Tom's POV:
The next day, we all woke up before Dougie and so we left him sleeping in Danny's room, after he'd fallen asleep there last night, and went down to the kitchen together.
'So... Did he have any more nightmares last night Dan?' I asked quietly, as I stirred my coffee.
'I think so, he was wriggling round quite a lot and he kept hugging me really tight, as if he was scared that something would happen if he let go.'
'Crap! Why's he having them? Wait... Stupid question! Anyway, we're going to have to try and find out what they're about so that we can help him. Should we take him out somewhere today?' I asked, changing the subject.
'Yeah. I was thinking, we could take him to the zoo. He loves dinosaurs and they have that massive dinosaur thing on all this week. He'd enjoy it!' Harry said cheerily.
'Awesome! I'll go wake him up and get him changed!' Danny smiled at us before running off up the stairs to get Dougie. It was nice seeing him so close with a kid, he usually kept quiet around all of the kids and looked pretty awkward, but he had warmed to Dougie as if he was his own child. Me and Harry sat talking for 5 minutes before Danny ran back downstairs with an already dressed Dougie in his arms.
'Morning Dougs! Are you feeling a bit better today?' I asked cheerily, as last night he had only been able to eat 2 chicken nuggets and a couple of chips due to his stomach still hurting.
'Yep! And I hungwy!' He grinned back at me and so I made him some pancakes as Harry and Danny stood talking to him. Once he'd eaten his pancakes, and we'd made sure he'd gone to the toilet, we set of for the zoo. It took us about half an hour to get there and when we did, Dougie squealed with excitement.
'There a dinysaw! Hawwy! Danny! You see the dinysaw?!' He asked excitedly as we pulled up into our parking spot.
'Yeah! Should we go and see if there's any more?' Harry asked, smiling widely at Dougie, who responded with an enthusiastic nod. We got him out of the car seat and down onto the floor where he began jumping up and down in excitement.
'Come on Dougie! Lets go and find some dinosaurs!' Danny said happily to him, taking hold of one of his little hands and walking into the zoo with him. We walked round for a little while, looking at various animals like elephants and even some penguins that were kept in a giant water tank, before Dougie let out a loud sort of squeak and let go of Danny's hand.
'Dinysaws! Dinysaws!' He said excitedly, running off ahead of us towards where he had seen the dinosaur. Harry ran off after him, returning minutes later with a crying Dougie in his arms.
'Its okay Dougie, you're okay.' He soothed to Dougie as he held him, gently rocking him in his arms.
'What's happened?' I asked worriedly.
'He fell over and he's cut his knee.' Harry replied quietly.
'Its okay Dougie. Look, I brought plasters because I'm really clumsy and always hurting myself so it's okay. Look, it's all better now.' Danny replied soothingly, taking a plaster out from his pocket and gently sticking it to Dougie's knee. Dougie looked up at him, wiping his cheeks with his sleeve, before smiling slightly.
'We go see dinysaws?' He asked, still sniffing and wiping his eyes.
'Sure Dougs, come on!' Harry said happily, walking towards the dinosaur part of the park once again. We stepped in to see huge robotic dinosaurs moving around us. Harry set Dougie back on his feet and he grabbed hold of one of Danny's hands again, pulling him further in towards the dinosaurs. He insisted on stopping next to every single one and reading the sign that told you about the specific dinosaur so that he could tell his mum once he got back home. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he practically screamed with excitement.
'Look look! T-Wex! We see?' He asked, looking up at me, Danny and Harry, a huge smile breaking out on his face. We nodded and so he quickly pulled us towards the huge robot animal and stood looking at it in amazement.
'When I gwown up I going to have a T-Wex to live with!' He said, matter-of-factly.
'Really? Wow! That's a cool idea!' Danny grinned back, receiving a nod and a big smile from Dougie. We stood in front of the T-Rex for just over 15 minutes, just staring at it as it moved around in a robotic motion. Everytime it roared, Dougie roared in reply, attempting to start a conversation with the dinosaur. After that time, Danny picked him up and told him it was time to go, to which he just nodded and waved goodbye to the dinosaur. He was good like that, most kids would have thrown a tantrum but he just accepted it and let Danny carry him away. We walked round the remainder of the animals in the park before going to leave. As we walked through the shop on the way out, we bought Dougie a big dinosaur teddy that was easily just as big as him, if not larger. Once we got back into the car Dougie spoke up.
'Thank you. I weally like seeing the dinysaws!' He said happily, smiling at us.
'Its okay Dougie, we're glad you enjoyed it! Which was your favourite dinosaur apart from the T-Rex?' Danny replied to him, a huge grin evident on his face. The next half an hour of the car journey was spent by Dougie explaining how he had fallen a little bit in love with the triceratops and how he was going to have his own dinosaur collection when he was older.
'Hey Tom? Where are we going? This isn't the way home...' Harry asked, suddenly realising that we had been in the car for well over an hour and we were still nowhere near our house.
'We're taking Dougie to have some tea!' I replied simply, not revealing where we were heading off to. Dougie screamed when he saw where we were going and even Danny and Harry looked overly excited. I had decided to book us into the Alton Towers hotel for the night. We'd have tea there, stay in their chocolate room, and then spend the entire day in the theme park and water park the following day. I pulled up outside the hotel and parked our car before Danny and Harry helped Dougie out and we walked into the hotel. There was a giant pirate ship for kids to climb on as you walked in and so Danny went on that with Dougie while me and Harry went to get our room keys.
'This is amazing Tom! Thanks so much for this, it must have cost a lot and I know you're saving up for your guitar lessons so thank you.' Harry smiled at me.
'It's fine!'
'What are we going to wear tomorrow? None of us brought anything?' Harry said again with a confused look on his face.
'I brought a bag that has 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of boxers, a pair of pyjamas and a t-shirt for Dougie and a pair of boxers, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt for us three.' I said calmly in reply to him.
'You're so good to us Tom! Mum and Dad were wrong when they said you wouldn't cope looking after us, you've done a better job than they ever did!' Harry said sweetly, wrapping his arms around me tightly. I hugged him back and whispered comforting words into his ear as I could tell he was near tears by now. We didn't talk about our parents much but whenever we did it was upsetting for all of us, especially Harry. I pulled away from Harry and patted him gently on the back as I stepped forwards and got us our room keys, looking forward to the day ahead.