"It's brilliant, Mum! It's a spaceship, which is brilliant, then it's bigger on the inside, which is even more brilliant, but then it looks like an aeroplane, which makes it the most brilliant thing out of all the brilliant things of brilliantness EVER!"
"...Arthur, are you drunk?" came Carolyn's response. Arthur was running around GERTI's control room and occasionally poking buttons to see what they did, talking to his mum on the phone at the same time.
"No! I'm just really happy!"
"That's exactly what you told me last time you were drunk."
"Yes, but I'm definitely not drunk now! You should see Martin's spaceship, its-"
"Brilliant?" interrupted Martin. "Arthur, what have you been telling her?"
"Just that you've got a spaceship that's bigger on the inside and looks like an aeroplane. Not much!"
"You know she'll never believe you?" said Douglas.
"Ah. You could show her? She'd believe me then!" Arthur suggested, grinning like an idiot.
"What? No! I can't! I can't just go around telling people I own a time machine! They'll think I'm crazy!"
"I'm afraid you got that reputation a long time ago, sir," said Douglas.
"Yes, thank you, Douglas." He turned back to Arthur, then gave up trying to talk to him when he noticed him chatting excitedly, then suddenly less excitedly, on the phone.
"Oh. Right. Sorry Mum. I'll see you later!"
"What did she say?"
"Dad's come to our house. For Christmas," he said, frowning.
"And that's a bad thing because...?"
"Shut up, Douglas. Arthur? Is something wrong?"
"No! It's fine! It's just, I'd rather not be spending Christmas with Dad, y'know?" he sighed. Martin wondered why Arthur didn't like his dad, since he seemed to like almost everyone, but he decided not to ask about it. After all, he knew that (although that had only known each other for a day), anything or anyone that could upset Arthur must be terrible.