28/09/2020
Today has been a strange day. And considering me and Donald once spent an entire day chasing a black cat to free Gladstone from what he thought was bad luck, but turned out to be heatstroke, that's saying something.
The morning had gone alright. We had split Beakley's chores up into smaller, more manageable tasks that even an idiot could manage and did our best to manage them.
The first chore was make breakfast. Huey begged to take this one, saying he needed more practice. I looked down at his big wide eyes and smiled. "Of course you can, sweetie." I said. "That'll be delicious."
As soon as Huey had bounded off kitchen-wards I kicked Donald under the table and made gestures indicating he needed to follow Huey and make sure he didn't burn the manor down.
"Why me!?" Donald hissed back, rubbing his shin. "You're the mother. Perfect mother-son bonding time."
"I-" I whisper-hissed back. "Have just told him I trust him to do it. You have said nothing of the sort, so go and supervise him."
Donald glared at me and - in a fit of maturity - went. 'You've said nothing of the sort.' in what would have been a good impression of me, had I inhaled helium and had my throat crushed by a clown with large shoes, before heading off to the kitchen to supervise the young Gordan Ramsey.
Twenty minutes later something that was only vaguely identifiable as a waffle was placed in front of us by a proud Hubert Duck.
I think our collective reactions can be summed up by Louie, who speared said 'waffle' with his knife and said, in a tone that indicated he was thought he was being poisoned asked. "What that black stuff on top?"
"I may have left it for a few ,minutes." Huey explained, literally bobbing up and down. "It'll be awesome! Go on, try it!"
It was quite nice actually, when you got past the taste of charcoal.
After breakfast Scrooge - who had placed himself in charge, yet again - went to read out the next thing on the list, but was interrupted by the sound of the door knocker. "BEAKLEY!" He bellowed, before realising that wasn't going to happen. He then cleared his throat and sheepishly sent Donald to go and see who it was.
"Do you think it's another adventure!?" Dewey asked, excitedly, clutching my arm. "It's been ages since the last one!"
"Oh yeah, what a shame." Louie snarked from the opposite side of the table, surreptitiously looking at his phone that Scrooge had instructed him not to being with him.
"Oh, c'mon Lou!" Dewey looked at him with that simultaneous look of fondness and exasperation siblings are known for. "It wasn't THAT bad."
"Yeah, tell that to my broken arm."
"It's not broken now."
"That's not the point, Dewfus!"
It was then that Donald came into the room with a women. The women was a tall dog, with clearly-dyed blonde hair which was tied back in a pony-tail. She had glasses with thick black frames. She also had green eyes, which fascinated me as I've hardly ever seen anyone with green eyes.
"Eh...Uncle Scrooge?" Donald jerked his head at the women.
It turned out that this women had heard we needed some form of serviceperson and decided to come up and offer her services, as she herself was a maid and wondered if this would be any use to us? This was explained through lots of slight pauses and hesitations. I'm not sure if that's just because that's how she is, or because Scrooge was looking at her like a king might a peasant.
"How did you know we needed someone?" Scrooge demanded.
The women explained that she'd heard some a 'tall man, with glasses arguing with another gentleman about why having a doctorate does not mean you're automatically a doctor.' Gyro then went on to loudly explain that just because he can diagnose a sprained ankle - for a completely random example - does not mean he knows everything medical.
Selene knows the circumstances that led up to Gyro sharing that info with the world, but apparently the women had 'overheard' this and - realising, as most people do, that Gyro works for Scrooge McDuck - decoded to come up to the manor and see if there was any need for her help. Kinda like Mary Poppins, except not british and without the umbrella.
Now, one of the things Scrooge admires in a person is their work ethos. Anyone who goes out of their way on a hunch, or to secure [or try to secure] a work placement of some kind gets instant ticks in his boxes. So it didn't surprise me when he decided he's at least give the poor women - who, we later discovered, had travelled to the manor ON FOOT - an interview.
However Scrooge is also partly paranoid and instructed that Donald come with him 'Just in case'. "In case what?" Donald said, irritably [He'd been in the middle of enjoying his coffee] "She tries to give you a spoonful of poison?' Looks like I wasn't the only one who was thinking nannies.
It's times like this I'm pleased Donald has such a severe speech impediment, because at least it means he doesn't scare off/unnerve anyone with his smartass comments. As it was the women just smiled faintly and waited to be escorted upstairs to the study.
"Oh, by the way." Scrooge said, just before they left. "What's your name, lassie?"
"April." She said, promptly. "Miss April Fragmuffin."
So yeah, they went upstairs, interview her and decided between them she was good enough to do Auntie Beakey's job for a few weeks. I don't envy her. That list is LONG. To give her credit though, she didn't complain or show surprise or anything when Scrooge presented her with the list that touched nearly the floor. She just raised one eye brow, adjusted her glasses and peered at it, before sucking her teeth and going. "Right." She then bustled off to do the first task.
So yeah, aside from that not much happened today. I'm one step away from confiscating Louie's phone though. EVERYTIME I look at him he's on it! I can practically hear my mother going: "Electricity rots your brains!" [She's off the generation that were convinced they could get cancer from microwaves. One of my main memories of her is of her telling me and Donald to stay AT LEAST A FOOT away from any electrical equipment at all times.]
So yeah. May have to deal with that at some point. Anyway, gotta go, Dewey's currently requesting my help via screaming "MOM!" at the top of his lungs, so better go sort that out.