By the next morning, Barry and Marmaduke were no longer dying.
This was slightly disappointing to them both because they had discovered that being ill came with tremendous advantages.
People brought you drinks.
You were allowed unlimited cartoons.
Nobody told you to put trousers on.
And most importantly, every sentence you said received immediate adult attention, which for four-year-old boys was basically celebrity status.
Barry lay sprawled across the sofa beneath three blankets despite not needing any of them.
Marmaduke, who had gone home yesterday evening, had been dropped back at the Brand’s house earlier that morning, so Margery could go to work at the hospital. He lay beside Barry in identical fashion.
Together they looked like two small Victorian invalids waiting for news from the coast.
Dad stepped into the living room holding a thermometer.
“Morning, gentlemen.”
“We’re weak,” Barry informed him.
Dad checked his temperature.
“Thirty-seven point four. That’s much better.”
Barry looked furious. “Whose side are you on?”
Meanwhile Marmaduke sat up suddenly.
“I had a dream about the drain crocodile.”
Dad froze halfway through holding the temperature strip on Marmaduke’s forehead.
“Oh good.”
“He was wearing a tie.”
“Right.”
“And he said Alfie works for the government.”
Dad nodded slowly. “That does sound like Alfie.”
At that exact moment, Alfie entered the room carrying hand sanitiser and an expression of deep responsibility.
“Have they taken their antibiotics yet?”
Dad glanced at him. “See?”
Alfie ignored this.
“You have to finish the whole course,” he informed the boys seriously. “Even if you feel better.”
Barry narrowed his eyes. “You sound like the bottle.”
“That’s because I read the instructions.”
“NERD,” croaked Marmaduke affectionately.
Mrs Brand was attempting to work from home upstairs.
This sounded simple in theory.
In practice, it involved attending important meetings while two recovering four-year-olds shouted things like:
“THE BLANKET STOLE MY FOOT.”
Every eight minutes.
She muted herself during a conference call just in time to hear Barry yelling from downstairs:
“MUM! MARMADUKE’S LICKING THE REMOTE AGAIN!”
Then Marmaduke shouting:
“I WAS TESTING IT!”
Then Alfie saying:
“You cannot test electronics with your tongue!”
Mrs Brand closed her eyes briefly.
Her manager was discussing quarterly projections.
Below her, somebody screamed because Bluey had fallen off a pretend horse.
Modern life was extraordinary.
The medicine became the central event of the day.
At eleven o’clock sharp, Dad approached with the pink antibiotic bottle.
Both boys watched him carefully.
Children possess a remarkable ability to detect medication from impossible distances. It’s a survival instinct, like gazelles sensing lions, except louder.
“Time for medicine.”
Barry sighed dramatically.
“I suppose this is the end.”
“It’s five millilitres.”
“It’s chemical punishment.”
Marmaduke accepted his spoonful happily.
“Still tastes pink.”
“That’s not a flavour,” said Alfie.
“It is if you’re brave.”
Barry took his medicine while glaring at everyone individually.
Then he demanded jelly as compensation.
“You had jelly an hour ago,” Dad pointed out.
“That was recovery jelly.”
“And now?”
“Medicine jelly.”
Dad looked toward the ceiling as if requesting patience from higher powers.
By lunchtime the boys had regained enough strength to become dangerous again.
This worried Alfie immediately.
Sick Barry was quiet.
Recovering Barry was inventive.
Dad found them both sitting suspiciously near the kitchen table surrounded by toilet rolls, string, sticky tape and one of Mum’s wooden spoons.
“What’s happening here?”
Barry looked up innocently. “Science.”
Dad inhaled sharply.
“No.”
“We’re helping.”
“No.”
“We’re building a medical machine.”
“Definitely no.”
Marmaduke pointed proudly at the structure. “It checks if people are poorly.”
Dad stared at the construction.
It looked less like medical equipment and more like something police might carefully detonate in a controlled environment.
“How does it work?”
Barry pointed at the spoon.
“That bit goes in your mouth.”
Dad took several calming breaths.
“And then?”
“Then Marmaduke hits the toilet rolls and we see what happens.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even let us finish.”
“I heard enough.”
Alfie appeared instantly, drawn by chaos like a tiny cardigan-wearing superhero.
“I knew they were doing something wrong.”
“We were doing medicine,” Barry protested.
“You taped the TV remote to a colander.”
“It’s diagnostic.”
Dad dismantled the invention before anybody could “diagnose” anything else.
The afternoon brought rain, which in London arrived sideways.
The boys watched droplets race down the window while wrapped in blankets.
“Do you think school misses us?” Marmaduke asked.
“No,” said Alfie immediately from the dining table.
Barry gasped softly. “That’s cold.”
“You caused three incidents last week.”
“What incidents?”
Alfie began counting on his fingers.
“You blocked the toilet with yoghurt.”
“That was an experiment.”
Mum appeared with the medicine bottle.
“You released thirty ladybirds in Reception.”
“They were prisoners.”
“And you convinced Noah that raisins were baby hedgehogs.”
Barry looked proud. “He believed me for ages.”
Marmaduke giggled until he coughed.
Mrs Brand appeared downstairs carrying a laptop and the strained smile of someone trying not to scream professionally.
“Right,” she announced. “Quiet time.”
The boys nodded.
For approximately fourteen seconds.
Then Barry whispered loudly, “Marmaduke.”
“Yes?”
“What if antibiotics are actually tiny robots?”
Marmaduke’s eyes widened. “Inside us?”
“Yes. Fighting the germs.”
Alfie looked horrified. “That’s not scientifically accurate.”
Barry ignored him completely.
“The robots probably have swords.”
“LASERS,” Marmaduke corrected.
“Yes.”
The boys immediately began making robot noises.
Mrs Brand returned upstairs very slowly, like a woman approaching the sea during shark season.
At three o’clock, Marmaduke’s mum called on video chat.
Marmaduke held the tablet directly against his face so only one enormous nostril was visible.
“Hello darling— goodness.”
“I’m recovering,” he informed her.
“Wonderful. Are you behaving?”
There was a suspicious silence.
Barry leaned into view.
“We tried to build a hospital cannon.”
“A what?”
Dad quickly took the tablet.
“They’re fine.”
“Are they?”
“No.”
Marmaduke’s mum sighed knowingly. “At least the fever’s gone.”
This was true.
The boys were noticeably brighter now.
Unfortunately, brightness in Barry usually translated directly into poor decision-making.
Like any use of glitter.
That evening Dad attempted something deeply ambitious.
He suggested a board game.
Now, family board games sound lovely in parenting magazines.
The magazines usually show smiling children learning teamwork while sunlight streams through immaculate kitchens.
Real family board games involve accusations of cheating and somebody crying because a penguin token “looked at them funny.”
Still, Dad persisted.
“We’re playing Snakes and Ladders.”
“I don’t trust snakes,” Marmaduke whispered.
“They aren’t real snakes.”
“That’s exactly what real snakes say.”
The game began peacefully enough.
Alfie played properly.
Dad played patiently.
Barry immediately tried moving six spaces at a time “because of medicine weakness.”
Marmaduke copied him.
“You can’t cheat,” Alfie protested.
“It’s not cheating,” Barry explained. “It’s recovery.”
Three minutes later Marmaduke landed on a snake and burst into genuine outrage.
“THIS GAME SUPPORTS EVIL.”
Dad laughed so hard tea came out of his nose.
By bedtime both boys were visibly improving.
Their cheeks had colour again.
Their voices were louder.
And Barry had enough energy to ask seventy-four questions between brushing his teeth and getting into bed.
“Mum?”
“Yes?”
“Could crocodiles get tonsillitis?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would they take Calpol?”
“Probably not.”
“What if—”
“Sleep.”
Barry considered this unfair.
The boys shared Barry’s room for the night because Marmaduke insisted illness made him “emotionally wobbly.”
Marmaduke lay clutching Barry’s spare dinosaur toy.
“Barry?”
“What?”
“If we die in the night—”
“We’re not dying,” snapped Alfie from the hallway.
“You don’t know the future,” Marmaduke muttered.
Alfie entered wearing pyjamas and carrying a glass of water like an exhausted junior doctor.
“You are both getting better.”
“How can you tell?” Barry asked.
“Because you argued for twenty minutes about whether Batman could defeat a goose.”
“He probably could,” said Marmaduke.
“A determined goose?” Barry countered.
Alfie rubbed his temples.
“You see? Healthy behaviour.”
He switched off the light and headed to his room.
For a while, the boys whispered in the dark.
Outside, rain tapped gently against the windows.
Cars hissed along wet London roads below.
“Marmaduke?”
“Yes?”
“When we go back to school, should we warn people about the crocodile?”
“Definitely.”
“And the germ robots.”
“Yes.”
Barry thought for a moment.
“I think the robots ride the crocodile to work.”
“That makes sense.”
Across the landing, Alfie buried his face in his pillow.
He could still hear them.
Unfortunately.
The next morning brought a miracle.
Barry woke up hungry.
Truly hungry.
Not “I’ll eat one biscuit then claim exhaustion” hungry.
Real hungry.
The sort of hunger that frightens parents financially.
He marched downstairs announcing:
“I NEED TOAST.”
Dad nearly cried with relief.
Marmaduke appeared seconds later.
“I also require toast, please.”
“Good,” said Mum. “You’re finally feeling better.”
The boys devoured toast, cereal, bananas and somehow half of Dad’s croissant while discussing cartoons at enormous volume.
Alfie watched them cautiously.
“You’re definitely recovered.”
Barry grinned. “I feel powerful.”
This sentence worried everyone immediately.
And correctly.
Because ten minutes later Dad walked into the living room to discover Barry and Marmaduke attempting gymnastics from the sofa onto a pile of cushions.
“No.”
“We’re exercising our immune systems,” Barry explained.
“You’re jumping at the television.”
Marmaduke bounced experimentally. “The floor moved.”
“Medicine doses.”
The boys accepted them without argument.
This shocked the adults so deeply that Dad nearly checked them for replacement by aliens.
“You took that very well,” he said cautiously.
Barry shrugged.
“We’re professionals now.”
Marmaduke nodded. “Medical men.”
Alfie stared at them over his cereal.
“You’re four.”
“Exactly,” said Barry grandly. “And we survived tonsillitis.”
There was a pause.
Then Marmaduke raised his spoon.
“To survival.”
Barry clinked spoons with him solemnly.
“To jelly.”
Dad laughed.
Mum laughed.
Even Alfie smiled a tiny bit before catching himself and returning to Responsible Older Brother Mode.
Outside, London carried on as usual: buses rumbling, pigeons plotting, rain threatening everyone equally.
Inside the Brand house, two little boys were ‘turning a corner’, which was lovely.
Though admittedly much louder.
Alfie, Barry and Marmaduke Stories 
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