Emily Jenkins - Toy Dance Party

Lumphy watches Plastic and Spark from atop the closed toilet seat, and StingRay is looking at the pretty colors of nail polish lined up at the back of the sink. Purple, red, pale green, and glitter gold. Robin’s egg blue, even. Each one has a tiny brush inside for painting fingernails.

That robin’s egg blue polish is almost the same color as StingRay herself.

Plop! Plastic boings into the water again.

“You’re splashing too much,” StingRay warns, waving a flipper. “See those water spots on my plush? And look at that puddle on the floor. How are we going to clean it all up?”

“Don’t use me, ” warns TukTuk, from her place on the rack. “I only just dried out from last night, and for once I’m folded neatly.”

“Calm down, people. We’ll use the bath mat,” says Spark, lifting her head out of the water.

The bath mat doesn’t talk.

“A bath mat doesn’t have the same absorbency as a towel,” says TukTuk. “You’re not going to soak up that whole puddle with just a bath mat.”

“I can get a purple towel from the grown-up bathroom,” proposes Lumphy.

“Or Plastic could stop splashing,” says StingRay. “If she weren’t splashing, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Sorry.” Plastic is embarrassed.

“Stop worrying,” says Spark, lifting her head out again. “It’s not like Honey’s observant or anything. She won’t notice a little water, and neither will her parents.”

“Honey is, too, observant,” says Plastic.

“Suit yourself.” Spark heaves herself onto the ledge of the tub, dripping water onto the tiles. “But what kind of a kid leaves a shark in a box and then a mouse in a vacuum cleaner? Unobservant, that’s what kind.”

“She didn’t know Bonkers got sucked into the vacuum!” cries StingRay.

“Because she failed to observe it, ” says Spark.

StingRay is loyal. “Honey’s very busy. She’s got soccer and chores and homework to think about.”

“She’s getting older,” puts in Lumphy. “That’s what the problem is.”

“I’m just saying,” Spark explains. “Honey forgot to get Lumphy out of the basement the night we had the dance party. She didn’t play with you guys at the sleepover. Plus she’s forcing me to play dress-up and do stupid Barbie stuff, when any kid paying attention should be able to tell I don’t like it. Hello? Honey is okay, but she doesn’t seem that into us, if you want to know what I think.”

“She used to be wonderful,” says Plastic. “Just wonderfully wonderful.”

Plastic hates that Spark doesn’t love Honey, because Plastic loves her no matter what and for always—but it is true that things are not quite the same as they were when Honey was younger.

“She didn’t notice I had that hole in my flipper,” StingRay admits.

“She doesn’t play in the bath anymore,” adds TukTuk.

“She didn’t take us on vacation,” says Lumphy. “Not one single one of us.”

“And there’s not as much specialness.” This last is hard for StingRay to say. She looks at the floor while she speaks. “It used to seem like the specialness would go on forever and ever, but now it’s hardly ever special.”

Spark drops into the bathtub again, pulls the plug with her teeth, and hurls her rubbery body over the ledge onto the bath mat. She shakes herself dry like a dog and announces: “Let’s do our nails.”

“What?” asks Lumphy.

“Our nails. I see you checking out that polish, StingRay.”

StingRay nods absently. She is still thinking about the specialness problem.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” says Spark.

“I don’t have any nails,” says Plastic, nervous. “It’s normal for a ball!”

“Neither do I,” says Spark. “Who cares? ‘Do our nails’ is an expression. We’ll paint something else with the nail polish. That’ll cheer you guys up, won’t it?”

Plastic bounces over to look at the colors. “Oooh!” she cries. “There’s gold here! Real live glitter gold!”

“What would we paint instead of nails?” StingRay wonders. “The Barbie box or something?” The idea comes out of her mouth without any planning.

“Aha!” cries Spark.

“Aha what?”

“Aha, yes ! The Barbie box!” Spark throws herself out the bathroom door and down the hall. “Fantastic idea, fishie!” she calls over her top fin.

Lumphy and StingRay look at one another for a minute, StingRay feeling surprised at the idea she has voiced. Painting the Barbie box.

She didn’t mean to suggest it.

Or maybe she did.

In fact, she did mean it.

That stupid box and those silent Barbies, getting all the attention and specialness.

StingRay grabs two bottles of polish from the edge of the sink and leaps with them down to the floor. “What are you waiting for?” she asks Lumphy.

“Nothing,” Lumphy answers. “I’m waiting for nothing.” He scrambles up, sticks two bottles under his front legs, one more in his mouth—and jumps. The two of them hurry down the hall.

“Wait!” calls Plastic, unsure.

No answer.

“They’re not waiting,” says TukTuk.

Plastic calls again. “Are you doing a nice thing?” she asks. “Or a naughty thing?”

Silence.

“They’re not listening, either,” says TukTuk.

. . . . .

Lumphy and Spark drag the Barbie box to the center of Honey’s bedroom. It is closed tight, with the Barbies and all their clothes inside. StingRay loosens the caps on the nail polish.

“You have to be very neat,” Lumphy warns his friends. “Because Frank can’t help you with nail polish.”

“What about dry cleaning?” StingRay is anxious.

“That won’t get polish out, either. TukTuk told me Honey’s mother takes her nail color off with a special remover,” Lumphy explains. “Plus, she keeps it in the medicine cabinet, which is hard to get to. So don’t spill any polish on yourself or you’ll never get clean.”

StingRay begins with the robin’s egg blue, which will match her plush even if she does spill. She is painting herself—a large and beautiful stingray—right over the picture of a Barbie doll on one end of the box.

StingRay makes the darling curve of her own tail, the strong arch of her flippers, the adorable shape of her own nose, loving the feel of the polish brush as it slides across the vinyl. Loving the blue. Loving, even, the smell of the polish.

Spark has been scribbling, holding the brush in her teeth and making violent slashes of light green. “I’m cheering up already,” she says, out one corner of her mouth. “You cheering up, bison?”

Lumphy has made a thick red line all along the crack where the lid meets the rest of the box. It is a dark and angry scrawl, but he does like the look of the deep red against the soft pink of the box. He tells Spark, “Yes,” and tries something: a flower. And another. And another. Then he changes colors and paints purple flowers.

Sheep rolls over to see what’s happening. “Is that clover you’re painting?” she asks the shark. “Or is it grass?”

“It’s the ocean,” says Spark.

“Oh.” Sheep thinks for a minute or two and then asks, “Don’t you think it would be good if you painted some clover? Then it would be interesting.”

“Interesting to you, maybe.”

“Everyone is interested in clover,” says Sheep. “What’s not to like?”

Spark doesn’t answer. She’s concentrating. Sheep watches a little longer, then tips over on her side and falls asleep.

. . . . .

Plastic has been rolling herself dry on the bath mat, thinking. “I don’t want to be naughty,” she tells TukTuk. “I want to be nice.”

“So be nice if you want to be nice,” TukTuk says.