Ethan giggled but then squealed as he felt the pull of his reins, his mum yelping as the dog bounded towards them. Ethan’s mum picked up her son, held him high as the dog dropped something on the ground, sat, and looked up at them wagging its tail.
Ethan squealed again and stretched an arm out towards the dog but his mum swung him away from the hound. “oggie!” Ethan said. “Oggie! Me!”
Feeling his mum cautiously turning him back towards the dog, Ethan stretched out his other arm and flapped his fingers in a ‘come to me’ gesture.
Realising the dog meant no harm, Izzy strapped her son into his pushchair and bent down to pick up what the dog had dropped, thinking it a toy to be thrown. “Oh,” she said when realising it to be a parcel. She turned the cube around then read the address. “Dad? Ah…” She looked around, searching for anyone who might be connected with the dog who was still staring up at her. “Sorry, mate. Got nothing for you.”
As if knowing what she’d said, the dog sighed and ran off in the direction of the local housing estate. Izzy pushed Ethan towards the exit and when coming out on to the main road, looked around but the dog had disappeared. With no one else around, Izzy shrugged, tucked the parcel into the storage area behind where Ethan was sitting and pushed him towards town.
Next to the post office was the one and only museum. Ethan squealed as he spotted a poster for the latest exhibition and a huge picture of a main dressed in an impressive warrior uniform.
Izzy looked at her mobile. Three o’clock. “The post office first.”
“No!” Ethan snapped.
“Yes, Ethan.”
Ethan wailed so loudly that a woman walking past glared at Izzy.
“Okay, okay,” Izzy said to both to Ethan and the woman, then pushed a now-silent Ethan through the museum doors, letting them bash against the walls either side of them.
Izzy and Ethan criss-crossed through the different rooms, looking at paintings, statues and ornaments, and it wasn’t long before Ethan was wailing again.
Izzy sighed and fished around in the space behind the buggy for something to keep him amused. She spotted the parcel and although it was plain, it was the best option, Ethan’s normal toys sitting on a ledge by their home’s front door.
Ethan cooed as the parcel was offered to him and played with it for a while but hunger took over his thoughts. He listened as his mum’s mobile phone rang and found that far more interesting so went to put the parcel on a statue’s hand, the person carved in stone offering it out as if to take it. But Ethan wasn’t close enough so the parcel tipped out of his hand.
Izzy didn’t hear the parcel falling on to the floor, didn’t hear her son talking to the statue as he imagined he’d made a new friend who would be glad of the new toy and pick it up for him. She was too busy talking to her friend who was at a café down the road and was inviting Izzy and Ethan to join them.
As they headed to the ‘Silver Teapot’, both Izzy and Ethan forgot about the parcel, forgot about going to the post office to send the package to its rightful destination.