Toys Come Home: being the early experiences of an intelligent stingray, a brave buffalo, and a brand-new someone called Plastic

CHAPTER FIVE

In Which Lumphy Is Brave with a Tuna Casserole

During his first four months in the house, as winter rages and then melts, as spring greens and flowers, Lumphy watches a lot of television and lets StingRay teach him board games. He also spends time in the bathroom. The Girl sets him on the toilet seat cover while she takes a bath. It is there that the buffalo witnesses tooth brushing, hair combing, scrubbing with a long-armed scrubby brush, nail clipping, something called hair conditioner, braiding, and also squirting with a spray bottle.

It is all pretty difficult to understand. Lumphy’s buffalo body doesn’t need any conditioning or combing or clipping. He just goes natural. And all this bathroom activity seems to take an awful lot of the Girl’s time every day. Some of it is obviously cleaning, but some of it doesn’t make any sense. Like, why would you clip your nails? Wouldn’t you want to sharpen them instead?

At night, when StingRay is asleep on the high bed, Lumphy sometimes trots down the hall to talk to TukTuk about the activities of the bathroom. Right now, he is curious about nose blowing. Where does the snot come from? It comes out in a big honk, like magic.

“I want some snot!” Lumphy tells TukTuk. “I want to blow my nose and have buffalo snot.”

“I want to be ironed,” says TukTuk. “But it’s not happening.”

“That’s so unfair,” Lumphy grumps.

TukTuk sighs, but doesn’t answer.

Now Lumphy wants to know about the purple spray bottle. “What’s the point of it?” he asks.

“People like gadgets,” says TukTuk sagely.

“All it does is get the tile wet. Why does she want the tile wet?”

“She doesn’t want the tile wet. She likes to work the spray bottle.”

“Why?”

“Just to work it.”

Lumphy doesn’t think it sounds anywhere near as fun as blowing your nose.

. . . . .

The next day Lumphy, StingRay, and Sheep are helping the Girl play farm. She is doing farm chores, walking around and giving each toy a bagel chip.

The mom comes upstairs carrying a new animal against her chest.

It is an orange animal. A little smaller than the one-eared sheep. It is stripy on the back and white on the underbelly. Fairly fluffy. And hairy.

It doesn’t seem to be made of plush, actually.

In fact, it is wiggling.

In front of the Girl.

In front of the mommy.

StingRay and Lumphy have never seen anything like it.

The Girl drops Lumphy. “Pumpkinfacehead!” she cries.

“She’s here for a week,” says the mother, setting the animal down. “While Jessica’s on vacation. I just have to get the litter box and the cat toys out of the car.”

As soon as the mom sets her down, Pumpkinfacehead bolts under the bed and presses herself against the wall. “Hey there, kitty,” the Girl calls, lying on her tummy and reaching her hand under to stroke the thin orange tail.

Pumpkinfacehead mews, pitiably, but does not move. “Mngew.”

“Kitty kitty kitty,” the Girl coos.

“Mngew.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“Mngew.”

The Girl tries a little while longer, but Pumpkinfacehead isn’t coming out, so eventually the Girl gives up and goes downstairs.

“What is your problem?” StingRay scolds, as soon as they are alone.

“Mngew.”

“You don’t go running around in front of the people. Just stay still and quiet when they’re here!”

“Mngew.”

“I think she’s scared,” Lumphy says. “That’s why she ran. Don’t be scared, little kitty. We won’t hurt you.”

“Mngew. Mngew. Mngew.”

“Doesn’t it say anything else?” whispers StingRay. “It doesn’t seem very intelligent, frankly.”

“Do you say anything else?” Lumphy asks Pumpkinfacehead. “It’s okay if you don’t. We’ll still like you. It’s just that we’re curious. And we really enjoy having conversations,” he adds.

While he is talking, Pumpkinfacehead’s eyes have been focusing on a bagel chip, left over from the farm game. The chip is lying on the carpet, dirty and fuzzy.

In a movement so quick it makes Lumphy grunt in shock, the kitty shoots out from under the bed and pounces on the bagel chip, then bats it across the floor, bounces it off the toy box, claws it viciously—and eats it.

“Did you see that?” Lumphy whispers.

“I’m sitting next to you,” says StingRay. “Of course I saw it.”

“What does it mean?”

“She’s very fast. What do you mean, what does it mean?”

“Pumpkinfacehead ate that bagel chip.”

“So? No one else wanted it.”

“No, she really ate it,” says Lumphy. “She’s an eating type of kitty.”

Oh.

StingRay ponders Pumpkinfacehead, who is now running around the room at top speed, leaping halfway onto bits of furniture and falling down, all for no reason. “She’s like a people kitty. She moves like people. She eats like people. But she doesn’t talk like people. All she says is ‘Mngew.’ ‘Mngew’ and nothing but ‘Mngew.’ ”

“She’s a cat,” pipes up Sheep. “That’s the reason.”

“Of course she’s a cat,” says StingRay. “We all know she’s a cat.”

“A real cat,” says Sheep.

“What does that mean?” StingRay asks.

“She eats,” explains Sheep. “She doesn’t just chew.”

“Real is when you eat,” says Lumphy, pondering.

“Um hm,” says Sheep. “They like tuna.”

StingRay thinks this idea about real and eating explains some weird things she’s seen on television.

But Lumphy isn’t sure Sheep is right.

He feels real.

As real as Pumpkinfacehead.

Just different.

. . . . .

It is late at night when the problem begins. StingRay is asleep on the high bed with the little Girl. Sheep doesn’t sleep there anymore, so she and Lumphy are watching the toy mice practice acrobatics on a fancy blue pillow with fringe. Suddenly, from under the bed, a mad orange streak zips toward the mice and attacks them with claws bared. Pumpkinfacehead nabs the smallest mouse, a gray one, and tosses it high, then flips herself around and pounces on it again when it lands.

The other mice disappear beneath the bookcase, and Sheep rolls remarkably quickly to an out-of-the-way place underneath the rocking horse.

That poor gray mouse is squeaking in terror. Pumpkin-facehead bats with her paw and the tiny rodent skids out of the bedroom, along the hall, and halfway down the steps. The kitten tumbles after it, tail over ears, then charges back, undaunted, to attack again. This time, she takes the mouse in her teeth and returns to the upstairs hall, where she hits it across the wooden floor.

Lumphy is scared. He feels sick to his stomach. But he has to help that mouse. He searches the bedroom for something to throw at the kitten. Aha! A sparkly red Mary Jane shoe from the closet. He grips it in his front paws and waddles to the hall on his hind feet.

Pumpkinfacehead is crouching, ready to spring, tail twitching and eyes darting, as the poor mouse limps across the hallway in search of somewhere to hide.

“Stop, kitty!” cries Lumphy, so worried for the mouse he doesn’t care if the people hear him.

Oof! Lumphy hurls the shoe with all his might.

Clack, clack, clackally! It doesn’t go far (it is very heavy), but at least it makes a noise, and Pumpkinfacehead springs to one side, electrified.

Then she leaps over the mouse, over the shoe, and tackles Lumphy. The buffalo is bigger, but the kitten is a maniac. She rolls Lumphy back into the bedroom, biting his shaggy buffalo fur and thumping his soft tummy with her hard little hind feet.

OoooF. Ow.

Lumphy kicks back. He bites her ear, but his grip is not tight and she springs off him, leaps to the top of the dresser, and crouches there, surveying the room. Tail twitching.

Lumphy plays dead and stays as still as he possibly can. He wants to check the hall to see if the tiny gray mouse is okay, but he is scared to take a step. Pumpkinfacehead is sure to pounce on the next thing that moves in the room. Her yellow eyes shine in the dark.

“Mouse!” Lumphy calls. “Are you okay?”

“Still here,” comes the squeak.

“I think I have a plan!” says Lumphy.

“Yay!”

“When I lure it downstairs, you hide under the bookcase, okay?”

“Okay.”

Without taking another moment to think or be frightened, Lumphy runs. Out the door of the bedroom, down the stairs. As fast as his short buffalo legs will carry him.

Rumpa lumpa, rumpa lumpa.

Rumpa lumpa, rumpa lumpa.

Pumpkinfacehead is hot behind. Lumphy can hear the thumpity thump of her feet on the stairs as he skids around the corner into the kitchen. The dishwasher looms, white and ugly. Lumphy knows he has to act fast.

He wedges a paw into the washer and the door bangs down. He grabs a butter knife in his mouth and gallops to the fridge. Pumpkinfacehead is there now, skittering across the slick linoleum on her paws, banging into a cabinet, leaping onto the table and crouching into pounce position again. Quickly, Lumphy wedges the knife into the seal on the looming fridge, then bangs it hard with his forepaws.

Pop! The fridge is open.

Lumphy was downstairs during dinner. He knows there is a casserole in there.

A tuna casserole.

Lumphy scrambles into the fridge and scrunches his bulk to the back, getting himself behind the large casserole dish covered in aluminum foil. Then he pushes hard with his buffalo feet against the cold plastic back of the fridge.

OooooF! The casserole clatters to the floor.

The kitten leaps at the noise. She throws herself off the table and out of the kitchen, running a circuit around the living room several times. Then she trots back to investigate the tuna smell.

Nervously, Lumphy pushes the casserole toward the cat, pulling off the foil so she can get a better whiff.

Hmmm.

Pumpkinfacehead dances slightly to one side.

Comes forward.

Backs up.

Then she sticks her orange nose deep into the dish and begins rooting around for chunks of tuna.

While she is busy, Lumphy runs silently back up the stairs.

What to do next?

What to do?

The hall is empty. The small gray mouse must have made it to safety.

But the kitty will come back. Lumphy knows she will.

What to do?

Oh what, oh what?

Aha! Maybe TukTuk will know.

She is a wise old towel and gives good advice.

As Lumphy charges into the bathroom, words spill out urgently. “This kind-of person, kind-of kitty, I don’t know exactly, it’s a thing, a Pumpkinfacehead, very fast, very orange, eats things! Attacks! Got the mouse! Tuna fish! Coming back! Help!” he cries, leaping onto the toilet seat so TukTuk can see him better.

“There’s a kitten visiting,” says TukTuk calmly from her place on the rack.

“What should I do? It’ll eat the mice for sure!” Lumphy cries.

“Be brave.”

“How?”

TukTuk gestures slightly with one corner. “With the spray bottle.”

“What?”

“The purple plastic spray bottle.”

“Really?”

“Trust me,” says TukTuk. “You are brave and you can do it.”

She sounds so certain that Lumphy takes a deep breath and trusts her. He gets the purple plastic spray bottle from the edge of the tub and lugs it in his forepaws to the bedroom doorway.

“You are a toughy little buffalo!” calls TukTuk.

Lumphy wonders if she is right.

He peers into the Girl’s room. “Mice? Are you safe?”

“Safe!”

“Horse?”

A nicker comes from the rocking horse.

“Sheep?”

No answer.

“Sheep? Sheep!”

“She’s safe!” comes a mouse voice. “She’s just not awake.”

“What about me?” Lumphy turns to see StingRay peering over the foot of the high bed. “Aren’t you worried about me?”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“No one can sleep with this racket,” says StingRay. “What are you doing?”

“I was brave with a tuna casserole.” Lumphy says it more to himself than to StingRay, and as he says it, he puffs with pride. He had not realized he had this bravery inside him. But here it is. He is a toughy little buffalo, like TukTuk said. “Now I’m going to be brave with a spray bottle,” he tells StingRay.

Suddenly, no more time to talk, Pumpkinfacehead is charging—thumpity thumpity, tiny thumps of little cat feet—charging up the stairs, careening off the banister, skittering down the hall, and—

Schwerrp! Lumphy squirts the spray bottle, squeezing hard, hard with his front paws.

Pumpkinfacehead gets it straight in the face. She leaps into the air with a look of shock in her eyes.

Schwerrp! Lumphy squirts again.

Pumpkinfacehead’s damp orange fur now clings to her body. She looks at Lumphy in fear and backs up, spine arched.

Schwerrp! Lumphy ignores the choked feeling in his throat—she is only a baby kitty, after all—and squirts her again. Schwerrp! Schwerrp!

Pumpkinfacehead is soaked now, looking skinny and alone in a puddle in the hallway.

“Khhhhhhhhhh.” She hisses.

Lumphy waves the spray bottle at her.

“Khhhhhhhhhh.” She hisses again.

She slinks halfway down the stairs and curls herself up against the baseboard. “Mngew!” she cries once, as if wishing for aid. Then falls silent and still.

Lumphy stands at the Girl’s door, victorious with the spray bottle, for the rest of the night. He replaces it on the edge of the bathtub only minutes before the parents’ alarm clock rings in the morning.

That day, when the people are gone to work and school, Lumphy stands there again. In the bedroom doorway, wielding the purple plastic spray bottle.

Every day, all day. And every night, all night. Lumphy is there—and he will be until the week is up and Pumpkinfacehead is taken home in the cat carrier.

Lumphy holds that spray bottle, keeping guard, even though the people scold Pumpkinfacehead for breaking into the fridge and tap her nose for punishment. He does it even though the kitten cowers in the hallway, looking sweet and meek. Even though she purrs at him and shows him her soft white tummy. He stands there. Waving the bottle and threatening to squirt.

“Aren’t you tired?” asks StingRay one afternoon, from the safety of the Girl’s bed.

Yes, Lumphy is tired.

“Aren’t you bored?” asks the plump white mouse, before running off to play leapfrog.

Yes, Lumphy is bored.

“What are you doing again?” asks Sheep, who has forgotten the kitten exists.

“Being brave with a spray bottle,” Lumphy answers.

“You’re my hero,” says the tiny gray mouse.

And Lumphy’s chest swells.

He will stand there, even though he is tired and bored and sorry for the lonely little kitty. Lumphy the toughy little buffalo: defender and protector of the creatures in the bedroom.