Toys Come Home (3 page)

Fine then, thinks StingRay.

Meanie.

Suddenly, she doesn’t want to cozy up with Bobby Dot and Sheep anymore. She doesn’t want to sleep anywhere in this cold unfriendly room. Or anywhere in this too-big house.

That’s it. StingRay is running away.

Right now. Running away forever and ever.

Without another word to Bobby Dot, she flops off the bed and lurches toward the door.

She’ll go away from these selfish toys to somewhere better. Much better.

And she’ll never come back!

And then they’ll all miss her!

Without thinking about the herd of possible vicious towels in the linen closet and the bathroom, without thinking about where she will go and how she will sleep, StingRay zooms out of the Girl’s bedroom, down the hall and—

Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.

Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.

Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.

Bonk!

Falls down the stairs. Flipper over flipper, thumping and ouching, bouncing off moldings and posts, then lying shocked at the bottom, head aching.

But she cannot rest. She is running away. Where to go?

Where to go?

StingRay has not been in the downstairs of the house since she arrived. She doesn’t remember which room is the kitchen, the living room, anything. She hurls herself across the wood floor, searching for an exit in the dark.

She can feel something swing slightly as she bangs into it, so she pulls up short. It’s a door. The door to the outside.

This is it.

Eyes shut tightly, StingRay pushes through the doorway and down another flight of stairs—

Fwap! Gobble-a gobble-a.

Bonk!

—to land in complete darkness.

The floor underneath her is cold.

StingRay coughs.

It is very dusty.

There is a rumbling coming from the other end of the room.

This is not the outside. StingRay has looked out the windows enough to know that the outside has grass and trees and the sounds of cars going by, leaves rustling. Here, she can hear nothing but the scary rumble.

This must be the basement.

Rumble. Ruuuuuuumble.

What is that sound?

Could it be a ghost?

Maybe ghosts go to the basement to hide when the attic gets full up, StingRay thinks.

Maybe they go down there to eat marine animals

who might have strayed from their usual habitats,

or make slaves of lonely friendless people.

Maybe it’s not ghosts at all but axe murderers, leaping around with axes and rumbling all about how they want to chop things.

Whooooo addleaddleaddle!

Something hairy with lots of legs crawls onto StingRay’s flipper. She can feel it inching its way across.…

It is on her! The thing! Maybe a spider with fifty-eight legs,

just a crazy amount of creepy crawly legs,

and it is crawling on StingRay’s body—

Whooooo addleaddleaddle! StingRay rears up and flaps her flippers and screeches to get the spider off. Oh, it sends shivers down her back! She rolls in the dust and flops back and forth and tosses her head—eeeeeewwww—and finally, finally comes to a stop when she is sure the spider-thing is not on her anymore.

In the darkness, she can just make out stacks of cardboard boxes looming on either side of her.

She has lost her bearings.

Where are the stairs?

She is scared to move.

She can still hear that rumble ruuuuuuumble, and if she moves, the ghosts and/or axe murderers might notice her.

She curls herself up as tight as she can, tucking her tail around her body, and holds perfectly still.

After a minute or two, there is a loud buzz. The rumble stops.

StingRay waits for it to start again, but it does not. Still, she is scared to look for the stairs. Instead she sits, tense and knotted, for hours, until the morning sun shines softly through the high basement windows and she hears footsteps on the floor above her.

Feet come softly down to the basement and pad over to the dryer. The dad fills a basket with clothes and turns to take it upstairs. “Honey, your stingray is down here!” he calls in surprise.

He picks StingRay up and brushes some dust from her plush, then places her on top of the basket. Bouncing up the steps, two at a time, he delivers StingRay into the waiting arms of the Little Girl.

“Oh, sweetie sweetie!” cries the Girl, hugging StingRay. “I thought you were lost! I looked for you all over this morning.” She plants a kiss on StingRay’s head. “Now, remember this from now on: don’t go in the basement or I will miss you, miss you! I need you very much.”

The Girl smells like maple syrup and soap. Her arms are warm on StingRay’s cold, tight body.

This is what StingRay has been looking for.

Somebody to love.

Somebody who will love her back.

Who will be her family.

Of course, the Girl is it. Of course she is.

StingRay should have known that all along.

She relaxes into the Girl’s embrace and feels the beautiful day stretch before her as she is carried into the kitchen to watch waffles being made.

A
s winter fades and spring blooms, StingRay spends most of her time indoors—learning to play checkers against herself, watching TV, playing with the Girl, listening to stories, nodding while Bobby Dot lectures.

Now the rains have stopped and the air is hot with the smell of earth and grass. It is finally summer. Today StingRay, Sheep, and Bobby Dot are in the backyard. There is a cluster of flowering rosebushes by the fence. The songs of birds and the buzz of mosquitoes.

The Girl and her mother go in and out of the house, bringing lemonade, a picnic blanket, and a parasol. The sun is warm and sinking in the sky.

A big kid comes over to play with the Girl. She is called Bethany and her hands seem very large to StingRay. She can stand on her hands, this big kid. And do a cartwheel.

Her voice is too loud.

The Girl and Bethany dig some holes and make roads for a couple of toy cars. They turn somersaults while the mommy reads a book.

“Let’s play ball!” says Bethany, her hair full of grass. (Sheep is eyeing the grass and making tiny, almost invisible chewing motions with her jaw.)

“I don’t have a ball,” says the Girl.

“Everybody has a ball,” says Bethany.

“I don’t.”

(What’s a ball? StingRay wonders.)

“We had a ball,” says the mommy. “But we lost it at the park. Why don’t you toss one of your animals?”

Bethany grabs Sheep and throws her up in the air, catching her neatly in both hands.

(A ball must be a kind of animal, thinks StingRay.)

“Maybe not Sheep,” says the mom. “She’s old. And you could hurt yourself on her wheels.”

“She’s a flying sheep!” cries Bethany, tossing Sheep to the Girl.

(A ball is a flying animal. StingRay thinks she knows all about it now.)

The mommy goes inside, muttering something about maybe having a tennis ball somewhere that would make a better choice.

Bethany throws Sheep. Blop!

The Girl throws Sheep back. Blop!

And again. And again.

Sheep is frightened. StingRay can see it. Her hard black eyes bulge in terror and her neck is tucked as tight into her woolly body as she can get it.

Blop.

Aaaaaaand blop.

Aaaaaaand blop. Sometimes they drop her, or miss the catch entirely. Then Bethany and the Girl run laughing across the lawn, grab Sheep from the ground, and—

Blop! Blop!

Keep playing.

“They shouldn’t do that!” StingRay whispers to Bobby Dot.

Bobby Dot grunts.

“Really!” StingRay is outraged. “It’s like they don’t even know she has feelings!”

“Better her than me,” the walrus whispers.

“Not better her than you. She’s old! She could break.”

“On the contrary,” says Bobby Dot. “She’s survived for years. Sheep is built to last.”

“Shouldn’t we stop it?” says StingRay.

“What can we do?” says Bobby Dot. “Anyway, she probably likes it.”

But StingRay can tell that Sheep does not.

Blop.

Aaaaaaand blop.

Aaaaaaand bang! Sheep is thrown too far and too hard! She hits the wooden fence and falls down—scrabble, scrabble, scriiiiitch—through the fat yellow blossoms and into the arms of the rosebush.

All is silent. The children walk over and have a look.

“It’s thorny,” Bethany announces. “Your mom is going to have to get her out.”

The Girl looks at Sheep, hanging in a tangle of branches. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” says Bethany.

“I think she’s hurt,” says the Girl. “I’m sorry, Sheep.”

“She’s fine.”

“Kids! Dinner’s ready,” calls the Girl’s father, opening the screen door. He trots down the back steps and collects the empty lemonade bottles, the parasol, and the picnic blanket. “Go on in. Spaghetti and tomato sauce.”

“Pasghetti!” yells the Girl. She scoops up Bobby Dot and runs into the house with Bethany close behind her.

The sun is setting. StingRay and Sheep are alone in the yard. StingRay can hear the sounds of the family, plus Bethany and Bethany’s dad, eating spaghetti and talking. Glasses clink. A piece of silverware clatters to the floor. People laugh.

“Someone will come outside and get us, right?” StingRay asks Sheep.

Sheep bleats, softly. Pitifully.

“Yes, someone will.” StingRay answers her own question. “Just like someone came and got me from the basement. Don’t worry. The Girl won’t be able to sleep without you, Sheep. She needs you in the high bed with her,” says StingRay, though that last sentence catches in her throat.

Sheep only bleats.

The two of them listen as the humans eat peach cobbler and the kids dance around the living room to a song about “glorious mud.”

They listen as Bethany and her father say good night and drive away in their car.

They listen as the people head upstairs and the Girl runs water in the bathroom. They can hear her splash in the tub. They can even hear the whizz of her electric toothbrush. Then the dad reading aloud.

And the dad singing.

The parents chatting downstairs. Washing dishes.

Going to bed.

“Okay. No one is coming,” says StingRay finally. “But they’ll come in the morning. I mean, they know where we are. And we’re not even anywhere scary. So that’s good.”

Sheep just bleats. And the bleat sounds frantic.

Sheep actually
is
somewhere scary, remembers StingRay. She is in a thorny bush.

StingRay flops over, the cool night grass tickling her tummy. Looking up, she sees that a single huge thorn pierces one of Sheep’s felt ears. Sheep is suspended by her ear from that thorn, her body and her wheeled platform dangling down through the branches.

“Does it hurt?” asks StingRay.

Sheep bleats.

Okay.

This is serious.

StingRay must rescue Sheep. Sheep—who is not really even StingRay’s friend; Sheep, who does not want StingRay to sleep on the high bed; Sheep, who keeps falling asleep while StingRay is
talking;
Sheep, who isn’t the sort of person to care a whole lot about anybody else’s loneliness but spends her days gently nibbling one corner of the Girl’s box spring or sometimes a shoelace—Sheep is in trouble. And it doesn’t matter, suddenly, that Sheep has never helped StingRay.

StingRay will help Sheep.

But if StingRay climbs the thorn bush, her good-looking plush will get thorns in it.

Plus, she might get stuck.

Even if she did get up to the branch, it is not clear that StingRay’s flippers will be able to unhook Sheep’s ear from the thorn.

“Slingshot.”

What? Did Sheep bleat something? StingRay was thinking important thoughts.

“Slingshot.”

StingRay knows what a slingshot is. She and Sheep and Bobby Dot saw one on television the other day, while the Girl was at school and the grown-ups at work. It is a contraption where you get yourself a big rubber band and a rock;

Then the rock zings through the air and hits your enemies on the head!

Hopefully.

“What are you yammering about?” StingRay asks Sheep. “There is no slingshot here. There’s not even a rubber band.”

“Leg warmer.”

“I am trying to figure out how to help you,” says StingRay, irritably. Sheep must be talking nonsense from the stress of being hung in a thorny bush.

“Leg warmer.”

Oh.

StingRay sees it now, in the dark. A sparkly blue leg warmer is indeed lying on the grass, halfway under a bush.

“Very pretty, but I’m problem-solving here.”

“Slingshot.” Sheep’s bleat is feeble but persistent.

StingRay investigates the leg warmer. It is stretchy and quite long.

Like a rubber band.

Sheep wants her to build a slingshot. (Who would ever imagine that Sheep had the brains to think of it?)