Emily Jenkins - Toy Dance Party

Honey knows her toys play when she’s not around. After all, they are never exactly where she left them when she returns from school, and last week when she got home from Shay’s, the garbage-eating shark was lounging on the carpet with the bubble wrap packaging chewed to bits. But her toys have never done anything like hide trash under the bed.

Lumphy examines her face. Honey is wondering.

“Sorry,” she tells her dad as he holds out the bag.

“But why is it in here?” he persists.

She shrugs.

“I can’t believe we left the garbage there,” whispers Lumphy to StingRay. “It’s been a lot of days!”

“I thought you took care of it,” StingRay whispers back.

“I thought you took care of it,” says Lumphy.

The dad clucks his tongue. “There’s a ton of junk under here. Will you go get the vacuum cleaner?”

Honey bends and looks under the bed. Several necklaces, crumpled strings of toilet paper, some sky blue ribbon, a plastic tiara, some white lace, and a lacy royal blue sock—StingRay’s stash of DaisySparkle costumes is down there. She pulls everything out and spreads it over the patchwork quilt.

Honey sorts through the sparkly things for a minute. Then she picks up—not StingRay, but the shark. The new shark she didn’t even look at when it first arrived; the new shark she’s hardly even played with. Honey takes that shark and wraps her in lace and sky blue ribbon.

StingRay’s lace and sky blue ribbon.

Honey winds a silver necklace four times around the bit of the shark that is most like a neck.

StingRay’s silver necklace.

Honey announces, “Dad, I thought of a name for my shark.”

“How nice.” The dad is pulling bits of LEGO, scraps of paper, and several books out from under the bed.

“Don’t you want to hear what it is?”

“Sure. But I asked you to go get the vacuum.”

“Her name is DaisySparkle.”

StingRay’s favorite name. From StingRay’s favorite movie.

“Great.” The dad pulls his head out from under the bed and examines the DaisySparkle shark in her finery. “She looks fancy, doesn’t she?”

“She’s going to a fiesta,” says Honey.

“Can it be a vacuuming fiesta?” asks the dad.

“Okay,” Honey agrees. She runs down the hall with the shark, trailing a pretty piece of sky blue ribbon.

StingRay, immobile on the easy chair, cries without tears.

. . . . .

Rroooooooooooooma rooma.

The vacuum makes a very, very large noise.

Rroooooooooooooma rooma.

Lumphy huddles closer to StingRay and puts his buffalo paws over his eyes.

Rroooooooooooooma rooma.

“Tell me when it’s over,” he says.

“What, are you scared you’ll be sucked into the vacuum cleaner?” StingRay is cranky, watching Honey do her chores with DaisySparkle shark tucked under one arm.

“Stranger things have happened,” says Lumphy.

“You’re way too big to get sucked into the vacuum,” snaps StingRay. “Get over it. Haven’t you seen the people vacuum, like, a million times?”

Lumphy does not answer. His eyes are squeezed shut.

“Well, haven’t you?” presses StingRay.

“Mrwwfflfe mide,” Lumphy mumbles into his paws.

“What? You can speak up. They won’t hear you with all that noise.”

“I always hide.”

“I thought you were tough and brave.” StingRay is in no mood for this. “Don’t fall apart on me now.”

The dad is making Honey do a very thorough vacuuming job. She cleans under the bed. He pulls the shoes out of the closet and has her get the corners. He moves the toy box and she vacuums the dust underneath.

And.

A mouse.

She vacuums a mouse.

A toy mouse that was underneath.

Bonkers has been sucked up into the vacuum cleaner with no more sound than a slight bumple wumple.

Lumphy and StingRay see it all from their place on the easy chair. But they cannot move. They cannot call out. Bonkers is somewhere deep inside that loud machine.

“She didn’t even notice,” whispers StingRay, shocked.

Rroooooooooooooma rooma.

Finally, Honey switches off the vacuum. Her dad puts it back in the hall closet. Honey grabs the box of silent Barbies and—still holding DaisySparkle—trots downstairs.

Like nothing bad has even happened.

. . . . .

In the middle of the night, when the people have finally all gone to bed, StingRay, Lumphy, Plastic, and the remaining toy mice launch a rescue operation, down the hall to the vacuum cleaner closet.

“Hold up!” yells DaisySparkle, launching herself after them.

“Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself,” says StingRay. She is still mad about the princess costumes and the attention from Honey.

“Excuse me, but members of the Chewing Society of North America look out for their own,” answers DaisySparkle.

“We’ll manage without your help.” StingRay is polite, but barely. “We got along before you came here, after all.”

DaisySparkle ignores her and thumps along after them. Lumphy and StingRay pry open the closet door and drag the vacuum out. There is a small plastic door in its side. Lumphy unlatches it, and—thank goodness—inside is a puffy gray vacuum bag.

Only, it doesn’t have a hole at the top. It has, in fact, no discernible opening at all.

“Take that bag thing out,” urges Plastic.

Lumphy leans over, grabbing the bag in his paws. He joggles it side to side, and finally pulls it out of the vacuum cleaner and into the hall. The bag is larger than he is, and the hole where it connects to the hose is a tiny round aperture, not much bigger than Bonkers. Lumphy calls down. “Can you hear me?”

There is a very quiet squeaking.

“Alive!” cries Rocky.

“We’re here to help you!” calls Lumphy. “Can you see the hole at the back? Climb up to it.”

The squeaking becomes muffled. As if Bonkers has his mouth full of dust.

“Can you move yourself at all?”

There is a slight wiggle in a bottom corner of the bag.

“He should never have been under the toy box during vacuuming,” says Brownie to her fellow mice. “He should have hid in the bookcase with the rest of us.”

“Is he climbing out?” wonders Millie. “Can he do it?”

“He’s got dirt on top of him,” says Lumphy. “I don’t think he can get to the opening.”

“Let me shake it.” StingRay holds out a flipper. “Maybe he’ll fall out.”

Lumphy isn’t sure. “Won’t we get dust all over the hall? How will we clean it up?”

StingRay gives him a serious look. “If we don’t get Bonkers out, you know where he’s gonna end up, don’t you?”

No.

“In the dump, that’s where!” cries StingRay. “He’ll be tossed in a pile of old sour-milk cartons

and no one will love him anymore

and it will smell like throw-up.”

Lumphy hands StingRay the vacuum cleaner bag. She turns it so the hole is pointing at the floor and shakes as hard as she can.

Nothing comes out.

StingRay rears onto her tail and jumps up and down.

More nothing comes out.

“You’re doing some good bouncing,” says Plastic, kindly.

“But he’s still in there,” says Lumphy.

“I know.” StingRay drops the bag, dispirited.

There is a silence. Then DaisySparkle announces, “I’m gonna try.”

“You?” StingRay shakes her head.

“Yeah, me,” says DaisySparkle. She hurls herself onto the vacuum cleaner bag. Grunk! Gru-GRUNK!

She chews the part of the bag where they can see Bonkers wiggling.

Grunk! Gru-GRUNK!

She spits out dust and baby powder.

Grunk! Gru-GRUNK!

She chews some more.

Spits.

And now there is a nice-sized hole for Bonkers. “Show yourself, mousie!” calls the shark.