Nopsy

The tickling game was funny for about a minute.

After that it was not funny, and Nopsy was laughing in the way you laugh when you have run out of breath and would very much like to stop, and everybody carried on because the laughing looked like fun.

Nopsy did not say anything.

This is the thing about Nopsy that people find surprising, because Nopsy is the one who teaches everybody else the Kind No. Nopsy can spot when Handy is doing too much, or when Peeky wants to leave a party, from right across a room.

Nopsy's own no gets stuck. Every time. Because a no might make somebody sad, and Nopsy would rather be uncomfortable than make somebody sad.

Afterwards, Nopsy sat on the wall feeling wrung out.

Truly sat down too. "You didn't want to play that."

"It was fine."

"Nopsy."

"I didn't want them to think I'm no fun," said Nopsy, all in a rush. "They were only being friendly. If I'd said stop, it would have gone weird and it would have been my fault."

Truly thought about that.

"Do you know what happened instead? They think you loved it. So they'll do it again tomorrow. You didn't stop anything going weird — you just made it happen slower."

The next day, they started the tickling game.

Nopsy's stomach dropped, and Nopsy said it, out loud, in the ordinary voice Nopsy uses for everything:

"No thank you. I don't like that one."

And the world did not end.

Zippy said "oh, okay" and went to tickle Squirmy instead, who did like it, and the whole thing took four seconds and nobody thought about it again.

That is the part Nopsy had never believed. Nopsy had spent years imagining the enormous damage a no would do, and it turned out to be four seconds long.

Nopsy says it kindly, always, because a kind no is still a no.

And it keeps friendships safe instead of breaking them, which is exactly the opposite of what Nopsy had always feared.