The Long Way Home by Phillip Overton

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  Simon sat on the couch between his Poppy and Uncle Barry watching Mork and Mindy on TV. His Dad was in the kitchen washing the last of the dinner dishes. He liked coming around to their house, it was much more fun than being at home with his mum. Dad and Uncle Barry would always let him stay up late watching TV and Poppy would always love hearing about school and his friends. If he was having trouble with kids picking on him, Poppy would always have some good advice on what to do next time other than his Mum’s advice to, ‘make sure you tell the teacher,’ while she still had her nose buried in TV Week magazine.

  He was glad his Mum had arranged to drop him off at his Dad’s for a couple of hours while she went to the parent and teacher night at the school. He didn’t want to be there when his Mum met his teacher. Besides, it was so much better being here than at school with most of the other kids who would only be watching a boring educational film in another classroom while the teacher dobbed on them to their parents.

  “Anyone want some ice cream?” Doug asked as he entered the lounge room already carrying two bowls of chocolate and vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate topping.

  “Sure do.” Barry sat up straight in the lounge chair as Doug passed him a bowl. He handed one to Barry and the other to Simon.

  “Thanks Dad.” Simon grinned as he saw the size of it piled high above the bowl.

  “I’ll be back in a second.” Doug said as he disappeared from the room.

  Returning a minute later with another two bowls of ice cream, he gave one to his Dad before he slouched back in the single seat chair to enjoy his own. The four of them sat in silence eating while they watched the end of Mork and Mindy.