Whid
For a few minutes nothing disturbed the silence except the sound of the keys being pressed. And then the bleeping started. One notification sound every half minute.
“I think that’s your phone, Paul,” said Arthur. “Would you like to take a look? We can take a break.”
“It’s annoying!” added Hubert. “Mute it, eat it, I don’t care, just make it stop.”
“Mhm, on it,” said Paul while he was trying to reach the end of the message stream, but they just kept coming. “It’s my mother, she thinks I’m coming for dinner. It’s always the same, I’ve already written them an hour ago that I’m staying late.”
Hubert’s growl was bearly hearable as the phone immediately started ringing. Paul first looked at Arthur who shrugged (which was quite hard to notice as snail’s have a fairly low number of shoulders), and then Hubert who just rolled his eyes and said:
“Whatever, just put it on speaker.”
After picking up the phone, next to some distant dishwasher noises a woman was whispering: “Is it working now?”
“Hi mom!” said Paul.
“Yes, he picked it up,” whispered a deep voice back.
“Paulie-Paw?” came the slightly inconfident question.
“Yes, I’m here, hi!”
“Paulie! The dinner is ready! When are you coming? It’s getting cold now! Are you on the bus already?”
“No, mom, I wrote you several times that I’m working late today.” Paul started to sound slightly annoyed.
“WHAAAAT!? How late???”
“I don’t know…”
“That’s horrible! Aren’t you hungry? I didn’t pack you dinner.” Mom started to sound slightly panicking.
“We can just order a pizza or something,” suggested Arthur.
“Who is that?? Is your boss there? I want to talk to him! This is illegal!” Mom switched into battle mode. “You hear me!? Illegal! You can’t force my son to work in these late hours!”
“No, he is not my boss, he is a colleague, also working late. Don’t worry, mom, everything is alright here, I’m not being enslaved…”
“You were already when you signed that horrible contract, and even that one didn’t mention this aweful overtime! That’s enough! We are bringing you home! George, start the car!”
“No-no-no—” And that was it, the call was ended. Paul just buried his face in his hands and didn’t want to believe what just happened. He had never felt this embarrassed…
Hubert cleared his throat.
“Hey, kid… Sooo… do you want to order that pizza?”