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[oom: Fry's patience with his new playmates wears thin.]

It's been a rubbish day. Frankly, Fry can't wait for summer school to start.

Mum hasn't relented yet on his one hour video game limit, and Dad caught him playing them in the infirmary day room the other day, and confiscated the game, put it in the infirmary office, and then very meanly forgot to bring it home. So at present Fry is hovering at the door that leads to the infirmary, wondering if he can manage to go get it back without seeing anything gross.

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"It's ... Alexander, isn't it? Fry?"

Simon's paused a few yards away from the door, not wanting to startle the kid by coming too close behind him.

Fry glances around at the man. Stranger. But then he looks down at the ID badge.

"Dr Simon Tam." he reads off, then nods. Dad has mentioned him.

"My name is Alexander Jefry Sandhu but I like to be called Fry."

"I'll call you Fry, then," he says agreeably. "Were you looking for your father?"

"No." Fry says. "Dad is at home fixing my planetarium because Callum and Ethan broke it."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

He hesitates, then asks: "Did you need something in the infirmary?"

"I think it's going to be bad because I have to turn it on at nine o'clock and it won't be working." Fry says seriously.

"My game is in the office." he adds. "I'm allowed to play for one hour in every twenty four hours. But if I go in there there might be blood. Or scary things. Or Dr Lecter."

"Oh, I see." He matches the boy's serious tone. "Would you like me to go in and look for it? Or check to make sure there's nothing scary in sight?"

Not that it's likely Dr Lecter is there, but it's certainly within the realm of the possible.

Fry considers.

"Yes please. The game is called Maths Magic. It's aged 8 and above and it has a picture of a wizard on it."

He nods. "All right, I'll go look. How big is it? What shape?"

(Fry might be younger than eight, but Simon is not about to comment on that.)

"It's twenty five by twenty centimetres." Fry says.

The recommended age is, in this case, related to the difficulty rather than violence or inappropriate content.

"Thank you."

Edited 2014-08-04 20:41 (UTC)

With a name like Math Magic, that would have been Simon's guess. And given his own childhood and his sister's, he'd have to be the last person to comment on a child playing games above his age level.

"You're welcome. I'll be back as quickly as I can."

Fry watches him go. And after a minute, peeps through the door.

He's walking past the countertop near the supply cabinets, running a swift eye along each surface, bending to check if there's room for anything to have fallen.

It doesn't seem to be turning up.

On the plus side, it doesn't look like there's blood or anything scary in sight.

When he realises there's no patients in there, Fry cautiously creeps in after Simon.

He doesn't feel quite so sure when he gets in there, and stops, looking cautiously around. It smells of something... antiseptic maybe.

Antiseptic is a good bet.

At the sound of his feet scuffing on the floor, Simon glances back at him and gives a small smile. "Would you mind helping me look? I haven't found it yet."

Fry follows him into the office, cautiously.

Then he closes his eyes for a moment, before looking back at Simon.

"Dad put it up there." he points to a high shelf. "Because I'd had too many minutes."

It puts him irresistibly in mind of River, somehow.

"Let's see if it's still there," he says, and heads over to the shelf -- comfortably within his own line of sight, though well over Fry's head.

There's too many things in this room. It makes Fry's head feel full looking at it.

There's a model skeleton in the corner which he watches cautiously, in case it is somehow alive.

The game should be where Guppy left it.

The model skeleton evinces no signs of life.

"Ah," says Simon, lifting down the handheld game and holding it out at Fry's level. "Is this it?"

Fry is still looking at the skeleton for a moment, looking at each bone in turn to make sure there's nothing moving. And then he notices that the skeleton is perfectly symmetrical and he wonders if that means there is an even number of bones in the body but that depends on whether the skull and the jaw are one bone or more than one.

After what is probably a long and peculiar pause for anyone who can't see what he's thinking, the game comes into his peripheral vision and he looks around.

"Thank you." he says, taking it, and then glancing back at the skeleton.

"How many bones are there?"

"Two hundred and six," he says promptly, "in the typical adult human body."

(Simon is not particularly bothered by long and peculiar pauses.)

"But they're not alive." Fry says, mostly to himself. "Because they haven't got a brain or neurons. Dr Lecter gave me a book about brains."

"No, that's right," he said. "Those particular bones aren't, at any rate. Would you like a closer look?"

(He's not sure what to do about the mention of Dr Lecter, after what Guppy told him. Moving past it might be safest.)

"No thank you." Fry says. "Dad said that bones make blood and I don't like blood."

"Bones do make blood, but only when they're alive. These don't. But if you'd rather not, that's fine too."

There's a fine line between encouragement and pressure, and he's never sure which side of it he's falling on.

Fry nods.

"I want to go back now. Thank you Dr Tam." he smiles slightly. "Would you like to play the game?"

Edited 2014-08-14 21:36 (UTC)

"Yes," he says, surprised and pleased -- more at the friendly offer than at the prospect of trying his hand at the game. "Thank you. Can you show me how it works?"

He turns toward the door back out of the infirmary, stepping aside to let Fry pass him.

"Yes." Fry goes into the infirmary day room and loads up the game.

He has learned that if he offers games 1. he gets to choose the game and 2. chances are he'll win.

"Here." he hands Simon the remote, which is apparently the explanation as the game then starts, the screen divides and he begins shooting at the numbers in order of size, starting at easy numbers and increasing in difficulty to include minus numbers and fractions.

... that is not an explanation, Fry.

It's not hard to pick up from watching him, though, and Simon starts to get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Suddenly 'POWER SCORE' flashes up on the screen.

Now you have to go from highest to lowest, something which Fry also does not explain.

Simon makes an inarticulate noise of startled frustration as the rules reverse, but catches on quickly.

Not quickly enough to prevent Fry from widening his already-considerable lead.

"I win!" Fry shouts loudly, when the game finishes. "Be a good winner!"

They're working on being a good winner at Summer School next week.

"What's involved in being a good winner?" Simon asks him, with some interest.

(It's crossed his mind: this is the kind of thing Jessie will need to learn, in ... really only a few years.)

Fry pauses.

"I think it's not shouting that you won more than once."

"Sounds like a good rule."

He is not laughing. It takes some effort, but it's easy to muster; he can remember all to well how much it stings to be laughed at by adults at that age, when one is trying to be serious.

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