Emily Jenkins: Toy Dance Party

Plastic takes a high bounce to look on the bedside table. “It’s not here.”

“Now we’ll never find out what happens!” moans StingRay. “What else did she pack?”

Their survey reveals that the Girl has packed not only the book about the mouse in the dungeon and the deck of cards but

a box of dominoes,

a carton of LEGOs,

a paint box and a pad of art paper,

a jigsaw puzzle of a triceratops,

two Barbie dolls that don’t talk and

never have,

and a vinyl box of Barbie outfits.

“Oh no!” StingRay cries when Plastic and Lumphy present her with the total. “Why did she take all the second-rate toys and leave us?”

“There, there,” says Plastic. “She just …”

“She just what? She just forgot us, that’s what! Forgot us and took those Barbie dolls who don’t even say anything at all!”

“Maybe she went to a place that was good for Barbies,” says Plastic. “Some kind of special Barbie place, where stingrays would get bored.”

“Oh yeah?” StingRay throws herself on the carpet in distress. “And she needs her paint box there?

And her dominoes ?

She hardly even likes the dominoes.

She never does puzzles!

She doesn’t love me!

She’s left me!”

“She’s coming back,” says Plastic. “She’s coming back on Saturday.” She doesn’t tell StingRay what Lumphy told her—that maybe Saturday is already over.

“By Saturday she’ll have forgotten all about us!” cries StingRay. Now she is twisting over and back on the carpet, gasping and sobbing.

And sobbing some more.

And even more sobbing.

This can’t go on, thinks Lumphy. He has to do something.

He galumphs down the hall to the bathroom and grabs TukTuk, the faded yellow towel that hangs over the rack. Holding her corner in his mouth, he drags her as fast as he can into the Girl’s bedroom, where StingRay is tossing and flopping. With one big motion, Lumphy throws TukTuk on top of StingRay, covering her eyes, her flippers, her whole body.

“Where are the lights?” StingRay yells.

It’s all yellow in here!

I’m going blind.

I’ll never see another sunrise.

Lumphy will have to lead me around

so I don’t bump into furniture!”

StingRay is still twisting and crying, but the weight of TukTuk is such that she can no longer flip over. Lumphy backs up a couple of feet, and—rumpa lumpa, rumpa lumpa—jumps heavily onto TukTuk.

“Oh, umph!” cries StingRay. “You’re on me, someone.

Someone’s on me!

Someone heavy!

Oh heavens!

I knew it would come to this, some horrible day.

No one loves me!

I’m being squished!

I’m blind and my friends are squishing me!”

Lumphy sits. He sits on TukTuk, who lies on StingRay, and together they calm her down, resting on her so she feels their weight.

The sobbing stops.

She is barely moving now. One flipper is just thumping up and down.

Finally, StingRay is peaceful.

Lumphy climbs down from her broad plush back and pulls TukTuk behind him. “The Girl still loves us,” he says.

“Okay,” says StingRay meekly. “I just got concerned for a minute.”

. . . . .

Half an hour later, all three toys are sitting on the windowsill in the living room. The snow is still coming down. Plastic is reading about cheese some more. StingRay is drawing shapes in the frost on the windowpane. And Lumphy is worrying.

“The Girl hasn’t been here for a really, really long time,” he says, breaking the silence.

“Where is she, again?” asks Plastic.

“Bolling. They said they were going to Bolling to see the grandpa.”

“But where is Bolling?”

Lumphy does not answer.

“And what is Bolling?” wonders Plastic. “Is it a town, a hotel, a magical land, or what?”

Lumphy doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know. “It has been more than five days,” he says. “In fact, it has been way more than five days, and when it is more days than it is supposed to be, that means maybe the people are lost.”

“Oh oh oh!” cries StingRay, suddenly afraid. “She loves us but she’s lost!”

“Maybe everything is fine,” Plastic says. “The Girl is just having fun in Bolling.”

“We can not panic.” Lumphy looks pointedly at StingRay. “And we cannot pretend anymore.” Looking now at Plastic: “I think something has gone wrong. I think the Girl is lost.”

StingRay tries not to panic and makes a small noise like this: Frrrrrr, frrrrrr.

“I have to go outside and look for her,” announces Lumphy. “The Girl needs me.”

“Is that a good idea?” asks StingRay. Frrrrrr, frrrrrr.

“Yes,” says Lumphy. “I have to be tough and brave. We all have to be tough and brave.”

Plastic bounces softly and whispers, “Brave, brave, brave!” to herself. Lumphy jumps off the windowsill and scurries to the kitchen. Plastic and StingRay follow more slowly.

“If I were lost, I know she would look for me,” Lumphy tells them.

“Hello,” says StingRay, following Lumphy to a cupboard, which he begins to pry open. “They went in the car. Bolling might be really far away.”

“But they could be nearby,” answers Lumphy.

“Won’t we get wet?” StingRay is dry clean only. “Snow looks very wet.” Frrrrrr, frrrrrr.

“We can’t just stay home and not try to save her.” Lumphy is determined. He gets a laminated place mat from the low cupboard. It has a baby stegosaurus on it. “I am a buffalo! I have thick woolly fur!” He stands on his hind legs and waves the place mat heroically over his head. “ You don’t have to get wet. I can save the Girl.”

“How will you save her with woolly fur and a baby stegosaurus place mat?” asks StingRay.

Lumphy returns to the sill and opens the window with his forepaws. Icy air gusts into the room. Lumphy drops the place mat out the window onto a drift of snow and leaps after it. “It’s a sled!” he calls as he lands squarely on the place mat and zips down the drift into the yard. “Wheee!”

Plastic and StingRay are watching him from the sill. A few feet from the house, the place mat comes to a stop.

“Now what?” calls Plastic.

“I’m going to try to find her!” says Lumphy, his voice sounding small in the blizzard.

“Go, go, go!” yells Plastic.

Lumphy wags his tail stump bravely. (He had a tail once, a good-looking chocolate-colored one; but now there is only a stump.) He squints his eyes against the storm and jumps off the place mat.

Slurrsh! He sinks into more than a foot of snow.

It is so, so cold. Lumphy did not realize it would be this cold.

It is colder, even, than the time that toddler came over and put Lumphy in the fridge for two hours.

Lumphy scrambles around with his forelegs and kicks with his back legs, reaching for the baby stegosaurus place mat and desperately trying to pull himself out of the hole. But the snow is soft and he digs himself down deeper, until his tail stump feels the hard dirt of the frozen lawn beneath it.

“I knew you shouldn’t go outside like that!” calls StingRay from the window. “I told you it was a bad idea.”

Lumphy struggles some more, but his paws can’t grasp the now slippery baby stegosaurus place mat. “I’m stuck!” he cries.

“Don’t panic!” yells Plastic, remembering what Lumphy himself told StingRay.

“I need to rescue the Girl!” cries Lumphy, frantic at the thought of his own failure. The snow is drifting down and flakes are melting on his woolly buffalo fur.

“We’re getting a spatula!” yells Plastic. Then, to StingRay: “Get a spatula.”