Please Daddy

Written for https://crispinakemp.com/2025/10/22/crimsons-creative-challenge-057/

Clara pulled at her daddy’s sleeve, and her shoulders slumped stoically onto the table. Pinky was all alone out there. What if something happened to him? A passing dog could take him home and rip out all its insides.

‘Please, Daddy, we have to go back. It’s going to rain, and he’s going to get wet. He doesn’t like worms. He is my bedtime bear. Please . . .’

Alan took a breath, in the hope he didn’t have to drive back to the field. It was over an hour away, and it would mean going back in rush hour traffic. Her blue eyes doubled in size, and she refused to drink her milkshake.

‘It means we will be late home, and you know Mummy likes us to be home on time.’

‘But it’s Pinky, and he doesn’t like the dark, and he hates being lonely, and I can’t lose him because granddad gave him to me, remember, on my birthday, when we had a Happy Meal.’

‘Okay, but you must promise to go straight to bed when you get home; no arguing with Mummy.’

‘Thank you, love you,’ Clara said

A quick text to his wife; he would face her wrath on the doorstep; he couldn’t let his daughter down.

Not again.