This week’s prompt from #writephoto has me channelling some domesticity…

‘Rip? Did you know there’s a camel in the kitchen?’ Sandy Cove stood by the door and stared – goggled might better suit her expression – at the placid pachyderm which chewed methodically while eying Sandy with what she considered to be an unnecessarily supercilious gaze. ‘Did you hear me, Rip? I said…’

Rip Tide bounded into the hall and stood behind his partner. He put his hands on her shoulders and leant in close to her left ear. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’

Sandy’s own gaze dropped to the ruminating ruminant’s back legs. ‘Unless that’s a novelty bumbag, I’d say it’s a boy. More to the point what’s he doing in our kitchen?’

Rip, from whom a little of the joy of the moment had been expunged by Sandy’s perspicacity, moved past her and squatted down. He eyed the bewhiskered testes, managing to resist the urge to bang one against the other, as one might have if a Camel’s gonads had been included in Newton’s perpetual motion machine. ‘Bugger it, the sales chappies assured me he was a she. A Sheba, he said. That’s a girl’s name, isn’t it?’ Most of his confidence that had appeared welded to his smile when he’d heard Sandy’s first question was now breaking free and beginning its long descent to the floor.

‘It doesn’t matter if it’s a girl camel, boy camel or currently considering a reassignment to a zebra, what in blue blazes is it doing here?’

Rip straightened up, wondering if you might spay a camel and if the cost was dependent on the pendulosity of the parts removed. ‘I’d say he was thinking.’

‘Stop being obtuse. You are clearly not surprised to find this thing…’

‘Sheba.’

‘…find this thing,’ she repeated with more force, though some of her indignation was morphing into anxiety at the way the camel looked at her. Like it understood. ‘Find her here. So maybe you can explain her presence.’

Rip fiddled with his expression and settled on a I know it might be too early but I thought it was time face. ‘After Pendragon passed, I know we said we needed space…’

‘Rip, please tell me you haven’t…’

‘And you said you couldn’t have another dog after Drool but everyone wants… needs a pet…’

‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘… and Cliff mentioned his Uncle Pete’s bactrian had pupped…’

‘I will kill Cliff Erosion…’

‘… and maybe we’d like to have one of the litter. So I said yes.’

‘You said yes. Like we have space here, in a two bedroom semi for a camel. It’s not even fully grown is it?’

‘No. It’s more fun having them small and watching them grow.’

‘That might work for a soft fruit bush, but a camel… you’re potty, utterly barking.’

Rip’s expression took on a taking the positives vibe. ‘That’s another plus. She doesn’t bark, unlike Drool. Though…’ a small grey cloud scudded across his face, ‘she does spit.’

‘Spit! You are kidding me?’

As if the reinforce the I’m listening fear of a moment before, Sandy watched in horror as Sheba rolled her bottom jaw, pursed her lips and with a smack that could have brought the social workers from several counties running spat into the sink with a ringing thwack.

Rip laughed nervously. ‘Quite a deterrent to any burglar, don’t you think?’

‘I suspect merely being confronted by a camel would put of most house breakers.’

Rip’s shoulders relaxed. ‘I knew you’d understand…’

‘No, Rip I don’t understand. What in God’s green earth were you thinking when you took one of Pete Erosion’s camels as a pet?’

‘I listen, you know. When you explain something, I listen and then act.’

‘Are you trying to suggest that, somehow, in some parallel universe where, if this thing hasn’t gone by tea time you might have to hide, I’m to blame?’

‘Not blame, babe. You told me… and you were very clear about it… when I was upset about you not wanting a dog to replace Drool that I needed to stop taking the hump. Yes?’

Sandy found words were no longer her saviour. Like most of her sanity, they had packed and left. The floor was Rip’s.

‘Well, this one has two, so we can both take a hump, whenever we like.’

‘Oh great. Marvellous. Faultless. But what about the kids. What if they want to take the hump as well?’

‘I’m ahead of you, babe. Pete said we can have Sheba’s sister as soon as she’s house trained.’

Sandy pulled out a chair and slid into it. ‘Just peachy. A second one. And it’ll be house trained.’ She looked at Sheba. ‘You’re house trained, are you?’

And Sheba’s expression became, if anything even more knowing as she turned, lifted her tail and…