Of all the huge A-ventures Billy and Ollie have had, the Wedding was shaping up to be the scariest yet.
At first it sounded great. It was a party, and there would be a gigantic cake. That was all Billy needed to hear. But then his parents began to explain all the things that he’d “have to.”
You have to “dress up.” Not in a costume, like on Halloween—that would have definitely been fun—but no. For the Wedding you have to “put on a Suit.” Dad occasionally wore a suit, and Billy never thought it looked very comfortable. Or fun. Just . . . grown-up. So Billy had to go to a store and “try on” about ten different suits. There were other kids at the store, and none of them liked this whole business of going into a “dressing room” and changing—getting undressed and dressed and coming out and having the salesperson say, “Oh, that looks adorable,” no matter how stupid the suit looked.
Ollie stayed in Billy’s backpack for all of this, but he was watching and wondering what this weirdness meant. A suit actually had several different parts to it: pants, of course, but also a jacket and a thing like a jacket that had no arms, called a vest. Plus, you have to wear a superclean white shirt that had to stay tucked into the pants, and black socks.
When they got home from the store, Billy and Ollie sat on Billy’s bed and looked at all the pieces of this suit.
“I kind of like this skinny scarf thing,” said Ollie. “It looks like my scarf, just fancy-nicer.”
“They call it a Tie,” said Billy, who then flung it around his neck just like it was a scarf. “But it’s better as a scarf.”
“Yeeeep,” said Ollie. “Plus, you look like me when you do that!”
“Yep!” said Billy, and he grabbed Ollie and held him out like he was flying. Then Billy ran through the house making airplane sounds until his mom made him stop and put the Tie away because it was “not a toy.” After that, Billy hated the Tie.
“Do I really have to wear the Tie?” Billy asked his mom for about the hundredth time on the morning of the Wedding.
“Yes,” his mom answered patiently.
“Why?”
“Because it’s what boys wear to a wedding.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re supposed to dress up.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a special occasion. And”—Billy’s mom quickly continued before her son could get in another “why”—“because you look so handsome!” And she kissed his cheek.
Billy scowled. He didn’t think he looked handsome. He thought he looked like an alien. Billy but not Billy. Especially after his mom combed his hair over to one side—he never wore it that way—and after he crammed his feet into the Nice Shoes, which were so very Not Nice but MISERABLE IN EVERY WAY. They were hard—no, almost impossible—to put on. Once Billy was finally able to get his feet into them, his “nice socks” were all pushed up at the heels, and this made his toes scrunch up. The shoes themselves were as heavy and unbendable as concrete. And they were hot. And they hurt. And Billy despised them.
“I can’t even run in these,” Billy complained to Ollie.
“I guess that’s the point,” Ollie replied.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Billy admitted. Because it was true that his parents had already warned him that there would be No Running, No Playing, No Shouting whatsoever at the Wedding. Billy would have to sit quietly for a long, long time, and even when he didn’t have to be totally quiet anymore, he would still have to be on his best behavior, which definitely meant No Running. This wedding cake sure better be GREAT, thought Billy.
The absolute worst thing about the Wedding, though—beyond the Suit and the Nice Shoes and the No Running—was that for some reason Billy’s parents wanted him to leave Ollie at home.
“Why would I leave Ollie at home?” Billy asked in surprise.
“Well, weddings are a grown-up thing,” Billy’s mom explained.
“And you’re getting to be so grown-up yourself,” Billy’s dad added. “Maybe it’s time to give Ollie a break and leave him at home.”
Billy looked at Ollie, and Ollie looked back. But neither said a word until after the parents had left the room to finish getting dressed themselves.
“I won’t go on any huge A-ventures without you, especially not to some stupid wedding,” Billy grumbled.
Ollie didn’t respond at first. What Billy’s mom and dad said had confused him.
“Why do they think I need a break?” Ollie asked finally.
From the years he had been with Billy, he knew that a break didn’t actually mean breaking him in two, which would be hard to do, since he was a plush toy. He knew a break meant something like a nap or a time-out. But usually Ollie only did these things when Billy did them.
“I don’t know,” Billy said with a sigh. “I guess it’s because I’m getting older.”
“So?”
“So, when you get older, I guess you leave your toys at home sometimes.”
“Why would you do that?” Ollie asked, his turn to be surprised.
“I dunno,” Billy said in a quiet voice. “But I never see any grown-ups with toys.”
“Yer right,” said Ollie.
“And everybody grows up,” said Billy, even more quietly. They both sat in confused silence for what seemed like the slowest time they had ever felt.
“Where are your parents’ toys?” The question just popped out. It suddenly occurred to Ollie that he’d never seen even one of Billy’s parents’ toys except in photographs in the Photo Album, which was this big fat book with little square pictures that were pasted onto heavy black pages. At the front of the album book, the pictures were from olden times, when cars looked funny and different and everybody wore nutty clothes. These people in this part of the book were called grands and greats and cousins and stuff, but Ollie hadn’t met many of them. On one of these pages was a picture of Billy’s mom when she was a kid. And this picture was very strange because in it the kid of Mom looked sorta like Billy and sort of like the GROWN-UP of Mom. And this really confused Ollie. That a kid would become this other thing. A GROWN-UP.
And Billy couldn’t really figure it out either. He just knew that it happened on a “someday” that was a long, long time from now. And he would be getting bigger every day and then finally he wouldn’t get any taller and that was kind of when he would be done upping his growth, and therefore be GROWN UP.
But there, in this picture of his mom from back in her kid days, she was holding a toy. A doll. A dancer. Her name was Nina. Mom always said she loved Nina to pieces. And if Billy asked where the doll was, she would point to her chest and say, “Right here.”
“I don’t know where their toys went,” Billy admitted, answering Ollie’s question at last.
“I don’t know,” Billy said again, frowning. “It’s kinda like they go invisible. Or just go away . . . I mean, I don’t think Dad remembers his toys.”
Ollie was so shocked, he could not say another word. Finally, Billy broke the silence.
“I’ll never forget you, Ollie,” he said, bringing his favorite close. “No matter how grown-up I get.”
“Promise?” Ollie whispered.
“Promise,” Billy replied.
But Ollie felt like the security of his blanket called “belonging” had just been torn apart.