The Greatest Game of Hide and Seek I've Ever Played

It is rare that I get to hang out with Snow White or the Mandalorian, and rarer still that I get the pleasure of shooting the breeze with both in one night. But there was one storied eve in which I was so blessed. I arrived, as I thought, merely to a night of babysitting. 

It was a bit discombobulating when I entered the house to discover that there were no babies to be found. No kids of any age at all, for that matter. Just two closed doors, behind which, as their mother gave me whispered intelligence, my charges were getting into costume. Greetings had to be yelled out from the hallway, where I waited for an audience with the esteemed personages inside. The suspense nearly killed me. 

It was worth the wait. The first door cracked open and I laid eyes on none other than Snow White- an almost three year old formerly known as Lucy. Then the next door swung out to make way for the Mandalorian himself. The first thing the Mandalorian did was try to shoot me. It was an unfortunate way to begin our acquaintance, not to mention a difficult scene for the Mandalorian’s parents to witness. The Mandelorian, I should mention, before he was a Mandalorian, was a five year old by the name of Jasper. The Mandalorian’s parents were adamant in instructing him not to shoot the babysitter. The Mandalorian responded, quite matter of fact, “but I want to shoot Riah.” 

I am strong enough to admit that I probably should not have encouraged the wee warrior in this desire. On the other hand, I have a gift for enacting my own crumpling demise. I could not resist the opportunity to put my talents to good use. So I allowed myself to be killed with great fanfare, for which the Mandalorian was very grateful and his parents less so. 

Eventually, the Mandalorian’s parents had to leave, though they made their exit bereft of any assurance that pacifism would be practiced in their absence. Sure enough, as soon as the door had banged shut behind them, we were all free to enact increasingly aggressive executions with no parties left to perturb. Snow White, for whom you might expect the whole thing to be rather a shock, was taking it in stride. She only wanted her fair share of the killing and the dying and all the other princessly pursuits, and she was perfectly content. 

It soon became clear that I had stumbled upon the one game that a 3-year-old attention span would not soon tire of. My miniature companions were shooting and slaying with undiminished vigor, while personally I found that my weary collapses onto the ground were requiring less and less acting. Thus arose a dire need to find some alternative form of amusement. Anything would do. That is how we landed on hide and seek. 

Initially, I assumed I would be doing the seeking, the kiddos would hide, and then we would switch. Rookie mistake. I soon learned that the Mandalorian and I, having apparently resolved whatever conflicts forced us to resort to murder mere moments beforehand, were naturally fated to be teammates. Snow White was a solo actor. 

Now I want to go on record as saying that I cannot condone the behavior of poisoning apples. That being said, I can see how jealousy of Snow White could push one to do some crazy things. She is truly a powerful creature. She had already demonstrated exceptional competence, both at slaying and being slain. Now, to add to that skillset, she was proving herself quite unparalleled in the subtle arts of hiding and seeking. 

First, Snow White sought. To understand mine and the Mandalorian’s predicament as we tried to hide, you have to understand that the bounds for hide and seek could only be described as miniscule. Snow White, despite her many sterling qualities, had not yet reached the point where it was wise to leave her to her own devices on the stairs. The stairs separated us from a large majority of the habitable house, and thus the realm for hiding was very small indeed. The Mandalorian and I had roughly three options of locales in which to secrete ourselves. In the shower, behind the couch, or behind the door. It was a great stroke of luck that the Mandalorian was a miniature version of himself, or we would have been reduced to only the first of these. 

Unimpeded by our lamentable lack of hiding places, we were soon off to the races. The Mandalorian and I would scamper into the shower, and he, flattening his lips with one firmly pressed finger, would give me the helpful reminder to be silent. Lest we reveal which of the 3 possible hiding spots we had selected before Snow White even got the chance to search! Snow White, even once we reached the point in the game where we had been discovered stowed away in the shower thrice before, could always be counted on to throw back the shower curtain with equal parts trepidation and glee. Upon sighting us, her tiny countenance would illustrate her journey from fear to surprise and then to delight, until finally she dissolved into fits of highly contagious giggles. 

So you understand now the great joys that came with Snow White seeking. Which means you will probably not understand why we made the collective decision to eliminate this part of the activity entirely. Not, that is, until you hear about Snow White Hiding. 

The transition to Snow White as full-time hider was suggested and forcefully defended by Snow White herself. It was easily consented to by the Mandalorian, who, in addition to an intergalactic bounty hunter, happened to be an excellent older brother.

The first order of business, when Snow White was hiding, entailed deciding what number we seekers should count to. This was a matter of great import and usually required negotiations. When we had at last come to consensus on the most propitious number of seconds, the Mandalorian and I would close our eyes in tandem, one palm keeping each eyelid pressed closed, and then we would begin our count. Regardless of the length of time decided on for the count, Snow White would spend the interval staying exactly where she was. If she really chose to exert herself, she might duck down a bit behind the couch. Maybe. 

Snow White’s lack of interest in moving at all, between the start of the count and the end of it, did give us rather a leg up in finding her. But her generosity extended even further than that. So concerned was she that we should not be without her for long, so sensitive to the toll it must take on our tender hearts to think her missing, that she took it upon herself to immediately, upon the commencement of the search, spring up and shout “I’m HERE! I’m right HERE!”

These declarations pre-empted even our dire warnings of “ready or not, here we come,” and in the same stroke, rendered our warnings altogether unnecessary. Seeking, after these generous and vocal hints as to Snow White’s whereabouts, was rendered a great deal less suspenseful. It was rendered a great deal less like seeking at all. She really was altogether too accommodating. 

Now, after a few rounds of this charming cycle of counting, immediately finding, and starting over again - for which the only real effort expended was in determining what number to count to - the Mandalorian had an idea for how to spruce things up a bit. “Hold on,” he said, beckoning for me to extend my ear. I bent down until I was at the proper height for receiving the diminutive hero’s imparted wisdom. “Just pretend you don’t see her,” he instructed in a whisper. I nodded, and joined him in giggling with a distinctly un-warrior-like delight. Having decided to count to thirty four and a half, we set our plan in motion. 

The round began with the very same soundtrack we knew and loved. “HELLO! I’m right HERE! It’s ME!” But my Mandalorian companion and I had grown rather deaf. Not only that, we seemed to be blind as well. Despite Snow White’s poofy red dress and maniacally waving hands, we saw nothing. 

So we set to seeking. We had our work cut out for us. It turns out, once you abandon the limitation of hiding places that are physically possible to enter, the tiny room’s 3 viable spots can turn into a hundred. 

Snow White, at first perturbed by her newfound invisibility, was soon convinced she had located the source of the problem. She was too short. It was not bad logic on her part. At a towering two and a half feet tall, she was certainly one of the shrimpier Snow Whites I have ever encountered. No matter. She had a solution. She began to jump. 

Snow White boinged up and down with such ferocity that I, for one, think she should consider a post-princess career as an NBA player. But the Mandalorian and I, busy checking to see if she’d gotten stuck behind the blinds of the window, were stubbornly unphased. 

Snow White, bless her heart, remained convinced that her continued invisibility was the result of logistical difficulties rather than our own malicious intentions. Thus, when jumping didn’t work, she merely recruited the couch into the task of making her taller. She bounced buoyantly upon the cushions, waving her hands and repeatedly proclaiming her existence. When even this failed her, I have to admit that our long-suffering heroine did betray a brief moment of dismay. 

But Snow White, like Inigo Montoya encountering his equal atop the cliffs of insanity, was still smiling. Because she knew one strategy we did not know. That secret strategy, reader, was yanking. And she was an expert at it. 

She accosted me while I was checking to see if she was hidden under the rug. She tugged at my shorts and grasped at my calf with her tiny hands. This brave girl even mustered the courage to yank at my socks, which had not seen a washing machine in some time. 

The time had come to put both me and Snow White out of our misery. So I looked down. And I gasped. And then I saw Snow White. 

My shock, you will understand, is hard to describe. How was it that she had been there all along? She flew right under the radar, the little sneak, as she jumped up and down, squeezed the circulation from my ankles, and screamed like a felled hyena. 

“There you are!” I proclaimed. 

“THERE you are!” the Mandalorian proclaimed louder. 

What rejoicing was then in order! Snow White, though without any idea what catalyzed the switch, was positively giddy at her newfound return to visibility. I, who had rarely ever found myself in the company of someone so famous or, for that matter, so fun, was more than a little giddy myself. The Mandalorian was perhaps the giddiest of all, having come up with the brilliant idea to ignore his sister in the first place. He celebrated his sister’s return to acknowledged corporeality by tickling her, and she celebrated, in turn, by shrieking. And then of course there was a great deal of giggling, and falling on the floor, and stumbling back up again in a haze of evaporating hilarity. And after all this, it was absolutely essential that we gasp for breath. We would need it, you see, to start negotiations on what number we’d be counting to next time.