Peanut Butter Banana Sandwiches

“But that’s not fair!” Stephanie wailed, stomping her foot on the pavement. Robbie shrugged, not caring one bit.
“Too bad,” he said. “That’s the verdict.”
“But I told Trixie I could go over to her house tonight!”
“Without asking Sportacus first? My, we are getting bold.”
“It’s still not fair!” she pouted, crossing her arms and kicking a rock on the ground. Robbie rolled his eyes.
“I already said that’s too bad. What did you expect Pinky? You go running amok with that pig-tailed brat and causing trouble, of course he’s going to notice. I never got away with anything, I don’t know why you think you can. You’re grounded, and that’s that.”
“It’s still not fair,” she muttered sullenly. Robbie scoffed.
“You sound like a broken record,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Come on. He’s off saving kittens again, so I get to look after you.”
She snatched her arm back, surprising him. Just what was going on?
“He likes kittens more than he likes me.” she said, glaring at the air. Robbie blinked, processing this. After a moment he groaned and grabbed her arm again, walking over to a bench and sitting her down on it. Her face scrunched up as she was about to protest, but he started before she could begin.
“Look, you pink pixie,” he said. “He likes everyone. That’s a confirmed fact. But he doesn’t take kittens into his air ship and build little kitty-rooms for them and buy them little kitty-toys, even though the man has no salary to speak of.” He could see her face softening in regret, and he knew he didn’t need to continue, but he did anyway.
“If you asked him to, he’d stop saving people. He’d die inside, but he’d do it. Do you not get that?”
He had more to say, but the watery look in her eyes stopped him. Damn. He knew he shouldn’t have said a thing about death…
Stephanie felt like her heart might curl up in on itself out of regret. She knew what she was doing. She knew it was bad to not only encourage Trixie to be bad, but join in with her. And she knew being bad would make Sportacus worry about her.
But it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t call Sportacus “daddy”, because every time the urge resurfaced, she had to stomp down on it to keep from crying. The funeral had been almost a year ago. It should have been easier now… but it wasn’t. And it wasn’t fair. She started crying.
Robbie tensed, his eyes widening. Why did everyone have to cry around him? Was he that horrible that his very presence inspired tears? He shuddered. Letting Sportacus seek him out for comfort was one thing. Dealing with a crying nine, almost ten year old girl was an entirely different matter. He gulped, and hesitantly reached up, laying his hand on top of her head.
“Um…” he said uncertainly. “It’s okay… he’s not mad or anything, so… hey, stop crying already…”
Stephanie abruptly scooted over closer to him and curled up against his side, ignoring it when his entire body tensed at the contact. She wrapped her arms around him.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m just… I’m sorry!”
Robbie glanced around uncertainly before petting her head slightly.
“Um,” he started awkwardly. “It’s okay, pixie.”
She sniffled and lifted her head, looking up at him with watery brown eyes.
“Pixie?” she said, her voice strained from the short bout of crying. Robbie shifted uncertainly.
“Yeah,” he replied, not looking at her. “A blue elf and pink pixie. I thought it fit.”
He relaxed minutely when she giggled.
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”
“Are you done now?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her eyes, then smiling up at him. Robbie quickly looked away, feeling disconcerted again at that easy smile.
“Well,” he stated gruffly, trying to stand up with Stephanie still attached to him. She stood with him and let go. “Come on then. Let’s go see where our elf bounced off to.”
“He’s ours now is he?” Stephanie laughed. Robbie’s eye twitched and he didn’t answer.
“You know, Pinky-”
“I though I was pixie now?”
“Don’t interrupt! Now, as I was saying…”
Stephanie rolled her eyes as he straightened his clothes self-importantly.
“You definitely need to cut back on the trouble making.”
“This coming from you Robbie?” she said, looking up at him again as they walked. “You’re never good.” Robbie sputtered, indignant.
“I can be good when I want to be!”
“Which is never,” Stephanie pointed out.
“I’ve done it once or twice!” he defended. “And besides, that’s not the point. You really want to end up like me?” There was a pause.
“Well,” Stephanie said slowly. “I don’t want to sleep all day and eat nothing but cake…” Robbie resisted the urge to try and defend himself again. It was true that Stephanie was better off being as little like him as possible. He had been fairly miserable for a good portion of his life, and the whole point of taking care of Stephanie was to ensure she wasn’t miserable. The least he could do is make sure she didn’t go taking after him.
Besides, Sportacus would get horribly depressed if he lost his dance partner.
“Well then. There you have it,” Robbie closed the conversation, brushing imaginary dust off of his hands. Stephanie was about to say something more, but something caught her eye and she stopped suddenly, throwing out her arm in front of Robbie to stop him too. He started to say something as well, but she motioned for him to be quiet, pointing to something ahead and to the side. He sighed irritably, convinced it was something unimportant, and followed her silently as she crept forward, peeking around a wall. Robbie looked and had to blink a few times to be sure he was seeing clearly.
Sportacus was leaning over a bed of sad looking flowers. They were getting watered, as the ground was damp around them, but they were drooping on their tiny stalks, and growing rather scraggly. Perhaps the soil was bad, Stephanie thought. But then, Sportacus grinned.
“Don’t you worry,” he said, seemingly to the flowers. “I’ll make it better.”
Robbie raised his eyebrows and leaned forward more, curious to see what exactly he was doing.
Wait… was that glitter?
He heard Stephanie gasp quietly and he glanced down at her, ready to put a hand over her mouth to keep her from alerting Sportacus to their presence.
“Pixie dust…” she whispered, her eyes wide with awe. Robbie looked at her like she lost her mind, but when he looked back at Sportacus, who was still spreading the glittery shimmery powder around like one might strew seeds, he noticed that the plants were suddenly greener, healthier, upright. The flowers grew a little bigger, and the colors on their petals intensified. Robbie thought for a moment that he had stopped breathing.
‘The man has magic dust now?!’ Robbie thought, trying not to laugh.
“There we go!” Sportacus smiled. “All better now!” He hummed to himself.
“Oh, wow!” Stephanie squealed, and dashed out from the cover of the wall before Robbie could grab her. Sportacus startled and turned to look at her, his eyes wide. She ran up, oblivious, and nearly jumped up and down in excitement in front of him.
“Sportacus! I didn’t know you could do magic! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Uh, um,” Sportacus stammered, his eyes glancing left and right as if looking for the best possible escape route.
“That’s soooo cool!” Stephanie continued, her eyes bright. Robbie straightened up and leaned against the wall, arms folded as he watched the scene. Sportacus looked up from the bouncy girl to Robbie, and Robbie immediately pushed off of the wall and took a step forward.
The elf looked like he was about to bolt out of sheer nerves.
“Can it, pixie.” Robbie shot at Stephanie, who paused in her babbling long enough to notice the nervous look on her hero’s face. Robbie was walking forward, and she immediately noticed that Sportacus shifted back slightly.
“Sportacus?” she said, suddenly calm and quiet. “What’s wrong?”
“You…” Sportacus scratched the back of his head, looking uncertain. “You weren’t supposed to see that.” He then moved to smoothing his mustache compulsively. “I should have been more careful, that’s all. Anyone could have seen, so I…” He shivered slightly. Robbie frowned at this. Who knew what kind of weird codes elves lived by? In Robbie’s opinion, the man was crazy enough without having to worry about increasingly strange things like magic and whether or not people saw his ears. He moved next to Sportacus and threw an arm over his shoulder, ensuring that he couldn’t leave without some kind of effort.
“Well then,” Robbie said, starting to walk and dragging the man along with him. “Unless you need to talk to the flowers some more, I propose a mid-afternoon snack. Cake sounds good.” Stephanie fell into step on the other side of Sportacus.
“Cake always sounds good to you Robbie,” she commented. Robbie scoffed.
“That’s because cake is always good. Didn’t you know that, you pink little singing pixie?”
Stephanie giggled at Robbie’s continued use of her new nickname.
“I want some sports candy,” she retorted, laughing fully at the face Robbie was making in response.
Sportacus was walking under his own power, feeing slightly dazed, but… increasingly warm. He had been startled when he got caught like that, and it wasn’t so much that it was Stephanie and Robbie who saw him, but the fact that he was careless enough to be seen at all. And while Stephanie’s enthusiasm was heart-warming, it was also worrying. He really did not want it to go around that he wasn’t human. How could he possibly get through to the kids about exercising and eating healthy, if their role model for these things wasn’t even the same species?
But when Robbie, in his own rude way, diverted the conversation, Sportacus started to feel better. The fact that Robbie still had his arm around his shoulders was comforting, and he had to resist the urge to lean into him or give him a hug while they were walking.
He looked down when Stephanie took his hand. She was still talking to Robbie about the merits of cake versus sports candy, and whether or not candy corn qualified. (He could have answered that- he had tried one out of curiosity when he was younger and immediately dropped into a sugar meltdown. It didn’t qualify.) But occasionally she would glance up at Sportacus and smile mildly, and he grinned back, relieved that she was in a better mood now and not angry at him.
The world was a bright place, and the people he loved most were to either side of him. It was a good day.