4 Granny Pus was worn out from the waiting. She lobbed her flyswatter to baby Andrew and said if his daddy wasn't dawdling like Dopey somewhere "I'da hadda big blue baptism boy ribbon on it for ya. Sure woulda, Baby Drew. Big and blue and shiny as a . . . uh . . ."
Worn out from the waiting. Andrew took the flyswatter as his own and fulfilled the mimetic urge which is the key to early education. He swung hard as his tiny arms allowed and smote three flies. It was something of a magical number, he thought to the extent his toddler's mind stretched. Unless Aunt Kar was home, he only got brief spates of affection and attention. His young intellect swung into operation again, recalling that his mother's gibberish was full of numbers, and the number three was her favorite. The ideational amalgam of love of mother, group extermination, and just-manifested mimesis prompted the feeling that something about Three was special. Ants were in the house always, but now they intruded upon the six proprietary
feet of carpet between his crib and Granny's sitzplace. He looked for three of them in a row.
"Somethin' about the boy," Granny said, still huffing from her effort. Why'd Kar have to have a damn christening party when it was time to watch Regis & Kelly? "Eyes like a hawk. Them ants and them flies dead as doornails. Eyes like the Monsignor's, too. The good monsignor, not the naughty one."