"I have NO PATIENCE for dinosaurs"

BOB'S GONE!

Joe stood at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway and shouted up "Anyone seen Bob?". He'd woken up a short while ago, under his upturned bed and had staggered out of his room, down to the (what was once looked like a) kitchen and tried to make himself a cup of tea. He was joined a short while afterwards by Mandy, who seemed unphased by their surroundings and looking as if she had just stepped out of a crumpled catalogue (though obviously had already restarted on the gin). After their tea and conversation, Joe had a nagging feeling of disconcert about Bob, but nothing solid came (that had all been emptied during the night he recalled) as he looked at the land of destruction that lay about.

Joe surveyed the open kitchen sitting room, last night had been a doozy, as far as parties went, it was pretty way up there in the leader board judging by the small flashes of memory that popped up. He even had a snippet of Sid dancing on the coffee table, wildly waving his shirt in the air and gyrating, something he never thought possible of Sid, he was such a quiet and elusive chap.

He looked over to the doorway to the hall and there was something about gate crashers and remembered seeing Mandy smooching up to a couple, freaking them out with her over attendance, while Andy stood over them being his usual aggressive self, the perfect good cop bad cop routine.

"Mandy?" Joe asked "Do you remember those gate crashers last night?"

"Gate crashers? No, darling. Why, did you fancy one of them, hmm?" she smiled with her eyes over her tea.

"What? No!" said Joe, more than a little taken aback by her comment "No," he grimaced "It's just...I don't know...something about Bob." He looked vaguely into the air and wished he could remember.

At that moment Larry came gingerly in, even he seemed to be nurturing a hangover, though was as upbeat as ever.

"Hi guys, tea in the pot? I heard movement." He said as he tentatively approached the teapot with caution, expecting it to strike out at any moment.

"Ooh," crooned Mandy "did we drink that much last night?" she said as her eyes surveyed the array of discarded bottles and an impressive large pile of beer cans in the corner of the room, a good place to chuck them thought Joe, self-congratulating himself as he remembered being the first to start the pile.

"Larry dear," Mandy sighed, leaning on the breakfast bar, in case it fell over "have you seen Bobby bunny anywhere? Little Joey's worried."

Larry went into a gaze like trance, the mental cogs visibly working hard as a trace of memory yearned to be discovered, yet refused to come in from play. "I remember..." uttered Larry as if quietly locating the whereabouts of a lost and used tissue, that had been inadvertently stuck down the side of the sofa, "I remember...Andy, shouting at someone in the garden, something about the pond and a lemon". he concluded as if the voice from the ether had gone. "Ohh, hang on...didn't he leave with those gatecrashers?"

He looked at Mandy and Joe as if he had just delivered the crown jewels who stared back with unimpressed faces with bits of things still attached from the night before.

Joe walked over to the kitchen window and looked out to the pond, sighed, then returned back to join the pack.

"Well?" Mandy demanded.

Joe looked at her in shock, it was the first time he had ever heard her be abrupt.

"I saw a lemon," he said "but no Bob bobbing." He smiled but mainly to himself.

"Have you checked all the rooms?" asked Larry, hopeful in the idea that it was a stupid question.

Mandy looked at Joe "Well, have you?"