Page 43 of The Doctor's Surprise Family

I laughed. “I know, bud. But I wouldn’t tell if you did.”

“I only peed one time, ’cause Adam was tickling. He wouldn’t stop tickling, even when I said.”

“Well, then, I’d say he deserved to get peed on.”

Oli giggled at that. “Can we go to Playland?”

“Maybe on Saturday, when your mom can come too.”

Oli’s face scrunched. “Can’t we go both days?”

“I don’t think your mom would be too keen on that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because we need to be home if she calls. She’d be worried about you, if she called and we weren’t.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” said Oli. “My other babysitter takes me out all the time. She takes me to Playland and out to get pizza, and one time, we went to see a magician.”

I didn’t know what to say. Was Oli trying to pull a fast one?

“I was bornatnight,” I said. “I wasn’t bornlastnight.”

Oli frowned up at me. “What does that mean?”

“It means no Playland today. But I’ll take you soon, promise. Now, how about, uh…” It occurred to me then, I hadn’t bought any kid stuff. I had no ball to toss with him, no games to play. I didn’t even have crayons or cable TV. “How about you, uh, read to me from one of your books?”

Oli pulled a face at that. “I was reading all morning.”

“We could… bake a cake?”

“Uh-uh. That’s boring.”

“Well, uh…” Was this all part of some Playland long con? Call everything boring till I caved and took him? No way could a three-year-old be that sneaky.

“I’m bored,” Oli said, drawing out the O sound.

He was right. It was boring here. I’d been bored too, sitting around building fantasies of my life with Oli. But it hadn’t occurred to me to make any real plans. I tried to think what I’d done with my parents, but I couldn’t remember much, except little flashes — me and Mom at the mall. Dad cooking dinner. One of my foster moms teaching us yoga. Maybe that could be fun for us, a quick downward dog?

“What do you and your mom do, when it’s just you two?”

“We play with Buster,” said Oli. “Or we go to the park. Or one time, we were going to blow bubbles. But Buster drank the bubble mix, so we had to go to the vet.”

I jumped on that. “Bubbles! We could do that.”

Oli lit up. “Really? You have bubble mix?”

“No, but we can make some. You know how it’s made?”

Oli shook his head, but I could see he was hooked.

“Okay, first thing, we need a big pan. The biggest one we can find, with a flat bottom.” I led the way to the kitchen, Oli in tow. He watched, round-eyed, as I dug through the cupboards, and I pulled out a casserole dish. Oli gave it a doubtful look.

“Our bubble mix just came in a tube. With a little stick thing for blowing the bubbles.”

I winked. “Well, that’s fine for regular bubbles. But we’re blowinghugebubbles.”

“Really? How huge?”

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