Bee-beep, bee-beep, bee-beep.
Ben rolled over and tried to switch off his alarm. Unfortunately, his hand missed it by quite a long way and he only succeeded in knocking over a glass of water. He tried again, and this time his hand flew past the nightstand and he nearly fell out of bed. Luckily, the third time, he found the button and the ear-splitting noise stopped.
After what had happened earlier, Ben had lain in bed going over and over everything. He kept trying to think of different explanations for what he had seen and heard, but none of them felt right to him.
Eventually, exhaustion had taken over and he’d fallen into a deep sleep. Unfortunately, that had been at about five o’clock in the morning, and as his alarm went off at 6:45, he now felt groggier than a bear who had forgotten to hibernate.
It didn’t help matters that Carla came into his room and, seeing the spilled water, rushed out shouting, “Ugghhh, Ben’s peed himself. That’s disgusting.”
Washing and dressing were like doing a very difficult obstacle course, but by 7:15 Ben didn’t look too bad and sloped downstairs for breakfast.
“Morning, Mom,” he muttered as he sat down at the table.
“Oh, yes, it is morning and yes, I am Mom,” said Mom in a voice that sounded nothing like Mom. It was very low and gravelly.
Ben blinked and looked up. His mom was usually quite lively and chatty at breakfast, but she seemed very strange today.
“I must still be half asleep,” thought Ben, but then he looked at the table. There was no toast with peanut butter in front of him, nor was there a glass of orange juice. It was there every day when he came down, but for some reason it wasn’t there today.
“Uh, Mom,” said Ben. “My toast? And orange juice?”
“Toe juice, yes,” said Mom in her strange voice. She took two pieces of bread and a carton of orange juice, and put them in the oven, which wasn’t even on.
Ben scratched his head and was about to ask the obvious question—why on earth have you just done that, Mom?—when Dad walked in.
“Morning, Dad,” said Ben.
Dad stopped. He looked at Ben, then at Mom, at Ben again, at Mom, at his shoes and then at Ben yet again.
That was a bit weird, but what he did next was way weirder.
He pulled a chair out, but instead of sitting on it, he went and sat under the table.
Ben was feeling increasingly uneasy about how the morning was going when he suddenly remembered how his parents had teased him the previous day.
“Oh, very funny, you two,” he said. “Ha, ha, ha!”
“Yes, very funny, you two,” said Dad in a high-pitched whistling voice from under the table.
Ben looked under the table. Dad seemed to be hugging a leg of one of the other chairs as if it was his best friend. Then he heard Mom say, “Hair nice. Such hair nice.”
He glanced over and saw that she appeared to be talking to … to the mop! His parents were really taking this joke too far.
“Look, can I have my breakfast, please?” asked Ben angrily.
“Breakfast. Breakfast. Breakfast,” repeated Mom.
She said goodbye to the mop and gave it a kiss, after which she opened the oven and took out the two slices of bread and the carton of orange juice.
“Breakfast,” she said, plonking them down in front of Ben, along with an egg-whisk and a dishcloth.
“Stop it!” shouted Ben. “I’ve had enough, I’m going!”
For the second time in under twelve hours, Ben stormed out. He grabbed his bag and his coat and was heading for the front door when a very sleepy Ant appeared at the top of the stairs with Carla behind him.
“Morning. Had another bad dream?” he said sarcastically, as Carla stuck out her tongue at him.
“Oh, shut up,” snapped Ben. “I hate you, I hate them, I hate everybody!”
It really wasn’t a great start to the day, but it was going to become much, much worse.