My Mothball Skippy

MY MOTHBALL SKIPPY
By Billy Krumholtz, Age 9

My best friend in the whole world is my mothball Skippy. He is six years old and is mostly white, with brown and black spots. Skippy is the family mothball, but he likes me best. When I get home from school, Skippy is waiting in the windowsill watching me walk up the path to the back porch. When I open the door, Skippy rolls around on the floor, excited to see me.

Mom and Dad say that Skippy is middle-aged, in mothball years. He used to be bigger, but now seems pretty small. I think it is because I have gotten larger, because I am growing up. Mom says that Skippy is very healthy, but that I shouldn’t feed him junk food. But Mom, I said, Skippy is hungry. And Mom says William, mothballs don’t eat people food. They eat mothball food. Sometimes, though, I give Skippy some of my meatloaf. I don’t think meatloaf is really a people-food anyway, and Skippy likes it a lot.

The best thing about having a pet mothball is that you always have someone to play with. Skippy is usually a very good, quiet mothball, but he loves to play fetch. We run around in the yard and throw sticks. Skippy is very bad at catching things and picking them up, so he usually loses the game. I often throw him around instead. I used to think Skippy could do anything, but I am learning that that isn’t true. For example, Mothballs can’t climb trees, unlike the neighbor’s rat poison, Slinky. Slinky hates mothballs and is mean to us, so I throw Skippy at her to express our hatred. Mothballs and rat poisons just don’t get along.

Skippy is very well housetrained, for a mothball. He never goes to the bathroom inside the house, and doesn’t shed on the carpet ever. Also, he does tricks, like rolling over and playing dead. He is really good at playing dead. Sometimes I think he is dead, but then he moves and I realize that Skippy was just teasing me. Dad says that Slinky the rat poison couldn’t do that, because you can’t train rat poison. Mothballs are friendlier than rat poison, says Dad. I think that is true.

Sometimes, we have to go away on trips and leave Skippy at home. We ask Uncle Fred to be our mothball sitter. He stops by our house make sure that Skippy is ok. I miss Skippy a lot when we go on trips, so hard that it makes me want to rip the heads off of my Power Rangers. Then I get sad. But when we come home, Skippy is always waiting.

At night, Skippy curls up on my bed. Mom makes him sleep in the blanket chest because Skippy smells bad, but I think that is inhumane. I like the mothball smell. Dad says that Mom is bitchy because she grew up in the city and doesn’t drink enough. Skippy loves her anyways. Sometimes, though, I think Mom wishes that we had rat poison for a pet instead of a mothball.

And that is my report about my best friend in the whole world, Skippy the mothball.