Toy Dance Party: being the further adventures of a bossy-boots stingray, a courageous buffalo, and a hopeful round someone called Plastic

CHAPTER FIVE

In Which There Is a Sleepover and Somebody Needs Repair

When Lumphy wants to visit Frank and have a dance in his washtub, he gets himself sticky with jam. Or soy sauce, or peanut butter. Then Honey puts him in the washer and hangs him up to dry. Of course, Lumphy can go down to the basement for a visit any night he wants, or any day when the people are at work and school. But he enjoys most when he and Frank are together singing their buffalo shuffle song during the wash cycle.

Lumphy doesn’t much like talking to the Dryer. In fact, he finds her disagreeable. He can never understand a word she says—it’s all rumbling and grunting. And when she’s silent, it’s even worse. The way she sits there, it always seems as if she’s thinking something bad.

Lumphy has never been inside the Dryer. Honey’s dad says it has been “on the fritz for ages” and they shouldn’t put anything big in, like sneakers or a stuffed buffalo, because then the barrel would get out of line.

So one weekend morning, when Honey takes him downstairs to breakfast, Lumphy (very cleverly, and in the mood to visit Frank) falls into the maple syrup pooled on her plate.

The dad wipes Lumphy off with a dishrag and takes him downstairs. Says hello to the workman in the basement and opens Frank’s lid.

Wait! Lumphy wants to yell. Why is there a workman down here?

The Dryer is pulled out from the wall. Tubes and wires are coming from her back. The workman is doing something to her, but before Lumphy can see more, the dad pops him into Frank’s tub and adds soap. Then he shuts the lid and starts the wash cycle.

Warm water gushes in.

“Frank!” whispers Lumphy.

There is no answer.

“Frank, can you hear me?”

Frank gives a grunt that is almost indistinguishable from a regular washing machine noise. He doesn’t want the workman to hear him talk.

“What’s wrong with the Dryer?” whispers Lumphy, his own voice masked by the sound of the water.

Frank doesn’t answer.

“Is she going to be okay?” Lumphy is being swished back and forth in Frank’s washtub, but instead of feeling dance-y he is sick to his stomach. How could he have thought mean things about the Dryer? How could he have wished she weren’t around, when now she has wires coming out of her?

Again, Frank doesn’t answer. He can’t, because the workman will hear him.

. . . . .

When the wash cycle is finished and Frank’s buzzer goes off, nobody comes to get Lumphy. He sits in Frank’s tub, listening to the clank of tools and the music from the radio.

Finally, the man calls up the stairs and Honey’s dad comes down. “I don’t know if I can fix it,” the workman tells him. “You got an old machine. I’m gonna send away for a part, should come in by Wednesday, and I’m hoping that’ll give you another couple years with this one. But I’m not gonna promise.”

“All right,” says the dad.

“If this one’s finished, and you buy your new machine from us, the installation’s free.”

“That would be great.”

The two men leave without taking Lumphy out of the washer.

When they are gone, the buffalo pokes his head out from under Frank’s lid and looks at the big brown wreck of a dryer. She sits at a sad and awkward angle, pulled out from the wall.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks again.

“She started squeaking,” explains Frank, in a voice that has none of its usual energy. “Then her tumble didn’t sound right, and yesterday she couldn’t dry a load of dad-clothes. Just couldn’t get them dry at all. They were damp, I tell you,” he sobs. “She had damp dad-clothes in her!”

“I am so sorry,” Lumphy tells him.

“Well, yeah,” says Frank. “I know.”

“I hope you feel better,” Lumphy calls to the Dryer.

“She can’t answer you,” says Frank. “She hasn’t even grunted since two days ago.”

“Oh.”

Lumphy doesn’t know what to say. He wishes he could do something to help, but there isn’t anything to do.

“Did you hear what they said?” worries Frank. “If they can’t fix her, they’ll replace her. Like she was nobody. Like she was a used-up piece of trash.”

Lumphy nods. He heard, but it is too horrible to think about.

“They’ll bring some stranger here to live with me and dry the clothes, expecting me to like it,” says Frank. “Don’t they see we have feelings?”

“I don’t think they do,” says Lumphy. “They’re nice people, but they really only care about other people, you know?”

“I know,” says Frank. “That’s how this life is.”

. . . . .

Lumphy hangs on a clothesline in the bright spring air of the backyard, where he watches Honey and her mother plant petunias. When he is dry, Honey takes him down and brings him indoors. “We’re going on a sleepover,” she tells him.

She shoves Lumphy in her backpack along with Plastic, StingRay, a box of glitter makeup, clean clothes, a toothbrush, and a pair of pajamas. Quite a tight fit indeed. Lumphy’s hind end is squashed to one side and the toothbrush is poking him in the stomach, while StingRay’s left flipper is twisted behind her back and her nose is jammed up against a button.

“Sleepover! Sleepover!” whispers Plastic, joyfully, when the zipper is shut.

“What is it, anyhow?” Lumphy wants to know.

Plastic has no idea.

“A sleepover is when you build a loft,” says StingRay. “It’s way high in the air, up in a tree,

like a loft bed in a treetop,

with a tent.

You have blankets up there,

and there are birds that fly over to you with

baskets of cupcakes in their beaks.

You eat cupcakes and look down over the

forest, to the town below.

Then you make wishes on the stars you see,

because there are so many stars when you’re

up on top of the world,

and then you go to sleep.

You are up high, over the rest of everything,

and you’re sleeping, so it’s a sleepover.”

“Hooray!” says Plastic. “I can’t wait.”

“I wish we didn’t have to go in this backpack,” complains Lumphy. “It’s too small, too dark, and it smells like permanent marker.”

Just then, Honey unzips the backpack and takes StingRay out. “I forgot, you don’t like the backpack, do you?” she says, giving StingRay a kiss where StingRay’s cheeks would be if she had cheeks. “I’ll carry you in my arms.”

Specialness! Specialness forever and ever! StingRay can’t help smiling as Honey zips the backpack closed.

Lumphy and Plastic are in the dark. “How come she remembers that StingRay doesn’t like the backpack, but she doesn’t remember that I don’t like the backpack?” mutters Lumphy.

Plastic doesn’t know. She doesn’t like the backpack, either.

. . . . .

The sleepover is not like StingRay said it would be. It is at Honey’s friend Shay’s house, in Shay’s bedroom. Shay’s bedroom is not over anything. Actually, it is on the ground floor.

Honey is sleeping overnight at Shay’s.

“Now I get it. This is the indoor overnight kind of sleepover,” says StingRay while the girls are in the kitchen eating dinner. “You know, she didn’t say it was that kind. If she’d said it was that kind, I would have explained it to you.”

“That’s okay,” says Plastic. But she is disappointed.

The toys are sitting on a blow-up mattress on Shay’s floor. When the girls finish eating, they come in and play Clue until Shay discovers it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the lead pipe. Then they put glitter makeup on each other. Shay also puts glitter makeup on her stuffed duck while Honey tries on dress-up clothes.

StingRay would really like some glitter makeup.

Plastic would really like some glitter makeup, too.

Even Lumphy would not mind some glitter makeup, so long as he could wash it off, later.

But Honey isn’t playing with them, checking on them, or even talking about them. She is pulling her Barbie box out of a plastic shopping bag. She brought that stupid box and those silent Barbies along on the sleepover!

Honey and Shay dress the Barbies,

and undress the Barbies,

and brush their hair,

and put their hair in ponytails,

and dress the Barbies,

and undress the Barbies,

and wonder why one of them has teeth marks

on its leg,

and why the other one has teeth marks on its

hand,

and then forget about that

and dress the Barbies,

and undress the Barbies,

and brush their hair,

and dress the Barbies again.

For a very long time.

Finally, they pack up and it seems as if maybe they’re going to do something with Lumphy, StingRay, and Plastic—but instead, they jump on the blow-up bed and perform a circus extravaganza for Shay’s mom, complete with capes, a clown wig, tumbling, and faux-tightrope walking.

Plastic likes the circus, because it’s very bouncy. She wishes she could perform in it—but she isn’t invited. Lumphy and StingRay can’t even see it. They have fallen off the bed, what with all the jumping, and are lying on the floor—upside down in a pile of dress-up clothes—and missing the entire extravaganza.

Frankly, the whole sleepover is pretty boring and sometimes upsetting.

The girls put on nightgowns and wash themselves in the bathroom, then come back and lie in bed with the lights out, whispering. Whispering so much, StingRay doesn’t even get much of a cuddle.

It is very late indeed before their talk dwindles. StingRay, used to going to bed with Honey every night at eight-thirty, sulks herself to sleep long before Lumphy and Plastic deem the house quiet enough to begin moving around.

“Did you see that upside-down spinny thing they did in the circus extravaganza?” asks Plastic, giving a bounce. “I wonder if I could do that.”

“I couldn’t see,” sighs Lumphy. “I was underneath a cape.”

“I saw it,” pipes up Shay’s duck with the glitter makeup. “It’s called a handstand forward roll.”

“Then I would probably need hands for it, huh?” Plastic rolls over to the duck.

“Probably.”

“How do you do?” says Plastic. “I’m a ball.”

“I can tell,” says the duck. “My name is Buttermilk.”

Introductions are made, and Buttermilk explains that all the other toys who talk are in the basement playroom, not the ground-floor bedroom. Shay sleeps with Buttermilk, so the duck almost never gets to talk to anybody unless she navigates the stairs, which is hard to do without legs or sizable flippers. But Shay is kind to her. It is not a bad life, even though Buttermilk is lonely.

“You look excellent with all that makeup on,” says Plastic. “I wish I had some. I could be a glitter ball!”

“I think they’re going to have to wash me,” says the duck, nervously.

“Don’t be scared,” says Lumphy. “I’ve been in a washing machine lots of times, and it’s not bad at all. In fact, it’s—” He breaks off, thinking of Frank and the Dryer.

“What?” asks Buttermilk.

“I have a friend,” says Lumphy. “She’s having repairs. I don’t know if she’ll get better.”

“Who’s having repairs?” asks Plastic.

“The Dryer.”

“Oh dearie,” says Plastic, and falls silent.

“She was all pulled from the wall with wires showing,” Lumphy continues. “Frank is really upset.”

“Isn’t there something you can do?” asks Buttermilk.

Lumphy shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I tried to think of a get-well present, but it’s hard to find a present for a dryer. She doesn’t play games or wear clothes or eat or read. She can’t even talk right now.”

“Oh.” Buttermilk is on Shay’s bed, and she waddles around Shay’s sleeping body to the windowsill. “Look outside,” she says.

Plastic and Lumphy join her.

“You can wish on a star,” says Buttermilk as they gaze at the sky. “That’s what I do when there’s nothing else.”

“That’s what StingRay said you could do at sleepovers!” cries Plastic. “Make wishes on stars!”

“Sometimes my wishes come true,” offers Buttermilk.

“What do you wish for?” Lumphy asks.

“One time I wished for visitors,” says the duck. “And now you’re here.”

“We’re here! We’re here!” Plastic spins herself in a circle.

“I also wished for new books, and Shay got a library card.”

“Ooh!” Plastic likes that idea.

“And I wished for Shay to stop snoring.”

“So let’s wish,” says Plastic. “We’ll pick three different stars and all wish for the Dryer to get better.”

“But she might not, anyway,” Lumphy worries.

“They don’t always come true,” concedes Buttermilk as Shay rolls over in her sleep and begins to snore.

“Yes, but then we know we tried to get her better,” says Plastic. “Then at least we did something.”

So Lumphy picks a star to the right, and Buttermilk picks a star to the left, and Plastic picks one high up near the moon. And they all wish.

. . . . .

“A sleepover is fun for kids,” announces StingRay to Spark and Sheep when Honey brings them home. “However, it is not fun for buffaloes and stingrays and balls, because all they get to do is

lie on the floor lonely and bored,

and not even get played with because people

are playing with Barbies,

and makeup,

and Barbies,

and clown wigs,

and Barbies,

and board games.

Then everybody goes to sleep on a bed that

isn’t even high—

or over anything.

And that’s all there is to it. It’s not even

special.”

“Plus you have to go in the backpack to get to it,” adds Lumphy. “And there’s a new weird smell in there.”

“I made a friend!” cries Plastic. “Her name is Buttermilk. We wished on stars!”

“Was there grass?” wonders Sheep, hopefully. “Or maybe clover?”

Plastic shakes her head. Or rather, she shakes her whole self. “There were handstand forward rolls,” she says. But neither Spark nor Sheep is particularly interested.

. . . . .

On Wednesday afternoon, Honey and Lumphy are watching television in the living room when the workman comes again for the Dryer. He goes down to the basement with a toolbox and a new part.

Lumphy is thinking so much about Frank and the Dryer, he cannot concentrate on the TV. The show is about some kids who drink pink milk, and Lumphy does not wonder why the milk is pink, or how it got pink, or why they like it pink—the way he would ordinarily. He is strategizing how he can get to the basement without waiting until everyone in the house has gone to sleep.

What can he do?

There is nothing sticky nearby that he can get on his fur.

And he cannot move in front of Honey.

Luckily, Honey decides she wants to make pink milk. She turns off the TV and brings Lumphy to the kitchen. Her mother is in the basement, watching the workman, and her father is not home from work yet. Honey opens the fridge. And the freezer. And two cupboards.

Strawberries. Vanilla ice cream. Milk.

Frozen raspberries.

Then plain yogurt.

Flour.

Ketchup.

Half a tomato.

A jar of pimientos.

Chili sauce.

And barbecue sauce.

Honey puts all these ingredients on the table and begins mixing them in a bowl. She mashes up the strawberries with her fingers and scoops in most of the ice cream from the carton. Then she adds milk and a big squirt of ketchup. Some of the ketchup gets on the table.

A chance! As Honey searches for a whisk, Lumphy tips himself into the puddle of condiment.

“Not again,” Honey scolds when she sees him. “You are the messiest buffalo.”

But—she doesn’t bring Lumphy to the basement. Instead, she wets a dishrag and wipes the ketchup from his body. “You didn’t get any in your woolly front fur,” she tells him. “So I think we can just wipe it off.”

That was not supposed to happen. Lumphy needs to get to the basement as soon as possible. An operation is going on down there!

Honey picks up the half tomato and squeezes the juice into her bowl. Then chili sauce and a few shakes of barbecue. She adds some yogurt and a handful of flour. Her experiment is only a light pink color. She whisks and whisks.

Now she adds frozen raspberries. These make the milky mixture quite a bit pinker, but now it is lumpy. She adds pimientos. Now it is very lumpy.

“I need a sieve,” Honey says to herself, and rummages for one in a low cupboard. She finds it, gets a large mug, and begins to strain the pink milk.

Lumphy sees his opportunity. The sieve is an inch away from his nose, and Honey is holding it with one hand and pouring with the other—but she is not holding the mug. He takes a risk, while she is concentrating, and—

Bonk!

Lumphy bangs his nose into the sieve and tips the mug over. The pink milk spills across the table, under Lumphy’s buffalo belly, and over the edge to the floor. Honey drops the sieve and knocks Lumphy into the puddle of milk. She runs for the dishrag and some paper towels. “Mom!”

Lumphy lies there, triumphant, letting the pink disgustingness soak into his fur.

Any minute now he’ll be in the basement.

. . . . .

When Lumphy arrives, the Dryer is still pulled out from the wall, her front door completely off. The workman has a collection of tools spread across the floor, but he is sitting on a plastic lawn chair with a tired expression on his face.

It doesn’t look good.

Honey’s mother shoves Lumphy into Frank’s washtub and grabs TukTuk and some Girl-clothes out of the full laundry basket. She loads the washer and goes back upstairs to deal with the pink milk problem.

The cycle begins. When the water rushes in, Lumphy can no longer hear what’s going on in the basement. And he can’t talk to Frank, because Frank won’t answer with the repairman in the room.

“Hi,” Lumphy whispers to TukTuk. “Do you know what’s happening with the Dryer?”

“Why would I know?” says TukTuk.

“You were in the laundry basket. Maybe you heard something.”

“I don’t hear about anything that goes on in this house,” fusses TukTuk. “Not that you would care.”

“I care,” says Lumphy, surprised. He has never known TukTuk to be anything but kind and calm.

“If you do, you don’t show it,” snaps TukTuk. “I’m never in the linen closet with the other towels, I’m never in the grown-up bathroom with the other other towels. It’s rare that I even get washed with anybody,” she complains. “And even my so-called friends don’t tell me what’s happening.”

“Are you upset I didn’t tell you that the Dryer was broken?”

“It’s not about the Dryer,” sulks TukTuk.

“What’s it about, then?” Lumphy asks. The water drains and Frank’s tub begins to spin.

“I heard you had a dance party,” TukTuk says. “Every other towel in the house was there. They’re all talking about it.”

“Oh.”

“Just because I get washed with the Girl-clothes doesn’t mean I don’t want to go to a party,” says TukTuk.

“I’m—”

“And just because I can’t dance doesn’t mean I don’t want to, either.”

Lumphy doesn’t know what to say. He wants to make TukTuk feel better, but they are inside Frank’s washtub—and he can’t say in front of Frank that he had never intended to have that dance party in the first place. So he stays silent, and TukTuk stays silent, too. They let Frank go through his cycle.

When it is done, Frank’s buzzer beeps and Honey’s mother returns to the basement. She dumps Lumphy and the towels into the hamper while she talks to the workman, who is finally, finally finished. He is putting away his tools, and the Dryer is pushed back against the wall.

“Thanks so much,” the mom tells him. “Come up and I’ll write you a check.” She sets down the laundry basket.

“Don’tcha want to put that in?” he says, gesturing at the damp wash.

“Silly me.” She holds up Lumphy. “This can go in as well?”

“Should be okay.”

Honey’s mother shoves Lumphy and all the towels into the Dryer and turns it on.

The Dryer purrs.

. . . . .

Fwuuumpa! (baggle baggle)

Fwuuumpa! (baggle baggle)

It is seriously hot in the Dryer.

Fwuuumpa! (baggle baggle)

Fwuuumpa! (baggle baggle)

That is the noise Lumphy makes when he is in it, because he rides three-quarters of the way up the turning drum, then Fwuuumpa!

drops down to the bottom, onto TukTuk and

the clothes and

(baggle baggle)

bumps around a few times before riding up

the drum again.

It is not his favorite experience, at all.

In fact, he feels sick to his stomach worse than he’s ever felt sick to his stomach before, but he keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t complain one tiny complaint, even. He is so happy that the Dryer is well again. That she won’t be dragged off to the dump and replaced by a stranger.

That Frank will not be lonely.

That all the wishing on the stars

maybe

helped.

. . . . .

When the Dryer halts, it is after dinnertime, but the spring sky is still bright, the evening sun shining through the basement windows. Honey and her parents are out of the house. Lumphy can tell by how quiet it is.

“I am so glad you’re feeling better,” he calls, after the Dryer’s drum rolls to a stop. She swings her door open, and since the house is empty, he climbs out. TukTuk remains in an exhausted heap with the Girl-clothes.

“We all wished and hoped that you’d be okay,” Lumphy tells the Dryer. “We were so worried.”

“I was so worried,” puts in Frank. “With you pulled out from the wall like that—you can’t even imagine. Sometimes I thought that workman didn’t know what he was doing. I thought you were never going to tumble dry again. I thought you were leaving me.” Frank sobs. “I was so lonely. I didn’t know what to do!”

“There, there, love,” says the Dryer. “I know. I know. But it’s all right now.”

. . . . .

Late at night, when the people are sound asleep, Lumphy creeps upstairs and gets Plastic, Sheep, StingRay, Spark, Bonkers, Millie, Brownie, and Rocky. They bring down jingle sticks, finger cymbals, a maraca, some silver confetti, and several orange and yellow balloons found in the bottom of the toy box. When they get to the basement, they sprinkle the floor with silver, then wake up Frank, the Dryer, TukTuk, and the purple towels. Spark, who is hollow, blows up the balloons.

Dance party!

Frank starts off with “Love Train” and the towels join in, providing backbeat and harmonies. Rocky and Millie bounce on the towels, and Lumphy bangs the cymbals. StingRay taps her tail and, as the beat gets her going, begins hopping up and down with her flippers and leaping into the air.

“The party is for you, not just the Dryer,” Lumphy tells TukTuk. “I won’t forget to invite you again.”

Frank overhears and interrupts “Love Train” to boom, “Shall I sing something for the little lady?”

“Yes, please,” says Lumphy. “Because she is my particular towel friend.” He rubs his buffalo nose against TukTuk’s warm folds, and Frank improvises:

“Tuk-itty TukTuk

Yellow like a yellow duck

Tuk-itty TukTuk

Boom! (hey!)

Tuk-itty TukTuk

Yellow like a chicken cluck

Tuk-itty TukTuk

Boom!”

The song is so good, they sing it six times.

“Tuk-itty TukTuk

Yellow like a corn shuck

Tuk-itty TukTuk

Boom! (hey!)

TukTuk is yellow

Like a Caterpillar dump truck

Tuk-itty TukTuk

Boom!”

TukTuk, seated on top of the Dryer and singing backup with some other towels, isn’t angry with Lumphy anymore. The music is loud. Plastic bounces and spins. Spark rears onto her tail and waggles a jingle stick ferociously, and StingRay is flapping and clapping. Lumphy is going to town with the cymbals. Bonkers and Brownie are wiggling themselves so hysterically, they keep falling over their tails, which sends them into fits of giggles, while the Dryer swings her front door open and shut and blinks all her lights on and off. She is dancing!

“Sweetheart,” says Frank when the TukTuk song is over. “This next one’s for you. Towels, back me up some more. Here we go!”

“She’s our Dryer! La da dee dah!

And she’s healthy! Deedle dee bah!

We love that Dryer!

(Shake, shake, and shake)

’Cause she’s our Dryer!

(Shake, shake, and shake)

If you’re damp, she’ll dry you out,

If you’re cold, she’ll warm you up.

She makes a lovely rumble sound.

We’re glad our Dryer’s still around!

(Everybody now!)

She’s our Dryer! La da dee dah!

And she’s healthy! Deedle dee bah!

We love that Dryer!

(Shake, shake, and shake)

’Cause she’s our Dryer!

(Shake, shake, and shake)

Oooooooooh, yeah!”