“No, I think you’ve had quite enough spaghetti tonight,” answers Kuckoo to her daughter Louisa’s request. “Now let’s see if we can get that nasty bowl off your head.” But, having a revelation, she instead pivots toward googling Sparky at her laptop. “Anything yet?” she asks, lining up her thoughts while Louisa slurps a stray spaghetti noodle into her mouth. “Not really,” he barks back, and then relays what he thought was sidestepping trivia but turns out to be the heart of the matter. “Did you know, Kuckoo, that there’s a Cow Pond over on the old continent. Spelled with a ‘c’ instead of a ‘k’.” Kuckoo doesn’t get angry, but she inwardly thinks that Sparky should keep on track with his search for the missing girls. The big ta-do is — tonight! No time for sidestepping trivia. Even though, as I said, it’s the meat of the problem, the gist of the matter, white and grey. “Sorry,” Sparky apologizes when Kuckoo doesn’t respond. “I just–” “No problem,” she answers, thinking on the contrary, it *is* a problem. Perhaps they’ll have another sale on word processing dogs down at the marketplace soon. She’s saved enough money. She’s about ready to buy. One more slip–
“Bowl,” she then utters, remembering her insight. “Fish bowl,” she elaborates. “Google, Sparky, ‘fish bowl’ and ‘lost’ together.”
Sparky does as commanded (good dog!). “Yes, there’s a hit!” Sparky is excited because he thinks this can save his job as animal word processor for the Kuail family. Because he knows he’s in trouble too. Dogs are intuitive like that. “But — looks like there’s only two lost souls in that song instead of three. One off, then.” Sparky’s job is suddenly jeopardized again.
—-
In other parts of Kuckoo’s small house overlooking Tao Bay, daughter Thelma is lining up Benjamin Franklins to stick on her doll heads…
… while visiting Earnheart and Gordon fiddle around with drawers and cover themselves with grease stains. Who left those children here??
Sunklands 