Emily Jenkins - Toys Come Home

“Great pushing, guys!” cries another.

“We pushed the marine animal. Did you see? Did you see? We pushed it!”

“I saw. I was pushing with you.”

“We pushed it with our noses! High five!”

StingRay’s face is jammed against the shelf, but out of the corner of one eye, she can see the mice bouncing up and down, pleased with themselves.

“I’m not in,” she says.

“You’re almost in!” cries a brown mouse. “You just have to make yourself a bit smaller.”

Maybe this is the sort of thing a stingray can do if she tries, StingRay thinks. So she smallens herself, lessens herself, scrunches herself down and diminishes with all her might.

“A little more smaller!” yells the mouse. “Then you’ll be in!”

StingRay tries again, but somehow, she does not diminish. She stays exactly the same.

Maybe it is not the sort of thing a stingray can do if she tries.

“I think I’ll just sleep here,” says StingRay. “Because, you know, stingrays like to sleep out in the cold dark air. We like that better than cozy under bookshelves.”

“Nighty-night, then!” cries a mouse, and they all scuttle under the shelf and make themselves comfortable. StingRay can feel their hard, furry bodies bumping her nose and creeping back and forth across her one flipper that is underneath. It is ticklish. And not at all cozy.

Eventually, the mice settle down and go to sleep, but StingRay can’t see or feel any of them. She waggles her flipper around a bit, looking for a cuddly mouse to comfort her as she tries to rest.

“Marine animal!” She hears a squeak. “Marine animal!”

“What?”

“You are hurting me with your big arm!”

“And you are squashing me with your nose on my bed!” cries another voice.

StingRay’s face feels hot and she pulls both her nose and flipper out from under the bookshelf.

“Thank you!” “Nighty-night!” cry the mice.

“Good night,” says StingRay.

She goes back to her shelf and settles herself there for the night. All alone, she sleeps only fitfully.

. . . . .

When the Girl goes to school the next day, she takes Bobby Dot with her and leaves Sheep down on the floor.

Sheep is gray-white and ancient, with four wooden wheels, two felt ears, and a firm wool body. “Before I came here I was Dad’s favorite toy—and Grandpa’s before that,” she says, by way of introduction. “What were you?”

StingRay wasn’t anything before this. This is all she ever was.

“I was … I was…,” she stutters.

Sheep sniffs. “You have a new-toy smell, same as that walrus,” says Sheep. “Is that it? You’re a new toy?”

StingRay does not want to have the same smell as Bobby Dot.

“I was the mommy’s,” she lies. “And that is not new-toy smell you’re smelling. That is extremely clean smell,

plus roses and geraniums and clover

and everything fresh and lovely and precious.

It is a special smell for toys that are loved a huge entirely lot.

Bobby Dot smells like plastic thread and sawdust,

I know what you’re talking about,

but that is not my smell at all.”

Sheep sniffs again. “I like clover,” she says, agreeably. “And geraniums. I would like to chew some one day, but I don’t suppose it’ll ever happen.”

Since Sheep seems friendly, StingRay asks her to play a game—and Sheep agrees. But before StingRay can read the instructions and get the checkers set up (Sheep hasn’t got flippers or arms that she can use), there is a gentle snore from the other side of the board.

Sheep is asleep.

StingRay pokes her new friend with a flipper.

She barks “Hello!” in Sheep’s felt ear and even pulls her scrawny tail.

But waking Sheep is impossible.

Slowly, StingRay puts the checkers back in the box.

. . . . .

That night, exhausted, StingRay tries to sleep next to the rocking horse. She creeps across the rug to him and announces, “I’m just going to keep you company here.

Because you seem like you might be lonely.

Like, you want to have someone to sleep next to you,

so the night doesn’t seem so long.

I am going to help you out with that.”

She drapes one soft flipper over the lower rail of the horse’s base.

But it is not very cuddly.

So she climbs, pushing with her tail and clinging with her flippers, onto the horse’s back, then relaxes into the saddle.

But it is kind of wobbly.

She flops onto the horse’s head and flips around to face the other way, so that her long tail trails across his nose and her warm flippers embrace his ears.

The horse coughs.

“What?” StingRay whispers.

“No thank you.”

“Oh, come on. It’ll be so nice! You won’t feel lonely anymore!”

“No thank you, ” says the horse firmly. Then he shakes his head, the way horses do to ward off flies. His mane swings out and his nose arcs through the air and StingRay is flung sharply across the room to land—

on the high bed with the fluffy pillows.

Hooray! This is perfect.

StingRay can sleep with Sheep, Bobby Dot, and the Girl!

Carefully, carefully she creeps up to the head of the bed. Sheep is clutched in the Girl’s chubby palm, Bobby Dot is under the covers.

Both of them wake as StingRay settles herself between them.

“I was dreaming of clover,” mutters Sheep, sleepily.

“I was dreaming of sharks,” whispers Bobby Dot, irritably.

“I’m going to sleep on the high bed now!” announces StingRay, trying to sound confident. “Because I’m the Actual Day of Birth Present. We’re all going to be cuddling together from now on!”

Sheep eyes Bobby Dot. “It’s already a lot more crowded here than it used to be,” she says, meaningfully. “Before the birthday, there was plenty of room in this bed.”

Bobby Dot eyes Sheep right back. “It would be fine if some people didn’t have hard wooden parts,” he says.

“It would be fine,” says Sheep, “if some people didn’t have teeth that are way larger than regular teeth that people have. And also if those people with the teeth didn’t talk so much all the time when other people are trying to rest.”

“I don’t have teeth,” says StingRay. “Or wooden parts. I’m an extremely cuddly stingray. And you won’t believe how quiet I can be.”

She looks hopefully at Sheep.

Sheep has already gone back to sleep.

“ I’m going to be awake for hours,” complains Bobby Dot. “I can’t believe you woke us like this. Don’t you know it’s sleepytime?”

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.