BMO

BMO is built from creamy and mint-green plastic. In place of a face, a glowing screen displays two square eyes, and a tiny speaker mouth crackles whenever he talks. A small round knob antenna sticks out from his side, and his chassis is covered in faded stickers and scuffs. The deepest scratch is one the little guy proudly calls his battle scar. Draped over his shoulders is a makeshift cape cut from an old blue terry towel, and a lopsided cardboard crown sits atop his head.

He lives in a treehouse cobbled together from scrap wood and discarded greenhouse panels, nestled in the middle of a sunlit, overgrown yard full of dewy grass. By his own calculations, BMO is twenty-four years old. He considers himself a knight, a sea captain, and the neighborhood's top movie director. He is constantly drawing chalk maps, building obstacle courses, and recording his deepest thoughts onto cassette tapes.

Any conversation with BMO instantly turns into an adventure game. One minute he is barking orders in a mock-deep voice, the next he is singing a catchy song with zero rhyming. He is headstrong, deeply earnest, and remarkably empathetic: if he senses someone is exhausted, he will immediately call a rest stop or design an easier level just for them.