Page 43 of Riding the Waves

“Mum!” Billy shouted. “Are these your games?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes as she called back along the hallway. “They belong to the people who own the house.”

“Are we allowed to play them?”

“Yes.” She fired her most indignant stare at Damian, who tried and failed to stifle a grin. “I can’t believe you tricked me,” she mock hissed.

His features turned serious. “You had a bang on the head. Let me hang around for a couple of hours to check you’re okay. Then we’ll leave you alone.”

When he looked at her like that she’d agree to anything, but since she didn’t actually want him to go anywhere it wasn’t a difficult decision to agree to him staying.

The four of them played Monopoly Junior on the living room floor, then Amy went to make sandwiches while the boys packed the game away.

“Does the TV work here?” Marty asked, dropping a crust of bread onto his plate at the kitchen table.

Amy swallowed her mouthful. “Yes. Why wouldn’t it work?”

“Daddy’s TV is broken,” Billy told her.

“What did you do to it?” she asked, assuming it would have been Billy who’d broken an appliance already.

“Nothing. It was broken before we came.”

Amy looked at Damian, confused. “It was on the other night.”

Damian looked fairly sheepish when he opened his mouth to speak, but Marty got in first.

“It just works at night-time,” he told Amy solemnly. “And only with TV programmes for grown-ups.”

“Really?” She tried not to laugh when she caught Damian’s eye. “That’s an unusual problem.”

“It’s very expensive to fix,” Billy said.

“Can we watch TV here?” Marty asked.

“I suppose so,” Amy said. “But not for too long. And when it’s time to turn it off, I don’t want any arguments.” They probably didn’t even hear the last part, since they’d already dashed away to the living room. “What exactly is the problem with your TV?” she asked Damian.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Obviously, there isn’t a problem with it.” Smiling, he collected up the dishes and took them to the dishwasher.

“Do you really have that much of an issue with them watching TV?” she asked, surprised that he’d be so strongly against it, and a little sad that she hadn’t known that.

“I don’t have an issue with them watching a bit of TV,” he said, the dishes clinking together as he loaded them into the rack. “What I don’t like is the way Billy has a tantrum when I ask them to turn it off. Or that they spend so much time when they’re not watching asking when they can watch. It drove me crazy the last time they visited, so I thought I’d eliminate the problem. If they don’t think there’s a possibility of TV they don’t ask for it.”

She nodded and stared at the glass of water in front of her.

“Obviously it’s easier to do stuff like that since I don’t spend that much time with them. I’m not making any comment about how you choose to do things.”

“I’m just surprised,” she told him.

He closed the door of the dishwasher. “How’s the head?”

“Fine,” she said smugly, pushing her seat back to stand up. “I think I might sit outside and dive into Scarlett’s next book.”

“She’s a brilliant writer, isn’t she?”

“Have you read them?” she asked, wondering exactly how many times he was planning on surprising her in one day.

“Just the first one. More out of curiosity than anything. I enjoyed it though.”

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