"Gopher Tuna"

Posted on Fri Nov 2nd, 2018 @ 10:08pm by Jacaranda

1,216 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 96 - A Visitor From the Past
Location: Starbase 400, Promenade, Curious Goods, Upstairs Apartment
Timeline: MD 10

“Gopher Tuna”

In light of Maria’s date with her new Delicious Friend, Jaca happily volunteered to pick up Roberto from preschool so Maria could get ready and not have to worry about anything. Yet again it was stressed by Maria that this was just a business date and not a date-date. But again, going by Jaca’s bemused grin, the Djabuul had her own opinion of things.

Jaca arrived outside the pre-school with Itchi early as usual. And as usual, much to the chagrin of the other waiting parents as typical of Jaca, she had her belted music player going and was contentedly jamming out to a Djabuulese translation of a techno-industrial version of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. Oblivious or just not caring of some of the disapproving glares, she was practically bouncy by the time the children were let out. Roberto’s happy ‘AUNT JACK!’ easily cleared the volume of her player.

“Where’s Mom?”, he asked as he handed Jaca his school bag and hugged Itchi.

“Mom had to take care of a few things so here I am.”, she smiled and crouched down, “Jacatrain ready to roll.”

He happily got on her shoulders and took hold of her horns to ‘steer’.

“Train or dance train?”

“Dancetrain!”, Roberto picked as to him there was no choice at all to be made. Dancetrain was the best since Aunt Jack would dance with him on her shoulders, singing along to whatever music she had but Mom said Aunt Jack couldn’t do that anymore for some reason. That it was offered meant Mom was going to be busy for a while.

A few clicks of her belt player and the opening strains of a particularly long dance mix version of the Pet Shop Boys’ Always on my Mind started up. By the first bouncy beat, they were off with Jaca singing along while dancing with Roberto giggling on her shoulders steering the way home. It was every bit as fun as he remembered. While some like the Vulcan in the elevator ignored Aunt Jack’s singing to him, there were others like the Starfleet man who sang with Aunt Jack and even bumped butts with her.
As they neared the store, Aunt Jack turned off the music, but was still a little bouncy stepped as they went in. With the Jacatrain at the station, Jaca crouched down so Roberto could get down and run to Mom. With Maria updated on his day, Jaca led the way upstairs to their quarters so Roberto could start on his homework and dinner started.

Maria had set aside the ingredients for a healthy dinner, though as Jaca looked them over, she wasn’t too sure about them. Looked rather bland to her eyes. But she had promised that Roberto would be eating healthy while his mother was out. Thinking of the casual nights back in her mountain home when her father would be staying in and catching up on his knitting, he would make a simple handfood dinner while his brood would be camped out in front of the vid screen watching whatever outsider entertainments had been traded for. Fried dumplings sounded particularly good so as Jaca helped Roberto match colors to the shapes for his homework, she set to chopping up the filling and rolling out the dough. Itchi was more than content to snap up anything that fell to the floor.

Jaca was humming a song as she started frying the dumplings, which drew Roberto’s curiosity.

“What’s that song?”, he asked.

“Well, when I was around your age, I didn’t know the Federation speech. Neither did my brothers and sister, so we figured we’d start by listening to your musics to get an idea of the words so we’d be ahead of the others taking lessons.”, Jaca said as a smile crossed her lips in memory, “What we didn’t know at the time was there are many languages in the Federation so here we were with a recording we thought was Earthspeak and well…we didn’t get it quite right.”

“Sing it to me, please!”, Roberto pleaded.

Being the pushover she was to the child, Jaca clicked a few buttons on her belt player and music that sounded like one of his grandpa’s operas started up. As she cooked, Jaca sang the misheard words she and her siblings came up with.

“Gopher Tuna. Bring more Tuna. Statue of big dog with fleas….”
Roberto laughed so hard it earned a concerned sniffing and licking from Jaca’s sehlat. But then, to a small child things such as a fun handsome goose, salsa cookies and an octopus with boots was the height of humor. Dinner was ready by the time Jaca hit the final aria advising to make room for a piece of lovely cake and the two set down to eat discussing what to do until bedtime.

Since Maria was out, it stood to make the night a bend the rules one. A bedsheet fort was in order, same with sleeping bags and Jaca’s vid screen viewer. It was exactly the sort of thing her father would do when he’d take a night away from the forges to catch up on his crocheting while keeping an eye on his brood. However, this time there’d be no clawing, wingslaps and squabbling over snacks.

It took the linens from all the beds to properly construct Fort Awesome, which of course had a carefully lettered sign stating its name. Itchi promptly lumbered in and staked out a laying down spot. The finishing touches were Roberto’s crayons and paper to draw some pictures for the inside.

As for things to watch on the vid screen viewer, Jaca did her best to think like Maria would with what would be okay for Roberto to watch. More than a few times as a child since her father let the children pick whatever looked good from the trailer menu ended up with some movie with a depiction of monsters getting killed by humans which ended up with him having a full bed of his brood terrified of humans with swords and torches lurking under beds and in closets to murder them all in their sleep.

Animations seemed okay so it was a night of old cartoons and stop motion puppetry. Jaca made sure to set her chronometer to make sure if Maria finally listened to advice and took a proper night out that the Djabuul would get Roberto ready in the morning and off to his school.

Not for the first time Jaca wished she had the Elders gift of seeing into minds to try to help her friend with her grief. Grief wasn’t an emotion Djabuul really felt if they were understanding the concept correctly. They didn’t die like outsiders did so those who passed on were still around to nitpick any life decisions one made or give advice. As she adjusted herself in her sleeping bag, she hoped the night would be a good one for Maria. She was overdue for one.

The night moved on, snacks were consumed, colorful pictures drawn, and eventually the three were asleep with only the snoring of a sehlat filing the air.

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