‘You just got owned.’

He gets off the school bus hands and face covered in ink, sure sign of a Bad Day.  Back home and an email from school, ‘blowing ink out of a biro’. I search for the pen amongst the crushed food at the bottom of the school bag.  Not only is there no pen, there is no pencil-case either.

I gather together a spare pencil, pen and ruler in a plastic bag.  He thanks me but the next morning it is left on the kitchen table.

This morning, Monday morning. ‘Shall we just make sure you’ve got what you need?’  In the pencil-case, now retrieved from school is a broken ruler, a broken yellow colouring pencil and a cheap felt tip pen.

‘I’ve got what I need,’ he says with a broad smile.

‘Except a pencil and a pen.’.

‘And what do you call this?’ he says holding up two inches of pencil shard, ‘and this pen is allowed’.

Then he cocks his head to one side, closes an eye, grins and says slowly, ‘you just got owned’.

‘Pardon?’

‘I.  Beat.  You.’

He raises a pistol shaped hand and fires it at my head.

‘I just so owned mum,’ he laughs.  The laughing goes on and on and on but is strange and forced.

‘Is it about winning?’

‘It so is.’