Benny: A Tale of a Christmas Toy (3 page)

First, he had to make sure Annie was all
right. As he closed in on her, he was relieved to see her move. She
was crying, holding a bloody elbow. Some of the other kids were
pulling the bike off her.

"Annie?" he said.

He helped her to her feet. Still crying, she
grabbed onto him. He lead her away from the bike. Rick, a teenager
from over the hill, rolled her bike out of the street.

Annie didn't seem to be limping.

"Are you all right, honey?" he said.

"Went . . . down the hill . . . too
fast."

"Rick, can you watch her for a moment? I
need to check the guy down the street."

"Sure."

"Don't leave me, Daddy."

"I'll be right back, honey." He looked at
one of the other kids — a curly-haired brunette that was probably
the second-oldest there. "I want you to go home and call 9-1-1,
okay?"

She nodded and sprinted away. Benjamin left
Annie and ran full bore for the Thunderbird. The front end was a
mess, the grill wrapped around the pole. The driver-side window was
rolled down, and when he got there he saw it was a woman dressed in
a butterfly-print silk bathrobe and pink curlers. She looked up at
him, dazed, her eyes bloodshot. She slumped back into her seat, and
the horn went silent.

"Did I . . . miss it?" she said.

The alcohol hit him like a smack in the
face. He clenched his fists, biting back his rage.

"My daughter's fine," he said. And when she
started to open the door, he held it closed, adding, "Just stay
seated. You might have a neck injury. An ambulance will be—"

"Where is it?"

He had no idea what she was talking about.
"How do you feel?" he said. "Did you hit your—"

"I didn't hit it, did I?"

"Hit what?"

"I came up over the hill . . . Something
blue and small running across the road. I tried . . . to swerve . .
. Never seen a blue and white cat before."

Until then, Benjamin was willing to toss it
off as drunken rambling, but when she said
blue and white
he
knew it was more than that. His mouth went dry.

"Did it look like a little bear?" he
said.

She shot him a surprised look. "Yeah, that's
right. A bear. That's what it was. A little bear."

* * * * *

The ambulance came and went, taking the
woman away for observation. Annie's wounds were superficial, but
Pam came home early anyway. When he explained what happened, all
Pam could say was how lucky Annie was the woman swerved first. What
if she had kept coming? Benjamin agreed, but he knew it had nothing
to do with luck. And later that night, when both Annie and Pam were
in bed, he crept up to his office to see Benny.

He tried to walk softly, so the floorboards
wouldn't creak. The air was thick and humid. When he entered his
office, the moonlight cast his desk and chair with a soft white
glow. He didn't bother turning on the light.

Again, he reached into the back of the
closet and pulled out the "Old Files" box. Again, opening it, he
found Benny exactly as he had left him. This time, as he reached
for it, he saw that his fingers were trembling.

He pulled the bear out and looked at it in
the dim light. Inside the black plastic eyes, two white pinpricks —
little moons — shined up at him.

"Did you save her?" he said.

He waited a long time for an answer. When
none came, he held the mouth of the bear up to his ear. He stood
there, listening to the beat of his own heart, but the bear didn't
speak.

But as he put the bear back into the box, he
noticed something there in the box. Something green and small and
thin.

He picked it up.

It was a blade of grass.

* * * * *

He never told Annie or Pam about Benny. Over
the years, nothing so dramatic happened again, but there were other
things. Things known only to him that made him wonder: was Benny
behind this? Lost keys. Did Benny not want them to drive that day?
An accident avoided perhaps? A thud as they were leaving the house.
Going back, he would find he forgot to lock the door. Would a thief
have gotten inside? A spot of water next to Annie's goldfish bowl.
Did the fish jump out and Benny put it back inside? When she was
older, in high school, her Geography textbook turned up missing. A
few days later a boy from school, who happened to live a few
streets away, came to the door with it. He found it in front of his
house. Annie swore she had never walked by that street.

She ended up going to the prom with him.

All along, Benjamin he kept talking to
Benny. He never told anyone. It was still his little secret.

He told Benny everything.

He knew Benny was watching Annie.

Keeping her safe.

* * * * *

They stayed in the house on Orchard Street,
never seeing a reason to move, but over time their finances got
better and better. They remolded the kitchen. Bought new leather
furniture. Benjamin even owned some rental properties of his own, a
few houses on the East side. A twenty-seven foot sailboat on
Detroit lake. A '67 Corvette in the garage. His own company, with
four realtors working under him. He hadn't talked much to Benny the
last few years, because he didn't need to. He was happy.

Except that his daughter was leaving
him.

"I'll be okay, Dad, really," Annie said.

He and Pam were helping her pack her van. It
was a cool, gray day, the air heavy with impending rain. A breeze
ripped up their drive, bringing with it the red leaves from his
neighbor's maple.

As they packed the boxes into the van, he
looked at his daughter. She was taller than her mother, her blond
hair braided and woven with beads. She was no longer the little
girl he once taught to ride a bicycle.

"You're not going to cry on me, Dad, are
you?" she said.

"No," he said, but he wouldn't look at
her.

"I'll be home in a few months.
Thanksgiving's not that far away."

"I know."

"And I'll call."

"You better."

They embraced. Annie said a few words to
Pam, who started crying, and then climbed in the van. Benjamin went
to the window.

"Drive safely, okay?"

She started the van. The engine rumbled to
life.

"I will, Dad."

She put it in gear. He was turning away,
when she touched the hand he had on her door.

"Dad, thanks. Thanks for being there for
me."

"I wasn't always . . ."

"Yes, you were."

He nodded. He wanted to say something else,
maybe say something about Benny, about how Benny watched her, but
he found it hard enough just to keep his emotions in check. He
stood next to Pam, waved as they drove away, and then went
inside.

* * * * *

That night, his wife sleeping next to him,
Benjamin left her and went to talk to Benny.

He left off all the lights. There was no
moon this night, and the way was dark, but it was familiar. He had
walked it a thousand times.

His legs ached as he climbed the stairs. The
arthritis had been getting worse the last few years. There was also
a heaviness around his middle, a thickness in the legs and
chest.

He pulled out the box and pulled off the
lid. He reached down into the dark contents, expecting to find
something soft and furry.

Instead, his fingers scraped on the bottom
of the box.

"Benny?" he said.

It was empty. He searched the closet, found
nothing. He looked in his desk drawers, in his filing cabinet, and
Benny wasn't there either.

There was a sharp pain in his chest. He had
lost more than his daughter. He had also lost his confidant. His
secret friend. His trusted ally. And he stood there, holding the
box for a long time, until the pain subsided. He started to feel
better. It was all right, really. He would be okay. It was for the
best.

Annie needed Benny.

Benny would watch her.

She would be safe.

He put the box away. He turned, ready to
leave the room, when he chanced to look out the window. Across the
street, a lamplight cast a pool of yellow light at the edge of the
apple trees. There, in the shadows, he saw something move.
Something stepped into the light.

He threw open the sash. The breeze was cool
against his open nightshirt, tickling his chest hairs. Without his
glasses, he couldn't see well in the distance, but, squinting, he
could just make it out. Something small. Something furry. At first,
he thought it was Benny, but then he saw the colors weren't right.
It was the same size, but the colors were orange and purple.

It lifted a small, stubby arm and waved.

Benjamin waved back. He watched as it turned
and scampered off into the trees. He knew then he wasn't alone. He
had never been alone.

He had been watched.

"Thank you, Milo," he said.

~ | ~

|| A sneak preview of
Dog Food and
Diamonds
,

a romantic comedy by K. C. Scott

published by Flying Raven Press. ||

ATTENTION ALL MARTCO CUSTOMERS:

If someone were to write a novel about the
world of big box retailing, it could very well be a grab bag of
horrors and tragedies, detailing the dismal pay and long hours that
employees suffer in the name of low prices and just-good-enough
merchandise all so the bigwigs and the bean counters can stuff
their pockets with trumped up stock options.
It could be about that. Thankfully, this book isn't.
Instead, it's a lively romantic comedy that begins when Jeff
Martin, son of the owner of the third biggest retailer in the
United States, shows up at his father's Minnesota corporate office,
newly minted business cards with the letters MBA after his name,
ready to take the reins. There's just one problem. His father
thinks his son is a frivolous playboy who'd run the company into
the ground.
Jeff has a hard time making a case otherwise, and only some quick
thinking gives him a way to prove his worth: He has to work as an
assistant manager in one of Martco's stores for a year. And he
can't tell anybody who he is.
Welcome to Delburg, Oregon, an average city with an average Martco.
Like all other Martcos, they sell everything from dog food to
diamonds. Carol Kinnington is a single mother who's been trying to
put her life back to together ever since her husband gave up both
her and his lucrative law practice in favor of a young Navajo women
who seduced him with peyote and peace pipes. If Carol can just get
promoted to Assistant Manager, she'll earn enough to get out of her
dingy apartment and make a life for herself and her five year-old
son. Then a certain Jeff "Garby" swoops in to take the job she
knows she deserves.
What happens next is a lively romantic comedy about two people from
wildly different worlds whose shopping carts collide—and
eventually, against great odds, still find a way to fall in love.
It's Romeo and Juliet on a blue light special. It's When Harry Met
Sally in paper or plastic. It's a story as old as time itself—but
you still have to be out of the store by ten.

Dog Food and
Diamonds

K. C.
Scott  

Electronic edition published by Flying Raven
Press, August 2010. Copyright © 2010 by K.C. Scott.  All
rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or
in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental. Find out more about Flying Raven Press titles at
http://www.flyingravenpress.com.
 

Chapter 1

THE PILOT WAS SAYING she really didn't want
to do this, that it was a bad idea, that a helicopter was too
expensive a piece of machinery to go around acting all willy-nilly
with it.  She actually used those words. 
Willy-nilly
.  Jeff wondered if it was a Minnesota
thing.  Her voice crackled with static, and even with his
headset on she was still hard to hear over the constant thrumming
of the helicopter blades. 

The cockpit was cold and cramped. 
Outside, the sky was a pristine blue, and the white landscape below
seemed like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. 
Puffs of smoke rose lazily from farmhouse chimneys.  Leafless
oaks and maples, clothed in icicles, glinted in the sunlight. 
For somebody else it might have been beautiful, but for Jeff it was
simply a reminder of a childhood he wanted to forget. 

He looked at the pilot—a thirtiesh woman
with black hair tied in a pony tail, mirrored sunglasses hiding her
eyes—and flashed her his best smile.  Jeff had discovered
early in life that if he smiled, and put on the charm, he could get
just about anything.  From friends, teachers, women. 
Especially women.  "It'll be fine," he reassured her.