SCENE: After the morning ablutions, SPARKY and MAMA are back in the boy’s room, getting him dressed. SPARKY has flopped down on the floor, lying limply, making it difficult for MAMA to get his jeans on him. He pulls a large book over to him and drags it up onto his chest. Then he inches it up over his face.

SPARKY: Where’s Liam?

[MAMA looks at him. She knows darn well where SPARKY is: lying on the floor holding a book over his face. Then she gets it.]

MAMA: I don’t know! Where’s Liam? Where did he go?

[MAMA continues to wrestle a pair of pants onto the boy.]

MAMA: Is he… under the bed?

SPARKY: [very quietly under his breath, as if he were talking to himself; also with a hint of amusement in his voice, because he knows something MAMA doesn’t know] Nooooo.

MAMA: Is he… under the chair?

SPARKY: [as before] Nooooo.

MAMA: Is he… in the cupboard?

SPARKY: [as before] Nooooo.

MAMA: Where is he?

SPARKY: [lowers the book just enough to peep over the top, eyes merry]

MAMA: There he is!

[SPARKY giggles. Then he puts the book aside and reaches up, placing a hand firmly over MAMA’s eyes — or, rather, the bridge of her nose, because the hand isn’t big enough to cover both her eyes.]

SPARKY: Where’s Mama?

(This has been repeated with toys… toddler fingers covering the eyes of Thomas the Tank Engine, for example, followed by Liam looking at me with eyebrows raised and the free hand palm-up in the air making a ‘who knows?’ gesture, asking, “Where’s Thomas?“. It’s a variation of the old peek-a-boo game, this time with words, and it amuses me so much. I love how it still centres around the eyes and being able to see them, only in a different way: now if you hide someone else’s eyes, they become invisible instead.)