“Ooh, you know what!” Charlie, now bearded and moustached, tells Joy amidst the two of them laughing. 

“What, what?” 

“I think… I think…” he concentrates and his beard and moustache disappear. He finally looks like a kid again. That was too strange to look at.

“What if I can be a grownup?” 

“A grownup?!” 

“Old. Like your dad or something.” 

“Ooh! Do it!” 

I shake my head. This is not a regular kids game. Kids in my world, where I grew up, played without changing the laws of nature. We played outside. We played in the snow. We played box games. We played sports. 

But Joy? Where we played outside, Joy plays on alien planets. Where we played in the snow, Joy plays on her flying warship. Where we played sports, Joy jumps from dream to dream and attacks villain. 

And now? This? 

Charlie begins to grow tall in front of me. 

“Ooo hoo hoo!” Joy cackles excitedly. 

His body widens as he grows taller. His clothes grow with him. 

Now he looks like a kid as big as a teenager. 

He keeps growing, and now has the body of an adult, with a few fudges of his imagination here and there. And his face has grown up, too.

“I am biiiiig!” Charlie roars. “Joy, go to your room!” he probably mimicks his mother. 

Joy laughs. 

“Organize your games! Do your homework!” he says then breaks into laughter. 

Joy looks at him. “It is not fair that you’re taller than me now!” 

“I’m the adult here!” Charlie says and laughs. “I’m super tall!”

Joy laughs. “You know you look a bit like Eddie now?” 

Charlie stops laughing and his face grows serious. He immediately shrinks back to his normal size. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Charlie, I’m sorry!” 

I remember what they told me. 

Charlie turns his back to her, sad. “I will look like my dad when I grow up. I know I will. Mom sees that on my face.” 

“Uh-huh,” Joy says compassionately, moving to look at his eyes. 

“That’s a good thing! He was a great man and he looked great and I’m proud to look like him and to be like him! He wasn’t the evil guy you saw. That was my imagination.” 

“I know, Charlie.” 

They’re silent for a long while as Charlie just thinks. Then he says in a more happy tone, “I really looked like him?” 

“Yuh-huh!” 

He laughs. “Want to do more?” 

Oh noooooo!

(To be continued…) 

—Told by Grampa Walt