Chapter 9: 3D
Rad felt like he was going to rip his fur out. Frisky and his apartment was in no way equipped to handle three two year olds. It was awful. When they were infants it had been manageable. The nursery was small, but it had fit all three cots and the changing table. Now, it was woefully too small. The whole apartment was, honestly. The living room was crammed with the boys' toys and games, the kitchen barely fit the three high chairs, and the bathroom was a mess with the mini-potties and toilet training chart.
Worse yet, they'd been house hunting.
Rad hated estate agents. On top of that, he hated the housing market. Apparently Brisbane was the place to be because any time the couple had found a house they considered good enough to put an offer on it had already been bought by someone else. But after eight long months they finally found a house. It was a Queenslander, like Bandit and Chilli's, but it was older and a bit larger. It was on a quiet side street and had a good sized yard. But most importantly it had four bedrooms and three bathrooms.
"Finally I don't have to avoid stepping in piss every time I use the bathroom!" Rad had cheered when they signed the paperwork. The family had moved in and split the boys into their rooms and Rad and Frisky had their own once again. It had been a nice transition for a bit, then the boys' personalities starting developing.
Ask any parent and they'll tell you that you can start to tell what type of kid you have by the time they're two or three. For Rad and Frisky their boys started to break out into their own little people around two and a half.
Darren was the first to start to show who he was. He was an academic. It all started one Saturday morning when Rad couldn't find his phone.
"Frisky!? Have you seen my phone?" He shouted, walking through the living room. "I swear I had the bloody thing a minute ago…"
"Did you check on the end tables?" She shouted back from the kitchen.
"Yeah!"
"The couch cushions?"
"Yeah!"
"The bathroom?"
"I checked all over!" Rad huffed.
"Want me to call it?" She asked, appearing at the doorway.
"Yes please…" He grinned sheepishly.
"Gotcha babe." She smiled, pulling out her phone and dialing Rad's number. A faint ringing was heard.
"Where is that?" Rad asked. Frisky followed him, leaving Dominic and Dave to continue their playing on the living room floor as they walked down the hall. The ringing got louder and eventually stopped.
"Why'd it stop?" Frisky asked.
As if on cue a little sneeze was heard from a nearby door. Frisky walked over and pulled the door open to reveal Darren crouched in the corner with his father's phone.
Rad frowned, "Darren, you know you can't have screentime without asking."
"Sorry, but the shuttle launch is now and Dom and Dave don't want to watch it." Darren said, looking at his feet. "I'm sorry I took your phone."
Rad took his phone and saw that it was on a NASA shuttle launch livestream. "Wait, how'd you find this?"
"I used the internet." Darren pointed to the internet app on Rad's phone.
"Okay, but how'd you find this video? This isn't on YouTube, this is the NASA website." Rad asked, showing Frisky his phone.
Frisky looked at it and tapped the back arrow on the top of the internet; it took them to a Google search for "NASA Orion Shuttle Launch". "Darren, did you use voice mode to search this?"
"No, I wrote it." He said.
Rad and Frisky looked at each other, "You wrote it?" Frisky repeated.
"Yeah. It's N-A-S-A O-r-i-o-n s-h-u-t-t-l-e l-a-u-n-c-h." He spelled out.
"You can spell?" Rad asked in awe.
"Yeah. Letters are easy. I just use that Lalilo app you guys put on the tablet. It's fun!" Darren smiled with his tail wagging slightly.
"Can your brothers spell?" Frisky asked.
"No, but Dave wants to try. Dom isn't interested most of the time." Darren shrugged.
The two parents exchanged a glance. "So, can you read, then?" Frisky asked.
"Kinda." Darren replied. "Do you want me to show you?"
The two nodded.
"Um, can I borrow your phone so I have something to read?" Darren asked.
Rad flipped it to the home screen and handed it to his oldest. Darren tapped on the Lalilo app and opened his name. He pulled up a story.
"It was a lo-lovely day in the for-est…" He began.
Five minutes later he'd read an entire story and his parents were staring dumbfounded at him he looked up and saw them gawking. "Oh, did I do something wrong?" He looked at his feet.
"No, mate, that was incredible!" Rad grinned as he hugged his son. "You're a little genius!"
"You, you liked it?"
"Of course we did." Frisky smiled, lifting her son into a group hug between her and Rad. "You're our clever little boy."
A crash was heard in the background, causing the three to cringe.
"Oh yeah, your brothers…" Frisky murmured.
"I'll get it." Rad said, heading off.
Next came Dominic, who revealed himself to be an athlete.
Darren was busy reading a book about dinosaurs from the new junior explorer's library that his parents had put in the family room. His legs were happily kicking back and forth as he read. Dave was nearby, also trying to read a book. He could manage a few smaller words, and Darren occasionally noticed he was struggling and helped him out. His book was on the ocean.
While the youngest and oldest triplet read the middle one was bored out of his mind. It was raining, which meant he couldn't go outside, mum was on a call for work, and dad was fixing the sink in the kitchen. And his brothers were being boring. Well, Darren was being boring, Dave was just doing what Darren was doing and wouldn't be convinced otherwise. So he was stuck by himself.
Darren sighed as he walked from the upstairs living room and down the hall. His bedroom was on the left on the end. It was similar to all the others, but his had a pull cord to the attic in the one corner. He looked up at it. He'd never been in the attic before.
He knew the cord was too short for him to jump and reach, and he probably couldn't get his chair over there either. He frowned as he thought about how he'd get up. After a minute he decided he could try to jump it from his bed. He got up onto the bed and pushed himself against the wall at the far end, he figured he'd need a running start. He leaned back and took a running start, the comforter sliding as he sprinted, then pounced off the end. He flailed a moment and managed to grab the pull cord. He held on for dear life and he heard a juttering sound. The attic door swung open and an ancient wooden ladder tumbled out, placing him on the floor as he did so.
Panicked footsteps ran down the hall and the door flew open as Frisky looked at her middle son standing with the attic pull cord in his paw and the open ladder. "Um, Sue, I have a bit of a family emergency. I'm going to have to call you back." She hung up her cell and looked at the boy.
"Hi mum." Dom smiled with a small wave, knowing he was about to get in trouble.
"How… what…" Frisky looked at her son, then the door, then back at her son. "Rad!" She called.
Rad arrived a moment later, covered in grime from under the sink. "Yeah?"
"Look." She pointed at Dom and then at the open attic door.
"The door opened? I thought it was jammed stuck when we moved in." Rad asked.
"I opened it." Dom said, holding the cord.
"How?" Rad asked.
"I jumped off my bed and grabbed the cord." The almost three year old explained.
Rad looked at Frisky, "Okay…" He inhaled before slowly exhaling, "You need to be more careful mate, you could've hurt yourself."
"Sorry, I just wanted to see what was up there." Dom replied.
"We'll look together in a little bit, but for now, go ahead and go back to the living room with your brothers." Frisky said, gently nudging him out of the room.
After he was out of earshot Frisky turned to her husband. "We both tried to get that unjammed when we moved in, how did he do it?"
"And how did he clear that jump? It's two meters from his bed to the cord!" Rad said.
Frisky took a deep breath. "Okay, so Darren's reading at a second grade level and apparently Dom has some above average athletic abilities…"
"Please let Dave be normal." Rad said, which earned him a quick slap from Frisky before the two returned to the living room to check on the other boys.
Finally came Dave, the sweetheart.
Darren was using a magnifying glass to look at a leaf and draw a picture of it in his sketchbook while Darren and Rad played soccer. Dave watched his father and brothers having fun and turned to look at his mother in the garden. Frisky had set herself to cleaning up the once luscious garden that surrounded the home. She wiped her brow as she continued pruning the hedges that ran alongside the edge of the yard. Dave frowned at his mother's clear exertion and decided he wanted to bring her a snack. He got up from the back patio and headed inside and to the kitchen.
He opened the fridge and looked at the different drinks before he found a can on the bottom shelf. He knew his dad liked to drink these when he was working hard, so it made sense his mum would as well. He carefully took out the can and opened it. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, it was weird, like moldy bread, and poured it into a cup. He then opened the cabinet and took out some of the pretzels he knew his mum liked and put them in a bowl. He smiled and carefully sealed the bag back up before he carried the fizzing cup and pretzels outside and to his mum. He walked up behind her and cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Mum?"
Frisky turned around. Dave was holding out a beer and pretzels.
"I got you a snack cause you were working hard and I know dad likes these drinks and I thought you'd want one." He smiled. "And these are your favorite pretzels."
Frisky wasn't sure how to react, the gesture was clearly meant in kindness, but her three year old had managed to not only get a hold of a beet but also open and pour it. And at ten AM!
"Thank you sweetie." She smiled. "But remember what your dad said about certain things being only for grownups?"
"Yeah." Dave nodded.
"Well, where'd you get this drink from?"
"Dad's special can container in the fridge."
"That's only for grownups." Frisky gently explained.
Dave's ears folded back. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't drink any, I promise!"
"I know you didn't sweetheart, but next time how about a nice cup of water if you want to give someone a drink?"
"Okay mum!" Dave nodded.
Rad walked over, drenched from playing soccer. "Hey, thanks babe!" He smiled, pecking her on the cheek as he took the beer.
"Dad! That was for mum!" Dave said.
"Your mum got herself a grog?" Rad asked.
"No, I got her one."
"And I already explained that while it was a nice gesture, he shouldn't touch those cans again." Frisky explained as she looked at her husband.'
"Oh, gotcha." Rad nodded. "Um, you mind if I drink your mum's grog?" Rad asked.
"Only if she says you can." Dave replied.
"Go ahead." Frisky smiled.
"Good on ya." Rad smiled as he took a long sip.
And so the Heeler triplets continued to grow, and while identical in appearancethey were anything but in personality.
***Author's Note***
Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting! I've been doing a lot of work on my fics over on AO3 (same username as here). If you want to check out any of my fics there, I'd appreciate it. Also, if you liked this fic please feel free to comment! Thanks for reading!