Billy’s mom walked into his room and saw all his toy’s laying around. “You know you are going to have to start picking out which ones you want to keep before we move don’t you?”. Billy nodded and began picking up toys to give away to needed kids in the neighborhood. His mom smiled at him and walked out of his room.

Billy hated his mom for making him get rid of any of his toys. He hated his mother period, but he didn’t know why. He continued putting his toys in the box when he got to his G.I. Joe doll. I can’t get rid of Joe, he thought to himself, packed him away in his footlocker, and set him off to the side, he was ready to move now.

Bill sat looking at the footlocker in his closet thinking about that day he had to get rid of his other toys. I can’t believe I still have my G.I. Joe he thought to himself and opened the lid.

“Hey buddy, how’s it hanging?”, Bill’s went as wide a saucer and he closed the lid to the footlocker. “What the hell was that? he said out loud. Then he heard muffled voices in the box. He decided to open it up again and when he did, he heard the same thing only this time an arm reached up and stopped him from closing the lid and out jumped Joe.

“It has been too long in the box Billy I need some air.”, the toy said to him. Bill was shocked at what he was seeing and dropped the box to the floor. The G.I. Joe jumped out of the box and stretched his body and looked up at him and said, “Aren’t you going to say hi to your old buddy?”. Bill looked down at the toy and mumbled “Hi buddy.”

Over the next few minutes, the toy told him about being in the box and how he missed playing with him and finally said, “Boy you have certainly grown. I bet you don’t remember that day you closed me in the box, do you?”, Billy shook his head and began to think back. I remember my mom telling me to pack things up and then….” Oh yeah, you told me to unpack you first when we got to the new base.”.

Then he thought about it some more and remembered what had happened. When they got to the new house his mom had surprised him with a new bike. The bike he had been asking for all summer because he had helped so much during the move. He forgot all about his other toys and that is when it was shoved in the back of the closet.

He smiled down at Joe and said, “I’m sorry buddy. I wanted to keep you so bad to play with, but with everything going on I forgot. I just saw the footlocker this morning when we were going through stuff since my mom died.”. Joe smiled and said, “That’s alright, do you want to play?”.

Bill explained no but his son would love to, and he knew Joe would like it as well. He ran to his son’s room to show him his new toy. Joe had a new boy to play with and Bill knew they would be the best of friends like they had been when he was his son’s age.