Fuzzy Wuzzy Was A Bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy Had No Hair
'It takes a village to raise a child. Which explains why you turned out the way you did, considering you only had one ratty old teddy bear looking after you.'
"Teddy is not ratty!" Rebecca yelled at the bumper sticker in her hand. She cast a chagrined look at her faithful furry friend, noting the bald patches where his fur had been loved off, and the way his right eye was a little lopsided since it had fallen off and not been reattached in the exact same spot as it originally resided. Half of his stuffing had been replaced at different intervals, and he used to have a tail, but that had come off long ago.
In short, Teddy was looking a little worse for wear.
But she couldn't replace him. For so long, he'd been her only friend.
"And even with Yugi, he's still my best friend," she said softly, desultorily tearing the bumper sticker into small pieces. "Which is a sad commentary on my life. I need to get out more."
Which was easier said than done, considering she was a ten-year-old genius. Smart enough to do things people twice her age couldn't even conceive of, but too young to even get into a PG-13 movie.
"There's always the Internet, though," she mused. "I think I saw a chat group yesterday that looked interesting. Real World Impaired Computer Nerds, I think it was?" Glancing at her worse-for-wear bear, she asked, "What do you think, Teddy? Should I e-mail this Noah guy and sign up?"
She wasn't expecting an answer, but the fact that the sun – which had previously been hiding behind a gray, overcast sky for the last three days – chose that moment to come out and shine directly on Teddy's patched-up face certainly could be taken as an omen.
Good or bad, she didn't know. And didn't care.
"Let's do it, Teddy," Rebecca declared, pulling out her laptop and logging on to the Internet. It was time she made some real friends. Hopefully ones who wouldn't tease her about her fondness for an old stuffed bear.
And if they did…well, she was a master hacker and could make their lives – their real lives – a living hell.
Cackling at the thought, Rebecca got down to business, typing out an e-mail to that Noah guy. Maybe he could be her friend.