Ring… Ring… Ring…

It was making little buzzing noises now as it rattled against the desktop, which was severely annoying. Annoying enough to make him actually lift his head from his pillow and answer it, though he kept his book open pressed open with his thumb and he didn't even bother to check who was calling.

"Oh come on," the voice on the other end muttered. "Pick up already, Fruitcake. Please just pick up the dumb phone. Aw, forget this. Oh, wait… Is it on now? How long's it been on?"

"Hello." He said it as a statement rather than as a question, and he practically felt her switching from somewhat-angry to somewhat-anxious through the telephone lines that stretched between his quaint little home in Alberta and hers in Saskatchewan.

"Um, yeah. Hi. Listen Noah, this is Eva. You busy right now?"

Noah rifled the last several pages of the novel in his lap. "Well, I was kind of only two chapters away from finishing the latest-"

"Great. Listen, I may have busted up my computer again-"

"Shocker."

"(Shut up) -and I need you to tell me how to fix it. Again. Dumb school project's due next week and I have soccer camp. Gotta finish, pronto. And you'd better help, or else I'll drive for five freaking hours and start tearing out your fingernails one by one. I know where you live."

"Sure, why not? I've got a few hours to kill. Home alone and all. Definitely have nothing better to do." Noah glanced mournfully back at his book, then slid out his thumb and set it aside. There wasn't much point in trying to finish now, so he stood up and wandered from his room. "Have you tried turning it off and off again?"

"Of course I did. What, you think I'm stupid?"

"No, no, just checking. Believe it or not, Homeschool called just a few days ago. Now that old monster of his took quite awhile to get up and running again, let me tell you."

"Just tell me how to fix the freaking machine."

Noah held up a finger in a One moment, please sort of way even though he knew she couldn't see him. "First off, tell me what exactly you did to break it."

"What I did to it? Worthless pile of junk. I outta-"

"Save the tangents for later, Iron Woman. First off, wipe the cookies clean."

"… What?"

"What are you using? Chrome? Safari? Firefox?"

"Dumb Internet Explorer on my dumb old PC."

"Oh, now I remember," he muttered, "It's yet another trivial thing you and I have in common." Louder, "Okay, what you're going to want to do is open the Start menu and click on 'Control Panel'. It's quite difficult. Are you sure you'll be able to handle it?"

"Shut up," she snapped back. Then, "So now what?"

After bounding down the stairs, he flicked on the lights to the kitchen. "Right. Now, assuming that your technosaurus happens to match with mine as well as our tastes in music do, you should see a little icon of an earth next to some computer screens. Click on that, then click on 'Internet Options'."

"Yeah?"

"A little box should pop up, and in the middle of the box you should see a button that says 'Delete'. Check the cookie box, hit 'Delete', and then hit 'Okay'."

Noah could hear her mumbling and clicking as he opened a drawer and pulled out a loaf of bread, followed by cheese and a jar of strawberry jam from the fridge. After much clicking and mouse-slamming, Eva said, "So, how does that fix my problem?"

"It probably doesn't, but it's good for your computer anyway."

"What, did you miss the part when I told you I needed this dumb project finished as soon as possible?"

"Maybe I just like listening to the sound of your very melodious voice."

"Maybe you just have a freaking death wish."

He briefly pulled the phone away so that she wouldn't be able to hear his slight chuckle. "Now then, what's the real issue?"

She rapped on the monitor. "Other than the fact that the screen is cracked and the dumb hard-drive whatever almost has a full memory? Can't get the dumb Internet to even open. Just keeps giving me some dumb 'TS77H18G4X' error message every time I try."

"Hmm…" Noah finished spreading the jam and then began laying on pieces of cheese. His sisters had always teased him for his 'bizarre tastebuds', but they were two foods he could actually eat without experiencing an allergic reaction, and hey, they didn't taste all that bad together. "Try restarting again, and then while it's booting up press and hold the F8 key."

A thick pause.

"Now it just wants me to enter some 'Safe Mode'. Aw, I don't need some freaking 'Safe Mode'! I am an adult!"

"Suck it up," he called back, licking jam from the flat side of his knife. "Mm. Now, depending on what computer you have, you shouldn't be able to move your mouse. Arrow over and select Safe Mode by hitting 'Enter'."

"… Are you eating another one of your weird sandwiches?"

"Oh, sorry. Ksssh! Going through a tunnel - Ksssshh! - Can't hear you - Ksssshh!"

Her fingers tapped along her desk with the sound of staplers clashing across wood. Not staples- actual staplers. "You're supposed to be helping me fix the dumb computer."

"I am helping you fix the dumb computer. By the way, why do you roll your eyes when you know I can't see you? Can you open the Internet now?" Noah lifted up his shoulder, trying to keep the phone pressed to his ear while he searched for dog food in the cupboards with one hand and held his sandwich with the other.

"Sort of. Google's fair game, but it looks like not much else is, and it's running real slow right now too… Yeah, real slow right now. Aw, forget this! I don't even like dumb English class! Dumb machine's never done anything for me! Why should I be the one to sit here for a few dumb hours and try fixing it? Maybe I should just tear out its dumb freaking cords and pound in its dumb freaking speakers! How would it like that, I ask you?"

"Hold your pretty ponies there, Iron Woman," he scolded, setting the dog dish back on the floor. "You're arguing with a piece of machinery. Count yourself lucky that we're off that ridiculous show, or Chris'd be editing that into one of the episodes for sure."

"… Fine. Look, I'm sorry for whatever dumb thing I did to make you mad, okay? And if this is payback for the time I threw your dumb screen out the dumb window, then I- Oh, shut up, Fruitcake. I can hear you laughing at me."

"And here I thought my sisters were the only ones who felt bad about supposedly hurting our computer's feelings."

She spat, "Aw, like you've never done the same. Don't even try to deny it. Just feel ashamed of yourself. Feel very ashamed."

"And now that I have been sufficiently humbled, shall we continue?"

"Please."

Noah licked globs of jam from his fingers and was about to open the fridge to replace the jar when he snagged a glimpse of a drawing one of his nieces had stuck onto the door, and cocked his head. "By any chance, do you have a habit of clicking on those annoying 'Shoot the Duck' ads?"

Her silence told him all he needed to know.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

There came a thump that sounded suspiciously like Eva banging her head against the desk. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! I hate them! They mock me with their dumb faces and then they fly across the dumb screen and… it's dumb!"

"Well, there you have it, then. That's what's causing your computer to run so slow."

"Just tell me how to freaking fix it already, or I will drive over to your house and tear out your fingernails. Don't think I won't!"

Noah nodded as he ripped off a square from a roll of paper towels and set about cleaning the mess of jam he had left on the counter. "Do you have a can of soda?"

"What?"

"Trust me, my mom taught me how to do this ages ago. It will work. Go get one." Through the phone he could hear Eva slamming shut a door, stomping down the hall, and throwing open the fridge. She called, "Yes, Dad! I'm working on it!" and then muttered, "Now what, genius?"

"Empty it and rinse it out. While it's drying, get a utility knife and some of that sticky putty stuff. For fixing or fishing walls or whatever it was you were telling me about that time at Playa Des Losers before you locked me in the gym for twelve hours." Scowling at the words 'Noah's Dodgeball Team Plays Tournament' on the calendar he added, "Don't you trust me?"

Eva didn't answer. She sounded like she was drinking the entire soda in one go. When she finished she managed to spurt, "This'd better work."

"Rinse and dry, remember?"

She did, then went off in search of the other items he had requested. "Where am I even s'posed to find 'sticky, putty stuff' anyway?"

"Try the garage. If nothing else, Play-Doh or bubble gum might work for temporary use."

"Ugh, I hate coming in here. This is gonna take awhile."

Noah checked the clock on the oven. Julia would be bringing her pack of anklebiters over in half an hour. He pulled a spaghetti strainer out from a cabinet and set about searching for noodles. "So how's life been treating you since the second season?"

"Fine."

"Seen anyone from the show lately?"

"Those two girls with the zebra shirts," she admitted, then hissed and muttered rapid words beneath her breath, including, but not limited to, "Stupid canoe." Then she seemed to catch herself. "Saw 'em when I went out shopping for a new hockey stick. Guess they live near my area or something. Wish it could've been someone else."

"Like Izzy?"

"Actually no, thanks. I'm not fond of waking up in the middle of the night to find her grinning over me, saying that she needed a place to hide out from the RCMP again or something. I was referring to that brickhouse guy with the bunny - he plays sports and makes killer food - but come to think of it, you wouldn't make such a horrible neighbor either, Fruitcake."

"Trust me, you'd think differently if you ever heard my family gather for the holidays. Anyway, you said you saw Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum? Tell me how that went."

"They don't take 'No' for an answer where sleep-overs are concerned."

Noah smiled thinly as he filled a pot with water, set it on the stove, and poured salt into it. "Better you than me. You find that putty yet?"

"Yeah, just a second ago, and now I've got the knife too. So how is any of this junk gonna fix my computer?"

"It's an antenna. It'll make the Internet run faster. Now, what you want to do is cut off the bottom of the can."

"The top too?"

"Not exactly. Just wait until you finish the bottom and then I'll tell you." He stared at the pot on the stove, silently urging it to bubble. When he received confirmation that Eva had completed her task he said, "Next, cut around the top, but not all the way. That's important. You have to leave an uncut space near the hole."

"Hole? What hole?"

"The one you drank out of, remember? Honestly it's like I'm talking to my dog. Except Hildegard follows orders. Don't you, Hilda?" The golden lab had just padded in from up the hall, and Noah reached down to scrub her ears as she lowered her nose into her food bowl. "Yes you do. Oh, yes you do."

Eva mumbled to herself, but continued following his directions without too much complaint as he told her where to make the next cut and where she could probably find her Wi-Fi router.

"Now," he said, snapping the raw noodles in half, "just put the can-lid part around the sticking-up-antenna part, and presto. That should do it. Faster internet at your service; try it now."

Absolute silence. Then a full two minutes later he heard her groan, "You are a freaking genius."

"I know, Iron Woman. I know."

"So, uh… Thanks, Fruitcake. Really. This is going to help with that essay a lot, I think. And in general. Guess I might… sort of… owe you something."

"I like ice cream."

She always hissed through her teeth when she tensed up her shoulders. "Oh, no. I don't freaking do dates. And especially not with you. You're Fruitcake."

"Trust me, I didn't ask you for a date. I only asked for ice cream. Remember when Izzy tried to get the three of us to go on that road trip about a month ago? There's a snuggly little place about halfway between your house and mine."

"That's two hours away! For dumb ice cream! Aw, forget this! You have any sports games coming up or something? It isn't worth seeing you for ice cream, but I might could do sports when I get back from soccer camp next week."

"Did you forget who you were talking to here? I'm the dodgeball-dodger. I have nothing even relatively sports-related coming up. Not me."

"Huh. Well… Think we have some ice cream in the freezer. If you eat yours on your end and I eat mine, is that close enough for ya?"

"It'll do, Iron Woman. It'll do."

"Shut up, Fruitcake."