Hey! RoxyGoth here, thank you to Steampunk Wilson and GuitaristGirl963 for reviewing the first chapter and to everyone who has favourited and followed so far.

Warning for the whole thing – it might have some language in. Della is an adult after all and the idea is that these are her personal private thoughts. I will try and warn you in the authors notes, but yeah. That's the idea. As well as that some chapter may be longer than others depending on what's going on. This one is quite a long chapter for example.

See chapter one for the disclaimer and let's crack on with the scenario that gave me this idea in the first place. [BTW if any of you would like to suggest ideas please feel free – but flames will not be tolerated, thank you]

15/09/2019

Well. Today had been…interesting to say the least. Basically, I decided, in my infinite wisdom, it would be a good idea for me to actually start, you know, actually bonding with my boys. So the first thing to do was to decide on an activity to do. So after much though [I.E. remembering my own childhood] I decided that baking would be the best thing. After all I fondly remember baking with my own mother and Donald when we were about the boys age [I think we were about the boys age anyway. Maybe a bit younger come to think of it. I'm not sure, I'll ask Donald when he gets back from his cruise]

So, anyway, that decided the next thing to do was get a recipe book and that meant going to the kitchen and finding one. So about half an hour later I'm on my hands on knees searching through the cupboard, nearly in tears because I CAN'T find a flippin' cook-book ANYWHERE in the mansion – just bear the word I used there – the MANSION. Anyway, so the next thing I know I hear Auntie Beakley's voice behind me.

"Miss Della, what are you doing?" She asked, in the tone of voice that even I know means she thinks I'm losing my marbles.

"Looking for a cookbook." I say from somewhere in the depths of a cupboard.

"Have you, perhaps, tried the cookbook shelf?" She said, dryly, and I paused before coming out the cupboard and saying.

"What?"

"The cookbook shelf. Directly above you." I looked up and sure enough, there were about ten cookbooks on a lovely little metal shelf. Dammit. Why hadn't anyone every pointed that out to me before? Now I look like an idiot, and let's face it I don't need any help on that front.

ANYWAY a couple of swear words and one standing-on-a-chair-to-receive-said-cookbook later and I was flicking through the pages trying to find a suitable cake [I.E. extremely easy, because I failed Food Tech back in my High School days and I'm not being showed up in front of the boys] when Auntie Beakley walked back into the kitchen – this time holding a bucket and mop – and seeing me pouring over this stupid book, said:

"What are you doing, Della?"

Which I had thought was obvious, but clearly not, so I explained what I wanted to do and she said. "Why don't you let the boys decide? That might make them feel more included."

Which to be fair wasn't a bad idea AT ALL. So I say that that's a good idea, and It looks like she's about to just get on with mopping the floor when she clearly thinks better of it and says. "Well I suppose I'll leave the kitchen if you five are about to make a mess-"

Five? What's she on about? Last time I checked one and three was four, so I said. "-Whoa, whoa." I gave her a look. "Last time I checked I had THREE sons, not four. Unless you're telling me I lost one along the way somewhere?" It was meant to be a light-hearted joke, but Beakley just pursed her mouth up and briefly looked like someone had hit her with a wet fish before saying.

"Of course not, Della, I simply assumed you would be involving Webby in your little cooking expedition?"

Dammit, Webby! I must admit, I'd completely forgotten about her. I mean, she seems cool. Reminds me a lot of me when I was younger – though I had WAY more social skills – but…she wasn't part of my VISION, and I don't meant that in a nasty way – I really don't, as I said I think Webby is cool – but this was meant to be ME bonding with MY boys!

So I put on my big girl pants and explained this calmly and rationally to Beakley, and she pursed her beak up again before picking up the mop and bucket and simply walking out the room, leaving me feeling like a complete prat in the process.

So the next thing to do was to find the boys and explain to them my wonderful idea and then we would bake and it would be lovely, the kitchen would be filled with delicious smells and they would be happy and smiling at the end of it, and of course we would have cake at the end of it as well, which we would share with everyone in the manor and it would be a lovely little scene, like something at the end of a feel-good Christmas movie, except, you know, not at Christmas.

Anyway, so I looked everywhere for them - and it took so long I started to wonder if they were actually hiding from me – when I eventually discovered them in Huey's room. Which, to be fair, I probably should have started with in the first place. So the next conversation went like this:

Me, sticking my head round the door with a beaming motherly smile: Hey, boys!

Boys: Hey mom!

Awquad silence.

Me, smiling practically breaking my face: So, I was thinking we could so some baking! [Cue Huey's face lighting up and the other two looking at each other in thinly-veiled horror]

Huey: [Enthusiastically] Oh, that sounds great, Mom!"

Dewey: [Markedly less enthusiastically] Yeah, great. What are we cooking out of interest?

Louie: [Not even looking up from his bloody phone] Unless it's cake, I'm not interested.

Me: Well, actually, it IS cake.

Huey: [Nearly bursting with enthusiasm] What kind?

Me: Well, I thought you guys could pick.

That got them interested all right, and they looked at each other – did the triplet-telepathic thing and said, in unison. "Chocolate?"

I laughed. "Alright, chocolate."

To be honest that really reassured me that I have something in comment with them – chocolate is my favourite to – and I was riding a cloud of happiness until Dewey burst it by saying.

"Awesome! I'll get Webby-"

"No!" I said, maybe to quickly given the looks of alarm they were giving me. "Just you guys." I explained. "You know, mother-son bonding."

Three separate reactions there. Huey looked positively giddy, Dewey looked excited and Louie just looked slightly apprehensive. Which was a little annoying - as I'm TRYING to be a good mother here – and we all trotted off to the kitchen.

You remember about two paragraphs ago when I mentioned that lovely scene I pictured with warm domestic bonding and three happy smiling faces at the end of it? Yeah, didn't happen. I don't really want to go into to much detail, but basically there was an mini-argument between the boys about what TYPE of chocolate cake they wanted to cook. Louie was very keen on the idea of a triple chocolate sponge with heaps of icing, but as I CAN'T COOK I quickly ruled that one out and he sulked and sat at the table with his phone.

So that left Huey and Dewey, who managed to decide between them that we would do a Victoria sponge. Chocolate version – very nice. But there was an argument about who would put the eggs in and who would do the flour and Huey kept wanting to ADD things to it which definitely weren't in the cook book and that myself and Dewey quickly ruled out. I mean, some of them were alright, but one of them was ginger for goodness sake. Who wants ginger in a Victoria Sponge? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of adding things to the recipe –which is a good part of the reason I failed Food Tech – but a line has to be drawn somewhere.

So by the time we'd wrestled the cake to the oven Louie had disappeared somewhere – again. I get the feeling he's been avoiding me ever since I grounded him, but it was for his own good! I mean, I don't want him to turn out like Gladstone!

Don't get me wrong, I love Gladstone dearly - I really do - but there's only room for one of him in the world. And Louie doesn't even have the excuse of never-ending luck to justify his 'I-want-to-get-everything-without-paying-for-anything' attitude.

Wow. Minor digression there. Anyway – back to the cooking. We sat in silence for the twenty minutes the cake was baking, me being unable to come up with even ONE sentence to say to them that didn't sound either to 'mumsy' or to 'absolutely stupid' to say to them.

Twenty minutes later the cake was baked, and we carried on with the decorating and making it look nice. Which we managed – just. We had one close call when Huey wanted to stick bananas on the top of it, but I ruled that out because – hello? It's cake! Cake should be a healthy-free zone!

So, to sum it up I wouldn't say it was a 'lovely family scene' but it was a step in the right direction I think. And everyone seemed to like the cake. Even Scrooge cracked a smile when he saw it. [Although that might have been because Dewey did the icing]

Anyway, see you next time diary!