What to do about Jellybean

            “I just don’t trust it,” Dad mused. He piped up about not liking Jellybean whenever I hung out with my plushy friend.

“Not now, Daddy!” I muttered while Jellybean was distracted by a toy doughnut. “I’m sick of you saying that.”

“You’ve got to think about it, Narissa! Who gave life to that thing? The witch. Why would she do that? The woman hates our family, so it sure as hell wasn’t to be nice and give you a friend.”

“You know I’m here, right?”

“What’s your angle? Are you using that stuffed spawn to control my daughter? To twist her into doing whatever you want?”

“Daddy!”

The witch lady sighed. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I felt bad? I didn’t want to burden a kid with this mess. If you hadn’t overdone it on the magic candy, then she wouldn’t have ever needed him.”

“She doesn’t need your toy.”

            “What’s wrong Issy? Is your family arguing again?”

“You know it,” I grumbled. Jellybean came over and squeezed me with a tight hug. It felt good and not just ‘cause he was so squishy.

“I think she does.”

            Jellybean and I hugged all the time. It’s just what we did as friends! But, every now and then, things would get kinda… weird. Like intense weird. Like, I’d start to notice how long he’d keep his hand on me after we pulled apart, and then I would silently try to keep it on me even longer. “Get your hands off that thing. You’re basically fondling the witch right now!”

“No I’m not!”

            I think Jellybean got that Daddy wasn’t pleased, because he stepped back from me faster than bills eating up an inheritance. “Let’s play on the seesaw,” he enthusiastically suggested.

            I was annoyed. Quiet enough so that Jellybean wouldn’t hear, I asked, “Why would you even say that?”

“Because it’s true. Just think about it. If she gave it life, which she did, then she must still be supplying it. It’s still a doll after all.”

“Magic doesn’t work that way,” I scoffed. Dad didn’t know anything.

“It sorta does. In this case. If it wasn’t for me, then the Jellybean as you know him wouldn’t be seesawing with you right now.”

“Ah-ha! So that’s how you’re going to control her, by threatening to take away that thing!”

The witch lady and I both groaned. After spending years hearing about her from my family, I no longer idolized her, but I realized she wasn’t the manipulative monster that they made her out to be. At least not all the time.

            Daddy and the witch lady went back and forth for a while. They didn’t involve me so much, so I tuned them out. At first, I was really irritated by Dad. The more I thought about it, the creepier everything felt. Jellybean smiled at me, and then I got stuck with the idea that maybe the witch made him do it. Maybe he wasn’t really real. Just, like, leftover responses from the witch.

            Thinking about freewill made me cringe and my arms got all bumpy. I abandoned Jellybean on the playground and ran off to the park to take my mind off of everything that seemed complicated and scary.

            I really wished that Daddy hadn’t gone prying into my friend’s life-force or whatever you’d call it. Why couldn’t the witch have just magically forced some stranger to be my friend? At least then they’d be a self-sustaining human. Everything Jellybean did started to creep me out.

            When we played pool, did he make the moves that the witch would have? I watched him carefully a couple of different rounds, and he totally just went for the same types of shots over and over again.

            All the weird ideas really bummed me out about our friendship. I didn’t even really like dancing with him anymore, and I love to dance!

            He totally started to pick up on my problems. I think they made him frustrated, because he started to lash out at me. Mostly by harmless heckling, but it was sorta annoying sometimes.

            I didn’t know what to do about Jellybean. The more I thought about it, the less like a friend he seemed. He might not have even been real, like a computer! Only a magic one. The witch lady tried to convince me that he was the same old Jellybean. I didn’t want the same old Jellybean if it was just an arm of her magic though! I wanted a real friend! The kind I thought he was.

            “Narissa Dear, I think I may know how to solve your problem.”