And so they began the walk home.
“We should go patchpaw. . . .” Ollie told Billy. “No, wait. . . . The other way? . . . Um . . .” Ollie had done many amazing things this night. He made great journeys and commanded an army the likes of which had never been seen, even in a daydream. But he realized he did not know the way home.
“It’s okay, Ollie,” said Billy. “I left a trail of friends to help us.” He pulled Pegasus out of his pocket. “The rest of the guys are along the way.”
“You’re a good trail-leaver, Billy,” said Ollie, and then he settled into Billy’s backpack and just let the nighttime world go by. Every now and then, Billy would lean over and pluck up another action figure guy (and three warrior princesses) as they got closer to home. There was so much to talk about and tell, but they could do that later.
The walk home was very different from any they had ever taken before. And, in fact, Billy and Ollie were different now too. It wasn’t a different you could see, though they surely looked different—both were astoundingly dirty, covered with dust, grass stains, and smears of mud. Ollie even had a few tiny arrows stuck in his fabric.
But they were mostly different inside. And in ways they couldn’t quite grasp. They could just barely see the park gates when Ollie said:
“Should we tell Mom about Nina and Zozo?”