BABY MOONBEAM’S MUM

‘To the dark side of this mirror’ by Zoolon

The bus broke down halfway up the mountainside. The driver got the bonnet open. Steam came out. Even though he had a box of spanners he told us there was nothing he could do. He didn’t know when help would come because his mobile couldn’t get a signal.

Sat on the back seat of the bus alone was a mother feeding her baby. The big-headed bloke in the suit carrying a briefcase told her doing it in public was disgusting, just before he and his underlings, also in suits carrying briefcases, left the bus to do a bit of motivational team building at the top of the mountain.

After that the bloke with the posh voice in a fluorescent padded waterproof jacket with a hood, told the mum feeding the baby that she looked beautiful. Once he’d said that he and his mates, also in fluorescent padded waterproof jackets with hoods left the bus. I heard one of them say they had to leave as they were chasing avalanches.

That left just me, the bus driver with the box of spanners and a blind bloke who’d lost his walking stick because he couldn’t see where he left it. The three of us decided to stay with the mother feeding her baby because it didn’t seem right leaving her alone. She never told me her name but the baby was called Moonbeam.

After a long wait, a man dressed as a woman, leading a donkey knocked on the bus window to attract my attention. He said I could have the donkey as he was worried about keeping it any longer. I asked him why he was worried about keeping a donkey. He answered that it was because of the full moon tonight. Told me he turned into a werewolf on full moon’s and it was a certainty that if he kept his donkey he’d end up eating it raw come midnight. The donkey was called Ant.

He seemed pleased when I said I’d take Ant off his hands so that the mother still feeding her baby could sit on its back and me, the driver and the blindman could walk her back down the hill to somewhere safe. The werewolf, at the moment just a man dressed as a woman, was good with that.

Just before we said our goodbyes I told him that if he got peckish later on there was a big-headed bloke and his mates somewhere near the top of the mountain. He thanked me.

We got the mother, still feeding her baby, back home safe. She invited us in for a cup of tea. I had tap water as I don’t drink tea.

Moonbeam’s mum, still feeding baby Moonbeam, asked me if she was allowed to tell her own mum, her granddad and the lady who lived next door, that she’d been rescued from halfway up the mountain rather than say she’d just had a donkey ride home. I said if she thought about it she had been rescued. She said, “Cool.” I told her Moonbeam could keep Ant, but she might want to give him a more credible name. She said, “Neat.”

I meant to tell her she was beautiful like the bloke with the posh voice in a fluorescent padded waterproof jacket with a hood had but I forgot.

The next day I wrote her this song.

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