Page 31 of Santa’s Little Faker
One fish.
Two fish.
Floppy fish.
Dead fish.
“Creepy. It’s creepy. There’s no question.” Daddy Bastian sighed and grumbled and tried to make his dead fish laugh but I was a good dead fish. “Very creepy.”
Ugh.
He made me a silly fish and he laughed when I giggled. “Dead fish are creepy, Trippy.”
I was a good dead fish but I sat up and looked around. “Presents?”
I needed my presents.
Daddy Bastian laughed. “That’s much better. Dead fish reminds me of that trip I had to take with your uncles as a teenager. That was terrible.”
Fishing.
I giggled. “No fishing.”
I grabbed my tummy and groaned like a TV man. “Ohhh…got the poops…oh…”
Daddy Bastian laughed and laughed as he waved his hand. “That’s…that’s why your mother thinks you have a weak stomach?”
Good TV man.
Nodding, I pouted and sighed. “Sorry. No fishes. Oh no.”
Finding fishes was boring and long and men were nosy.
Daddy Bastian smiled and shook his head. “That’s brilliant.”
He pretended to frown as he went over and got a big brown box out of the closet like the Amazon man had brought me special presents. “You realize your mother thought you were allergic to weird shit as a teenager, right?”
I shrugged. “No bread! No rice! No ’tatoes!”
Oh well.
Shaking his head, Daddy Bastian made another silly sound. “I guess that’s a reasonable trade-off for not having to go on those trips. Your uncles wanted to talk about who I was dating and what I thought of that weird girl down the street who was always spying on everyone.”
Naughty men.
Nosy men.
Stupid men.
“Naughty girl.” I shrugged as Daddy Bastian brought my box over. “Girl in jail.”
Daddy Bastian sighed. “Your family has terrible taste in women, but I’m not going to be the one to point that out at family dinner. So we’re just going to keep that to ourselves.”
Nodding, I sat up on my knees and wiggled for my box. “Shh…”
“Oh yeah.” Daddy Bastian gave a big Daddy kind of smile. “I’m also not going to point out that you still look like a puppy.”
Wiggly butts.
