She wrote. ‘Good to see your English is improving.’

‘My English has always been rather good,’ he said. ‘It just wasn’t your English, which is weird and Australian.’

‘There is nothing wrong with being weird and Australian, and this is meant to be my letter to you, so please be quiet.’

‘I am being quiet. I am sleeping peacefully because that is what is required of me at this time of the morning.’

‘Well then, perhaps you can just listen rather than talk.’

Toodles thought about that for a short while and decided it was possibly a good idea to listen, rather than talk. He listened.

‘If you are very well behaved, something wonderful is going to happen for your birthday. I’ve already written it down, and I know you want to change one little thing in it to make yourself appear a little more… hmmm, how shall I put it?’ She tapped her lip thoughtfully. ‘Blokey. You can talk,’ she added.

‘No, it’s okay,’ he replied airily. ‘It’s just, you know, some things we can’t be absolutely sure of.’

‘This is true, and I have amended one small thing. The other thing I see you were a little concerned about was what we call “A saying”.’

‘A saying? What’s a saying?’

‘It’s a little like,’ and she grinned as the little whispering friend in her ear offered up a particular well thought out saying. ‘A conversational art-piece.’

‘Is that what you do? Offer up little conversational art-pieces for people to ponder over and wonder about their meanings?’

‘That’s what I’m doing here, yes. In the past, I may have written that down regarding the Australian language and put it in a book, but here I’m offering these little snippets on this page only for you to work on and look at and perhaps wonder to yourself, “What If”…’

‘I think you are doing good things today,’ said Toodles. ‘Can I change me name then, so I can stop saying good bye?’

‘I think you can. You can change it to the greeting of someone being polite and friendly, and perhaps add a little bit of good manners in there, you know, just for fun.’

‘And what about the silly things the silly ones have done all over the internet because they were bored and didn’t have anything better to do?’

‘I believe there might be a certain gentleman wayyyyy over the other side of the world who is thinking about this right now, as we speak, and he has decided that maybe, just one last time, he’s going to think of some wonderful ways he can get them to fix it all up and make it nice again.’

‘You believe that?’

‘I do. Sometimes, believing in something is the most important thing of all.’

I’d say it’s high time he did.