Coda

Mabel likes words. She likes long words, and compound words, and synonyms, and sometimes she just likes to use words even when she's not quite sure what they mean.

In the playground opposite the library there's a metal bouncy turtle thingy. You can sit on it and bounce. More interestingly to most of the children, it has a hole at the front and a hole at the back, enabling you to feed it sticks, and make it poop them out at the other end.

This afternoon we took advantage of the milder weather and stopped by the playground on our way home from the supermarket. After some climbing and some swinging and some sliding, Monkey was feeding the turtle while Mabel crouched at his other end like a consciencious proctologist and poked around his nether regions with a twig.

"I'm just making the poo come out," she told me. "With my epilogue."