guppy_sandhu

It's been a good week at work. Aside from the usual work, one of the other consultants in his department has been searching for his missing nephew for weeks, and now has finally got a lead.

"The social workers think they may have located Joram." Dr Ahmadi told him one morning. "In Holby of all places."

"Perhaps your brother told him he had family here." Guppy says. "That sounds positive, anyway."

He didn't want to get his colleague's hopes up too much. Ever since Dr Ahmadi had heard of his brother and sister-in-laws' deaths in the Syrian war, they'd all tried to get the little boy found on social media. But with so many refugees in Europe, and so few making their way over to the UK, it had seemed like a needle in a haystack.

"So what happens now?" he asks.

"They're arranging a visit with the foster home." Dr Ahmadi smiles. "I have not seen Joram for many years, he was only three when I last saw him, he would be eight now. But we will talk and we will be able to find out if his father was my brother."

Guppy wishes him luck. As he leaves the office to go and pick the kids up from school, he passes a newspaper stand. The front pages of one of the papers criticises the country for taking refugee children. He stares at it for a moment, and sighs. A woman in front of him picks one up, makes a little haughty noise, and takes one of the papers to the cash register.

The kids had asked him what refugees were - especially after Fry's week at the community centre - but he'd given them quite a gentle version. What age should children find out the horrors of the real world? Joram has, and he's only a little older than Fry.

He is half way driving to Gil's nursery when he remembers that Gil started the nursery class today at Cherry Tree, the same school the older children go to, having reached an acceptable standard of toilet training. Apparently he had clung onto Fran's leg and howled this morning, which judging by all the emojis in her text had been rather harrowing.

He pulls into the school car park and heads into the nursery. He peeps into Nursery 2, hoping to avoid a prolonged conversation with Miss Brimstone, Brooke's teacher. No such luck. She spots him at once, and makes haste to get Brooke's coat.

"Dr Sandhu." she says, opening the door and looking rather flustered. "Do you think you could perhaps help Brooke think of a word beginning with O tonight that isn't a rude word?"

"I daresay I can." Guppy says. "Why, what did she come up with today for N?"

"Knob." Brooke declares, loudly.

"Brooklyn, that isn't very nice." Guppy says sternly. "Also, knob starts with a K, not an N."

"Yes." Brooke says, innocently. "Miss Brimstone writed it on the board to show me."

Guppy rolls his eyes, picks up her book bag, and goes to collect Gil from the next classroom. Apparently his first school day has all been a bit much for him; he's curled himself up on a cushion in the book corner asleep.

After some gentle prodding awake, Guppy scoops up his smallest small person. As he does so, a parent he recognises comes into the classroom.

"Oh, hey." Guppy smiles. "I didn't realise Esme-Rose and Anna came here."

The mum smiles politely. Esme-Rose runs up to her mum to put her coat on. Gil blinks blearily, then waves.

"Bye bye Elmo!"

Esme-Rose's mum gives him a look.

"Did he just call her 'Elmo'?"

"Oh, er, sorry, he's only little." Guppy says.

The other nursery children, who haven't had any success pronouncing Esme-Rose's name either up until this point, start also waving and saying 'Bye bye Elmo'.

"Ah, well, they're all quite little, er, see you at dance." Guppy says hurriedly, grabbing Brooke's hand and making a swift exit.

Guppy waits in the wings next to the stage. He has no idea why he feels quite so nervous - after all, it's only Fran and the kids who know him in the audience.

Fran had insisted that since Guppy went to dance class with Gil, it was Guppy who should stand on stage with him doing the dance recital. It is therefore Fran's fault, he has decided, that he is currently the only male parent standing backstage in a yellow tutu, next to Gil who looks adorable in his duckling costume, and a group of mostly sniggering mums.

"Esme-Rose, point your feet!" one of the mums instructs in a whisper, rehearsing another toddler through the moves. Guppy watches the pair in bemusement, pretty sure that his own child doesn't even know which bit of him his toes are.

"Now come and watch your sister." Esme-Rose's mum commands. "You might learn something."

Guppy peers past the curtains as a much older girl, a little older than Fry, takes the stage. She twirls gracefully, does some acrobatics, and finishes to a great applause.

"Well done, that was incredible." he congratulates the girl as she comes off the stage. She grins at him through what is, on close inspection, a thick layer of make up.

"Anna, don't sickle your feet." the mother says.

Guppy opens his mouth to say something, but it's time for them to go on the stage, so he takes Gil's hand, goes on the stage and tries to think like a duck.

As the music starts, he feels his face going red. Gil and Esme-Rose seem to be doing far better than he is. But after a very long minute and a half, the audience is clapping, and the kids look happy, so he decides it was worth it.

And that's when Gil makes a run towards the edge of the stage. And instinctively he darts forward to grab him...

***

"You're quite sure you aren't concussed?" Fran asks, as she drives them home. "You definitely fell head first."

"I'm fine. I'll put some ice on my... everything." Guppy says.

"Dad, why did you fall off the stage?" Fry asks. "None of the children did."

"I thought Gil was going to fall off. But he stopped and I tripped over him." Guppy says.

"I can send that to You've Been Framed, right?"

"No, you can't. I will literally give you £250 not to send that to You've Been Framed."

Once a week, the older two children go down to the leisure centre to learn martial arts. Guppy has been keen to make sure that they have a good grounding of it, particularly since they have their own door to the bar.

Usually he'd take the little ones swimming at the same time, but literally just as they get in, he looks down and sees a spreading purple cloud.

"Brooklyn! Don't pee in the pool!" he hisses. But it's too late, the damage is done, and the lifeguard orders everyone out while the water gets cleaned. Guppy feels his cheeks burning as he takes the little ones to get changed again, and they go out to watch the martial arts class through the door.

Brooke finds this rather more interesting anyway, as she will be four in November and will get to join in. Guppy watches with her, with a sense of pride. It's difficult for Fry to deal with people touching him, but he's learned not to flinch, he's learned some controlled movements to move people away. As for Coral, she is the smallest in the class, but she's determined enough to make up for it, and she's fast.

He watches Brooke with interest, wondering whether she will surpass her siblings at martial arts when she joins up. Brooke is a big girl, and always has been; like him and Fry she is tall for her age, though Fry is skinny. Coral and Gil are both tiny ex-premmies, like Fran's sister. In fact, with Brooke following the top 10% for height and weight, and Coral the bottom 10%, Guppy has the feeling that Coral might be about to be overtaken in size fairly soon...

As he's busy contemplating that his kids would make quite a well-balanced team of superheroes, he realises he's lost track of the youngest, and looks around quickly for Gil. He hasn't gone far, he's gone over the corridor and is peeping in a different windowed door. Guppy gets up and looks through the top window.

It's a room full of little people, sitting in a circle, mostly wearing pink, doing some sort of moves to twinkly music, jumping and turning around and wiggling their toes and things. Gil, who has a pink jumper with bumble bees on*, is copying the moves, wiggling his toes and bouncing around.

Suddenly, one of the instructors, an excited lady with a German accent, appears at the doorway.

"Look at the kleines Mädchen!" she exclaims, beaming at Gil. "Would you like to join us? First session is free!"

"Oh, thanks." Guppy smiles. That will fill the time nicely until the older kids finish martial arts. "Can my older one come in too? She's three." he adds, indicating Brooklyn.

"Of course! Well this is the one and a half to threes, but it'll give you a taste. I'm Mrs Wolff." she shakes Guppy's hand briskly before ushering them in to her class.

Brooke looks less than impressed at the twinkling music, some of which is in German and some of which is classical. She towers over the other children and, after a while, starts doing an imitation of the moves she was watching in the other class in time to the music instead. Guppy grins at her, and she grins back. Perhaps martial dance will take on. In any case, she's behaving herself, which means he gets to help Gil, who really appears in his element.

Mrs Wolff laughs with him at the end of the session, as the other parents are packing up.

"I think your older girl would rather be with Kitamura-Sensei." she says. "But she is not yet four?"

"Not until November." Guppy says. "Kitamura-sensei says they aren't insured for under fours. I have to admit we never thought about dance, whether she was the type as it were..."

"All types and shapes can dance." Mrs Wolff says, with a shrug. "I am a big lady, and I dance. I had a student with one leg once, in my older class, she dances. Dance is inside you, liking it is much more important. But Brooke, she is too old for this class, it isn't interesting for her. She can try my older class if she likes, but I will not be offended if she does not.

She turns and looks down at Gil.

"Your kleines Mädchen, likes to dance I think. You should come again next week, Gill!"

Guppy agrees; it's important for his youngest to get some time to do things that he wants to do, and there's no reason why he has to do the same as the others. But as he goes to collect Fry and Coral, there's something at the back of his mind.

"Mädchen..." he says to himself. He's heard the word somewhere. He pauses and types it into his phone, and then grimaces.

He waits until he gets home to Fran, then with the kids out of the room, explains what happened.

"I didn't realise because of the German, but she called him a little girl, and I'm sure she heard his name as Gill. He has that pink jumper on, and you know girls and boys look so similar at his age..."

"So?" Fran shrugs. "Just correct her next week."

"But all the others were girls, I think it might have been a girls' troupe." Guppy says.

"If he wants to join toddler dance, he should be allowed." Fran says indignantly. "So if she says no I will be having Words."


[*With four children in the house, and Fran a big disbeliever in gender colours, clothing tended to pass down. The bumble bee jumper had been cousin Abby's, who passed on anything to Fry that he didn't find too bright to look at.
Gil liked anything pink, but also anything pastel or shimmery, which was fortunate, as he received quite a lot of it.]

Brilliant, just brilliant. The poetic irony of being stuck in a stupid ball.

It's sort of floaty in here. And sort of two dimensional. But in front of him, he can sort of see a computer screen interface. It looks familiar, like the game Fran plays... of course... it's a Poké Ball.

The screen looks like something he can touch and click. So he starts off by clicking 'Status'.

Level 1 Guppysaurus
Ability: Wibbling
Type: Water/Fighting
Moves: Laser Dinosaur Eyes, Hair Ruffle, Tackle

Great. So, how does he do laser eyes? Will it make him go blind if he tries?

Everything jumps suddenly. Has one of the kids picked him up? They aren't going to start throwing this thing around, are they? He realises the two little ones are left alone with Fry - will he know what to do? He doesn't exactly have a track record for being nurturing...

But on the other hand, Fry probably knows how to get him out of his ball. And if Guppy has understood Fran babbling on about this game, it probably involves finding a pokemon, and throwing him at it.

He opens a menu called 'tutorial', and starts learning how to fight.

It was when Guppy had just got home from work that he got an inkling he was in trouble. Fran is loading the dishwasher with what appears to be some force. He circumvented it by heading straight for Gil, who is in the play pen in the living room.

"Hey Gil." he scoops up the smiling infant.

"Dada!" Gil makes grabby hands at his face.

Guppy bounces him, singing the teapot song quietly, as he goes into the kitchen. Fran won't yell at him in front of Gil...

"Hey." he says. "What's up?"

"Hey." Fran says, a little tersely. "This is up." She thrusts a gold certificate at him. "That maths contest you let Fry enter."

"Well that's great, isn't it?" Guppy says, trying to see the catch.

"Do you know what he said when he came home today?" Fran demands. "He put it on the table, and he said 'Rosie Sinclair beat me' and walked off."

"Who's Rosie Sinclair?" Guppy asks.

"A kid in year six." Fran says. She's not yelling, but she looks like she wants to. "Is this how it's going to be? Competing against kids three years older than him and then being disappointed with a fantastic result? And now he's upstairs cramming for the regional round, in just two weeks, which he'll be in for an even bigger disappointment because you can bet all the kids there will have been coached through the nose."

"Well could we relax our rule on training him just for once? If it's only for two weeks?" Guppy asks, rocking Gil who is looking a little nervous.

"What, so if Rosie Sinclair does three hours a day, we'll do four? What if Xiao Wang's doing five hours a day, shall we get him to do six? I don't want to raise him as a genius, Guppy, he's got enough things to worry about! I failed my maths GCSE and I got through life okay, he doesn't need to take it years early."

Guppy pauses. She has a point. But there's something else there.

"You failed your maths GCSE?" he asks gently. "You never told me that."

Fran sighs and picks up the certificate.

"Yeah." she says, putting her head in her hands suddenly. "I took Key Skills before I became a physio. But I can't bear to see Fry disappointed in himself when he's better at maths age seven than I'll ever be."

Guppy puts Gil down on the floor, and slips his arm around her.

"It's a shame he's not old enough to decide things like this for himself." he says, slipping an arm around her. "He can't think far ahead, he can only think about how things are now. He thinks we're holding him back as it is."

"I know." Fran says. "I know he's never going to be a normal kid, but I've got to be honest Guppy, I'd rather he was sitting on minecraft than up there cramming."

They sit and think about it for a bit.

"I think..." Guppy says after a while, watching Gil giggle as the new puppy, Pooh, licks his feet. "I think we should let him do the regionals - I doubt he'll get through to the nationals - and after that we try and distract him with one of his other hobbies in his schedule. It's gardening season now and he likes that. And he and Coral have got chess tournaments coming up, so they can do that."

Fran nods, though doesn't look entirely convinced this will work.

"And now I'm going to talk to him about this certificate." Guppy says, picking it up and going up to the attic to find Fry.

Coral is half way up the stairs, playing some complicated game involving dinosaurs and a teddy and some drinking straws. After cautioning her not to leave anything that anyone could fall over, he carries on up to the attic rooms and knocks on Fry's door before entering.

Fry's room is immaculate, as always. He's not, it turns out, poring over a book, but instead is lying on his bed with his Nintendo DS. On closer inspection, it's still a maths game, but it's a game nonetheless.

"Hey Fry." Guppy says. "Pause in a minute?"

He waits for Fry to finish the level and pause, as from experience interrupting him in the middle of a game goes down very badly. Then his oldest son sits up and looks in his general direction.

"Hello Dad."

"I saw you got a gold certificate." Guppy says, sitting next to him on the bed. "Good job!"

Fry shrugs. "Rosie Sinclair beat me."

"If you won a Pokémon battle with one Pokémon still usable, and Rosie won with two still usable, is it any less of a win?" Guppy asks.

"No." Fry says, after a moment. "A win is a win."

"Right. And what you did was an epic win." Guppy says. "So it doesn't matter if Rosie Sinclair got a few more points than you did, you both got gold, and you both got through to the regionals."

"Huh." Fry makes a noise of agreement. The logic does seem sound.

"Now Fry." Guppy says seriously. "If you want to go to the regionals we'll take you and we want you to do your best. But there's going to be a lot of kids there, and nearly all of them will be older than you, and some of them will have been forced to train many hours a day. We won't be doing that because it's important that you do lots of things, like get enough sleep, and because you like to do other things like play the piano and play minecraft. So we'll take you if you understand that you will probably not be the top scorer and can go and compete without feeling sad. Do you think you can do that?"

"I guess." Fry says, shrugging.

"Good lad. Shall we put your epic win certificate on your wall or on the kitchen board?"

"My wall." Fry takes it off him and takes it to the cork board, where he pins it carefully next to his 25m swimming.

Guppy smiles at him, before heading back downstairs. But a part of him feels lost. This situation just isn't in the parenting manual.

"Do you think this gets more nerve-wracking or less?" Guppy asks Fran as they sit in the hall for parents' evening.

"Well let's put it this way." Fran says. "We've had pretty much all the bad outcomes before, so we should be experts at how to make our faces react by now."

They debate whether to divide and conquer or go together, and decide to go together rather than do rock paper scissors as to who gets to do Coral. Brooklyn's teacher has a free spot, so they decide to get her out of the way first.

"Brooklyn is an excellent reader, she's clearly very bright." her teacher says. "It's a shame she refused to co-operate in the IQ test you took her for."

Guppy grimaces, remembering. Since they had tested Fry at a young age as part of his special needs developmental assessment, it had seemed unfair to not let the other kids take the test also. Coral had scored surprisingly highly too, because the test didn't expect her to read, but Brooke had simply refused to co-operate after the first fifteen minutes. The professor testing her had suspected that actually, she was also very bright, but part of her personality meant she wasn't interested in such menial things as IQ tests.

"She needs a lot of exercise if you want her to behave." Fran is saying. "Don't be fooled by her chunkiness, she was born chunky, but she's all Tigger inside."

Brooke's teacher laughs. "Yes, we do try to channel her inner Tigger. She hasn't led an escape attempt recently, so I think we are winning."

They head to Coral's teacher next. This one is usually the easiest, and sure enough Mr Walker has only good things to report about Coral, especially as her reading has got better with her special glasses.

"The only thing is." Mr Walker says. "Since the twins left, I think Coral's found it tough making a new best friend. Now don't get me wrong, you can put Coral with almost any kid in the class and she gets on well with them, and she's always kind to everyone, but I think she gets left out a little. If things don't pick up by Christmas, we'll look at finding her a buddy."

"Thanks." Guppy says. "Is there anything in particular we can help her work on?"

"I don't think there's anything specific." Mr Walker says. "She's a sweet kid and I'm sure she'll work it out soon. Maybe organise a few playdates for her?"

The Sandhus feel relatively optimistic approaching Fry's teacher, Mr Irons, who Fry seems to have been getting on really well with. Waiting in the queue though, even out of earshot, it seems that not all the parents are enjoying their evening with Mr Irons. Bethany's mum practically storms off in a huff, pulling out her phone to presumably call her ex-husband and complain.

"Is it bad that I'm glad that's not us for once?" Fran whispers.

Guppy gives her a grin, then they take their place at Mr Irons' desk. The teacher gives them his small, reserved smile, and then begins.

"Alexander's classroom behaviour is on the whole good, with the occasional lapse usually provoked by overstimulation or anxiety. He has learned to deal with planned changes to the classroom layout, and with a pre-warned change in the seating arrangement. He has also learned to tolerate a short planned interruption to an activity providing he is able to complete it later.

Academically he is top of the class in maths, though he has improved in all subjects by an average of 12%. His reading age is that of a thirteen year old in terms of vocabulary, but he lacks understanding of abstract concepts. He struggles with comprehension exercises and composition. Similarly with history, his memory is good but he struggles with any form of imagination questions. I think he has some room to improve there in time, but really his maths is his biggest problem now."

Guppy notices suddenly the emptiness of his desk; unlike every other teacher there, Mr Irons doesn't have a single piece of paper, no notes, no prompt. 12%? Where did that even come from? But then he catches the last line, and blinks.

"His maths is his biggest problem? But he's good at maths."

"Well he is." Mr Irons says. "But more importantly he finds maths relaxing, because it has right or wrong answers, with no ambiguity. If you took any bright child and were able to engage them in sustained maths practice for, as in his case, an extra hour a day, with a particular keenness to learn new topics, they too would improve at a rate far above and beyond that of their class. This has been demonstrated in several cases nationwide by parents who have, say, coached a child with normal IQ to get their GCSE years early."

"You've lost me." Fran says. "What's the problem?"

"At Alexander's current rate of maths progress he will be at GCSE level by the age of twelve." Mr Irons says. "Now while he is at this school, where every kid is learning at their own pace in the book, it doesn't really matter how high up he gets. Myself and the teachers in the classes above are all capable of coaching the early senior school years when it comes to maths. But Alexander has skipped a year, which means he will be hitting senior school at ten."

"So it'll be difficult to accommodate him?" Guppy asks.

Mr Irons nods.

"You really have three options - you try and speed him up, which I don't advise, because it'll impact his other learning. You could try and hold him back, which we have in the past and it hasn't worked. Or we carry on at the current rate, and worry about the problem later - but either way, I wanted to make you aware that this isn't going to be easy."

"We'll carry on as we are for now." Fran says. "But thanks for telling us."

"I have spoken to the headmistress." Mr Irons says. "And if nearer that time Alexander is struggling with other subjects and you wanted him to stay in primary school another year, we could always put him back into his original academic year. I just wanted to make sure you had all the options."

"We really appreciate all the effort you've put in for Fry." Guppy says. "All the classroom arrangement and low distraction environment and stuff. He really seems to get on well in your class."

"You're welcome, but I arrange all my classrooms that way." Mr Irons says. "I like things to be in a logical order myself."

As they leave the parents' evening, they can hear Bethany's mum still yelling on the phone to her ex husband.

"Well if you didn't have to have a restraining order and were able to come to parents' evening, maybe you could ask him why he thinks Beth has ADHD!" she snaps, before catching sight of the Sandhus and finishing the call. "What?!" she snaps again. "Is it payback time? Do you want a gloat?"

"Of course not." Guppy says calmly. "We didn't know before and we won't tell anyone else."

"Beth doesn't have ADHD." her mother says. "He's a special education teacher, he's looking for anything medical."

"I'm sure." Guppy says gently. "But Mr Irons has been a real ally to Fry and... if there is anything in what he said about Bethany look, we've been through this sort of thing a lot, and if you want to talk about it..."

"No. But thank you." Bethany's mother pushes past them and leaves.

Guppy watches after her, but Fran frowns thoughtfully.

"I don't think Mr Irons is just an ally." she says.

"How do you mean?" Guppy asks.

"Didn't you notice? He rattles off stats, he barely smiles, he likes logic and order and lack of distractions." She looks up at him. "He's autistic too, Guppy."

Guppy watches the angry parent getting into her car and turns back to Fran.

"I think you might be right. Better make sure we keep it to ourselves."

While it's not quite time for them to go on holiday yet, Holby does at least boast its own beach, and so Guppy and the family head down there one weekend when it's warm enough in the sea to be bearable*.

"What did you bring us here for?" Fry complains as they get out the car. "I hate sand."

"Yes, but your sisters don't." Fran says. "You can keep your shoes on if you want."

Guppy, sensing that Fry is thinking about kicking off, tucks his secret weapon - a book to identify sea shells - into his back pocket. It's not ideal, but sometimes they have to take a chance to make sure the other kids don't miss out.

"Nobody in the sea without a grown-up!" he calls after the rapidly disappearing girls. "Stay where I can see you!"

He carries Gil while Fran talks Fry down into a calm state as they go to find their spot. They pick an area between stones and sand, near a concrete slope used to wheel boats down to the sea. Fry sits on the concrete, safe from sand, and starts playing with a slinky Fran has just given him, letting it wiggle down the slope.

Gil isn't quite walking yet, but he's just about got the hang of crawling, and seems delighted to be in the sand without having to wear most of his clothes. He still has his toenails painted in pretty colours from his visit to Life Support the other day, and under Guppy's watchful eye he explores the various sea shells on the beach.

Guppy smiles slightly as Fran goes off to paddle in the sea with the girls. Crowd control of all four at once is always a bit of a worry, but two at a time seems just about manageable.

"You all right there Fry?" he calls up the concrete slope as Fry runs back up with his slinky.

"No. Half of me is left." Fry says, letting the slinky go again and making some excited noises, flapping his hands and bouncing up and down.

Guppy turns back to Gil, who is holding a shell and babbling, "Itty itty!". The next second he hears a thump and a shriek, and he looks around to see Fry has fallen off the slope. Or has he fallen? There's a big leather football bouncing away from him, and another boy about Fry's age running after it.

He scoops up Gil and goes to Fry's rescue; having landed in the sand, he's not hurt but is shrieking loudly. Guppy puts Gil down.

"Come on Fry, nothing broken." he says. "Let's get you up."

He waits for his cue to be allowed to pick him up, then sits Fry on the edge of the concrete and starts to dust him off.

The boy with the football comes back and stares guiltily at Fry.

"Sorry, did it hurt?" he asks.

"There's too much sand!" Fry wails. "It's everywhere."

The other boy blinks at him, and then starts laughing.

"Niall!" an enormous man strides over after the boy with the football. "I told you not to come over to them."

"He's crying because he doesn't like sand." Niall laughs.

Niall's father's eyes fall on Gil's painted toenails. He pulls a disgusted face.

"Come on Niall, you don't want to hang around with poofters."

"Excuse me." Guppy turns to the man. "Why don't you mind your own business? My boys were playing perfectly happily over here."

"Yeah, well we were all fed up of that noise your big lad was making." Niall's dad says. "If he doesn't like sand, why don't you all piss off back where you came from? And cover up your baby's horrible scar and ponsey toenails while you're at it?"

Before Guppy can come up with a good reply, Niall's father retrieves his son and moves their whole party to the other end of the beach. Fran comes back up with the girls.

"Was he bothering you?" She asks, looking on the warpath.

Guppy relates the tale, minus some of the words, out of fear that she will take it upon herself to march half way across the beach and set them straight. She still looks pretty cross. Fry, recovered from having had to touch sand, goes back to playing with his slinky, safe in the knowledge that Niall and his father's horrible football is well out of range.

"I think Gil's toenails look beautiful." Coral says. "And it's not his fault he's got a scar, it made his heart better."

"We'll show them." Fran says. "Can you take the others to the Seashell Sushi Café and I'll be back in about forty minutes with Gil?"

There are excited cheers at the thought of going to the Seashell Sushi Café, which is a favourite haunt of all three of the older children; Fry because he likes to watch the plates go round, Coral because she can name all the sushi, and Brooke because she gets to press the button that makes seagull noises and calls the waiter.

Fran catches them up a little while later, with a cute photograph of Gil, scar and painted toenails and all, in a frame. Guppy smiles at his son, and the photo, and feels that yes, it does show those meanies at the beach.

"I've entered him into Holby Baby of the Year." Fran says. "They said he has character. If we win, we get a £500 shopping voucher. And they said he should do modelling."

"I'm pretty sure they say that to all the babies." Guppy says gently. "But it's a cute picture."



[*In the UK this typically happens about twice a year]

It was a relief, to Guppy, when Brooke was able to start at the same school as Coral and Fry, even if the circumstances were that she had been asked to leave her nursery for misbehaviour.

Brooke, at two and a half, and potty trained, was fully eligible for Cherry Tree Primary in theory - the only problem was that she was born in November, so technically shouldn't have started until the following September. But Mrs Patel, the headmistress, had sympathy for the various struggles of the Sandhu family, and reassured them that a few extra months in Nursery 1 would be something Brooke wouldn't even realise.

"Of course if she's racing ahead like Fry was, we can look at that later." she had added. "But I gather Brooke is something of a live wire so she'd probably be happier having longer in a play environment."

So far, after two weeks, the arrangement seems to be working. Miss Hewitt has found that Brooke's general behaviour is fine, so long as she is kept occupied. Each time Guppy picks her up, she seems to be surrounded by new friends, which makes him smile.

The next day, he realises his attention had been focused in the wrong direction.




"Dr Sandhu? How has he been feeding?"

Guppy is staring at the scales, as his youngest son sits contently in them, without his nappy on, sucking his fingers.

He looks at the graph. Even Fry with his chick could tell him that you don't cross two centiles downwards without getting worried.

"Dr Sandhu?"

"He's been feeding well." Guppy says, his throat tight. "He... he's had bronchiolitis a few weeks ago, he didn't have to be admitted overnight but... he'd been feeding better and... I-I didn't realise he wasn't gaining weight, he was already so small and..."

He feels wretched. How could he not have noticed?

The neonatologist carefully lifts Gil out of the scales and puts him down on the examination table.

"Does he go blue when he feeds?"

"No." Guppy says. "Not that I've ever seen. And I'm sure Fran would have noticed if he had."

"Does he get out of breath?"

"He doesn't really do much." Guppy says. "I mean corrected his age is only about four months, so I wasn't expecting much... our older three are all developmentally advanced so I just thought he was, well, normal for his corrected age." He takes a slow breath. "I've missed something, haven't I?"

"This isn't your fault." the neonatologist says, gently but firmly. "You aren't specialised in neonates, and we always knew he was likely to need further surgery with his heart condition."

Guppy can feel his own heart pounding as the neonatologist performs the echo scan. Even he can get some idea that it doesn't look right. It feels like an hour has passed before the verdict is announced.

"The shunt that we inserted in your son's first operation is not working as well as we'd like. We will need to do the second part of his operation sooner rather than later."

"When?" Guppy asks.

"I'm going to speak to theatre, try and get him scheduled for tomorrow. We need to admit him tonight for bloods and..."

He doesn't really hear the rest of the consultation. Certainly when he relates it to Fran over the phone later, he can barely recall what the consultant said.

"Guppy, slow down, I'm on my way." she says. "I'm just phoning Dad and Maggie so they can pick up the others, and then I'll be right with you."

"You can't have it both ways." Guppy says firmly to Fry, as he pats Gil's back gently post-feed. "It's Halloween party at Beavers tonight. You can either go in a costume, or you can go in your Beavers uniform, or you can not go, but all the other Beavers will be going in costume."

"Why do they have to wear costume?" Fry complains.

"Because it's their party." Guppy says, patiently.

He watches his young son make a rather agonised decision. Fry is old enough now to understand that a person in a costume is still the same person, and not be as freaked out about it, though he still likes to know who is who under the mask. Finished with feeding Gil, he gently clips the small person back into the sling on his front, which is still the place he prefers to be.

"I will wear a costume." Fry decides.

"Great. But Mum's not got time to make one, so we'll have to go to the supermarket." Guppy says.

"Do I get a costume too please?" Coral asks, tugging his trousers.

"Yes you can have one too."

"Me! ME!" Brooke yells. "I want one!"

"Please. All right!" Guppy holds up his hands. "We'll all go while Mum is at the hairdressers."

How hard can it be? Guppy reckons he's going to have to get the hang of having all four kids at once in public at some point.

Gil begins to grizzle when he gets put in the car seat, so he gets Coral sat next to him next so that she can sing 'Twinkle twinkle little star' at him, then loads up Brooke. Fry, who can get into his own seat, gets in the front.

"Daddy, when will I be big enough to go in the front?" Coral asks, as Guppy slides into his own seat.

"When you're tall enough to have a booster seat without a back." Guppy replies. "Then you and Fry will take in turns."

It feels like a military operation to get to the supermarket. But the new seating arrangement has its benefits - Fry is no longer next to his siblings, which means the end of in-car fights between him and Brooke. And at the other end, Fry and Coral manage to wait patiently for the younger two to get unstrapped again.

"No!" Brooke protests, when Guppy gets out the pushchair. "Me big!"

Guppy considers for a moment, then caves in, and straps the grizzly baby back into his favourite sling so he can hold Brooke and Coral's hands. Sorted.

"What's this one?" Fry asks, pointing at the costume.

"A vampire." Guppy says.
"Are they dead?"
"Yes."
"What's that one?"
"A zombie."
"Are they dead?"
"Yes. Are you going to reject all the costumes that are of something dead?"
"Yes." Fry says, seriously.

"Okay." Guppy looks around at the other costumes, and picks one up. "Look, a super hero."

"It's red." Fry shakes his head. "I don't wear red. Can I go as a policeman?"

"You could if your costume at home still fitted." Guppy says. "I don't see any police costumes here."

"I could be a detective and wear a shirt and a tie." Fry says.

"Okay." Guppy smiles. "If you can wear a tie for Halloween you can start wearing your school tie." he adds, since Fry has previously flatly refused to put on his school tie, and it's probably time to try again.

"Daddy." Coral tugs his belt again. "What are the girl costumes meant to be?"

"Er..." Guppy peers at them, picking them off the shelf. "We have witch and... 'spooky girl'."

"What's that one?"

"That's Princess Jasmine, I think it's in the wrong area." Guppy says. "But you can have that one if you want. Or one of the ones in the 'boys' costume area."

Coral hesitates. Princess Jasmine is tempting, and there's a sad lack of pink dinosaur costumes which is what she had been hoping for, so she goes for 'spooky girl'. Maybe Mummy can make her a pink dinosaur costume when she has more time.

"Dad." Fry points. "Brooklyn's in that box."

"What box?" Guppy spins around, suddenly realising he let go of Brooke when he picked up the costumes. He spots her just as she climbs into a big crate of pumpkins, and dashes over to stop her as she pushes her feet against the side she climbed in on.

The thick cardboard starts to tear...

As the pile of pumpkins starts to shift under the toddler, they seem to gather momentum, and Guppy manages to grab her just as the pumpkins begin to escape from the box, rolling all over the floor.

Fry, fretting that they're going to get in trouble, starts flapping his hands and whimpering. Guppy, hearing the noise over his attempt to stop the pumpkins, looks over to make sure he's not about to kick off. A woman near him stares at him flapping, then grabs both her children by the hands and hurries them away, which for the time being is probably easier than them being next to him.

"We're going to get arrested!" Fry wails.

"No we won't, it's okay." Coral says, going back to him, picking up a sparkly ghost from the shelves. "Can you tell me how many sparkles there are on this?"

Guppy feels a wave of relief at this cunning intervention on Coral's part, and turns his attention back to Brooke.

"Brooklyn." he says sternly. "That was very naughty. You know you are not allowed to climb in the shop. It's very dangerous."

"Fry did it!" Brooke points.

"Fry did not do it, I just saw you." Guppy says, even more sternly. "Now go and stand with your brother and sister and do not move until I have picked these up, or there will be no Halloween costume for you."

***

"Did you get on all right with all four on your own?" Fran asks, plaiting the blue and green streaks into her newly trimmed hair.

"Fine. Few teething problems." Guppy says, casually, chopping up one of the pumpkins. "No actual injuries. Had to buy a few extra pumpkins."

Fran snorts, and starts heating up Gil's feed.

"We'll get the hang of it, you know." she says. "It's just a case of getting back into equilibrium."

"I feel like I need retraining for Brooke." Guppy comments, putting the pieces of pumpkin into the oven to bake. "Coral was a star today."

"Yeah, I'm glad the Beavers let her join in the party." Fran says. "Our older two are growing fast, huh?"

They consider this for a moment.

"Wonder what it'll be like when they're all teenagers." Fran ponders.

"Chaos."

"More than now?"

"Almost certainly. Wouldn't have it any other way."

They call it kangaroo care.

Guppy is familiar with this principle from when Fry and Coral were in the special care baby unit - premmies are small, get cold easily, and miss a lot of skin to skin contact through spending months in an incubator.

Today, Gil has graduated from CPAP - an oxygen therapy requiring a pressured mask - to nasal oxygen, which is much easier to manoeuvre. Guppy gets a proper look at his little face for the first time without a huge tube, as the neonatal nurse carefully tucks Gil inside his shirt, against his bare skin.

"Hey little guy." he gently strokes Gil's head.

"I think he's going to have your hair." Fran says, sitting down next to him.

"He can look however he likes, I'm just glad he's getting bigger so he can have his operation." Guppy says, smiling slightly. "And he'll be able to feed soon... ow!"

He looks down.

"Help, Fran, he's grabbed my chest hair.."

Fry looks over and giggles.

"What do I do?" Guppy asks, trying to detach his little fingers.

"You think that's bad, you want to try breast feeding Brooke for twelve months." Fran comments, getting her camera out.