying to get something done.”

He led me through the house and into a small bedroom. It looked like someone with a good eye had decorated it and then Phil had moved in and added his own personal touches. The movie posters on the wall were from Lord of the Rings and Batman and something called Firefly, which looked like a western but with spaceships. There was a tall bookcase crammed full of paperbacks – they seemed to be mostly science fiction books.

He had two big desks lined up next to each other on the side of his room. Between the bed and the furniture there was very little floor space left over. One of the desks was crammed with computer equipment. The other was clear except for a neat pile of schoolbooks in one corner. He had a padded chair on coasters that could move back and forth between the two desks. A kitchen chair stood next to it – obviously moved in for today.

Given that the bed was made and there was not a single piece of clothing in sight, I figured he might have done a bit of tidying up before I got here. I couldn’t criticize that – I would’ve done the same.

Phil waved his hand around. “Sorry there isn’t much room.”

I shrugged. “It’s fine.”

Phil waved me into the padded chair – a maneuver which involved dragging the kitchen chair into the doorway. Once I was settled, he pulled the kitchen chair back into place, closed the door and sat down.

“So!” said Phil. “You wanted to scan those drawings into the computer?”

“That’s right!” I said. I dug the essay out of my bag. “Here they are. Will they be too small?”

Phil took a look at the first one. “No! They should be fine. They might look a bit coarse on the big screen but we’ll see.”

Phil put the front page of my essay flat on the desk and ran a thing over it. After a moment’s delay, a picture of that section of my essay appeared on the screen. Phil used the mouse to draw a rectangle around the first drawing and clicked something so that all of the surrounding writing disappeared. Then, with another click, the drawing expanded to fill the screen. I was kind of impressed. The drawing looked good like that. I guess I was expecting it to be all fuzzy or something. I mean, you could tell it had been magnified but it was okay.

“That’s one!” said Phil as he clicked the save button and fiddled around with creating a new folder and giving it a name and so on.

Just then there was a tap on the door.

“Come in!” called Phil.

Mrs Webster pushed the door open and smiled at us when she saw us sitting in front of the computer. She was carrying a tray with a plate of cookies and a couple of large glasses filled with lemonade.

“I thought you might like something to nibble on,” said Mrs Webster as she looked around for somewhere to put the tray.

“Thanks, Ma,” said Phil. “Pass it to me and we’ll put it on my school desk.”

“Thanks, Mrs Webster,” I said, smiling at her.

“You’re welcome,” she said as we passed the tray along and Phil set it onto the empty desk.

“Ooh! That’s good,” she said as she glimpsed the screen. “Did you do that?”

“Er, yes. It’s just a comic. It’s to go with my English essay.”

“Well, it’s really very good. You’re obviously busy so I’ll leave you to it,” she said and then she bustled her way back out of the room.