The Trio

They were a trio, my three precocious, younger brothers. The twins, Marcus and Jason were only a year and a half younger than me. The baby of the family, Aaron, five years younger. Aaron did not look like us for he was blond haired and blue eyed. The rest of us were dark haired and dark eyed. I used to tease him and say he was the milk man's kid, like we ever really had a milk man come to our house. I am sure my mother would have not been too happy with me if she knew I did that.

We all lived out in the country back woods of Missouri. We had neighbors but only two of the neighbors had kids and all the kids came to our back yard. Frankly it was a given they would come to our house, we had the largest lot on the street of three acres and we were always outside digging up some kind of play to do.  I personally loved to hold "school" sessions where I was the teacher and the other kids my students.  It was not uncommon to have a new club of the week either, of course I had to president. I was the oldest for gosh sakes of all the kids!

One of the things the trio and friends loved to do was play war games. I suppose this is not so surprising since they were young boys and had even more boys on the street to play with. That trio would dig holes, shoot pretend guns with their fingers or use water guns if they had them and even make tents.  They loved that game.

This was one game I did not participate in nor appreciate. In fact it was not so unusual for me to report to my mother that the trio were at it again. It wasn't that I was a tattle tale and wanted revenge on my brothers. No, it was the mere fact that they had stolen from me.

My dear brothers had a habit of sneaking in to my room and stealing my knock off Barbie dolls. As soon as they had acquired them from my room, they were outside using every little piece of my dolls as war weapons.  Oh yes, Barbie heads and arms often went flying through the air as their imaginary war was taking place. Barbie bodies were often turned into guns, tanks or all other sorts of military equipment. Barbie clothes became miniature tents or flags. I am not sure but I imagine even small fires were made out of Barbie hair.

My mother would come to rescue my precious Barbies only to find that they had essentially disintegrated. One could only imagine, at that point, a truce had been signed and the neighbor boys retreated home as the trio were rushed back inside to their own bunkers.  My mother being top general and a five star one at that put up with no nonsense. Eventually she would take me to our local store and buy me a new doll.  I never had a real Barbie, but many cheap ones, thanks to the trio .

The trio and I no longer live in the back woods of Missouri but I would love to go visit our old home some day.  I would probably bring a shovel because I am sure to this day that if I dug up those three acres of land, I would find Barbie body parts all over.

~Naila Moon of the Grey Wolf