Trickle beeble bop, I have a green top,
It is so green my family use me as the Christmas tree!!
"Duck I thought that you were supposed to keep the kindergarteners out of trouble!"
"I would have, but I was curious as well. You know a young lady used to have to have a chaperon to be regarded as anything worth marriage. We were simply acting as modern chaperons."
"Well said Ducky!" "Absolutely correct!" "My father didn't trust me with boys, until my aunt took control of running the house." Tony and McGee had confirmed what Ducky had said, but Ziva had decided to keep off of sides, and fences, and gone with her own life.
"What? Shut up Ziva." Tony received a punch on the arm, which left it dead for the next two hours.
"Well I don't have a clue what you are all going on about, so go back to work before I sack the lot of you." There was a mad scramble to get back to desks. Ducky grabbed a nearby chair and sat on it by McGee's desk.
"Good now I am going for coffee, Abby you stop here and watch these three," He indicated Tony, Ziva and McGee, "If one of them so much as sneezes in the wrong way tell me when I get back. But don't, for heavens sake, keep phoning me." He walked to the lift and disappeared into it. Abby made herself comfortable in Gibbs' chair. She grabbed a note pad and pen from the desk, and went about watching them whilst doodling.
Five minutes past before Tony piped up:
"What was going on down there?" Everyone looked at him, so he expanded the question to; "What were you two talking about?"
"How did you know that we were talking? You were up here." And then it dawned on her. "With a computer geek and computers. Thanks 'not-jealous-McGee'."
"Sorry, but he did bully me into it." Tony was about to defend himself when Abby held up a hand.
"Ducky, kindly enlighten me as to what went on after you left my lab."
"Certainly. We came up here and Tony was messing around with something on the computer. Then he looked across at McGee who did something and then the feed from the camera came up on the screen. We saw from where you two were talking, just before Gibbs said something that made you smile. The rest you can guess."
"Thank you." So they hadn't seen what had happened just moments before that.
"So you going to tell us what happened or not?" Tony was getting impatient, and even Ziva had stopped pretending she wasn't listening.
"No Tony I am not. Well not unless you can tell me what Dr. Seuss's fully name was." Tony shrugged and made for the computer, but stopped when McGee answered; "Theodor Suess Geisel."
"Yeah, what he said! Now tell us!"
"I said I would if you could answer me, not McGee."
"Ok, try another."
"When was 'And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street' first published?"
"Erm, nineteen-forty-two?"
"Nope, nineteen-thirty-seven. Try this one; what was 'The Cat in the Hat' the first of?"
"A career?"
"Is that seriously your answer?" Tony nodded. "Well then you're wrong. It was the first book in a range of early learning books."
"Kelly liked them?" Gibbs nodded. And Tony looked bewildered.
"Shut your mouth DiNozzo, you'll be catching flies in it next." Gibbs had come back unusually quickly, almost suspiciously quick. But he had his coffee, so no one said anything.
Almost everyone had gone back to work, Ducky had returned to Autopsy, an hour later. Only Abby had remained. She was now playing tic-tac-toe with Gibbs, and would have lost if his phone hadn't rung.
"Gibbs." He put his cross in the bottom left square; Abby swiftly put a circle in the top right and joined the row.
"I know. I've just phoned down to Ms. Scuito's lab, but I got no reply. Can you tell me why that is?" The Director did her best disapproving voice.
"Yeah, Jen, I can tell you why that is." Gibbs wasn't going to play ball without a fight before hand.
"Are you going to tell me where she is and why?"
"No, but I can pass on a message if you like. Or I can tell her that you don't appreciate her being up here and that you'd prefer it if she stopped in her lab, so that if you ever decide to phone her, for no apparent reason, she can answer the phone." He put the phone on to loudspeaker.
"No Jethro, I wanted to know where she was because her budget sheets are out by about fifty Dollars."
"How many sheets of budgeting have you got?"
"Ms. Scuito?"
"No. Now could you answer the question?"
"I have four sheets."
"Yeah, there's your problem. You've missing a sheet, you see I either did it on five sheets or on four, and five is a much nicer number. But no number is quite as nice as the number thirteen."
"Ms. Scuito…"
"I have told you that I am not Ms. Scuito. That is my mother."
"Ok, Abigail…"
"Only Ducky calls me that, well and my aunt, who had the worst cause of female moustache ever, she won the annual moustache competition four times in a row."
"How about Abby?"
"Sorry close friends and family only."
"Well I'm running out of polite things to call you."
"That's good it means I can put the phone down, 'Cause I never talk to rude people. Bye!" And she did indeed hang up on the Director.