My Friend, the Squid

The second game went a lot better. Dad won. I headed back to my bedroom to hang out with Oswald. I opened the closet door. He was sitting on the box I left in there for him. He was playing solitaire. Golf.

"Hi Lisbon."

"Hey Oswald." I sat up against a wall. "Are you sure you like it in here?"

"Yes. It's cozy. It's like a little room. I can make it bigger."

Oswald knew how to do a lot of things I didn't. "You can?"

Oswald nodded and clapped two of his tentacles together. The closet's walls faded away to miles of ocean. The floor turned to sand.

"

You can!"

"Yes." Oswald floated around. "You can also breathe in here. I don't get it either. It just works."

I hyperventilated to try it out. It definitely worked. I mean I could talk and stuff so I figured breathing would work, right? And it did!

"Come! There is a place I wish to show you." Oswald said, floating over a hill spotted with coral reefs. Reeves?

I doggy paddled after him. Swimming in this magical water came effortlessly. I swam over the hill and looked down into a canyon, with a large city at the bottom.

"This is my home, Lisbon. My friends and family all live here, in the squid city."

"It's beautiful!" It was so beautiful I couldn't even describe how beautiful it was here. Sorry!

Oswald floated down and I followed him. Soon we were at street level.

"It's a bit bigger than Ponyville, isn't it? I don't get lost, though. If you ever don't know where you are, you can swim up to get your bearings. Follow me. I want to introduce you to my family."

We passed many different types of squid on our way to Oswald's house. One was cooking hot dogs on a street corner and giving them to the squid children. Another was breakdancing, which was even more impressive than the usual pony breakdancing because of all of his legs. One was dressed like a pirate. Another was dressed like a pretzel!

Oswald led me to a small, cozy home near the edge of the city. He floated in front of it and looked up to the second floor and smiled. "This is my other home, away from the closet. I grew up here and come back often. Things haven't changed much. Let's enter." He zipped over to the front door and gently knocked. A squid, red just like Oswald but female, opened the door. "Hi mom!"

"Oswald!" She tossed the mop behind her and hugged him. She opened her eyes and saw me. "Is this Lisbon?"

"Yep!"

"Hello, Oswald's mom!"

"Hi, Lisbon! Come inside, both of you."

We entered! The inside walls were curved and concave. The furniture seemed spongey, like it would bounce if I dropped it or threw it against the wall.

"You like my house, Lisbon?"

I nodded.

Oswald picked up a chair and tossed it against a wall. It bounced off and floated around the room, bouncing off the walls, ceiling and floor like a rubber ball. "All squid architecture is like this. Nobody ever gets hurt."

We sat down and watched squid television while Oswald's mom made us waffles. It turns out squids have documentaries on ponies.

"This is weird."

"I suppose it is for you, isn't it?"  Oswald looked to the television and then back to me. "Have you ever seen a documentary on squid?"

"Nope."

"Oh."

"Just dolphins. The budget's been cut to the channel my family gets. They don't have much else to show."

Oswald's face scrunched a little. He did that when he was confused. "What's a budget?"

"It's... a thing that you're given that lets you do stuff you're supposed to. Like an amount of money. You spend the money to do different things. If you don't have a lot of budget to do things then sometimes you have to settle for less, like dolphin documentaries." I frowned. "Really bad ones."

"Ohhhh."

He paused. then spoke again.

"I don't get it."

I giggled. For once I knew something that Oswald didn't!

The rest of the evening with Oswald's family was uneventful, which suited me fine. I needed a break from my little sister.