Emily Jenkins: Toy Dance Party

“It’s my lair … because I’m in it,” growls Lumphy. “I’ve captured your unicorn, too. How ’bout that?”

“I wasn’t ready!” cries StingRay. “We didn’t even start and now you’re kidnapping everybody!”

Plastic bounces forward. “I can escape, right, DaisySparkle? Can’t Plumcake escape? Can’t she fly?”

“Wiggy,” corrects StingRay. “ Wiggy is your name, and you’re a boy.”

Plastic stops bouncing. “I don’t want to be a boy,” she protests. “I’m a girl.”

“It’s pretend, Plastic,” says StingRay. “In pretend, girls can be boys, and boys can be girls. Anyone can be whatever they want. Look: Lumphy is being a witch, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m a boy witch,” says Lumphy.

“You are not!”

“I am, too. I’m going to magic your unicorn and turn it into a dragon for me to ride on!” cries Lumphy, grabbing a pickup stick and using it for a wand. “And I’ll magic the ugly fairies, too. Mice, you all have been turned into gremlins, and you must do my evil bidding!”

“Oooh, make me a gremlin!” pleads Plastic. “Make me a girl gremlin! Magic me!”

“Stop!” cries StingRay. “You guys are playing it all wrong.”

“It’s pretend,” Lumphy reminds her. “Anyone can be whatever they want.”

“Gremlin! Gremlin!” yells Plastic.

“But it’s not the movie!” StingRay bangs her tail on the floor. “And you took my unicorn. That’s not what’s supposed to happen!”

Lumphy brandishes his wand. Why can’t he play the way he wants? “Cackle is turning you into a … a … a spoon, DaisySparkle!” he cries. “Because you are a no-fun bossyboots.”

Why is Lumphy ruining everything? StingRay will not have it. “I’m not a spoon, you’re a spoon!” she cries, grabbing one end of the wand.

“No, you’re a spoon!” yells Lumphy.

“You!”

“Spoon!”

“Then you’re a fork!” cries StingRay.

“Spoon is worse!”

“No, fork is worse!”

“Don’t call me fork!” cries Lumphy, dropping the wand and launching himself at StingRay. He bats her face with a buffalo paw and sinks his teeth into her left flipper.

“Oww!” If StingRay could bleed, she would be bleeding a lot right now.

Lumphy chomps harder, and StingRay swings her long tail around and hits him in the head. Wonk!

And again. Wonk!

And finally—Wonk! Lumphy lets go. Oof!

Lumphy has a chunk of StingRay’s plush in his teeth. Pthheeh. But while he is spitting out plush, StingRay bangs him upside the head with a flipper. Bap!

Sheep is now awake and bleating in distress, while Plastic bounds around the room squealing, “Stop! Stop!”

The mice—Bonkers, Millie, Brownie, and Rocky—view the proceedings as entertainment. StingRay bangs Lumphy with the other flipper, this time on his woolly buffalo neck. “Ooh,” squeaks Millie. “She landed a good one on him, there!”

“They need to control their tempers,” says Rocky. “They should use their words.”

StingRay hits Lumphy in the tummy with her tail—Bap!—knocking him over.

Now Lumphy, back on his feet, lowers his head and shakes his buffalo horns. He is so angry! StingRay is such a bossyboots all the time!

Charge!

Rumpa lumpa,

Rumpa lumpa,

Lumphy goes for StingRay like a bull in a bullfight. He rams his horns into her, tearing a hole in her side, then tosses her up, through the air, and across the room, where—Fwap!—she lands in the big toy box.

Lumphy doesn’t care if StingRay is hurt. He doesn’t care if she never talks to him again.

Horrible, bossyboots StingRay.

Still wearing his cape, Lumphy runs,

Rumpa lumpa,

Rumpa lumpa,

out of Honey’s bedroom, past the bathroom—and into the grown-up bedroom.

. . . . .

Honey’s room is silent except for the

thump ump

ump ump

uhhhh of Plastic, letting herself cease bouncing,

and rolling to a stop. “Are you okay, StingRay?” she calls into the quiet.

A flipper peeks over the edge of the big toy box, and waves weakly.

“She’s okay!” cry the mice.

“She’s the winner!” whispers Bonkers to Millie. “I knew she could win. She’s got a great tail, hasn’t she? And Lumphy hasn’t got any tail at all, just a stumpy bit.”

StingRay’s flipper grabs hold of the box’s edge, and she hauls herself over onto the carpet. Plastic inspects her wound. “You have a hole,” she tells StingRay. “You’re going to need to get it sewn up if you don’t want your stuffing coming out.”

StingRay nods. Then her face crumples and her mouth turns down and her eyes squinch—and she would be crying tears if she could, and anyway, she is crying, just without the tears.

Frrrrrr, frrrrrr.

There is no Lumphy here to tell her not to panic.

. . . . .

Lumphy has hardly ever been in the grown-up bedroom before. The bed is lower than Honey’s but so wide it takes up almost the whole room. The closet is enormous, and through another door is a bathroom inhabited by purple towels whom Lumphy doesn’t know very well. Two tall dressers loom at the far end, and in between them is a low wooden chair with a basket on it. There are no toys, and nothing underneath the bed except a mom-sock and a cookbook.

Lumphy stomps in furious circles under the bed for several minutes. Then he emerges and begins kicking the wooden chair with his left hind leg.

That StingRay! Lumphy kicks again.

She always has to be the important one.

She always wants to make the rules.

“Hitting me with her tail,” he mutters to himself. “As if a tail is so useful. As if a tail is such a great thing to have.”

Another kick.

“I don’t know why Honey took her to the movies, anyway,” Lumphy grunts. “ I would have liked to see a movie. I would have liked it as much as StingRay. I would have liked it more, actually.”

Another kick. Harder, this time, and ooohhh, the chair wobbles and—the basket on it tips. The stuff in the basket tumbles out: yarn and thread and needles and fabric. It is a craft basket, and several balls of rainbow yarn land on top of Lumphy. He jerks his head around, but that only serves to stick his horns tight into an acrylic-blend ball. He rolls on his back,

on his side,

on his back,

oofa

oofa

oofa

and around some more, trying to get out from under. Soon, poor Lumphy is tangled in rainbow yarn, and he can’t seem to un tangle, no matter how he rolls, and without thinking, he cries out, “StingRay, help!”

But no StingRay helps, this time.

And he knows: no StingRay is coming.

StingRay is wounded. Her flipper has a hole in it, made by buffalo teeth and horns.

Lumphy lies on his side, tangled in yarn.

For a long while.

Finally, when he hears the sound of the family car pulling into the driveway, Lumphy struggles to his feet. He takes something from the craft basket in his mouth and shuffles underneath the grown-up bed, his feet jumbled in yarn and his head bowed with the weight of a ball of rainbow acrylic on his horns.

. . . . .

“As soon as Honey sees me, she’ll have me mended,” StingRay tells Plastic. “She’ll be so mad that Lumphy made a hole in me, she’ll take care of it right away. Then she’ll punish Lumphy really bad.”

This idea makes Plastic nervous. “Punish him how?”

“Oh, she’ll spank him with dry spaghetti

or maybe make him drink nasty fruit-punch-tasting

medicine.

Or she’ll give him sixty-eight time-outs

where he has to sit in a bucket by himself in the hallway,” says StingRay, as if she knows.

But when Honey comes in, smelling of toothpaste and strawberry soap, she takes StingRay to bed as usual— without noticing the hole.