"I'm home!" Martin called into his home as he walked into the door.
In most households, that would have just been a greeting, but in the Murphy house it was more of warning, 'Danger, Murphy's Law in range!' Little Milo had even started to do it when he got home school, the dear. Speaking of the little guy, he looked over to the living room couch, where his daughter was sitting at her brother's feet, keeping herself busy with something, while Milo stared at the TV, looking absolutely bored out of his gourd. Martin gave a sympathetic smile. Milo had been incapacitated for several days now because his appendix ruptured on him and the doctor has him on bedrest. Milo had not been taking it well, telling a six year-old to stay still is like telling a fish to grow wings and take to the sky.
"What are you two doing?" Martin asked, tilting his head to try and see what Sara was doing better. Then Milo looked up at him, neutral.
"Sara is painting my toenails." And the eyebrows went up.
"Okay, well, that's okay, but… Why?"
"I need to practice my painting skills, Dad!" Sara responded, before reapplying her focus to the task at hand.
"Sara is tired of having to go to me every time she wants her nails painted, so she's using Milo as a test doll." Bridgette said, appearing in the doorway.
"Plus, Sara said she was painting them Bee-hicle yellow, which is cool." Milo peeping, looking a little more lively now. "It is Bee-hicle yellow, right?"
"What kind of hack do you think I am?" Sara sassed, waving a toenail brush at him.
"I think your ten."
"You-"
"None of that, alright." Martin chuckled, waving his hands. "Just go back to what you were doing." And so they did, as Martin went a joined his wife if the doorframe. "So, how has Milo been?"
"Well, he's pretty sure bedrest is killing him slowly, if that tells you anything." Bridgette chuckled. "He really wants to be up and about."
"Yeah, I know how that is. I was bedridden plenty of times, that's the kind of boredom that feels like hot needles in the brain. At least Milo has Sara, my sister was so much younger then me that it was forever before she was cool enough to play with."
"Now, Martin, you and Kate are only five years apart, that's only a year more than Sara and Milo."
"Yeah, and did you ever notice that she's only been really playing with him the past year or so?" He said, raising a brow briefly before returning focus to Milo. "I do feel bad for the little guy, though."
"Well, you've got a day off Saturday, he should be healed by then, maybe you can go do something with him. You can go do some father-son bonding with Milo and I can take Sara out shopping for those new shoes she needs." Bridgette suggested. Martin seemed to ponder it for a second, for snapping his fingers in realization.
"I can take him out on Murphy's Yaw."
"Your family's fishing boat?"
"Yeah, every little boy should go fishing with his dad at least once. Plus, it's a relaxing task that shouldn't strain him too much." Martin smiled. "It's perfect."
"Great, let's tell Milo and call whichever of your uncles has the boat."
"I think Aunt Becky has it, actually."
####################################################################################
"Iiiiii'm goin' on a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat." Milo sang to no particular tune, swinging one of his arms and dragging a wagon full of life vests with the other.
"You excited for fishing, buddy?" His father asked, smiling down at him.
"Yeah! I'm just glad to be out of the house. I was tired of laying around and getting beat at Mario Kart by Sara." Milo nodded his head before looking out onto the water. "I didn't know we had a boat."
"We'll we don't, per say, it's a family boat. You know how we share the RV with our uncles and cousins? It's like that." He explained, trying to spot where his aunt had parked the boat.
"Oh… Why we do that?"
"Insurance purposes, plus none of us can afford the damages on our own."
"Huh?"
"Grown up reasons." Martin simplified, speeding up his gate as spotted the boat. Milo sped up right along with him, nodding in understanding. Soon enough, they stopped in front of a boat. Or, the boat, rather. "Behold, Milo, Murphy's Yaw!" Martin swung out an arm, like he was presenting it. Milo blinked at the incredibly average looking boat, then up at its name, then back at his father.
"Why is it called that?" Milo asked, looking back at the boat. Well, he was just full of questions today, wasn't he?
"It's a pun. See, it's the Murphy family boat, and yaw is a thing that boats do. Murphy's experience murphy's law… Murphy's Law… Murphy's Yaw." Martin started to over explain as Milo stared up at him with blank, confused look in his eyes. "It's just a dumb joke. Into the boat you go." He said, lifting Milo into the boat.
After finishing getting all the supplies packed onto the boat, they were off to find a fishing spot. While they were cruising over the center of the lake, Martin looked down from his spot on top of the boat to see Milo standing at the front of the boat. He was giggling, holding his arms out to the light breeze blowing past them, the cowlick the topped his head flapping in the air… before quickly ducking as some sort of giant, toothy fish leaped out of the water and overhead. Yikes! Was that a gar or some sort of ancient fish? It seemed too big to be fresh water fish… oh, who was he kidding, with murphy's law in effect, that fish could be from Jupiter and he'd only be a little surprised. At least Milo was okay, if a little shocked. He just hoped the that was last time they saw the fish.
"That was a weird fish, huh, Daddy?" Milo asked, looking up him before looking over the edge of the boat in the direct the fish was.
"Sure was, I'm just going to speed up the boat here to get some distance from it. Better get against the wall." Milo nodded and did what he was told, and Martin promptly sped up. Once he was positive they were out of the demon fish's range, he stopped the boat and climbed down from his spot on top of the boat.
"Is it time to fish yet?" Milo asked, trotting over to his father, looking over the poles.
"You bet, bud. Do you know how to fish?" Martin asked as he picked out a child's rod out for Milo. It was bright blue along the rod and grip, with the spider man logo printed across the reel, and the whole thing was plastic. Martin had two backups too, just in case.
"Grandpa Murphy showed me last summer." The tot nodded, taking the pole into his adorably small hands.
"Did he? I thought he was too busy chucking you into the lake." Martin chuckled, with Milo bursting into giggles soon after.
"That made Mom so mad." He giggled as he walked over to the edge of the boat.
"Yeah, she wasn't happy with your shenanigans, that's for sure." Martin, looking off to the side as he remembered the event. He started to walk forward, only to stop dead in his tracks when Milo gave a reckless cast and nearly hooked his nose. "Woah, buddy, be careful. You almost caught me there."
"Opps, sorry." Milo blushed, before going back to what he was doing.
The first few hours of the trip were relatively uneventful, Milo had caught his dad's hat on the back swing of his cast and consequently threw it into the lake. They had tried to reel it back in, but some sort of green monster thing came up from the depth and ate it. So much for that. And maybe more eventful then the beginning of the paragraph would imply, but in the world of unfortunate, bizarre happenstances that happen around the Murphy's, a lake monster barely registered. Milo somehow managed to pop two different life jackets, but Martin couldn't say much to that as his first one had somehow managed to catch fire. Martin had managed to catch to fish, though only one was big enough to keep, but Milo had come up empty so far and was starting to get a little frustrated. So it was decided that they would take a little break.
"Come on, Milo, let's take a seat by the drink cooler." Martin led his boy over to wall facing the back end of the boat, and then the pair sat down, with the older Murphy soon after digging into the aforementioned cooler and pulling out two Cokes. "Here, pal."
"But Daddy, I thought I wasn't allowed to have cokes, because they are for big kids." Milo said, still taking the can anyway.
"Eh, we're out fishing, you're an honorary big boy for the day." Martin said, reaching over a ruffling Milo's hair.
"Cool." Milo smiled, opening his can after a few seconds of slightly precious looking struggling, and starting to sip from it.
"So, how is school going?" The older Murphy asked, looking over at his son.
Things had gotten better for Milo at school once the kids realized that Milo couldn't help it, but there were some outliners. Plus, the kids accepting Milo came with a whole other issue of kid's trying to be friends with him and then abandoning him when there was a major accident. Just last month Milo had befriended a boy named tommy, who promptly ditched him when his arm was broken in a murphy's law accident. Milo really tried not to take it too hard, this was a problem in pre-school to, but Martin could tell it was still bugging him.
"Fine, though I'm going to have a bunch of makeup work to do when I get back Monday. I've been talking to this girl Melissa, she's really nice. She shares her chip with me at snack time." Milo said, twiddling his thumbs on the top of the can.
"Oh, a girl, huh?" Martin teased, earning the fiercest glare that Milo could muster.
"Don't be gross, Daddy, girls have cooties." Milo shook his head. "I met her a week before my appendix burst. Tommy was picking on me and she cut in and yelled at him. She was all like 'Stop picking on him, you bully' and 'it's not his fault you have fragile arms', it was really cool. Then she sat with me at lunch all week. She's says I'm like mystery."
"Awh, that's great, Milo. She sounds nice, maybe this one will stick around."
"You really think so?" His voice was so full of hesitant, almost sad, hope, that shined even stronger in his little eyes. He could tell how badly Milo wanted that, to have a friend stick around, the poor little guy.
"Yeah, I do, because you're pretty great." He reached over and nudged Milo's cheek. Milo blushed like the awkward little boy he was.
After they finished their drinks, they went back to fishing. The second half of the fishing went a little better for Milo, which is to say he finally caught a fish, and boy was he happy about it, even noting with vibrant enthusiasm that it was bigger than his dad's fish. Granted, not much murphy's law type activity happened in that time, so they decided to head back in. Martin let little Milo pull the cable to start the engine, one of his duties as 'honorary big boy', only for the cable to snap and the engine to fall off and explode. Opps. But, Martin was quick to put up the sail, and then they were on their way home. Martin was thankful the murphy's law let up enough to let them get back unharmed, though that creepy demon fish did rear it's terrifying head again at the end of the trip once they docked, with the crazy thing leaping onto the dock and thoroughly terrifying Milo. They quickly packed their things and left, before anything bad happened, like a dock collapse or fire. Plus, Milo was getting tired, and was eager to get home. When they got home, Martin went and cleaned the fish for dinner, while Milo told Sara about their fishing trip. Sara, while glad Milo was okay, was disappoint that the story had no explosions, so Milo added some into the story. By the time he was telling the story to his mom, a whale had attacked the boat. Kids sure were something.
Author's Note:
Alright, so this is pretty mediocre for me, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. Sorry, I'll do better next time, promise. Leave a review or something. Do you have a favorite line or part? Tell me there XD