TONKA TRUCK
September 18th, 1976
⏰ 3:30 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ Stephanie and Steve Harrington have been left home alone by their parents yet again.
It's 1976 and Steve Harrington is eight years old, his little sister Stephanie being only five.
What are most eight year olds doing after school? Probably doing what little homework they have, playing outside with their mother before Dad gets home from work, then they all have a sit down dinner as a family. Sounds perfect, right?
Well, that's not the Harrington siblings case.
Steve found a letter on the kitchen island when they got home from school today reading,
Gone until Monday morning.
Food in the fridge.
-Diane
He's surprised she even left a letter.
How would he tell Stephanie? She's too young to know the actual truth, but yet again, so is Steve.
Stephanie walks into the kitchen, Steve barely hiding the ripped piece of paper in his pocket. Not that Stephanie could read it, anyway.
"How about we go to the playground?" Steve offers, seeing his sisters face light up in agreement. Now he surely can't tell her that their parents won't be home for the weekend.
As the two approach the playground, Stephanie darts around the area, eventually landing in the sandbox along another boy.
The boy couldn't be any older than Stephanie, he's considerably small, hair cut into a perfect bowl cut, almost as if his mom put a bowl on top of his head and went from there.
"Hi!" Stephanie smiles, her loud presence visibly intimidating the boy. "I'm Steph. What's your name?"
The boy looks over to a woman sitting over on a bench near the two, presumably his mother, who's smiling in encouragement.
"Will." He says, looking down at his feet.
Stephanie turns around, waving Steve over towards her.
Steve walks over to the kids, his mind only concerned with how he'll tell Stephanie the news. He bends down to her level, talking low and quiet. "So, Mom and Dad won't be home for a few days, but I'll take care of you while they're gone, is that okay?"
Stephanie may seem like an extroverted kid, and she totally is, but like any other little kid, she's sensitive, too.
Tears start to pour down her face as Will's mom walks over to the kids from the bench she resided at.
Will holds out his yellow Tonka truck to the girl, making her tears pause for a moment. "You can keep it."
His mom turns to him and whispers some things about money and affordability. Stephanie doesn't know her, but she seems like everything she wants in a mother.
"She should have it because she's sad." Will protests. "She's sad, Mommy."
Stephanie takes the truck out of Will's hands as Steve holds onto her hand and guides her back home.
————
༺♥༻ The next day, and Steve successfully got him and Stephanie to school, not that he hasn't done it before.
Stephanie enters her Kindergarten classroom and sitting right next to her desk is none other than Will. He smiles at the girl and looks back down to his drawing of different characters from Sesame Street.
"Is that Elmo?" Stephanie asks, pointing to the drawing. "I like that show, too."
"Yeah." Will nods. "Um, who's your favorite?"
"Cookie Monster. He's funny like my big brother."
Will sets down his crayon. "I have a big brother, too! His name's Jonathan."
"My brother's name is Steve." Stephanie chuckles for a second. "What if our brothers are friends?"
Will thinks about the phenomenon for a second, chuckling too.
"Do you wanna be best friends?" Stephanie suddenly asks, feeling strangely happy.
Will nods to the girl just as their teacher starts the lesson for the day.
Right then, Stephanie could tell that her and Will will be friends for a long time.
༺♥༻
this one got me close to tears.
as you can tell some of this is written in steve's perspective (kinda bc it's still third person) because i feel like i couldn't write something too complex that would be thoughts of a five year old so that's why steph's parts are written pretty simply. also i tried to make the dialogue believable enough because you know, they're five. which is why some of it is a little cringy bc kids are weird.
i also want to expand on joyce and stephs relationship as well as wills since i feel like they barely interacted in the series so if you have any recommendations for more bonus chapters with them two i will prob write.
honestly sometimes i feel like i have the writing skills of a fourth grader/brain capacity of a fourth grader but whatever. yolo am i right?
7/24/23