Octopus Arms

by Maria Larcomb

Cousins can be your greatest confidants — also your greatest competition. And boy did my family know about competition! At reunions, it always was the running joke shared by all

generations. But, I believe that none of the lot truly knew just how deep competitiveness ran in our blood as the Core 4 + 1 cousins did. Even who was dubbed the official “plus one cousin” was a competition of sorts — some argued it was the only boy cousin, some argued it was the only

one who didn’t live local, others argued it was the youngest.

Sometimes, I felt it was me. But that’s beside the point.

The Core 4 + 1 were (and still are) planners, plotters, and fighters. Nothing was just a game. Every Uno round had stakes attached, every meal a competition of who could get their plate cleanest. But nothing compared to ping pong fights — those were war. We would spend hours drafting battle plans on Etch A Sketches, deciding when the battle would take place, who would be positioned where and how much ammo would be stored at each location. Everything was strategic because it had to be; we all knew the consequences if any adults found out we were playing such a violent game, and we all knew we wanted to win more than anything.

We all had our roles; my youngest sister was the only non-combatant

and simply acted our ammo supplier and collector. She would scurry around the playroom below the fire, collecting fallen ping pong balls into her plastic pink toy shopping cart.

“More ammo!” A cousin would screech over the sound of the wackling paddles sailing the plastic orbs across the room, and my sister would floor it across the room, dodging the blanket fort, air hockey table, and dollhouse on the way.

The Core 4 + 1 cousins took no prisoners. There was no mercy —

no room for tears. Though we insisted on a certain degree of safety (goggles from our Beyblade sets), skin was up for attack.

After one particularly intense round of ping pong fighting, my grandmother called us downstairs to dinner. I can still remember sitting on the plaid-patterned seats, my uncle sitting between my youngest cousin and me.

When she reached across the table for Abuela’s famous mountain bread, my uncle gasped. “What happened to your arms?”

Whipping my head around, I spotted my cousin’s arms speckled with lightly raised red spots and gulped. If we got caught, there’d be no more ping pong fights. That wouldn’t fly.

“We were playing octopus! We drew the suction cup things on our arms with markers!” I piped up, thinking faster than I ever had before. I could tell my uncle wasn’t fully convinced, but he also wasn’t one to push a point. Shrugging, he buttered his piece of toast while the Core 4 + 1 cousins giggled as we hide our octopus arms under the table.