the girl's thirteen but she don't act her age

"Yes," Arcturus says, and turns. "Hey, thing. Stop that. Say bye properly."

Tabot stares at him like he must be a madman. Sam's certainly not going to argue with that. "What?"

"I said, say bye properly. Like this: 'Bye properly'."

"Okay." Tabot tilts his head to one side, then says, "Bye properly. Bye Sam. I'll come by in undetermined time period for reasons other than being pursued and introduce myself when things are less hectic, I guess."

"Why'd he get a name?" Arcturus sulks. He turns to Sam instead of watching Tabot walk out the cracked glass doors. "Why'd you get a name?"

Sam shrugs one shoulder. "It's your own fault," he says, which would be a valid answer to almost every complaint Arcturus has ever made.

i'll just be over here drowning in miserable dramatic irony, if that's all right with you.

(also, anyone interested in test-reading a ~30k bracketverse novella? it looks like i might finish it this month, all of a year and 2/9 after i started the damn thing.)