Aiden
Saturday 29th November 2025
Eggo lies shirtless on the bed near the window, nursing his food-baby and chatting to his six-year-old son via video call.
“Okay, Spider-Man, it’s gone nine. Pretty sure you should be asleep right now,” he says.
“I can’t sleep. My brain is too noisy,” Logan says through the phone. He has that adorable gap-toothed lisp of a primary-schooler.
I’m sitting on the other bed. I can’t see Logan, but Eggo’s face is illuminated by the blue light from the screen. One arm is tucked behind his head, and his post-shower armpit hair looks particularly fluffy.
“Why, what’s your brain saying now?” he asks.
“Six seven, and also what would happen if there was no gravity?”
Eggo answers without missing a beat, obviously used to having left-of-field questions thrown at him. “Well, I reckon we’d all be floating around and bumping into each other.”
“Can you drink hot chocolate in space?” Logan asks.
“I expect so. They’ve got these special cups on the space station that you can drink coffee and stuff from, and it doesn’t all float off.”
“No, not in the spaceships. In space, like inWallace and Gromit. Can you have a picnic on the moon?”
“No, Logan. I don’t think you can drink hot chocolate in space, then.”
“Okay, but what if the world was just France? Like one big France. Would we have croissants for breakfast every day? I don’t even like croissants, though. Well, I do, but I’d probably get bored. Are croissants vegetarian? I don’t eat mammals any more.”
Eggo lets out a long sigh, unhooks his hand from behind his head, and rubs it down his face. “Is Mummy there?”
“I’m here,” a woman’s voice says. It’s quieter than Logan’s, so she must be farther away from the phone. “I’ve tried telling him about twenty times already, but he won’t stay in bed.”
“It’s a sleepover night,” Logan explains. I don’t know their inside terms for things and I’m not sure what he means by this. Possibly that it’s a Saturday.
“Have you brushed your teeth?” Eggo asks.
“Yes.”
“Have you read one of your sleepy books? NotDogmanorCaptain Underpants, those are too ADHD for bedtime.”
“Yes, I read a whole chapter ofMatilda.”
“Do you have your moon light on?”
“Yes.”
“And you still can’t sleep?”
“No. I’ve tried really, really hard.”
“He hasn’t even tried,” Jody says. “He just keeps talking about how Uranus is a gas giant.”
I snort with laughter. As something of a nerd myself, it’s pretty funny.
“Is that Uncle Ross?” Logan asks, referring to Eggo’s usual roommate, Snatch.
“No, not Rossy this time. I’m sharing my room with a different guy called Aiden. Wanna say hello?” And before I even have a second to process this, Eggo throws his weight off his bed and comes to sit next to me on mine until we’re both visible in the tiny panel at the bottom of the screen.
“Hi, Uncle Aiden,” Logan says, smiling this enormous, cherubic, missing-toothed smile. He’s freaking adorable, with rosy cheeks and white-blonde curls circling his crown. In the background, I can make out a poster of the Saja Boys fromKPop Demon Hunters, and a bed full of Pokémon cuddly toys.
