Hold the Fort

I walked into the bedroom today to find Itsy on the bed laboriously pulling a pillow over to join two others already lined up at right angles.

“Uh, uh,” she huffed and she puffed, trying to line the pillow up at a right angle to one of the other two pillows.

Her sweet little Polar bear sister, Lily-pop, second youngest of the teds, and her little brother, Waldo, a honey bear and youngest of them all, were seated calmly in the middle of the three pillows.

“So, what are you doing now, Scamp?” I asked Itsy.

“I’m Itsy, not Scamp,” she protested, looking up at me in exasperation, her bonnet askew as ever.

“Okay, Itsy dear, so what are you about?” I inquired again.

“I’m about to make a fort,” she informed me, turning to retrieve a fourth pillow for her fort. That’s when I noticed her new toy cannon situated on top of the middle pillow already in place.

“What do you need a fort for?” I asked. I couldn’t help it; I was curious.

“To keep the mons’ers out,” she patiently explained, starting to tug the fourth pillow over to her fort.

“What monsters?”

“The ones that will bite you if you don’t look out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about any monsters if I were you. We don’t have any around here,” I reassured her.

“Uh, huh!” she insisted, pushing the fourth pillow into position. “Benjamin said.”

“I did not!” Benjamin suddenly piped up, quite indignantly.

“Did, too!” Itsy avowed.

“Did not!”

“All right, you two, enough already. What did you think Benjamin said, Itsy?”

“He said look out, or the mons’er called Realty will get you,” she explained, jumping down from her fourth pillow into the middle of her fort. “It’s okay, Lily-pop and Waldo, Itsy will perteck you!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I said no such thing,” Benjamin protested. “I don’t even believe in Realty.”

“You don’t believe in reality?” I asked. “Why not?”

“’Cause people who b’lieve in Realty don’t b’lieve in us,” he pouted. “I think they’re scared of teddy bears.”

“Oh, come on, Benjamin,” I objected, “just what exactly is there about teddy bears to be afraid of?”

“Nothing! But they don’t know that!” Benjamin opined, much affronted. “Just because we’re pretend is what scares ‘em, I think.”

“I don’t see why pretend need scare people who believe in reality,” I said. “After all, reality and pretend pretty much complement each other for those of us with imagination.”

“Yeah, well, all I know is you can’t turn your back on Realty, or it’ll bite you!”

“See!” shouted Itsy, who was now jumping excitedly up and down on the bed in the middle of her pillow fort. “See, I tol’ you!” she exclaimed gleefully, hopping up onto the pillow where her toy cannon was sitting. “The Realty mons’er’ll bite you if you don’t look out!”

“KWOOMPf!” went her cannon.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin said with exaggerated exasperation, rolling his eyes and looking askance at his younger sister.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about reality, if I were you,” I assured the two of them, along with all of the other teds who had been listening attentively to our conversation. “Reality won’t be rearing its ugly head in this house any time soon.”

“Okay, good,” said Itsy, who had now moved on to jumping excitedly from pillow to pillow of her fort, exclaiming, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin grumped once more as I hastily exited the room.