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

As soon as the Girl’s mommy puts her on the bedroom rug and heads back downstairs, Plastic starts singing a song she made up in the car on the way home:

“I’m a small ball, small ball, small ball!

Not a snowball, snowball, snowball!

Not a meatball, meatball, meatball!

Not an eyeball, eyeball, eyeball!”

But she stops after a while, because nobody is listening. Lumphy, Sheep, and the toy mice are all clustered around the rocking horse in the corner, discussing whether or not it would be safe to try to use a hair dryer on StingRay.

“Lumphy!” cries Plastic. “Beach, beach, beach!”

“How was it?” Lumphy turns around.

“Yippee!” cries Plastic. “I floated and floated.”

“Did you see fish?”

“Sharks!” says Plastic. “With big long legs and waggly tails. They were running all over.”

“Wow.” Lumphy is impressed. “Did the ocean go on forever?”

“Forever and ever.”

“Was it much bigger than the pond?”

“A zillion times bigger.”

Then Plastic spots StingRay, all damp on the window-sill. “What happened?” she whispers. “She’s so soggy!”

Lumphy explains about the tub.

“Poor StingRay!” Plastic remembers how it felt without her bounce—how she could hardly roll, and how she doesn’t want anyone to know. She thinks about how Lumphy is not quite a real buffalo, and StingRay is not quite a real stingray—but how she is a real ball, and can do all the stuff that balls can do.

She feels lucky.

“Did you know there is more than one kind of stingray?” wonders Plastic in a loud voice, loud enough for StingRay to hear all the way over by the window. “I read it in the animal book,” she lies. “There are water stingrays and dry-clean-only stingrays. Dry-clean-only ones are bigger and stronger and much better-looking. And they live on land, and other animals look up to them because they know a lot of stuff. Which kind is our StingRay, I wonder?”

“Dry clean only,” says StingRay in a small voice from the windowsill, feeling a tiny bit proud for the first time in a good while. “It says so on my tag.”

“I thought so,” says Plastic. “Because you’re awfully big and you know so much.”

There is a pause. “It’s nice to have you home,” says StingRay.

“Really?” asks Plastic.

“Yes,” says StingRay. “It was very un-bouncy around here without you.”

CHAPTER FIVE

How Lumphy Got on the Big High Bed and Lost Something Rather Good-Looking

Every night, StingRay goes up on the big high bed to sleep. Lumphy, Plastic, the one-eared sheep, and the toy mice all stay on the floor.

The bed is a nice place to be. It has a warm patchwork quilt and four fluffy pillows. On the table next to it stand a glass of water and a stack of books.

Every night, StingRay gets to cuddle with the Little Girl. StingRay even goes under the covers.

Lumphy has only been on the bed for short visits, and Plastic has never been up there at all.

“Why you, every single night?” asks Lumphy, when StingRay comes down one morning to play on the shaggy rug where he, Sheep, and Plastic are sitting around doing nothing. “Why not me?”

“You have to be clean to go in the bed,” says StingRay. “There can’t be crumbs and peanut butter up there.”

“Why not Plastic, then?”

“You have to be furry,” says StingRay. “Balls don’t ever go.”

“It used to be me, before she came,” mutters Sheep.

“I don’t care,” chirps Plastic, who has been spending much of her nights rolling down the stairs and then bouncing back up again three at a time. “Do you want to come watch me on the steps, Lumphy? I roll down like a race car!”

“Not really,” says Lumphy. “I’ve seen you roll before.”

“It’s totally different on the stairs” pleads Plastic.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” says Lumphy to StingRay, “that you go up on the high bed every single night. What do you do up there?”

“Private stuff,” says StingRay. “Between me and the Little Girl.”

“But why don’t I get to do private stuff?”

“Sorry. It’s not like I have a choice. The Little Girl takes me. She wants me, I guess, because of how much she loves me.”

“She loves me, too,” says Lumphy.

“Of course she does. Just not enough to go up on the high bed. Don’t feel bad.”

“Hrrummmph.” Lumphy turns his tail to StingRay and pretends to be interested in a bit of orange fluff he sees on the rug.

“Lumphy?”

Lumphy nuzzles the bit of fluff and doesn’t answer.

“Want to go look out the window?”

Lumphy mumbles quietly to the bit of fluff as if he doesn’t hear.

“Or watch television?”

He doesn’t answer.

“We could play marbles.”

The fluff is taking all Lumphy’s attention. It takes up all his attention for the entire day. He won’t talk to StingRay at all.

… …

The next morning Lumphy starts looking at the fluff again as soon as StingRay comes down from the bed. He looks at it all morning, all afternoon, and all evening.

He does this for six days.

On the seventh day, StingRay comes down and pokes him in the shoulder. “Know what?” she says. “I have an idea for getting the Girl to bring you up on the bed. Do you want to hear it?”

Lumphy stops looking at the fluff and looks at StingRay instead.

“We can decorate you,” she says. “To make you more of a bedtime buffalo. We could drape you in rabbit fur and flannel,

and put a big pair of fuzzy slippers

on your feet,

and maybe some bows and ribbons

on your tail,

and some pink and yellow feathers.

You will look so cuddly, she will have to take

you to bed.” “

Hrmmh,” says Lumphy. “What?” “Is there another option?”

“Sure. We could break your tail.

Just a small break near the end,

maybe by using a hammer on it when nobody

is looking,

and then you would be injured.

The Little Girl would wrap your bottom up

in toilet paper and masking tape,

and bring you to the bed to get well.”

“What if you pretend to be lost in the closet?” suggests Lumphy. “Then she’d take me, I bet.”

StingRay doesn’t think that would work. “I read something you could try,” pipes up Plastic, who has been listening in from a spot underneath the bed. “But it’s not very nice.”

“What?” Lumphy wants to know. “It’s a trick. They used it in old TV commercials and science experiments. Sub-lim-in-al messages.”

“Oooooh! Submarine messages!” cries StingRay. “Why didn’t I think of them before?”

“What are they?” asks Lumphy.

“Uhhh … It’s too complicated to explain,” stalls StingRay. “Isn’t it, Plastic?”

Plastic pauses. “I can explain a little bit,” she finally says.

“Oh, a little bit, sure. That we could do,” says StingRay. “You go ahead.”

“I read that in supermarkets they used to have secret messages playing very quietly under the music that people didn’t know their brains could hear,” begins Plastic. “Messages that would say, ‘Buy sugar cereal,’ or ‘You need to eat a lot of meat, buy it here.’ The messages would get the shoppers to do what they said.”

“This isn’t a supermarket,” says Lumphy.

“Duh,” says Plastic. “But we could do like this: StingRay could whisper in the Little Girl’s ear while she’s asleep. When the Girl wakes up, she’ll think whatever StingRay has told her.”