What're Yer Legs?

It was my cousin Mocky's eighth birthday on Saturday. I ducked over to his house to say hello and sling a bit of booty his way. I was rather surprised at the mixed messages contained in the major presents he got from his mum and dad: a bike and a Game Boy.

Abacus and donnahay are a trifle insistent in their desire for the boys to get outside. I remember once poor little Mockster got into trouble for putting a jumper on when the temperature turned a trifle chilly and was told to go outside and run around instead (it wouldn't have seemed so harsh on a sunny afternoon, but this was midnight).

Anyway, when I arrived the bike was lying rather forlornly in the front yard. As I walked past it I swear it heaved a weary sigh and resigned itself to a lifetime of contemplation and gathering rust. Jackie Paper...er...Mocky was inside, brain paralysis in full effect, his thumb - already showing signs of swelling and RSI - furiously pressing away on the Game Boy. Though some sparks of life were still present: maybe I was imagining it, but it seemed that when I waved my own offerings under his nose the grunted response was more than one syllable.

He's quite the young chap these days. Not at all the impressionable little rotter who was taken aside by Bloody Ern a couple of years ago and given the following bit of coaching:

Ern: "Now, when you go back to Canberra, who are you going to tell your teacher you met?"
Mocky: "The Great White Hunter."
Ern: "And what can The Great White Hunter do to a bunny?"
Mocky: "Turn it into a pink mist."

The Great White Hunter could stalk anything through forests dark or over oceans deep. I think he'd have been in trouble, though, if he'd ever had to lock horns with a little guy called Mario.