“So how’s Noel?” Peter’s Dad asked as his son climbed into the car soon after 6.00pm.
“Good.” Peter replied as he pulled on his seatbelt. He told his dad about Noel and Mark going to watch the movie and playing the video game and the possibility of them coming up for a few days in the summer and deliberately left out the bit about Castleview Primary School becoming an EP school before boasting about how good he was at playing Battlefront and hinting at maybe upgrading the old X Box 360 and getting a new X Box One so he could play more battlefront and…
“But you’re terrible at video games.” his dad interrupted.
“I know!” Peter replied. “but… I thought they’d put me on kiddie mode ‘coz I kept blasting Noel but they hadn’t… I was just, all of a sudden really good at it.”
“Good for you.” he said. “I’ll think about it.”
A short silence ensued. Peter imagined having an X Box One and relishing in the glory of whooping everyone’s ass at whatever game they played. He also considered the prospect that it was just a fluke, or series of flukes… or even that Noel and Mark had simply let him win. Who knows? Maybe his ballet classes and the supervised play sessions are improving his concentration and coordination, he wondered.
“So how’s Carol.” his dad asked after a short silence.
“Er… OK. Yeah. Good. Fine.” Peter said. Another silence ensued.
Eventually, after several sets of traffic lights, Peter’s dad cautiously asked, “So… what did you do? You and Carol? When Noel and Mark went to the pictures?”
Knowingly, Peter glared and said “Nothing Dad!” before claiming they “…just talked and listened to music and… talked and stuff.”