Or as we called it back then, the GIRL SECTION.
Mom had gone to the bathroom and made me promise to stay put, but my adventure seeking brain wasn’t having it. Anyway, while I was there I found this one rainbow colored pony that was practically calling my name (figuratively speaking, of course: double A’s not included). My grubby little fingers hovered over the box for a moment, as if touching the metal and plastic toy would set off some kind of Indiana Jones trap. But those big ol’ horse eyes had me in a trance, and when five year old me made up his mind, there was no going back!
Though maybe I should have backed off, because just as my hand made contact, a shock of something fierce shook my body: static electricity! Stung a spell, but I got over it fast.
Then I realized that I wasn’t alone.
Next to me, her hand also on the box, was a girl ‘bout my age in a long white dress and black hair that flowed like a waterfall over her face. Not wearing any shoes, either, which made me jealous because Mom always made me wear these itchy sneakers whenever we went out.
And when I gazed into the one pale moon of an eye she had peeking out from behind that curtain of inky dark, you can bet your buttered beans I screamed like a wuss! The poor rainbow pony clattered to the floor, unable to so much as grunt from, again, a lack of batteries.
“S-sorry!” She wailed, backing off. Which caught me off guard, because her voice was deeper than I expected. “I-I just wanted to look at the ponies!”
Our gazes met, and once I realized she wasn’t going to eat my soul, I asked
“Do you know much about ponies?” Which was silly because she was a girl my age so of course she was an expert. My Momma didn’t raise no fool.
“N-not really, but I like this one.” She said, picking Little Miss Rainbow Mane off the ground. “The hair colors are pretty.”
I breathed a sigh of relief at that. If she had said Pinkie Pie, we could never be friends. Of course, that lead to another problem.
“Well you can’t get this one.” I cried, snatching the box right out of her pale hands. “She’s mine!” Sounds stupid, especially since there were a dozen copies still on the shelf, but that one in particular just felt special.
To which the girl just hung her head. “It’s okay. I don’t have money.”
“I don’t either, which is why I always I always get Mom to-“
She sighed, slouching her shoulders. “I don’t have a Mom or a Dad. I don’t even remember how I got here.” Crazy as it sounds, I swear I saw her get just a little bit smaller.
Speaking of parents, that’s when Mom finally showed, clacking down the aisle in those high heels she was so proud she could sprint in.
“WATTERSON J. TOSTIG! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I WAS-!”
Then she gave me the look:
The Look (1 of 2) noun
1,)
- A catchy as Hell pop song from Roxette.
- The expression only a Mom can make where she still loves you but not necessarily right now, and you’re too young to really understand why. The kind of look that makes you feel two inches tall.
“Oh, sweetie, are you sure you want THAT toy?”
Now, she didn’t say ‘that’ in big bold letters, but I could feel it in my fingers and toes the way you only can when you’re five.
“I-it’s not for me!” I stammered, pointing at the girl. “It’s for… her!”
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But all I got in return was a sigh and a roll of the eyes.
“Sweetie, there’s nobody here. Now what did I tell you about making fibs?”
I remember being surprised, but not too surprised, because when you’re five you accept there’s a lot of things grown-ups just can’t see. But sometimes, you just had to play along.
“Liars get their pants of fire.” I recited for probably the 500th time in my life by that point.
“That’s right, sweetie.” Mom smiled “Because when you lie, the vengeful spirit of Richard Nixon will rise from the grave to drag your deceitful behind straight to Hell!”
“If I promise to be ho-hone- not to fib, can we ppppllllllleeeeeeaaaaassssse get the pony?” I pleaded, giving her the old puppy dog eyes. “I swear it’s not for me!”
Mom furrowed her brow and put her hand over her head, the way she always did when something bad went down at work. But just when I thought I’d messed up real good, she said
“Okay. But no telling your Father, promise?”
“Promise!” I squeaked. Dad never played with my toys anyway, so it wouldn’t have been a problem. Mom proceeded to drag my kiester out of that toy aisle so fast I didn’t even get to tell the girl goodbye.
Back when I was four, I’d tried to make an indoor pool by clogging the sink and letting the water run. When Mom and Dad caught me, I’d gotten this wriggling in my belly, like it was full of slugs. For some reason, watching that stupid plastic horse get scanned and dropped into a plastic shopping bag gave me the exact same sensation.
On the way home, Mom tried to tell me something about when she was my age, but I was too gloomy to care.
And that night, I tossed the pony, still in its packaging, under my bed.
. . .
Which is when things went back to normal- for a few days, at least. I was playing In my room with my plastic dinosaurs (the crappy ones that still dragged their tails) when I noticed a familiar pale eye glaring up at me from under the bed.
“Can I play?” A soft voice whispered, and I dropped my dinos in surprise.
“Thanks!” She chirped, clearly not taking the hint. Crawled right out from under my bed, rainbow maned pony in tow.
Now, most kids would have screamed by this point, or wondered how the girl got under my bed in the first place. But I was not most kids. At five years old, I’d lived through fat guys sneaking down my chimney in snowstorms and fairies turning my baby teeth into quarters while I slept. A dark haired girl hiding under the bed was nothing. What was something was her little plastic companion.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “But not with the pony.”
“Why not?” she half-whined, frowning.
“Because Jeremy Roddleman says ponies can give dinosaurs cooties, and he should know, because he’s the coolest dude in the kindergarten!”
“What makes him so great?” She asked, the faintest trace of annoyance in her voice.
In the half decade I’d been alive, I’d never heard such a stupid question, but my Mom raised a good kid, so I explained anyway.
“He owns a Game Boy Advance AND beat the Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog!”
And she stared at me like I told her salmon ate pencils! “I-I don’t know what any of that means.”
“It means he’s really good at video games, so he probably knows a lot about ponies, too! Which means she should just go play under the bed with the dust bunnies!”
“Aw, but maybe he wants to play with the dinosaurs!”
I shook my head. “Boy ponies don’t exist. Everyone knows that! And dinosaurs don’t play. They FIGHT TO THE DEATH!” For emphasis, I rammed my T-Rex and Triceratops into each other so hard some of the paint chipped off.
“But maybe he isn’t a just pony.” She protested. “Maybe he’s a… DINO-PONY!”
Now THAT got my attention!
“What’s a dino-pony?”
“It’s a dinosaur and a pony,” She said matter-of-factly. “And it doesn’t have cooties! So now can I play?”
“I guess so.” I said. I’d never tell her, but at that moment the idea of a dino-pony sounded like the coolest thing in the universe. “Though he doesn’t look like a dino-pony right now. He needs some… thagomizers!”
Half an hour, a few sheets of construction paper, a bit of play-dough, and several meters of masking tape later, our little abomination against God was complete! There was just one thing missing…
“So what should we name him?”
“Name him?” Said like I’d just asked her what the capitol of Kazakhstan was!
“Yeah, he’s gotta have a name!”
Her visible eye grew wide as a harvest moon. “How about… Blagdaross: The Destroyer!”
And for the rest of the afternoon, we played out a story where the dinosaur king had eaten Blag’s Mom after marrying her, so he went on a revenge spree where he slaughtered all the dinosaurs on Earth in the Pokemon Colosseum, becoming the new dinosaur king/ Pokemon Champion. It was epic!
But at some point I realized something.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
Just like that, she was back to stuttering. “It’s… I- I don’t know!”
I cocked my head. “How does that work?”
She gulped, putting a hand on her head. “All I remember is being at the toy store, and then you were there, and that I wanted a pony and- and-“
Tears welled at the corner of her one visible eye and I knew I had to act fast.
“You can be Hilda!” I declared.
“R-really? W-why Hilda?”
“Because you look like a Hilda!” Obviously.
And that was that. My new friend christened, we went back to making up enemies for Blagdaross to fight until dinner time.
But before the savory aroma of tuna macaroni and cheese called me downstairs, she had one more thing to ask.
“Watt, are we FRIENDS?”
I shrugged. “You’re pretty cool, so I guess so.” And took the stairs three at a time.
Eventually, I’d lose Blagdaross, like so many other toys from when I was five. But Hilda would stay by my side, living under my bed and even going to school with me.
And that’s how I made my very first friend.