Midnight, time to play.
JoJo snuck out of bed right after his mom put his brother back to bed after his midnight feeding. He had 3 hours before J. J. would wake up again for a feed and JoJo knew that if his dad came in and saw him missing, he would be dead meat for sure.
With ninja like movement, the smallest who of all crept through the dark, his black and grey fur the perfect camouflage. With little sound, he snuck out the backdoor and made his way to his special place.
With a hop, skip and a bucket-umbrella followed by a slingshot ride away, JoJo entered the doors to the symphonophone and took a deep breath through the nose.
"Ah. I'm home!" He said.
No time to waste, the boy opened a cabinet, which held his most recent invention. A pan flute made with various tiny horns.
With as with delicacy as an excited two year old holding a glass doll, JoJo picked up his precious instrument and licked his lips. He pressed his bottom lip to the top of the pan flute and blew.
A B-flat hit his hears and shivers when up and down his arms and his knees nearly buckled as the long missed sound gave him chills.
"Oh, I've missed you."
At home.
Ned shot up in bed and immediately looked at his who-phone. Someone was calling him at 1:38 am. Who could it be?
Ned looked and saw that it was JoJo's phone number.
Oh, this better be good.
Ned answered and said "Hello?"
"Mister Mayor?" A man's voice said on the other line.
"Yes?"
"Yeah, this is officer Dudwho, of the Whoville Police Department, and I'm afraid your son was caught trespassing at the old observatory. I'm just letting you know that you can pick him up tomorrow morning."
Ned blinked. Was this a joke? "Excuse me, what? My son is being arrested?"
"Correct." Ned heard, followed by a somewhat distant "Dad! Help!"
"Stay there, I'm on my way and we'll sort this out."
Sally turned over and yawned. "What's going on?" She asked, sleepily.
"Our son snuck out. I'm going to go get him." Ned said as he put on his normal attire. "Go back to sleep."
On his way out the door, Ned suddenly turned to his office door. Something was telling him to grab his papers.
"Just in case." He said to himself as he exited his office with a stack of papers.
Sure enough, as he got closer to the observatory, Ned saw a police car and, once close enough, saw his oldest child with his hands behind his back, no doubt being held by handcuffs. Standing next to him was a police officer.
Ned's fatherly instincts kicked in when he noticed thag JoJo looked scared.
"Alright, what seems to be the problem, officer?" Ned asked the cop.
"I'm going to have to arrest this boy."
JoJo's chest filled with anxiety. Ned looked angry.
"You're arresting a child?" He demanded rather than asked.
"Or a small adult, we don't know all the details." The police officer said.
"Okay, that's just offensive. And why would you arrest him?" Ned demanded.
"Trespassing." The cop said clearly.
"He's not trespassing. I own this building! I bought it for him after the town was rebuilt last year! I have papers!" Ned reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of papers. He knew swiping them from his office would come in handy.
"Here! Educate yourself!" Ned shoved the paper in the officer's face. He was done playing nice. With Sally working half the time, being in quarantine for half of the week and now the police were arresting his son, it made him snap.
The police officer looked at the papers and Ned's ID.
"Well, it looks like this is your building, Mister Mayor, I apologize for that. But I'm still going to have to keep him in a detention center overnight for breaking curfew."
Ned snapped again when he saw the horrified look on his son's face. Ned furrowed his brow.
"You do that, and I'll have to call your chief and have you demoted. I'm sorry for sounding like an entitled parent, but I am still the mayor and I'm in charge of your boss. Now you let my son go home with me, or I'll have you suspended from duty, because I was the one who passed the curfew and he still has 5 minutes to get home before he breaks curfew without an adult. As you can see, he's with his father. And I don't recall giving the police department permission to arrest anyone breaking curfew."
That's when the police officer knew he was screwed. He inserted his key into the handcuffs and let JoJo go. JoJo ran to his dad and held onto him tight, covered with sweat and trembling with fear.
"You two have a good night."
"I'll be contacting your chief tomorrow morning." Ned said.
JoJo felt on fire as his dad gripped his wrist and dragged him home. Dad looked mad.
JoJo had really screwed up this time.
As soon as they got home, at 2 am, Ned took JoJo to his office. JoJo wanted to protest. Was his dad going to spank him like how he spanked his sisters when they misbehave?
It had been years since Ned's hand was laid upon his son's rear-end, but he could still do it.
JoJo was frightened. He wished he was in the detention facility right about now.
Ned sat JoJo down on a chair as Ned went to his copier and placed the ownership papers inside. As Ned did so, JoJo watched with curious eyes.
"D-dad? Am I in trouble?"
Ned turned to his son.
"No, son. I'm making you a copy of the paperwork, so in case anyone tries to arrest you for 'trespassing'," Ned made finger quotation marks as he said that. "...you can prove that it's your place."
Ned placed the copy in front of JoJo.
"Please sign here." Ned pointed to a line on the paper while holding a pen for his son.
JoJo took the pen with a shaking hand and he signed his name.
"Your birthdate and today's date." Ned pointed to another line.
JoJo wrote his birthday and that morning's current date.
"And initial here."
JoJo put a J, another J, an O and an M on its respective line.
"Thank you." Ned said as he folded the copy and placed it in another envelope.
"Now, whenever you go to the observatory, you take these papers with you. They have a copy of my phone number, so of anyone needs more proof, they can call me." Ned explained.
JoJo looked at him, confused.
"You're not mad at me?" He asked.
Ned chuckled. "Certainly not. You're suffering from cabin fever and you needed to unwind. I don't blame you. I blame that nitwit cop!"
That remark made JoJo hold back a giggle.
"You see, son, I purchased the observatory because I knew you loved it so much and made it your own. The observatory used to belong to the University of Who-Island's astronomy department. About 30 years ago, inspiring students used it for a special project. They wanted to see if any life existed outside of our world. And when it was shown that there wasn't any life outside our world, the project was cancelled, and the observatory was abandoned."
"Though it's now been proven that there is life outside our world, and the elephant that proved that is your best friend, now." JoJo pointed out.
"That's right. Anyways, since the observatory was abandoned, and there was no next-of-kin to take over the place, it was up for grabs and I purchased it for a quarter of what it was worth at the time. It cost 9,650 dollars to build it at the time."
JoJo did the math in his head.
"You bought it for a little over 2,000 dollars, Dad? For me?"
Ned smiled. "Of course I did. I knew it was special to you."
That was when JoJo realized his dad truly cared about him, not just his future position. Maybe this older, taller, and often goofy man wasn't so bad of a dad, after all.
"Say, I'm not due to get up to feed your brother for a while and I'm pretty awake, and I'm sure the adrenaline of almost being arrested is going to keep you up for a while, do you want to watch some television with your old man?" Ned asked.
JoJo smiled. "Sure, dad."
As late night sitcoms played on the television, Ned and his son sat together on the couch, under some blankets.
JoJo kept stealing glances at his old man as the light from the t.v. shone on his face.
Then he yawned. Now that he was calmed down, he was tired, but he still wanted to be close to his dad.
JoJo let his guard down and swallowed his pride as he scooted closer to his dad and rested his head on his side. Ned wrapped his arm around his son.
Within a few minutes, JoJo was asleep.