Made of Plastic, It's Not Fantastic!

BOBBI:

There were two things that woke me up the next morning: the extreme brightness of the sun on my eyelids and a tiny human finger poking the side of my face.

"Bobbi?" A tiny human voice whispered.

I opened my crusty eyes -- a rather nasty human thing -- and focused them on the girl with the messy pigtails in front of me. "Molly?"

"Tristan told me you were here, so I brought you some Lucky Charms." She held up a plastic bag of colorful cereal. I recognized the marshmallow pieces as the reason for those creepy ants to invade the Dream House last month.

I accepted the bag and sat up straighter, stretching my human joints. "Thank you, but I don't think you should be out here by yourself."

"Mommy doesn't know I left, but she can't take me to the playground, so I came to ask you to take me."

I might've not known much about human rules and regulations, but I was sure Molly wasn't supposed to go anywhere without her mother's knowledge. "You still shouldn't have come without asking her first! She'll be worried sick!" I jumped up and grabbed her wrist. "Come on!"

~oOo~

Molly led me to the back door, the same one I knocked on the other night and the same one I walked through to find Tristan and that blonde human girl all over each other.

I still couldn't stop thinking about that...about how much I wanted to pull her hair or claw her eyes out or --

"Mommy?" Molly called, kicking off her muddy sandals to search for her mother. I stepped on the cool tile after slipping out of Tristan's flip-flops. They were much too big for me, along with the rest of his clothes, but I didn't care all that much.

"Mommy? MOMMY!" Molly's voice started shrieking a little. I winced at the amount of volume that girl could come up with.

"What, baby? What is it? I'm busy." I guessed Molly's mom was sitting behind one of those computer screens. She did that a lot during the day, and sometimes Molly would play with us quietly beneath the desk.

"Can Tristan's friend take me to the playground?" Molly grabbed onto my little finger and tugged me up the stairs behind her.

"What was that?" I could see her mom now, sitting just where I predicted.

"Can Bobbi take me to the playground? Please please please pleeeeeease?"

Molly's mom spun in her spinny chair and looked at me. "Oh."

I hadn't talked to many humans other than Tristan, and I never dreamed of speaking to his mother. "Hello." It seemed acceptable.

She held her mouth open a little, searching for some words to say. "Is that Tristan's shirt?"

I looked down at the strange design on the front of the dark blue t-shirt. "Yes..." I was going to add something about his kindness for letting me borrow it, but I figured less words caused less problems.

"Can she, Mommy?" Molly started hopping up and down like a bunny rabbit.

Her mom watched the two of us for a moment longer. "Okay. Don't go any father than the playground, and don't stay too long, understand?"

I smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

Molly squealed in joy. "Yay! Come on, come on!"

I followed at a normal human walking pace as Molly frolicked down the sidewalk. I was still fascinated by the way the world looked from a human perspective. I also didn't want to choke on my Lucky Charms as I ate and walked at the same time.

"Push me on the swing, Bobbi!" Molly scurried over to a swing and planted her bottom in it, kicking her feet eagerly.

I cocked my head to the side. "Push you?"

"Push me! Push me high, like Tristan does!"

I took another handful of cereal and placed the bag on a bench near the swings. "How does Tristan push you?"

"Push on my back and run under me!" She explained.

I positioned my hands behind her and braced myself for whatever was going to happen. "Ready?"

"Go, go, go!"

I ran beneath her like she said and let her go when my arms couldn't reach anymore. I turned back and watched her giggle and smile and it looked like so much fun.

Molly started humming a little song to herself as she swung back and forth. I rediscovered my cereal and sat down on the bench to finish it.

I noticed some other humans in the park, some of them with kids like Molly and others with dogs -- I had yet to meet a real, live dog in person. But there were two humans walking together, a man and a woman, holding hands and kissing and laughing and I knew right away they were in love and I wondered what real love was like.

Molly constantly pretended Barbie and Ken were madly in love -- I'd only ever gone on a "date" with Ken once, before Barbie even entered the picture. We even kissed...if you can call rubbing stiff plastic mouths together kissing. I had no idea what human love was like.

I tried not to watch so much, but I watched the human couple kiss, and how each kiss was different from the last, and how it was obviously much more interesting than plastic kissing, and how Tristan was kissing that blonde human girl and if it meant the same thing as it did to this couple.

I wondered for a moment if Tristan was in love with her, and I envisioned myself clawing her eyes out again.

Then I wondered if I would kiss him, if he ever...if Tristan ever --

"Push me again, Bobbi!" Molly demanded.

I ate the last little heart-shaped marshmallow and prepared to push her again. Humans were so demanding.