Emily Jenkins: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic

Where are the plastics? she wonders, and calls the toy mice over to help her pull out the book on the meanings of words. The mice skitter off as soon as they are done, leaving Plastic alone with the book. It is called a Dictionary.

She finds the P’s, and reads: “Plastic. A material produced by polymeri-something-or-other” (a very long word).

But where do we live? wonders Plastic. What do we like to eat?

She reads on. “Plastic. Capable of being shaped or formed. Also, artificial.”

Plastic doesn’t know what Artificial means, so she looks that up, too. “Fake,” says the dictionary. “Not natural.”

Artificial doesn’t sound nice at all.

Plastic scoots under the high bed and doesn’t come out for several hours.

… …

When he gets back from visiting TukTuk the towel, Lumphy finds Plastic and crawls under the bed next to her. “Did you know the Little Girl puts a piece of waxy string in between her teeth every night before bed?” he asks. “It’s called dental floss.”

No, Plastic didn’t know.

“I wouldn’t want string between my teeth,” says Lumphy.

Plastic is not sure she even has teeth.

“Especially not with wax.”

“Maybe it feels nice,” suggests Plastic. “You never know until you try.”

“I know without trying.”

“Could it be a cleaning thing? Since she does it in the bathroom.”

“Nah,” said Lumphy. “What could you clean with a piece of string?”

Plastic doesn’t know.

“All this cleaning, I don’t see what it’s about, anyway,” Lumphy adds.

Plastic tells Lumphy about the dictionary and how it says that plastics are Artificial.

“Hmmm.” Lumphy scratches his ear and turns around three times in the spot where he plans to sleep. “You don’t say what you really think,” he says, finally. “You pretend everything’s all right when it isn’t.”

“So?”

“So, that’s artificial.”

“What about polymeri-something-or-other?”

Lumphy curls himself into a ball. “It’s too late to discuss big words.” He closes his eyes.

Plastic is the tiniest bit angry. “Real buffaloes are interested in other people’s problems,” she says. “Real buffaloes don’t sleep when someone is talking to them. I read it in a book.”

Lumphy lifts his head. His face looks nervous. “What do you mean, real buffaloes?”

Suddenly, Plastic feels like she isn’t being very nice. And whatever plastics are, she wants to be a good one. “Nothing,” she answers. “Never mind.”

… …

“I need to know the truth about plastics,” Plastic confesses to StingRay the next morning, as they are sunning themselves in a square of light on the shaggy rug. “I can’t find it in a book.”

“What do you need to know?” asks StingRay kindly. “I’m sure I can answer.”

“Their natural habitat,” says Plastic. “And what they eat; and whether they are birds, or fish, or mammals.”

“Mammals, definitely,” answers StingRay, who doesn’t actually know. “They’re very furry, plastics. And their natural habitat is the frozen tundra,

where icicles grow up from the ground,

and the wind whistles,

and it’s dark thirty hours a day in winter.

The plastics live in igloos that they build with

their teeth,

and they eat whale meat and also seals and

walruses that they catch,

and swallow whole.

Does that help?

I think it’s a pretty thorough answer.” “Yes, thank you,” says Plastic, with a bit of a sniffle. “I just wonder,” she mentions. “I’m not very furry.”

“You probably lost your fur in an accident,” says StingRay. “It doesn’t look bad at all, though. Really.”

Plastic tries to remember a fur-losing accident, but it must have slipped her mind.

… …

After seven hours in front of the television, Plastic is as confused as ever. She has watched four cooking shows, two soap operas, endless commercials, and one after-school special. She knows that there are plastic cups, forks, and containers; that these things are useful for taking on picnics and freezing leftover stew; and that a delightful tofu marinade can be made with only six ingredients. She also knows there are plastic toys (“May contain small plastic parts,” the commercials say, “not suitable for children under three”) and plastic garbage bags.

But she hasn’t seen any of the plastics eating whale meat, or living in igloos, or growing fur—though maybe the fur is hard to see on the small television screen. In any case, all the plastics look different. Most of them aren’t even red. There isn’t any herd, like there are herds of buffaloes. The Plastics don’t build dams, or collect pollen, or live in tunnels. They do appear to be famous—and yet there are no plastics to whom Plastic feels connected. None of them seem to have anything in common besides their plastic-ness.

Which isn’t much.

… …

For four days and four nights, Plastic feels un-bouncy. She doesn’t play marbles with the one-eared sheep; she doesn’t make jokes with the rocking horse in the corner; and she doesn’t play I Doubt It with Lumphy or checkers with StingRay. She looks out the window by herself and thinks about plastic-ness.

On the fifth night, Plastic remembers TukTuk. The towel knows about dental floss and fingernail clippers. Maybe she knows about plastics, too.

Plastic has only met TukTuk once before, and she feels embarrassed as she creeps down the hall and stops outside the bathroom door. Maybe TukTuk will not want a visit from a small, confused plastic. After all, she is used to large and furry friends like Lumphy.

But Plastic can’t go on anymore, staring out the window, doing nothing all night.

Slowly, she enters the bathroom.

TukTuk is lying in a pile. The night-light in the bathroom glows a comforting pink, and the air is still warm from the Little Girl’s bath.

“Excuse my appearance,” says TukTuk, who can’t get around on her own. “Plastic, isn’t it? I’m always like this after the bath. Damp. On the floor. I’d like an iron and a fold, but this disarray is all that can be managed. Glad to see you nonetheless.”

Plastic begins to cry. TukTuk seems like everything a towel should be. So nice, so floppy, and just so … so very towelly.

“Oh, Plastic!” soothes TukTuk. “There, there. Come, wipe yourself on my corner. I don’t mind.”

Plastic has a good long cry, and feels a little better. “I’m a rotten plastic,” she sniffs to TukTuk. “I’ve lost my fur. I don’t know my habitat, or my eating habits, or whether I build a nest or run in a herd. I’m not even sure I like what plastics are, anyway.”

A big tear rolls onto the bathroom tile, and she begins mumbling about Fake, Artificial, and polymeri-something-or-other.

“Oh, my dear,” comforts TukTuk. “You’re upset about nothing.”

“It’s not nothing! It’s plastic-ness!”

“Listen. I have something to tell you.”

“You do?”

“It’s important. Are you ready?”

Plastic thinks she is.

“You are not a plastic.”

“I’m not?” Plastic isn’t sure if she is happy or un-.

“Plastic is just your name,” says TukTuk. “It’s obvious, to anyone who knows anything, precisely what you are.”

“It is?”

“Of course. You are a rubber ball.”

“I am?”

“I’ve seen balls before you, I’ll see balls after you. A ball is what you are,” says TukTuk. “Tell me, do you bounce?”