Page 3 of Single Pucking Orc

The girl paused with her hand halfway to the hook, and he sighed.

“Sorry. That’s going to keep happening. I’ve had her for about two hours.”

To her great credit, she didn’t blink. “Then let’s get one of each,” she said. “What else do you need?”

He bought one of each. The bottle nipples led to bottles. The bottles led to formula. Formula led to little jars of brightly colored substances that claimed to contain carrots or peas or turkey but looked nothing like any of those things.

He stared at the labels, then consulted the list Mildred had given him which was suspiciously vague on the subject.

“What do you eat?” he asked Charlie, and she blinked up at him. “Excellent. Glad we had this talk.”

He pulled out his phone.

Korvash answered on the second ring, over a background of what sounded like several children and a television. “You didn’t come to skate.”

“I had an appointment. It ran long.” He picked up a jar labeled sweet potato and apple. “How much sweet potato is a serving for someone whose entire stomach is apparently the size of my fist?”

There was a pause on the other end, and the television went quiet.

“Say that again.”

“Mildred says six ounces every four to five hours and some purée once a day. What does ‘some’ mean?”

“Rognar.”

“Also, what’s a sleep sack? Is it the same thing as a swaddle?”

“Rognar.”

He gave up. “I have a daughter.”

The silence went on long enough that Rognar checked the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. Then Korvash yelled, away from the phone, “Elena. Get the good notepad.”

He closed his eyes.

It took twenty minutes. Elena Korvash had four children and no patience whatsoever, and she dictated a list while her husband made increasingly emotional noises somewhere behind her.

“Write it down,” Elena ordered him.

“I already have a list. I just don’t understand the list.”

“Then write it down. Don’t buy the bath. Everybody buys the bath. Use the sink.” A pause. “Actually, buy the bath. Your sink is an orc sink and she’ll drown in it. What’s her name?”

“Charlie.”

“Charlie,” Elena repeated, in a completely different voice, and there was a suspicious sound in the background. She sighed. “Korvash, stop crying.”

“I’m not crying.”

“You’re leaking.”

“It’s allergies.”

Rognar laughed for what felt like the first time all afternoon. By the time he ended the call, he had a list long enough to qualify as an equipment inventory and strict instructions to call back if he had questions about anything.

He also had a message from Tarmek demanding to know why he’d missed skate without notifying his captain. Three minutes later he received another one, informing him that Korvash had explained the situation and that he was excused from practice until further notice.

That one made him smile.