[Peaks round the corner, nervously] …Hello? Roxy Goth here. Er…sorry I haven't updated for a few months. Not only did I lose motivation, my original plan was to update in real time, so the 01/12/2019 in the diary would be the 01/12/2019 in real life. Obviously that won't be happening now.

Anyway, thank you to KaliAnn + Valonqarie for reviewing the last chapter. And for those who have favourited and followed it over the past months.

I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's been fun writing it, I must say.

01/12/2019

I woke up this morning slightly dis-orientated and feeling light as air. It's a feeling I've gotten quite a lot lately, I think I'm having flashbacks to the S.O.S. I can deal with it quite easily as long as I remember to just lie there and not get up. The first time I tried that I forgot gravity was a thing, put too much force into it and managed to catapult myself into the bed-side table. Cue Mrs Beakley running in swinging a broom round her head because she thought we were being burgled. That was a fun start to the day.

Anyway, just as I was feeling like my legs might work again Donald woke me up at 11 o clock with a cup of tea and said: "Last night was good wasn't it?"

I groaned and stuffed my face in the pillow.

"I must admit it was a good idea of Gyro's to get Fenton to be the DJ." Donald said, sitting himself on the edge of my bed. "Shame he couldn't make it himself."

I raised the pillow slightly to give him 'a look' and said. "You realise Gyro was in his lab the entire night, right?"

There was a pause then Donald rubbed his fore-head. "Why didn't he turn up then?"

"Er…because it's Gyro and I'm certain he'd prefer sticking pins in his eyes than socialising at a party?"

Another beat, then. "Fair enough." From my dear twin.

There was a comfortable silence while I picked up my tea and slurped at it, practically hearing Beakley's dis-approving voice in my head as I did so.

"Beakley would kill you if she could see you doing that." Donald said, apparently reading my mind.

"Let her try." I scoffed and then quickly looked at the doorway to make sure she couldn't hear me. That women is scary.

"Oh, by the way…" Donald reached into his dressing-gown pocket and handed me some slips of paper. "Here. Keep hold of them and for Zeus's sake try not to lose them-"

Rubbing my eyes, I looked at them and saw they were the discount vouchers for that drama club Dewey was going on about a few months back. Gladstone gave them to me last night. Honest, it was brilliant. I hope to Selene he never gets recruited to be a spy or something, he wouldn't last two seconds. This is how it went, picture the scene, the party had just started, guests were arriving, I was feeling happy, and then Louie arrives at my elbow and goes:

"Gladstone and Feathry are here." In the same tone of voice that one might say 'The bubonic plague has just arrived on the doorstep.'

Ever since that little argument we had a couple of weeks ago Louie's not really mentioned Gladstone, but clearly the 'wounds' ,whatever they are, haven't healed yet. But being the mother – and thus the more 'responsible' one I ignored his tone and went to welcome my cousins.

"Hello!" I squealed throwing my arms around them both.

They said hello as well and complimented me on my look which was nice. I said the same for them both as well, although, really, only Gladstone had 'made an effort'. He had on that nice sparkly jacket he showed us last time we were round his place and that combined with the smart shirt [green of course] made him look quite handsome.

Feathry, on the other hand, firstly still had on his bobble hat, secondly he had a smart red shirt on, but no jacket. That combined with his beaming smile, did have the unfortunate effect of making him look a little…deranged.

Anyway, Feathry bounded off to go and talk to/annoy Don and I thought Gladstone would follow, but he signalled for me to come closer and, looking round like he thought someone would jump out at him, he said:

"Here." And with all the subtlety of Dewey doing ANYTHING he passed me these vouchers and added. "They're for Dewey. Either you or Donaldo can give them to him, I'm not bothered."

I looked at them like they were made of gold-dust and, after about five seconds, manged to hiss back. "W-well, thanks Gladstone, but if – if we give him these then what are you going to give him? Or the others?"

"Oh-!" Gladstone waved a hand dismissively and said, while looking at the floor. "I'm sure I can find something. I'll stand outside a cool electronics store and someone will pass the latest model into my hands for Louie. Dewey, I was thinking of ordering a DVD for. Some musical thing, I'm bound to get some kind of discount somewhere along the line - now Huey." He looked round like he was afraid someone would be bothering to listen to us, then leaned closer and whispered in my ear. "Does he like stamps?"

"Er…" I tried to think, but what with the music playing loudly and guests appearing left, right and centre I ended up telling him I didn't know. Gladstone shrugged, looked past me and then abruptly walked off.

I was about to yell at him when I heard. "I don't believe it! It CAN'T be – it is! - little Della!"

Well. There's only ever been three limited people who can call me 'Little Della' without being punched in the beak. One, my mother [unlikely to be her seeing as, you know, she's dead], Two – Grandma Duck. [She used to call all of us 'little' Della, Donald, Gus, whoever it was, regardless of what age, height or weight we reached.] Third – Gus. And seeing as the voice was distinctly deep and brassy…

"Oh! I haven't seen you in ages!" Gus exclaimed, while literally lifting me off my feet and hugging me to his chest. "Oh – how was space?"

To which I tried to reply 'It was great' but instead said. "Mmmfff!" As, you know, my beak was crushed against his chest and all.

So he put me down and we talked for a few minutes until the subject came round to Grandma. Well. I say the subject came round, what I actually mean is I went 'Where's Grandma? I thought she was coming?" And I knew I'd hit on a sore spot immediately because Gus stopped laughing, his eyes kinda dimmed and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well, um, yeah." He said. "She did GET your invitation, but the fact is, she's, um, very – well – old, as I'm sure you know – and the fact is she can't make it." He looked at my face, sighed, shrugged and said. "I suppose you might as well know. Ah'm basically her carer now. Although if you see her don't ever tell her that – she still thinks she can do everything. As a matter of fact, I wasn't going to come tonight but Grandma insisted I come and Abner kindly offered to look after her for the night. So, he won't be here. He did get the invitation though."

"He just didn't want to come?"

Gus shrugged again and said. "Well, it was either him coming or me coming and as much as I love 'im you're got to admit – I'm much more fun at a party, aren't I? [Side note – that's totally true] Now where's the buffet?" And he was off.

So, I mingled a bit and did a bit of dancing and a bit of eating. It was a very nice evening, myself and Minnie spent a lot of time on that dancefloor boogieing to the music Fenton was playing. That boy is wasted as an assistant to The Sociable One – he should be a DJ.

Talking of Minnie, Mickey showed up, which was a nice surprise. It was a bit of a mystery if he would manage to get here because of the whole 'trying to film in Africa' thing, but he did eventually manage it. He spent a bit of time telling us about his adventures. It sounds like it's been quite an exciting 6 months, here's an extract:

Mickey: "Well, one time we decided to try and get a shot of a lone buffalo that had wondered of to eat some grass and-" He giggled. "Mortimer – for reasons best known to himself – decided the best way to get the shot would be to sneak up to the buffalo and – I don't know if you've ever tried to sneak up on a buffalo while holding a camera in front of your face and at the same time making sure you don't step on anything you shouldn't – BUT it turns out it's quite tricky and – well." Another laugh. "The long and short of it is that we were chased for about a quatre of a mile through the African savannah by a camera-shy buffalo."

"Oh, Mickey!" Minnie gasped, hands flying up to her face.

Mickey laughed and waved a hand. "Ah, don't worry toots. I'm fine."

"And Mortimer?" Goofy asked.

Mickey grinned. "Well, let's just say he had trouble sitting down for the next fortnight or so…"

So, yes, the party was brilliant, well worth the extravagant {!} price that Scrooge eventually forked out for it. And when me and Donald finally got downstairs, we saw the boys and Webby sitting at the kitchen table counting a small pile of money.

"Where'd you get that?" My brother said, suspicion instantly aroused.

"From last night." Louie explained. "Seeing as you got us to take coats and stuff all night and be un-official waiters, we decided we'd make some money out of it – and it worked! We've got $76.35 here."

"There weren't even 50 people AT the party!" I said.

"There weren't." Huey agreed. "But a couple of people gave us a little extra…"

"Let me guess." My twin sighed. "Goofy and Mickey?"

The four of them nodded and Dewey said. "Uncle Goofy gave us $8.00 – that'd be $2.00 each – and Uncle Mickey gave us a $20.00 note –"

"I hope you thanked them." Donald said, warningly.

"Yes, that's very generous of them." I echoed. "Especially Goofy – you know he doesn't earn a lot."

"That's $28." Scrooge said, from the kitchen table. "Where'd the other $48 come from?"

"Uncle Jose and Uncle Panchito gave us a few extra bucks." Louie said, casually.

"Uncle Jose gave us $10.00 and Uncle Panchito gave us $12:35." Webby explained, pointing at the relevant amount of money. "He said he would have given us more but that was all the money he had in his wallet."

A deep flush came over Donald's face and – through gritted teeth – he said. "Well. That's very GENOROUS of Panchito isn't it? Giving you ALL the money in his wallet? I mean – for crying out loud! – why didn't you stop him? Tell him a fiver would be enough?"

"We did thank him profusely." Huey said, hurriedly.

"And Jose." Webby added.

"Besides." Louie said, running his hand around the pile of cash. "This little lot here is making up the money we're going to use to get your Christmas gifts with, so the more the better surely?"

"…Go and do something else before I lose my temper." Donald said, quietly.

The boys and Webby looked crushed and Huey started to protest with: "But Uncle Donald-!"

"-GO!" Donald bellowed causing the kids to scurry from the room.

"Donald!" I said, gasping a little. "That was a bit harsh, wasn't it?"

He shook his head and sank into a chair. "Took all the money from his wallet? I thought I raised them better than that?"

"To be fair, Don." I said, reasonably. "This IS Panchito we're talking about. He'd give the shirt of his back if he thought someone needed it. And you know what he's like with kids. Even if they DID try and give it back, he'd have insisted they keep it."

Don shook his head and, burying his head in his hands, said: "I'm gonna have to go and try and give him the money back."

There was a beat, then I said. "You know Don, there's these new things called 'cashpoints'. He can get more money out-!"

"-That's not the point! It's the principle of the thing. I'll have to go over tomorrow."

"Why tomorrow?" Scrooge asked.

"Because he and Jose go home the day after tomorrow!"

Scrooge gave him a look. "You mean they only came for four days?"

Donald and me exchanged looks, then Donald said to our dear uncle. "No. They came for the week. I think Panchito said that they visited the Statue of Liberation last Tuesday, look, Jose sent me a picture, hold on…" He dug his phone out and showed the picture to Scrooge who raised an eyebrow.

I think I know why. I should point out both Jose and Panchito have visited the Statue of Liberation before and since then whenever they come over they always try and go and see it, mainly so they can stand in a different position and make different funny faces at the camera. This year Panchito decided it would be a good idea to 'ride' the flame, so the picture is off him on-top of the flame, Jose looking horrified and security running towards them both. So now the pair of them have been banned. So it looks like the tradition is abandoned for now.

Anyway, I'd better go. Beakley's calling us for tea. See you next time, diary!

Hello, me again. Just a quick note – I have done some research into the Statue of Liberty and I now know that the flame is not accessible to the public. Because of this I changed the statue of liberty to the statue of liberation.