All morning, he was depressed and bothered, even his favorite video wasn't the same. He was glad Aaron invited him over for the day. Aaron's mom was going out and getting her hair done, so she could meet her friends, and go shopping, or something. Aaron had to stay home and baby-sit Mark.
Randy opened the large cardboard box, in the corner of his closet, and selected a hand full of plastic toy soldiers. He put them in a shopping bag. He had just gotten a neat set of five Japanese elite world war two island fighters. They were yellow orange in color, hand painted and equipped with nasty looking bayonets on their rifles. They? carried belts with hand grenades, and knives. They were five inches tall, and taller then most of the other plastic soldiers. Randy stuck them in his bag, along with a bunch of other assorted fighters, that stood at about three inches tall. Along with Aaron's squiggly clay, we are going to have an awesome game, he thought to himself.
"Incoming, Incoming" roared Aaron, as he swooped down over the battlefield, with the B-12 bomber in his right hand. "Varooom" the plane flew in, low over head, dropping bombs over the machine gun foxholes, manned by Randy's troop's. "Boom, Boom" the bombs exploded, throwing handful's of soldiers into the air.
"My guy has a rocket launcher, and he just shot you down"
"It missed" Aaron countered.
"Did not!"
The soldiers were spread out all over Aaron's room, pockets of foot soldiers guarded the carpet around the bed, Shoes made great foxholes. On the bed itself were the tanks and bunkers, hidden in the mountains of blankets, and high up on the bookshelf, generals kept watch of their troops. Squiggly octopuses were the secret weapons. Randy had the Giant Japanese fighters on his side, and they were a mean bunch, just two of them alone could kill the octopuses. The game was already an hour old, and it was past lunchtime. The boys surveyed the destruction, and concluded that it was a tie game.
Mark who had been given the position of rear guard, in charge of weapons, decided it was time for a sandwich.
"OK" Aaron said, "I'll make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, if you clean up the soldiers" Mark agreed.
"Hey, it's almost one thirty" said Randy, glancing at the alarm clock by Aaron's desk, "The Invaders from Mars" is on channel nine. We can watch it while we eat lunch"
Aaron nodded, "Do you want to watch it Mark?" Mark shook his head.
"I don't want to see a scary movie, I'll stay up here and play with your squiggly clay, can you make some small men for me?"
"Oh jeez," said Aaron, rolling his eyes, "OK, but you know how to do it yourself, make your own people from now on, I can't make all your toys" he was flattered that Mark appreciated his artistic talent.
After the boys went downstairs, Mark pulled up the box for his brothers toys, and then set the rest of the soldiers Randy had brought, into the shopping bag. The set of five kamikaze fighters were placed in the cupboard, they were new, and Randy wouldn't want him to play with them. After the toys were put away, he opened the shoe box to let out on the desk, the seven small clay people, his brother had just made, and animated for him.
He was alone with the clay toys, they lined up on the desk,
"Squish, Squish Squish," Mark boomed, "here comes the giant monster" fifteen minutes later, not a clay man was standing. Reflecting on what his brother had told him, Mark rolled the clay together, he took a bite of his sandwich, and a drink of his chocolate milk, and started making his own clay shapes. He would put them in the cupboard, and bring them to life, to play with.
The commercial came on, Randy laughed, and commented that the Martian's reminded him of Buzz.
"You've been pretty mean to him, these days" Aaron commented,
"My mom said he shouldn't have killed that squirrel, That was just mean" Aaron shuddered inwardly, he too felt bad about the poor creature.
"Did he give you back the clay you made for him" Randy asked.
"yeah, he did bring it back the next day, but it was a mess, it was wet and sticky, and gross, I couldn't use it anymore, so I had to throw it away"
"and I'll bet it was all mooshed up too. I can guess what he did with it, he probably took a .."
Both boys were startled by a shriek that came from upstairs, It was his brother, and he was screaming for help.
Aaron rushed up the stairs, and Randy followed close behind. Neither boys were ready for what they saw, when they entered Aaron's room.
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