There were a lot of human customs to adapt to, that Van had known from her days as being a dependable robot and many a time thanked her auto access to the internet in order to be able to explain most things easily enough. Though she had also come to learn very quickly that the internet was a strange and dark place that certain little paws, eyes and cute noses should not have any access to in the slightest, so the parental controls she had installed were so advanced that Tata hadn’t even noticed them as of yet.

 

Though thankfully, most of the dodgy stuff that she had come across wouldn’t interest the purple alien prince in the slightest for a fair few years yet. Well she could hope at least. However she lightly shook her head at that thought however, she knew her prince’s heart and it was going to take something extreme for him to become interested in a female of any kind.

 

Lord help them when he did though, Van could already imagine that would be a very interesting ride.

 

But all thoughts of her little Tata trying to woo a lady of some kind, which were highly amusing if she did admit it, were completely out of the robot turned mothers mind as she was dealing with a rather tricky situation.

 

How was one supposed to carve out a pumpkin that was filled to the brim with seeds and pulp?

 

She had been pondering over this for about a minute, to see if her human instincts could come up with anything before resorting to going back to the internet to check on some of the information videos when her, self-dubbed, mother-instinct kicked in and she turned her head.

 

A flash of pink and brown had her raising her dark grey eyebrow before there came an horrendous yell from around the corner and a big brown lump appeared. Immediately Van dropped the carving knife that she was holding, closing the drawer with the child locks on straight after before charging towards the corridor. The big brown lump was grumbling along the corridor, leaving wet hoofprints all over the carpet and clearly had bad intentions on his mind.

 

Van blinked and then turned her eyes towards the end of the corridor where a pair of familiar snickers were coming from. She glared at Cooky and Shooky, a warning in her eyes that she would deal with them later before a long suffering sigh escaped her lips as she started down the corridor.

 

“Van,” a deep sleepy voice said, before a familiar blue Koala appeared with a large fluffy towel, “Here. I shall go and get the bath ready.”

 

Van smiled, “Thank you Koya, just don’t fall…”

 

A soft whump to the floor had her rolling her eyes but the busy mother just scooped up the koala up, hurrying along the corridor to place the sleepy thing down in the bathroom. A scream had her rushing out the room and to the nearest door where Mang was hiding the in corner of his room, shivering back and forth like a leaf with his horse mask slightly dirt splattered whilst DJ stood and growled at him.

 

Tata was also in the room but was clinging to the ceiling light, with a distinct look that he was not going to come down until the threat at gone very far away.

 

Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Van unfolded the towel, made a quick check on the water meter to confirm that Koya was indeed filling the bath up and then charged forward. DJ also happened to charge forward at that exact moment, his anger at being dirty was being unleashed at the first available target and it was only down to sheer luck that Van was able to get to the highly mad and grumpy alpaca before he could get to Mang.

 

Ensuring that DJ was fully wrapped in the towel, Van hauled him upright and stomped back to the bathroom, pausing for a fraction of a second when she found Cooky carefully cleaning the carpet with a mop and a bucket of water. It wasn’t entirely the right set of tools but she did feel her heart melt just a little at the sight. Cooky could be an absolute terror and a troublemaker but he was also a sweetheart deep down and usually cleaned up after his messes which was nice.

 

A kick from DJ had her remembering what she was supposed to be doing and she hurried into the bathroom, dumping the now growling alpaca into the tub which was filled with far too many bubbles but that did not matter too much in the slightest. DJ immediately started struggling but Van was prepared and grabbed hold of a bright blue sponge, only to discard it five seconds later after she realised that it was Koya and then located the actual alpaca sponge which she used liberally all over the struggling alpaca until a helpful blue hand passed up some strawberry smelling soap which Van smiled brightly at and continued to scrub.

 

Five minutes later there came a happy sounding bah, followed by an all too familiar white face that held the biggest grin in the world and RJ began splashing about in his bath as if this was the most enjoyable thing that he had ever done.

Van was quick to pull the now thankfully happy alpaca out of the bath, take him across to the shower and use it to wash off all the soap suds, which he merrily helped with, smiling all of the time and even playfully squirting water at Koya who was putting towels down on the floor. Van took the shower head off him at that point and finished off her task, not complaining too much when the alpaca shook himself dry before being happily led to the bedroom to be blown dry via a hairdryer.

 

The hallway carpet was an absolute sodden mess but Tata was instructing Cooky on how to place more towels down and then roll in them to capture all the water from the carpets. It was only going to cause yet more mess but the two boys were having fun so Van wasn’t going to get in the way. Plus having helpful RJ back was a blessing in itself and as soon as the hairdryer was on, the damp fur turned extra soft and fluffy.

 

RJ was practically preening in all the warmth; it was well known that he loved his bath and blow dry and Van was happy to have her happy alpaca boy back.

 

Though RJ suddenly stopped smiling and blinked heavily, “Mang?”

 

“Still in his room, I think,” Van said, realising that she had yet to go and see the other, “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

 

“I’ll go apologise to him,” RJ said, hopping down and heading towards the door, only to pause with an unsure expression as a big roll of towels went past with a cackling Cooky caught in the middle and Tata merrily rushing back and forth on top.

 

Shooky suddenly swung in from the top of the door, landing on top of RJ’s head and bouncing several times before jumping back onto the now re-rolling Cooky roll with a gleeful loud cry.

 

RJ turned to look at Van who just sighed and shook her head. Then groaned when a whump was followed by a thunk as Koya, coming out of the bathroom with his neat pile of used towels to go into the laundry basket was accidentally caught by the Cooky Roll and half flattened, but the sudden bump caused Tata to bounce into the ceiling, Shooky to go tumbling to the floor to be squished by the giant roll and said giant roll to bounce into the wall at the end where it promptly fell apart, and Cooky cried out as his head firmly banged off the coffee table that had been put there.

 

There was a two second pause before a bar of soap, which had been lodged in the towels, suddenly popped out, bounced off Koya’s head causing his ears to drop off in shock, reverberated straight to Shooky who was just in the process of picking himself up, which caused it to go flying straight into Cooky’s stomach which bounced outwards and upwards straight into the yellow mouth of Tata.

Who promptly swallowed the whole thing, fell off the ceiling in shock and then started hiccupping bubbles.

 

Van could only stare in a mixture of amazement and horror at the scene unfolding around her as she literally had no idea where to even start.

 

Until there came the distinct sniffles of a certain masked boy and all other mothering instincts kicked in. She bent down, took Mang into her arms and headed away from the scene just as she heard RJ clap his hoofs together and say, “Right, now its time to Stop It and Tidy Up!”

 

She was so so glad that she had introduced her little alpaca to that show, because he had taken to it so brilliantly and was excellent at conveying the messages across to the others when she needed five minutes to sort something out. Like right now, because a distressed Mang was a very unhappy pony indeed, and there was nothing worse than having him upset.

 

Well maybe having everyone running around the house screaming because the babysitter had let them watch a scary movie, but that was a mistake that was never, ever going to be repeated again no matter what happened.

 

The quietest room in the house was a small little reading nook that Van had installed for herself. It was in a large bay window and had a really soft cushion for the base and then a mound of soft pillows, blankets, body pillows (with tasteful designs) and a large squishy wolf plushi come pillow that had been accidentally bought at three times the actual size requirement for any of the boys beds, but it had fitted rather nicely into Van’s little reading nook. She never let on that it had been an actual purchase, but sometimes it was best to keep little secrets like that to herself.

 

The reading nook also served as a handy recharge point for Van, seeing as she very rarely ever actually needed to sleep and Tata had installed a small unit that allowed her to connect up a series of wires to her wrist and ankle which allowed her to charge whilst she either read, drew or watched a little bit of television in peace and quiet.

 

Right now it was the perfect spot to put Mang down, wrap him up in his favourite blanket and cuddle the whimpering mess. “Shh, my little pony,” Van half-sang to him, nuzzling his mask covered face gently, as it had generally been agreed that Mang was happiest being described as a pony and that was the end of the matter, “It’ll be fine. You’ll see. Everything will just go back to normal.”

 

Mang hiccupped, “But…but RJ…”

 

“I know, he wasn’t himself for a little bit,” Van said patiently, “It happens every time that he gets dirty. But I’m sure he’ll be along in a minute with some nice treats for all of us and you’ll be back to being friends again in next to no time.”

 

Mang hiccupped once again, looked up towards Van with watery eyes before holding his arms out. Because despite the fact that he was already in a very big cuddle with the robot mother, he always wanted extra warm hugs and Van smiled as she pulled him close. “Aww, it’ll be okay.”

 

“I just don’t like scary-saurs!” Mang wailed, hugging tight.

 

“Scary-saurs?” Van couldn’t help but ask, feeling completely out of the loop over what craziness this could possibly be.

 

Mang nodded, “Those big things that roar and are always covered in mud and the likes.”

 

Running through a series of thoughts about what could be the actual scary-saur that matched up to what DJ appeared to be, Van found herself coming up completely blank for a moment. Blinking, she sighed but had to ask, “Mang, what is a scary-saur? I don’t compute it.”

 

Mang was quiet for a second, before beginning to shake, “Those big things from the movie the other night.”

 

Once again Van paused, running through the inventory of movies that she had watched with the boys to see if anything matched up to what the other was describing. Nothing immediately came up until she turned her head to the doorway where she was pretty sure she just heard the sounds of a ray gun going off, though mentally just about managed to keep the curse behind her lips, and her eyes fell on some toys that had as of yet to be tidied up.

 

One was a bright green dinosaur that had been bought from the museum when they had visited last month and immediately she remembered what had occurred from the other night. Van couldn’t help but chuckle, “Oh Baby, RJ didn’t turn into a dinosaur. He just turned into grumpy DJ who probably thought that you were in his way to the bathroom and was trying to tell you.”

 

“Dinosaur?” Mang asked, his shaking stopping temporarily.

 

Van nodded, “Yes. RJ wouldn’t turn into a Dinosaur or a Scary-saur. He just turns into a grumpy, dirty alpaca who needs a good wash.”

 

“Not a scary-saur?” Mang asked again, the words sort of registering in his mind but not at the same time.

 

Van nodded, “Nope. They died out a long time ago. Remember? We saw their bones in the museum the other day.”

 

“But what about the ones on the TV?” Mang asked, hugging into her again.

 

“They’re fake,” Van reassured, “Just like Dino over there.” She pointed to the discarded toy on the floor, “You don’t have to worry about them coming to eat you or anything. Plus you’re my big brave boy and you’d scare them off without even trying.”

 

“Really?” Mang asked, sounding vaguely hopeful and more like his usual self.

 

Van nodded, “Of course, because you could easily beat them in a dance contest and we all know that dinosaurs will run away from something that they can’t beat you at.”

 

Mang nodded, “I’m the best dancer!”

 

“Exactly,” Van smiled, ruffling the others hair to make his tail wag happily, “Now why don’t you go and grab your little boom box and get some more practice in hmm?”

 

Nodding enthusiastically, Mang shot up out of the blanket, hopped down but then paused, hopped back up, hugged Van tightly and gave her a big kiss with his heart shaped nose before jumping down and rushing out of the reading nook with a happy sound. Van shook her head and mentally prayed that it would be as easy as this with the rest of the boys.

 

Though the very second that she stepped out of the reading nook, there was a familiar zap, followed by a squelch noise which was then followed by an ‘boooo’.

 

Carefully Van peered around to see a big pile of orange mess at the end of the hall, Tata at the other end trying to hide his space blaster behind his back with an innocent expression on his face which did nothing to convince the robot in the slightest, and half way between was a very sad looking, yellow hoody wearing puppy with his ears drooping down and tongue out in that pathetic sad way. The puppy whimpered as he pointed, “Ball gone.”

 

Van turned slowly to look at the orange mess and realised it was the remains of the pumpkin she had planned on carving and let out a sigh. She should have thought about the fact that Chimmy would think it was a large ball from the outset.

 

“I can fix it!” Tata said suddenly, using Van’s momentary distraction to repoint the laser gun at the mess. Van only literally just managed to yank Chimmy out of the way before the laser hit the remains and turned them first into a swarm of bats, then a cauldron and then back into what appeared to be a pumpkin already carved. By now everyone was peering out of various doorways in wonder, until a hallow sounding cackle came from the depths of the pumpkin and suddenly everyone was running away from a horrendous monster that appeared determined to eat them.

 

Ten minutes later it was thwarted when Mang literally challenged it to a dance contest and won because pumpkins cannot dance in the slightest.

 

The first thing Van did was to grab the ray gun off of Tata, lock it away in her own private sub-space vault and immediately put the heart shaped alien on clean up duty whilst she reattached Koya’s ears, helped Cooky with his scraped knees, found Chimmy a ball to play with in the garden along with Mang and helped RJ to start on some kind of healthy supper.

 

Once the remains of the pumpkin were away, Van set Tata onto cleaning the rest of the towels and everything else from the general mess of the day before hearing more yells coming from the outside as she had completely forgotten about the hyperactive mess that was Shooky and his gang once they started going.

 

She let out a sigh, setting a reminder in her head to put herself on a double recharge before going to sort it all out again. There was never a moments peace in the flat that they had acquired in the slightest but maybe one day they would all calm down a bit. Not anytime soon of course but that was just something that she would have to learn to put up with. It was a very good thing that she loved all of her boys dearly.