A shop on Spend Street will do almost anything to get noticed. Which is why, on Saturday, the brightest thing on the whole street was not the sun.

SUPER SLIME

There is a sign on Spend Street you can read from the next street along. Underneath it stands Zion, holding a tub at a slightly show-offy angle. That is a real angle. Zion invented it.

Zion: “Mine is the green one.”

He will say this eleven times before lunch. Say it with him.

It is the green one.

Ava: “I can SEE it is the green one.”
Zion: “It stretches from here to the end of my arm.”

Ava's eyes went wide and stayed wide. Then her hands came up, open and ready, in case a tub of slime happened to arrive in them.

Eyes first, then hands. That is how you can tell with Ava. You might do something completely different. I get a small red light on the back of my head, which I cannot see, so I am the last to know.

Louis: “It says three coins.”
Ava: “I have three coins. Three coins for a thing that costs three coins. That is MATHS, Louis.”
Louis: “Then you will have none.”
Ava: “I will have SLIME.”

There was a queue, obviously. Six children, one dog who had come in out of the rain, and a pigeon who seemed fully committed to the whole idea.

Zion: “It glows as well. In the dark. Watch.”

It glowed. I would love to tell you it did not glow. It glowed like a small green moon sitting in a tub. Twelfth time, then.

It is the green one.

Louis: “Where does slime live?”
Ava: “In a TUB.”
Louis: “The last one lived in the carpet.”
Ava: “That was a completely different slime with a completely different lid.”
Ava: “This one would stay in its tub at all times. Except for the times it was out.”
Louis: “That is every slime that has ever existed.”

This is the trouble with Louis. He does not argue. He says the true thing and then stands there being right, very quietly, which is much worse.

So. Three coins on the band, and none afterwards. One tub, green, glowing. And one carpet at home with a history.

And that is where I get out. Slime is above my pay grade and I do not have hands.

Tap. Tap. Pause.