Take my hand plastic friend. We can have tea parties and climb trees and play on my swing set.

I am new in this world and so are you....

She baked cakes.

She baked muffins.

She baked buns and rolls and bread. All dry, all bland, all pocked with air bubbles or rogue bits of baking soda ready to zing her tongue.

Why do my bakes fail so fabulously? She cried through the cloud of flour. Why doesn’t anything turn out? The batter she was working felt her dispair.

Ahh but what was she missing?

Excuse me.

??

I may offer you a pi...

Five feet, four inches, and a quarter.

How tall I am without you.

No top-shelf goods for me.

Step stools, ladders, and climbing on chairs.

Staring at the backs of concertgoers....

Chocolate bunny, ten inches tall. Beady candy eyes and a yellow bow-tie. What is your Easter surprise? Peanut butter? Caramel cream? Chocalate mousse?

Nope. Hollow rabbit. Chocolate splinters, shards, shatters. No better than jelly beans....

“Um, Sparks, do you get the sense we’re alone?” I whisper to my faithful Bengal cat, as I quietly inch down the zipper and stick my head out the opening of my tent. I can see the embers still glowing an ashy orange in the fire pit from s’mores last night. As I survey the campsite I don’t see any lights in the other 2 tents where my brother and my parents were staying. What is odd though, is that ...