“What about you?” said the Plastic Snowman. “Oh yes. This is Peter. He’s my friend.”
The six small purple buttons that made up the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman’s mouth moved up and down, creating a wavy line to show that he was talking. “Your friend? Hey now wait a moment! You’ve had your turn! He’s my friend now!”
“I’m sorry, but Peter activated me.”
“Hang on, he activated me too!” the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman shot back.
“But he didn’t mean to do that,” said the Plastic Snowman calmly. “You just happened to be there.”
Peter looked at the two snowmen in astonishment as both focused their attentions on each other and not on him.
“Um, can’t I be both your friends?” he asked timidly.
“Plastic snowmen are supposed to have only one friend,” said the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman gently. “They get one go and then they disappear.”
“What do you mean, they disappear?” Peter asked worryingly.
“It means,” said the Plastic Snowman, “that we only exist for the one night for one friend, after which… that’s it.”
“What? You die?” Peter was getting scared.
“No no, you’ve just simply had your turn,” said the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman in a reassuring voice to Peter. “You then simply get sent to another area like marketing, maintenance, cleaning out, or at worst… Accounts. And I’m not waiting for such a long time to get my turn again. You’re now my friend. Aren’t you, Peter?” he added meekly.
“Er…” said Peter. “I… I don’t know. The Plastic Snowman is my friend… but… you can be my friend too!”
“That is not possible,” said the Plastic Snowman solemnly. “You can only have one of us as a friend. Even you were supposed to have only the one chance of being a friend to us snowmen. Which leads me to ask you, how did you know how to reactivate me?”
“I – I guessed after watching a video of myself, I saw that I rubbed my nose a few times,” said Peter shakily.
Both snowmen sighed. “Early twenty-first century modern technology strikes again. The Most Important Plastic Snowman needs to be informed about this,” said the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman.
“You mean the Official Very Important Plastic Snowman,” corrected the Plastic Snowman.
The Tall Thin Plastic Snowman did not appear to hear what the Plastic Snowman had just said, or had chosen to ignore him, and continued speaking. “Last time it was tablets. And we’re not talking about taking them for tummy upsets. Before that it was Blackberries and Apples. The devices, not fruit! And then there’s Wii, and we’re not talking about going to the toilet! These humans are useless when it comes to thinking up new names for their gadgets. Clearly the Bureaucratic Snowmen are not doing their jobs properly. I always tell them they should be sent to Atoz!”
“Atoz?” said Peter suddenly. “That was mentioned when I was on the cloud! Where’s that? And what’s a Bureaucratic Snowman? What’s marketing? What’s Accounts? And what’s maintenance?”
“That’s not important at the moment, Peter,” said the Plastic Snowman quickly, and then adding, “I’d better inform the Official Very Important Plastic Snowman.”
“Now wait a minute!” said the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman, who sounded rather annoyed. “It’s my life today! My turn! You had your chance this winter! I should be going to see him!”
“But Peter chose to activate me, not you!” said the Plastic Snowman firmly. “He goes with me to the cloud.”
“He shouldn’t have activated anyone!” said the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman, now sounding very angry. “You said this yourself!”
“But he did. And it wasn’t meant to be you. I’m sorry.”
“NOOO!”
And suddenly the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman started to run. His legs were slightly shorter than the Plastic Snowman’s, but he was certainly no slower.
“You can’t do that!” shouted the Plastic Snowman.
“Can’t I? See me try!” the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman shouted back.
He hopped. And then skipped. And then he jumped high, high into the air, going upwards and onwards.
“I hope for his sake he doesn’t meet the Most Important Plastic Snowman,” said the Plastic Snowman darkly. “Overly bureaucratic lump of ice, that’s all he really is.”
And all through what was happening, Peter could only watch. He didn’t know what else to say.
But what he did notice was that where the Tall Thin Plastic Snowman had stood, there was a green circular patch.
This time, he knew he had not been dreaming.