He was awake and trying to be useful here, and she was laughing. Well, look how much help he was going to be – not, Tybalt chided himself, feeling stupid for not having guessed that. Look, he had been worried about making mistakes in parenthood, and he’d already missed a mark. (This was every school exam over again. He should have crammed in some revision for this.) Still, he trusted that Elsie was being truthful about the standing and the walking, and not just her unwilling-to-complain, overly-helpful-for-everyone-else’s-sake, sort of self.

And, judging by the firm grasp suddenly digging into his arm and the look on her face, Elsie was going through something – no doubt she was right. This was different. And her waddling around the room was making him nervous, whatever she said – so Tybalt dived for the window first, sliding up the sash window to retrieve the owl. He tugged the letter off its leg, unfolded it in abject relief. Miss Moony would be here and then at least they’d have an expert in the room –

Some of the colour drained out of Tyb’s face. “Elsie,” he said, swallowing slightly before he looked at her, and still feeling like his voice had gone a little unnecessarily high-pitched, “– how far apart did you say the contractions were?” This would be fine. She’d said the baby was coming tonight. There were still many hours in tonight. Miss Moony had been held up, sure, but that was fine, she would still be here in plenty of time.

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