I find that when I think about my childhood, my old toys hold a special place in my mind and heart. They are larger than life, brilliant and exciting and completely engrossing. My toys used to be portals into other dimensions. They used to be friends, true friends that filled the empty twilight hours after 3:00 and before dinner. But more than anything they were alive. -- We all lived in my bedroom, otherwise known as Our Kingdom, a happy land where everyone had his or her own specific place and role in the community. To begin with, there were the stuffed animals. Being the most person-like, the stuffed animals took on a lot of responsibility, especially when I was away on vacation. In such instances, we would hold a town hall meeting to elect a fill-in president while I was gone. Everyone would circle around the green braided rug by my bed. I officiated, allowing citizens to voice their concerns and say how much they would miss me. Then I would announce who were the candidates for interim president. The requirements for running for office included only seniority and person-likeness. This excluded all the Fisher Price people, the Playmobile, and my pet tadpoles whose names were Tiny, Goliath, and Marco Polo. I rescued the tadpoles from Gracie who had hatched them as part of a science project but then was going to flush them down the toilet. I took them home in a Ziploc, bought a fish bowl that I religiously cleaned every Friday to keep the algae away, and kept those little guys alive for many years, until one day when Goliath ate Tiny. I was so mad at Goliath that I put him in the disposal of the kitchen sink and sat on the counter for a long time contemplating whether or not to flip the switch. Finally Mama walked in, and I freaked out and told her to guard the switch while I fished him out. He was returned safe and fat to his bowl, and I feared the worst for Marco Polo from that day forward. So obviously, the tadpoles were excluded from running for office on the basis of their stupidity in getting eaten and their sinfulness in being cannibals. Respected people won elections, people such as Frosty the Snowman and the American Girl dolls Kit Kittredge and Samantha Parkington. They were very wise, had been around the room for a long time, and I trusted them to take care of all the matters that needed attending too. There were many matters. For instance, the baby dolls had separation anxiety so they needed to be comforted whenever I was gone. I had a Bitty Baby and a life-like baby doll named Michael. He had red hair and brown eyes and was the size and weight of a real newborn. I believed that people thought I was his mother. Sometimes I would swaddle him up and take him out to the edge of our yard. I would stand under the oak trees and the azalea bushes and rock him in my arms whenever a car would pass by. And all the people in the cars believed that I, Sarah Ellen Hutchison, at the young age of eight was solely responsible for this human child. It was a favorite pastime while waiting for Daddy’s truck to appear around the corner at the end of a long day at work. I had another favorite baby: a special edition Cabbage Patch Doll. The “special edition” part stemmed from the fact that it was a surprise baby. See, it came swaddled up in a cloth cabbage, with only its little, bald head peeping out of the polyester leaves. Not until you bought the baby—read, committed to it—could you take it out of its cabbage and learn its gender. Pink for girl, blue for boy. I waited tensely while Daddy wrestled with the thick plastic and sharp edges of the packaging. He handed me the baby. Let it be a girl I silently prayed. Composed, I undid the cabbage. Pink diaper greeted my thankful eyes. In a second cabbage I untied a purple polka-dotted tee shirt, a pink pacifier, and a bottle. I named my cabbage baby Alyssa Rose, and she joined ranks with Michael and Bitty Baby, sharing the same crib but hogging much of my love for the few months after I got her. So while I was taking care of the babies, I would have my interim presidents (I didn’t entirely grasp the meaning of the word) take care of duties I’d rather not deal with. Such as managing the rotation of American Girl clothes. Now, this was a very important business because there were several girls and lots of clothes and everything had to be kept in good order. My Nana invented a perfect way to organize Samantha, Kit, Kaya, and Kristen’s closets. She took a Ziploc, snipped a hole at the top, and slipped the bag onto a tiny doll hanger: now accessories could be sorted with each individual outfit, hanging from the mini tension rod that Grandpa rigged up on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. -- Once, I left Our Kingdom and traveled to another, The Magic Kingdom. Our town hall meeting elected Samantha to be in charge, and I packed to the tumult of the citizens’ farewells. It seemed hard to imagine a world more magical than my own, but I found that this new Kingdom possessed magic beyond anything I had yet experienced. To arrive at this land I had to take a very long journey. First, I rode in our mini van from home to the airport, and then I sat in the middle seat of the back row of a tiny airplane with loud propellers. Then I took a shuttle to the hotel, then another shuttle to the ticket stand. At the ticket stand we made a choice: we could take either a boat or a train on the final leg of the trip: naturally, we took the boat. I stood at the stern of the mighty ship, letting the wind whip my hair about to and fro. I strained to lay eyes on the distant land. On the surrounding shores patches of hotels rose from the sandy beaches. As I stood admiring, the King pointed in the direction of our destination: “there is the castle!” There she rose, tall, slender, and blue against the pale sky. Her spires reached to the Heavens, and in her shadow a village of pleasure awaited us, filled with every manner of food, games, and toys. This was the land where dreams came true. There were statues of my favorite movie characters made completely out of flowers. In fact, some of my favorite characters were alive, walking around and signing autographs. Also, a hot dog stand on Main Street served me a hot dog with my name spelled out in ketchup. One jewelry gift store that I went in had an artist blowing glass out of fire—he made an actual Cinderella slipper. And the best part was that they had everything in the shape of Mickey: pancakes? easy. ice cream sandwiches? no problem. corn dogs, pencils, coffee mugs, a tutu? you got it. I flew with elephants, road a run-away coal wagon through a mountain, visited Mini’s house, almost puked while spinning one hundred miles per hour in a human sized teacup, and got lost in a bathroom at Epcot. Except for getting lost it was the best vacation of my life. -- Back home, Our Kingdom had enemies. The enemies were the ones who stormed in to take the kingdom by force. Or worse, to make the kingdom dirty. These enemy attacks were difficult to anticipate, for the enemy always lurked around the land surrounding the kingdom (seeing as their kingdoms were in the bedrooms next door). They were crafty and skilled at breaking and entering. Often, their goal was simply to wreck havoc on the peaceful kingdom, leaving it in helpless disarray. At first, the attacks were random: a cracked-open door, a few books strewn about the floor, perhaps Bity Baby pulled from her crib. Then, as the months wore on one enemy in particular began to grow. He learned to walk, which was a great detriment to our land, and he joined forces with our arch-nemesis. Their attacks grew more pointed: they were after something. Vigilance became essential, for anytime I left the room—leaving the toys to themselves—the enemies would find a way in. They would target and destroy toy sets, such as the Polly Pockets or Legos, or worst, my 101 Dalmatians Veterinary Kit that I got at Disney. Some pieces were recovered, found after exhausting searches. Many were not, forced to live out their days cowering in oppressive darkness underneath chairs and bookcases. I approached the Queen many times about this situation, but she never understood the full seriousness of the matter. The enemies received only reprimands or the occasional small spanking. But these could not bring back the toys that had been so brutally scattered. -- I curled inside my big bay window, mourning a recent attack, and my mind wandered back to The Magic Kingdom. Think of a wonderful thought: Peter Pan’s formula to flight. The happy thought of the other Kingdom whisked me away from the reality of little brothers who destroyed Lego sets and stole books or tattled when you hit them or stole the remote control so that you were forced to keep watching Dragon Tails rather than Cyber Case. This terrorism had to stop. I could not allow my citizens to continue living in fear. In short, a top-secret meeting was needed, at which my top counselors and I would determine our course of action in regards to these international belligerents. That night, the utter darkness of half past eight cloaked our whereabouts. Quilt draped over our heads, pillows propped up on all sides, I flicked on the flashlight I had smuggled from the garage. I began my State of the Kingdom Address. “Ladies and GentleBears, it pains me to hold this meeting, but we have a situation on our hands. The enemy is overpowering us. They grow stronger everyday. Worse, the Queen said her next baby could also turn out to be an enemy. We either have to give up or find a way to adapt. Thank you.” What rousing applause I received. I had inspired the entire Kingdom to action, such that there was no going back. We all—from tadpoles to Playmobile men to Samantha—agreed that the best course of action was certainly to distract the enemy. If we played with them on their own turf, then they just might not care about venturing on ours. The very next morning I hurried to my desk, took out my Crayola markers, and drafted a secret letter to the enemy: “We want to be friends. Stop messing up room. Let’s start a club. Check ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” -- The inaugural meeting of the Sarah and Ben Club took place on a sunny afternoon, in a big wooden crate that the new dishwasher had been delivered in. The representatives of the two Kingdoms spent the meeting discussing a name for the club and signing the official documents of their peace treaty. In exchange for Ben’s complete abdication of Sarah’s Kingdom, she agreed to sometimes play what he wanted instead of what she wanted. All abducted toys were safely returned: all lost toys were properly mourned by the offending party: and all precautions were taken to ensure that the two Kingdoms would learn to live side-by-side happily ever after.
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