(Author's note:  This story is a sequel to my story "What's in a Name?")

Fire Captain John Gage, watched by his toddler son, carefully set a short ladder against the porch roof of his ranch style home and checked that the legs were securely on level ground.  He looked down and found wide, dark eyes on him.

"See, Hube?  Daddy's going to put new house numbers on our house!"

Actually, the boy's name was Roy Roderick, but a joke by his mother when she was expecting had earned him the nickname "Hubie", which was then further shortened to "Hube".  At fourteen months he was the image of his father, a skinny, scrawny child with sharp, dark Indian features, dark brown eyes and a mass of curly black hair.  He was still learning to walk, more comfortable on four limbs than two.  He fell down a lot, but he talked prodigiously and the first word he had learned was "oops".

The boy couldn't help it.  He had Gage blood.

Johnny took the new wrought iron numbers in one hand, put the bag with the nails in his mouth, picked up the hammer and carefully climbed to the third rung.  From there he could set the nails and the extra numbers on the porch roof.  One at a time he removed the old wooden numbers and replaced them with their new counterparts.  When he had finished he leaned back to admire his work, then started down the ladder.

Hube, ever curious about anything his daddy was doing, had crawled over under the ladder and pulled himself to a precarious standing position, holding onto the second rung for support.  Some parental sixth sense made Johnny look down just in time to see that he was about to mash his son's little fingers under his heavy sneaker.  He had already shifted his weight; it was too late to stop the step.  He swung his foot out, trying to make the too-long step to the ground, and flung the heavy hammer away where it couldn't land on his son.  With his weight off balance, the ladder toppled over backwards and Johnny landed on his back in the middle of his wife's prize rose bush.  He felt the trellis splinter under him and thorny vines whipped around to embrace him in a painful grip.

Johnny lay half-stunned and caught at an awkward angle.  His rear end and hips were supported by the body of the bush and the remains of the trellis while his head and shoulders dug into the ground.  "Damn!" he said, and then quickly amended it to, "darn!"

To make things worse, the ladder that lay across him like a seesaw over a fulcrum suddenly grew heavy, pressing him painfully into the thorny bush.  The weight climbed up his hips and across his stomach and Hube came into view, crawling along the rungs. The ladder shifted and came down over Johnny's face.  Hube kept crawling until he was nose to nose with his father.

"Oops," he said.

"Yeah," Johnny agreed.  He lifted the baby aside and pushed the ladder off but couldn't manage to get himself up.

While he was trying, Hube crawled up onto the porch and over to the door.  "Mommy!" he called.  "Daddy oops!"

Johnny's wife, Miranda appeared on the front porch.  "Oh, my God!" she shrieked.

Johnny raised one hand reassuringly.  "I'm okay," he grunted.

She dropped to her knees beside him, a horrified expression on her pretty face.  "You killed my rosebush!"

Johnny, still off balance on his back, growled and let out a short breath in exasperation.  "Gee, thanks for the sympathy!"

"I thought you said you were okay."

"We-ell," he hedged, letting his voice waver up an octave as he drew the word out into two syllables, "maybe not okay as such.  I mean, I'm not dead or anything, but -- look!  Can you just help me up already?"

Miranda took a minute to pull away a few stray branches that had wrapped around him, then stood, braced herself and offered Johnny her hands.  He took them and levered himself up, gasping with pain as the bush reluctantly released him.  Miranda walked around him, inspecting.

"Ick.  Lotta blood there.  Think you can make it into the house?"

"Yeah."  With her help he climbed stiffly up the steps and went into the living room.  Hube followed them, still on all fours.

"Daddy owie?" he asked.

"Yep," Miranda said, "Daddy's got a owie butt."

Hube patted Johnny on the leg.  "Poor Daddy," he said, and then giggled wildly.  "Daddy gotta owie butt!"

"Gee, thanks," Johnny said sarcastically, laying face-down on the sofa.  "The stupid rosebush gets more sympathy than I do!"

"Well, it was the innocent party," Miranda said reasonably.  "I'm not gonna be able to get all these thorns out.  Not to mention the splinters from the trellis.  Looks like we're gonna have to make a trip to the emergency room."

"Oh, no!" Johnny protested.

"Oh, yes."

"Look, it's stupid!  They'll only make fun of me!"

"You have got about a thousand splinters in one of my favorite body parts," Miranda said.  "I am not going to take a chance on leaving some of them in there to get infected."

"Wait, now!  Just wait.  I know how you can get all the splinters out!  Go out to the shed and get the duct tape--"

"I am not using duct tape for medicinal purposes," Miranda said flatly.  "Besides, you need a tetanus shot too."

"No, I don't!"

"Yes, you do."

"I don't!  I had a tetanus shot!"

"When?"

"It doesn't matter when.  They're good for a long time."

"They're not good forever.  When did you last have one?"

Johnny sighed and growled into the sofa cushion.  "I don't remember."

"Then it's been too long and you need another one."

He changed tactics.  "Do you know how low a priority a butt full of splinters is going to be in the emergency room?  We'll be there for hours!  Do you really want to sit around the emergency room with a fourteen-month-old all day?"

"Of course not.  We'll stop by the DeSotos' and see if Roy and Jo can watch him."

Hube perked up.  "Wory?" he asked, looking around as if expecting to see his godfather suddenly appear.

"Yes," Miranda told him, "you're going to go see Uncle Roy today while Mommy takes Daddy to the doctor."

Johnny knew when he was losing an argument, but he tried one last tack.  "We can't leave him with Roy.  They had nineteen calls yesterday.  He probably isn't even awake.  No way he's alert enough to look after a baby."

"Then we'll leave him with Joanne.  If we have to, we'll take him with us.  But you're still going to the emergency room, so you might as well stop arguing about it."

While his parents were talking Hube, excited at the prospect of visiting Uncle Roy, got his diaper bag and dragged it over behind his mother.  Miranda turned for the door and tripped over it, made an heroic effort to retain her footing and slammed her left fist into the door frame.

"Damn!" she howled, and quickly amended it to "darn!"

Hube looked up at her innocently.  "Oops."

"Honey?" Johnny pulled himself up from the couch and tottered painfully towards her.  "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she said, alternately shaking her hand and sucking on her fingers.

"Let me see," he demanded.  He examined her hand and found the fingers already swelling.  "You've at least cracked the bones in your index and middle fingers," he told her.

Miranda groaned.

"Looks like we're both going to be seeing the ER docs, doesn't it?  Do you think you can drive or do you need me to?"

"I'll drive.  You can't sit down and you can't drive standing."  She shouldered her purse and the diaper bag.  "Can you bring your son?  The sooner we get this started the sooner we get it done."

* * * *

Miranda pulled into the DeSoto's driveway and groaned.  "Their cars are both gone," she said.  "Looks like no one's home."

Johnny, lying on his side on the fully-reclined passenger seat, sighed.  "It figures.  Did you ever notice how, when one thing goes wrong suddenly everything goes wrong?"

Hube, strapped into a car seat in the back, leaned towards the open window.  "Wory?" he shouted hopefully.  "Wory!  Daddy gotta owie butt, Wory!"

"Sorry, Hube," Johnny said.  "Looks like Uncle Roy isn't here right now."

Hube puckered up and threatened tears.  "No Wory?"

Miranda put the car in reverse but before she could back away the door opened and the DeSotos' thirteen-year-old daughter Jenny came out.  As she approached the car Hube leaned towards the window and shouted again.

"Dzinny!  Daddy gotta owie butt!"

"Oh, no!  What happened, Uncle Johnny?"

"I fell off a ladder," he said, keeping the explanation short.  It did him no good because Miranda immediately elaborated.

"He fell off a ladder into my rosebush!"

"Oh, no!" Jenny said, horrified.  "Is it going to be okay?"

"No," Johnny said, miffed.  "It's not because I'm gonna run over it with the lawn mower!"

"You'd better not," Miranda threatened.  "You think you've got an owie butt now, mister --"

"What happened to your hand?" Jenny interrupted.

"Hube tripped me with his diaper bag and I fell into a doorway."

"So I guess you guys are headed to Rampart, then?" Jenny said.

"Yeah," Johnny sighed.  "We were hoping your folks could keep an eye on the brat."

"Mom went shopping and Daddy's at a VFW thing.  I'm the only one home, but I'll watch him."

"You sure you don't mind?  And what's your dad doing at a VFW thing?  They were out nonstop yesterday.  He's gotta be bushed.  He's got no business driving!"

"I'm sure I don't mind.  And Daddy's not driving.  Christopher took him.  They'll be back in a couple of hours or so."

Jenny got Hube out of his car seat and slung his diaper bag over her shoulder.  She slammed the car door and stepped back and the two of them waved as Miranda and Johnny drove off towards Rampart.

* * * *

Hube stayed with the DeSotos often and they had a fair selection of toys for him.  Jenny took him out into the back yard, set him down near where a wading pool sat on a tarp and surrounded him with bright colored plastic blocks and rings and oversized toy fire trucks.  Their fat, lazy tomcat was asleep on the deck rail and their gentle dog, Blaze, lay in the grass and watched the baby play.

Jenny had brought her school work out with her and she sat in a lawn chair and read her history book while keeping half an eye on the baby.  He jabbered non-stop as he played -- he really was just like his father -- and Jenny was only half listening when an odd phrase worked its way into her conscious.

"Kee wim!"

Jenny tossed aside the book and hauled herself out of the chair in a panic.  "Hube!  No!"  She was too late.

Hube had gotten the big cat down from the porch rail and was carrying it, staggering under the weight.  He took three unsteady steps across the tarp and dropped the tom into the wading pool.

The cat (his name was McKonnike, but they called him Mac) scrabbled around, trying to find a purchase on the slippery pool bottom and getting thoroughly soaked.  Jenny reached for him and he sunk his claws into her arm, hauled himself up across her shoulder and leapt for the deck rail.  From there he jumped to a nearby tree and climbed the trunk until he could cross a limb and drop to the roof of the house.  He tried to shake the water from his fur, but there was just too much so he sat there dripping pathetically and glaring down at them.

Hube peered back with tears in his eyes.  "Kee no wim?"

"Oh, Hube."  Jenny squatted down next to him, holding her stinging, bleeding arm with her other hand.  "Kitties don't like to swim."

He thought about this for a minute.  "Kee oops," he decided.

"Kitty oops?" Jenny asked, incredulous.  "Kitty oops?  No the kitty didn't oops!  Roy Roderick Gage oopsed!"

Hube leaned against her, laid his head on her shoulder and grinned up at her encouragingly.  "Kee oops," he said.

"No, Hube oopsed!"

He put his face right next to hers, eyes sparkling, grinning.  "Kee oops."

"You're impossible!

Hube's gaze wandered around the yard and settled on Blaze, watching from a safe distance.  "Co wim?" he asked.

"No, I don't think Blaze wants to swim either," Jenny told him.  "And she's not a cow!  She's a dog!  Say dog."

"Co!"

"Dog!" Jenny coaxed, following him over to pet the dog.

"Co."

"Come on, Hube!  I know you can say dog.  I've heard you!  Why do you insist on calling her a cow?"

"Co!"

"No!  She's a dog.  A puppy.  Actually," Jenny was rubbing Blaze's ears and Blaze tipped her head up appreciatively, "actually, she's a beautiful Dalmatian!"

"Damnation."

Jenny froze.  "Hube!  No!  DAL-MAY-SHUN."

"Damnation."

"Dog."

"Damnation."

"Dog!  Puppy!  Pup!"

"Damnation."

Jenny hesitated.  "Cow?" she asked reluctantly.

"Co!" Hube agreed, satisfied.

Jenny petted Blaze on the head.  "Sorry, girl.  It seems you're a cow."

* * * *

Johnny stood uncomfortably in Rampart's waiting room, too sore to sit.  Miranda was stoically quiet in a hard plastic seat next to him.  They had filled out the necessary paperwork and now there was nothing to do but wait.  Around them the emergency room buzzed with activity.  So far three teams of paramedics had come in with critical cases, nodded to Johnny and hurried back out again.

Mike Morton came up, followed by an orderly with a gurney.  "Gage, it's going to be a little while yet.  I want you to lie down on this gurney while you wait.  You'll be more comfortable.  Besides, standing up and moving around is only going to make the splinters work in deeper."

He started to leave but Johnny tugged on his sleeve and stepped close.  "Doc," he started, embarrassed, "I don't want to lay on a gurney out here.  I mean . . . everybody will wonder what I'm doing."

"Oh," Morton considered this briefly.  "You don't want people to wonder why you're here?"

"Well, no."

"Okay."  Morton turned to the waiting room at large and raised his hand.  "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen?  This is Fire Captain John Gage.  He's going to be lying face-down on this gurney while he waits because he fell into a rosebush and got a backside full of splinters.  Anybody have a problem with that?"

The other people waiting stared at Johnny but no one spoke.

"Problem solved," Morton said.  "Just tell newcomers as they arrive."  He patted Johnny on the shoulder and left.

Johnny growled under his breath but allowed the orderly to help him up onto the gurney.  He got comfortable and pillowed his head on his arms.  An elderly woman sitting across from Miranda peered up at him.

"You fell into a rosebush?  Poor thing!"

He started to smile at her but the expression froze when she added, "did you kill it?"

"Not yet," he said.

* * * *

Jenny spread a thin layer of peanut butter on a slice of bread, folded it in half and gave it to Hube.  Then she picked him up under one arm, gathered her battered history book and notebooks under the other and carried them all into the living room.  She set Hube down in the middle of the floor, gave him some more toys to play with, and took time to put the baby gate up in the kitchen doorway and make sure all the electrical outlets were covered before she went over to the easy chair under the stairs and started reading her assignment again.

She didn't know that Hube had mastered climbing steps, so she didn't think to block off the stairs.

Hube finished his sandwich, played with a shape sorter and a See-n-Say, explored the possibility of escaping into the kitchen, stood up and fell down three times and headed for the stairs.  They were carpeted and his little fingers curled into the pile and helped him to haul himself up one careful step at a time.  When he was halfway up he tried to peek down at Jenny, but he couldn't see her from that angle.  He put his face between the banisters, but his ears didn't want to go through.  He wiggled his head and first one ear and then the other popped through.  Now he could peek down at Jenny, seated below him in the easy chair with her book open on her lap.  He giggled, tried to pull his head back in and discovered that his ears wouldn't fold down backwards.

"Oops."

Jenny looked up.  "Hube!  How did you get up there?  Oh, no!  Are you stuck?"

"Oops," he cried, surprise at his predicament quickly turning to panic when he realized he was stuck.  "Oops!"

"Okay, honey.  Just hold on.  I'll get you down!"

"Dzinny!  Oops!  Oops!"

Jenny climbed up to him and tried unsuccessfully to work him loose.  When that didn't free him, she ran up to the bathroom, Hube's panicked "oops" following her, and returned with a bottle of shampoo.  She poured the slippery gel on his head and worked it around his ears as he wiggled and squalled and tried to get away from her.

"Hold on, Hube!  I'm doing the best I can here!  Oh, Hube!  What did you have to go and do this for, anyway?"

She got his ears well-soaped, but they still wouldn't go back through the narrow opening.  She was sitting there wondering what to do next when the phone rang.

The phone was on a small table beside the chair she'd been sitting in.  She wiped her hands on her tee shirt and ran down to answer it.

"Dzinny!" Hube called after her.  "Dzinny!  No bye bye!  Bad Dzinny!" he cried.  "Bad Dzinny!"

"Hube, hush!  I'm right here!"

She picked up the phone and tried to sound calm and collected.  "DeSoto residence," she said, and her father's tired voice came over the line.

"Honey?  It's Daddy.  Can you look in the red leather address book and find a number for me?"

"Um, okay."  She was wondering if she should admit that she'd let the baby get his head stuck in the stair rail or try to play it off and hope she could get him loose and clean up the mess on her own before anyone got home.

"It should be in the drawer of the phone table there.  I need the number for Adam Larkin."

Jenny pulled out the drawer and found the number, fumbling a little and realizing she was getting shampoo on the address book.  Over her head, Hube had quieted down and was watching her, gripping the rails that imprisoned him like a little miscreant confined to the stocks.

"Do you have a piece of paper?" she asked her dad.

"Do you have a piece of paper?" he repeated to someone away from the phone, then he told her, "go ahead."

She read off the number and he repeated it.  Then he said, "what's wrong, sweetheart?"

Jenny sighed, because she never could fool her father.  "I'm babysitting Hube," she admitted, "and he's got his head stuck in the stair rail."

"Can he breathe okay?" her dad asked, alarmed.

"Seems to be able to.  Listen."  She held the phone up in the air and said, "it's Uncle Roy."

Hube's gaze zeroed in on the phone.  He stretched his neck out as much as he could and shouted at the receiver.  "Wory!  Wory!  Help, Wory!  I tuck!  I tuck Wory!  Help!  Damndarn!  Damndarn damndarn damndarn damndarn!"

Jenny put the phone back to her ear.  "I didn't teach him that!"

Roy chuckled.  "It's okay, honey.  The child has Gage blood.  You have to expect things like that.  Have you tried soap yet?"

"Shampoo.  It isn't working.  His ears don't wanna go back through."

"Okay, listen.  Get the little hacksaw out of my toolbox and cut one of the rails.  I'll fix it tomorrow.  Just be careful when you're cutting and don't either of you fall down the stairs.  If you run into any problems, just wait.  Chris and I are leaving now so we should be home within half an hour or so.  Okay?"

"Okay."  She sighed.  "Sorry I let him get himself stuck.  I should have been watching him more closely."

"Like I said, he's got Gage blood.  It'll be okay."

Jenny glanced up and found Hube watching the phone anxiously.  "Wory?" he said.

"Just a second, Daddy.  I think Hube wants to talk to you again."  She stood up on the chair seat and held the phone to his ear.

"Wory?" he asked, his gaze wandering off into the distance as he listened to Roy's voice over the telephone line.  "Wory!  Wory!  Uh . . . Daddy gotta owie butt!" he said finally, and giggled maniacally.

Jenny put the phone back to her own ear, wincing at the feel of shampoo on the earpiece.  "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah.  We'll be home in a just a little bit, honey.  I can't wait to hear this one."

They both said goodbye and hung up and then Jenny got the hacksaw and cut Hube free.  When he pulled his head back in she flopped back, lying on the stairs.  "There!" she exclaimed.  "You're loose, you horrible little Gage child!  Now don't go sticking your head in things!"

Hube crawled up her stomach and lay down across her chest.  He put his nose to her nose and said, "Dzinny?"

"What?"

"I pooey."

She checked his diaper.  "Oh, you ARE!" she shouted, making an exaggerated fuss.

Hube giggled.  She checked his diaper again.  "PEW-eee!" she called out.  "Pee Yew EEE!"  He was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe now and she scooped him up and headed up the stairs with him singing:

"What ya gonna do with a pooey baby?

What ya gonna do with a pooey baby?

What ya gonna do with a pooey baby,

Early in the morning!

Throw him in the bathtub 'til he's squeaky!

Throw him in the bathtub 'til he's squeaky!

Throw him in the bathtub 'til he's squeaky,

Early in the morning!"

* * * *

Joe Early walked out of the exam room with Johnny.  "You should be fine in a couple of days.  Just take all the antibiotics and be careful what you sit on."

"You mean, sit on pillows and cushions and things?"

"I mean don't sit on rosebushes and cacti and things."

"Oh.  Ha ha.  Very funny!"

Early laughed, slapped him on the shoulder and turned away.  Johnny, moving more easily now that he had been de-thorned, headed for the nurses' desk, where his wife stood deep in conversation with Dixie McCall.  As he came up, Miranda was speaking and Johnny eavesdropped shamelessly.

"You think it'll be okay, though?" she was saying.  "I didn't want to make a big fuss in front of Johnny, but I have been worrying a bit."

Johnny grinned at her hidden concerns, thinking she was talking about him, but his grin faded when Dixie replied, "yes, I'm sure it'll be fine!  Just trim back the broken branches and give it a good dose of fertilizer."

* * * *

By the time Roy and Chris got home, Jenny had Hube out of the tub and was dressing him.  She'd given him a beanbag to play with and he held it by one corner and shook all the beans down into the other end.  She leaned over him to finish fastening the snaps on his onesie and he idly swung the cosh he'd made and hit her in the eye.

Her dad and brother walked in just in time to hear her howl.

"Ow!"  She cried.  "Dang!  Hube!"

"Damndarn," he corrected her.  "Oops."

"Sweetheart?  You okay?"  Roy and Chris ran into the living room to find Jenny standing well back from Hube and holding her eye.

"Here, honey.  Let me see," her dad said.  He pulled a penlight from his pocket and moved in close to examine her as Chris went over to where Hube still lay on the sofa.  "You're gonna have a black eye, but I don't think he did any real damage," Roy said.

Behind them they heard Chris' voice.  "Okay, miscreant.  Give me the weapon.  Come on and -- OW!  My node!"

"Damndarn," Hube said cheerfully.  "Oops."

Roy rolled his eyes.  "Sit down and tip your head back," he told his son.  "I'll get you an icepack."  He took three steps towards the living room, stepped on a stray block and landed heavily on his back.  "Owww!"

"Daddy?  Are you okay?"

"Pop?  Y'alright?"

Hube slipped off the sofa and crawled over to where Roy lay half-stunned, the wind knocked out of him.  "Damndarn," he commented.  "Wory gotta owie?"

The hall door opened and footsteps heralded Joanne DeSoto's arrival home.  She dropped a loaded shopping bag on the hall table and gaped at the tableau before her.  Jenny sat in the easy chair, her right eye rapidly blackening.  Chris perched on the edge of the sofa with blood dripping from his nose and Roy lay flat on his back in the middle of the floor, face twisted in a grimace of pain.  Hube sat in the middle of the room looking around innocently.

"Good heavens!" Joanne exclaimed.  "What happened?"

Hube looked up at her, shrugged his thin little shoulders and said, "Tey oopsed."

* * * *

This time when the Johnny and Miranda pulled up in front of the DeSoto residence both of the couple's cars were in the driveway.

"Oh, good," Johnny said.  "Looks like everybody made it home safely."  He gave his wife a crooked grin.  "Try to look pathetic.  Maybe they'll ask us to dinner."

Miranda rolled her eyes and they got out of the car and went to collect their son.  Johnny knocked on the front door for form, but then went on in without waiting for an invitation.  In the living room he found Jenny lying back in the recliner holding an ice pack to her eye and Christopher sprawled across the love seat with an ice pack on his nose.  Roy lay face-down on the sofa with a heating pad on his back.  Hube was tucked in beside him, under his left arm, and by all indications they were both asleep.

"Yikes!" Johnny said, peering at Chris and Jenny.  "What happened to you two?  Were you in a war?"

"No," Christopher said, "a natural disaster."

Jenny giggled and Hube raised his head and shushed them crossly.  "Wory seep!"

"Okay," Johnny agreed, ruffling his son's soft, dark hair good-naturedly.  They wandered on into the kitchen and found Joanne making spaghetti.

"Hi," she said.  "I thought I heard you come in.  Pull up a couple of chairs and help yourself to the coffee.  I'm making dinner and you're staying to eat."

Johnny and Miranda exchanged a small grin as they moved to comply with her orders.  "So, uh, what happened in there?" he asked over the rim of his cup, jerking his head back to indicate the next room."

"What happened?" Joanne echoed.  "Your son happened!  John Gage, that child is a walking, talking disaster area!"

"Hey, now!" Johnny protested, rising to his child's defense.  "He didn't . . . I mean, that is, he wouldn't . . . well, he wouldn't mean--"

"Oh, I know he doesn't mean to do anything.  He doesn't have a mean bone in his body and you know we all think the world of him.  But let's face it.  My husband has a sprained back, my son has a bloody nose, my daughter has a black eye, my house is broken, my cat's all wet and my dog is apparently a cow.  In addition, your wife has two broken fingers and you, I am reliably informed, have an owie butt!  The child is a menace!"

"But it's not his fault!"

"Of course not.  He can't help it.  He just has Gage blood.  That's the cross we're all going to have to bear."

"Oh, sure!  It's my fault," Johnny ranted, voice rising.  "Just blame it on me.  We all know everything's my fault!"  He was interrupted by a tug on his pants leg.  Looking down he found Hube glaring up at him crossly.

Hube put one small finger over his mouth.  "Ssss!" he insisted.  "Wory seep!"

Johnny pressed his lips together and considered his son while his wife and Joanne giggled in the background.  "Okay," Johnny said finally.  "Fine!  Sorry, your highness!"

Hube rolled his eyes and tossed his hands in the air.  "Damnation!" he said, and crawled back into the living room.

* * * *

Epilogue

At 3:38 AM the phone beside the DeSoto's bed rang.  It woke Roy from a sound sleep and he grabbed it, instantly alert.  "Hello?"

"Roy," Johnny said, "do you know what time it is?"

Roy frowned at the phone, then checked the clock.  "It's 3:38 AM."

"It's 3:38 AM," Johnny echoed.  "Why am I calling you at 3:38 AM?"

"I don't know.  Why are you calling me at 3:38, er, :39 AM?"

"You wanna know why I'm calling you?  I'll tell you why I'm calling you.  You know how you fell asleep when I was at your house this afternoon?  And you slept right through dinner?  And you didn't wake up until almost 9 o'clock, when we made you get your butt off the sofa and eat something?  You remember that?"

"Uh, yeah.  I guess so.  What about it?"

"Oh, nothing.  I was just wondering, did you have a nice nap, Roy?"

"Um, I guess . . . ."

"That's nice.  You know, Hube had a nice nap, too."

Roy grinned in the darkness as understanding bloomed.  "Can't get him back to sleep?" he asked.

Johnny growled into the phone.  "Listen," he said.

There was a brief silence and then Roy heard his godson's voice, loud, cheerful and badly off-key.

"What dooa doo dooa pooey baby? What dooa doo dooa pooey baby? What dooa doo dooa pooey baby?  What dooa doo dooa pooey baby?  What dooa doo . . . ."

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