While the events of the day have established that my sister Molly, while a hide-and-seek champion, is not the hide-and-seek champion of all time, here is a look at a very impressive example of hide-and-seek resourcefulness/sibling and parental negligence:
Cousin Nick found most of us with ease. I was discovered behind the drapes, and the rest of my siblings and cousins were soon flushed from their hidey-holes. All except Molly. We couldn’t find her anywhere. She wasn’t outside. She wasn’t in my bedroom. She wasn’t in a closet or the bathtub. Cousin Nick even lifted the lid of the big toy box in the girls’ room, but only saw a jumble of plastic musical instruments, stuffed animals, and a doctor kit.
After about fifteen minutes of searching, we gave up. “Olly-olly-oxen free” was called, but to no avail. Where was Molly?
As concerned siblings and relatives, our next move was simple. Plug in the Sega, and forget all about Molly. Which we did, for at least half an hour. Then we heard a noise from the girls’ room.
We ran into the room just in time to see Molly pushing open the lid of the toy box. She had been concealed in the impossibly-small box for nearly an hour. Molly had climbed in there and, ingeniously for a six year old, pulled a layer of toys over herself for camouflage. When we took forever to find her, Molly fell asleep.
This was by far the most impressive Hide-and-Seek performance in the history of Stevenson Drive, if not the Western world itself. Molly was duly congratulated for her Hide-and-Seek excellence, until someone made her cry and we had an excuse to turn on her and call her a baby. But to this day, her feat remains legendary. Almost as legendary as Phantasy Star. Man, was that game fucking cool.
