conversations with a five-year-old superhero

Tierney is walking through her parents’ bedroom.
Enter Eli (wearing a cape with the collar turned up, a belt with a pistol holster bearing a wooden sword, and Tierney’s graduation cap) and Sam (dressed in long johns, a baby bib, and a too-small knitted cap of some kind).

Tierney: Oh, look, it’s a graduated superhero.
Eli: No, it’s actually a helmet. It only looks like a graduation hat.
Tierney: I see.
Sam: Hi, Middis Bott.
Tierney: Mrs. Potts? Why do I always have to be Mrs. Potts? Can’t I be someone else this time?
Sam: No. Middis Bott.
Tierney: Oh, fine. Who are you, again?
Eli: Mr. Beeda. Or maybe Baby Mayne.
Sam: Yeah. Baby Mayne.
Tierney: Oh. Hi, Baby Mayne.
Sam: Hi…
Eli: My name is Jack. I’m actually a guard at the hotel.
Tierney: The hotel?
Eli: This is the hotel.
Tierney: I see. Do all the hotel guards wear helmets like that?
Eli: Yeah, it has armor underneath. I have two chain mail shirts, too. And this is my sword.
Tierney: At least your sword looks like a sword.
Eli: Yeah.
Tierney: Do you get a lot of armed robbers at this hotel?
Eli: No, I’ve got two chain mail shirts.
Tierney: I know, but why do you need all that armor? Do you get attacked a lot?
Eli: Not really. Sometimes I wear a suit coat.
Tierney: Oh. Do you wear your chain mail underneath?
Eli: No, just a white shirt.
Tierney: I see. Do people call you Agent 86 when you wear your suit coat?
Eli: Yeah, but I’m really a guard.
Tierney: Disguised as Agent 86?
Eli: Yeah.
Tierney: Very tricky.
Sam: Daddoo, beez! Daddoo, beez!
Tierney: What?
Sam: Daddoo, beez!
Tierney: Tractor please?
Sam: No, daddoo, beez!
Eli: Oh, you want your gun?
Sam: No…
(A trek is made to Sam’s dresser, wherefrom Eli pulls a largeish “number one” birthday candle.)
Tierney: Oh…I see. Candle please.
Eli: That’s his gun.
Tierney: Oh. It looks like a candle.
Eli: It’s a gun.
Tierney: Disguised as a candle?
Eli: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. Daddoo.
Tierney: So then you can tell all the bad guys, ‘No, I just carry a candle around with me for fun,’ and then you can shoot them.
Eli (laughing): Yeah, like, pshew! Pshew!
Tierney: Oh, that was fun.
Sam: Yeah. Dun. Bad duys. Oh!
Tierney: Oh man...
Sam: Oh man!
Tierney: What is it?
Sam: Dood duys! Winnow!
Tierney: The good guys are coming in the window?
Sam: Yeah. Dood duys.
Tierney: Good guys should really come in the door.
Sam: Yeah. Bad duys.
Tierney: Oh, there are bad guys, too?
Sam: Yeah, winnow.
Tierney: Well you’d better get them!
Sam: Pshew! Pshew! There.
Tierney: How do you tell which ones are the bad guys that you can shoot?
Eli: The bad guys all wear white, and the good guys all wear black.
Tierney: Sam’s wearing white.
Eli: No, he has a blue bib, and this blue hat, and a tractor on his jammies.
Tierney: Oh. So the bad guys just wear all white with nothing on it. Are you a good guy, Sam?
Sam: No. Dood baby.
Eli: All the good babies wear white pajamas with this little tractor on them, and a light blue hat, and a blue bib with a brown dog on it, and above the dog it says ‘woof’, and no socks.
Tierney: I see. That’s quite a uniform.
Sam: Oh! Bad duys!
Tierney: Bad guys over there, too? Good grief, they’re coming out of the woodwork tonight.
Sam: Dood duys!
Tierney: Bad guys and good guys? Oh dear. Are they fighting?
Sam: Yeah.
Tierney: Who’s winning, the bad guys or the good guys?
Sam: Um…bad duys.
Tierney: Oh no! You’d better go help. You can’t let the bad guys win!
Sam: Dun?
Eli: Yeah, here, shoot my helmet.
Tierney: You want a hole in your helmet?
Eli: No, it’s got armor under it.
Tierney: Oh, it’s bullet-proof?
Eli (scornfully): No, it’s sword-proof.
Tierney: So if someone shot your helmet, the bullet would go through and kill you?
Eli: No, it’s armor.
Tierney: Well, that’s what bullet-proof means. Bullets can’t get through it.
Eli: Oh. Yeah. It is.
Tierney: That’s good.
Eli: I’m actually one of them, over there.
Tierney: One of the good guys?
Eli: Yeah. I’m a guard.
Tierney: So I hear.
Eli: All the guards wear black pants and a grey shirt, and white socks, and a black cape, and a sword, and a helmet.
Tierney: Goodness. Who designed your uniform, anyway?
Eli: The hotel, of course!

Exit Eli and Sam. Finis.