The plaintive cry of the catafalque

Clearly his Mother had bribed him by stopping at the fun fair before dropping him off.

 His face was painted like a cat. 

'What sort of noise does a cat make?'

 'Mi-aow?' he ventured tentatively

Clearly, this 'Unsupervised Home Visit' felt like one's first day at a new School.

'Instead of making inane cat-like noises,' I countered urbanely

'Why not imitate the plaintive cry of the catafalque?'

'What's that?' the child replied.

'When we hear a strange word for the first time,' I said, 'We look it up in the dictionary/'

'What is a dictionary?'

'What did I just say about looking up strange words?

 'Fuck is wrong with you?
'Pussy faced bitch!'

'Hulk, Smash!'

So, that was alright and everything was alright for as long as it all lasted.

But Dad had grown an increasingly strange word.

& we'd never bothered with dictionaries.