Who: God What: Playing skeeball, of course. When: Afternoon Where: Venice Beach Status/Rating: Complete/PG
"Man, you’re really good," said Jacob, a brown haired kid clad in swimtrunks and holding a fistful of arcade tickets in his left hand. "What's your name?"
"I'm Hannah," She answered, grinning and happily grabbing Her own train of tickets easing their way out of the old machine. "And thanks. I've been playing a long time. What's yours?" She methodically began folding up the tickets in Her hand, wondering if She'd have enough to get a stuffed animal when She was finally finished playing for the day. She would have to roll quite a few more 100s.
"Jake." Jacob glanced over at Her hands. "How many you got?"
"A hundred and fifty, I think." She screwed up Her tiny face before reaching into Her pocket and pulling out two more gaming tokens to pump into the skeeball machine in front of them. "You?"
"A hundred and thirteen. But I think my sister has some too," he answered with a shrug. "It took all afternoon."
"It does take forever," She agreed with a nod.
"Do you play anything else?"
The balls She'd paid for loaded into their slot with a loud clashing and before She answered, She reached down to grab one. It was always hard to get a firm grip at first in this body. Her palms were small and Her fingers were short and a little stubby. The balls were slippery with oil and dirt from the hands of hundreds and it was hard to bowl a perfect game when you could barely hold on. It would have been easier to simply take the form of an adult, but Her children were odd in that, when an adult played skeeball and talked to children for hours and hours at a time they were asked to leave the premises. And rather rudely.
She knew better than to be insulted because Her children thought She was a pedophile. It was just the way of things on Earth.
"I like air hockey." She glanced over to Her shoulder and frowned, seeing that the table hockey table was already being used. With a shrug She turned back around and aimed Her first ball for the fifty circle. It missed by ten points. "Oh well."
"So's your mom let you play all day?" Jacob asked.
She grinned brightly. "My mom's not here! I can play as long as I want."
"Lucky! I only got fifteen minutes left 'fore I haveta go home. I wanted to get enough tickets for that Bugs Bunny— hey, can I try one of yours?" He pointed at one of Her five remaining skeeballs.
"Uh huh, but you'd better not waste it. Or else."
"Thanks."
There was silence for a moment as She watched him intensely, preparing to be very disappointed if one of her precious balls ended up in the ten slot. But instead, she clapped her hands and giggled delightedly when Jacob scored a 100. "More tickets! Here. I've got enough for two more games. We can take turns…"
She spent the next fifteen minutes perfectly content. Together they rolled a total of 900 out of 1200 points which She felt was a perfectly respectable score for playing with a mortal. Tickets oozed out of the machine and when they were done Jacob showed Her how to pull a few extra tickets out of the machine. She didn't exactly approve, but She still laughed while he demonstrated the process and even handed over Her own fistful of tickets, feeling bad that his parents were making him leave and he wouldn't have time to earn anymore tickets of his own. Parents were a bit of a nuisance, She had to admit, but they were necessary.
It took another four hours to earn back the tickets She'd given away and then enough on top of that to get the stuffed bear She'd been admiring. Her lack of parents was a topic of brief discussion when She went up to claim Her prize, but She assured the man that Her parents were waiting for Her back down at the beach and that they'd be upset if She was late in getting back. But the beach was at Her back when she finally left the boardwalk arcade, Her small legs taking Her towards the bus stop so that She could wait in line to get back to the city proper.
If anyone thought the little girl standing alone in her bathing suit, holding an oversized stuffed bear over her shoulder, and humming 'What if God was one of us, just a stranger on the bus' under her breath was an odd sight, they didn't say a word about it.