Page 11 of Broken Chorus

“He’s not going to drown.”

“Promise?” She said as she held up her little finger and waved it at him.

Well, at least now he had some idea of what a pinky promise was. Sticking his pinky up, he waved it at her and responded as solemnly as he could manage. “I promise.”

When her lips pursed and she stomped her foot, he knew he still hadn’t gotten it right, but at least she didn’t yell again. Instead, she just looked heartbrokenly through the window as a flash of color spun past, then burst into tears.

Okay, this was an epic fail.

Clearly having her watch was the worst idea ever, but at least the lion would be clean when he gave it back to her, in about two hours, once it had been through a cycle in the dryer.

Dammit.

She never slept without it. It had been a crisis of near biblical proportions the night they’d accidentally left Mr. Whiskers in the SUV and he’d tried to put her to bed without him. He’d destroyed half the house, pulled out several strands of hair, spilled grape juice all over his sneakers, and smacked his knee on the coffee table, trying to get low enough to look under the easy chair. By the time he’d remembered where he’d seen it last, he’d been so exhausted that he’d fallen asleep reading them their bedtime story.

Nearing the end of his rapidly fraying rope he carried her into the bathroom, ran a bath for her with way more bubbles than were necessary in the hopes that would cheer her up, and got her cleaned up with far less trauma than the whole deal with Mr. Whiskers.

“Are you hungry, kiddo?” Hawk asked as he carried her out to the living room in SpongeBob footie pajamas with a towel wrapped around her wet hair.

At least she’d let him comb it out this time, so there wouldn’t be a mass of snarls and tangles to deal with. It had taken a YouTube tutorial and a TikTok video before he’d gotten it straightened out the last time.

“Want cartoons pweese.”

“Okay, but you can’t eat SpongeBob.”

“’course not silly, he a sponge!”

“Right,” Hawk said and pulled the show up on the streaming service, deciding to take thewait and seeapproach in regard to breakfast and hope she didn’t ask for something the moment he sat down.

SpongeBob’s iconic laugh put a smile on Dani’s face, so Hawk got comfortable, intent on catching a power nap until the wash cycle was done.

“Unky Hawk?”

Her words came less than three minutes after he’d closed his eyes and all he could think was please, please don’t let there be another problem.

“Yes, Dani?” Hawk muttered.

“How they make the grill work underwater?”

“Uhhh, ummm…everything works different in cartoons.”

“Why?”

“It just does.”

“That no reason.”

“It’s the only one I got.”

“Like promises,” she said sadly.

He left that one alone and closed his eyes again, immediately starting to drift as a bored, tired Squidward declined to go jellyfishing with SpongeBob and Patrick. Man, Hawk could relate. If that squid was half as tired as Hawk was, he deserved a day of lounging around playing his clarinet. The image of Squidward kicked back in his chair danced through Hawk’s mind, the clarinet replaced by a guitar, the easy chair replaced by a stage….

“Unky Hawk?”

A little face popped over the back of the drum kit and what the hell was Dani doing on the stage?

“Unkyyyyy Hawk!”

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