The Airborne Inspector

In the Court of KJ, his surveillance is not restricted by gravity.

My brother, Ivan and my son Alfie were upstairs playing on the Nintendo, completely absorbed in the screen. Suddenly, they heard a rhythmic, heavy thudding sound coming from the garden below.

They looked toward the window. Without warning, a head popped up into the glass view. Then it vanished. Then it shot up again.

It was KJ. He was down in the garden, bouncing on the trampoline with a ferocity that defied his middle-aged biology. He didn’t believe in the concept of gentle bouncing. He was launching his body into the stratosphere, his green woolly jumper and white shorts cutting through the air like a heavy, knitwear-clad rocket.

At the peak of one monumental bounce, he froze outside the glass. He didn’t offer a normal grandfatherly wave. He just threw his arms up, stared through the glass with intensity, his skewed glasses barely holding on, and barked into the pane:

“HI GUYS!”

Then he plummeted back down to earth.

He did not check if they wanted to come out and play. He continued bouncing, auditing the house from the outside, huffing his Dishwasher Breath into the sky.

© 2026 Jennifer Clair Robson AKA The Terrible Daughter. All rights reserved.