cimorene

When I was four I went to a preschool where there were exactly three tricycles, which were free for everyone's use when we went to the playground on a first-come-first-served basis, and which everyone always wanted. There was also a girl my age who was noisy and about half again as big as me, who in my estimation might have been a nice person on the inside and seemed to want to be friends with everybody, only this was not to be, because more than she wanted to be friends she wanted to pinch everyone else. Nobody likes being pinched. And you can't really trust a pincher: you never know when she'll strike again.

On a rare occasion when I managed to reach a tricycle first (because I'm usually not very fast at anything) and took it for a spin around the playground, Pinching Girl (I've forgotten her name) begged me to let her have my turn instead but I refused. She subsequently ran after me, chasing me in rings around the playground importuning in every way she knew how. Our conversaton went like this:

PINCHER: I'll be your friend!
ME, apologetically: Um, no...
PINCHER: I'll buy you Barbie! Can I if I buy you Barbie?
ME: No...
PINCHER: Do you like Barbies?
ME: No...
PINCHER: I'll buy your favorite!
ME: No.
PINCHER: What's your favorite? [With the air of producing a clincher:] I'LL BUY YOU SHE-RA!
[I'd never heard of She-Ra. I wondered what she was saying and whether I'd heard correctly.]
PINCHER, sensing a hesitation: I'll buy you She-Ra! I'll buy you BIG, BIG She-Ra!

She continued to run after me, stretching her arms out to their fullest extent to indicate the size of the She-Ra she would buy me, and repeating herself until I was completely sure of the pronunciation. I asked someone what She-Ra was when we came inside, wondering what could be so terribly wonderful.

And that's how I found out about She-Ra.