"Give me a gold star for -- quit it!" Katchoo snapped over Clocky's next set of beeps and from somewhere halfway under the bed; the little wheeled demon-thing was bumping into her feet, now. "-- for it later."

She squirmed back out from beneath the bed with one shoe triumphantly clutched in her hand and the other . . . nowhere in sight, at least from her vantage point.

Clocky made a raspberry-like noise and zipped toward the closet, beeping as if to say there, you idiot, nyeah to the shoe's twin, wedging the closet door (oy, closets) ajar.

Katchoo jammed her foot into the one shoe and shuffled over to retrieve and put on the other one. No point in bothering to fix her hair or anything.

"So help me, this had better be good."

In this case, 'good' was extremely relative.