Toys Go Out: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic

CHAPTER FOUR

The Possible Shark

Plastic is going to the beach. The Little Girl told her specially this morning, and she is excited—though not sure what to expect.

“Stingrays know all about the beach. Would you like me to tell you?” asks StingRay. She and Plastic are playing checkers.

Plastic says Yes.

“The main thing is bigness. The ocean goes on and on forever.”

“Is there clover?” asks the one-eared sheep, who is watching the game with Lumphy.

“No clover,” says StingRay, moving red.

“Grass?”

“No. It’s the ocean.”

“Oh, well.” Sheep goes back to watching.

“Is it bigger than the pond?” asks Plastic, moving black across the board.

“A zillion times bigger,” answers StingRay.

“I can’t wait!” cries Plastic, and hums a happy hum. “Beach beach beach!”

For a second, StingRay is quiet. She is wondering why she isn’t going to the beach with Plastic. Or even instead of Plastic—who after all has only lived with the Little Girl since last September. “You won’t like it,” StingRay says, finally, hopping red over one of Plastic’s black checkers.

“Yes I will. Beach!” yells Plastic. “No you won’t,” StingRay repeats. “The water goes down further than anybody can see. It’s dangerous, if you’re not a fish.”

“I’m a great floater.” Plastic pushes her black checker to the back of the board. “King me!”

“It doesn’t matter,” says StingRay. “The beach is only safe for stingrays,

.and salmons,

and goldfish.

“There are dangers in the bigness that only fish like me know about,” she continues.

“Jellyfish made of grape and raspberry jelly,

And octopi with eleven hundred legs,

And worst of all, garbage-eating sharks.”

“What about the Little Girl?” Lumphy has stopped concentrating on the game.

“She’ll be okay. She’s a good swimmer,” answers StingRay. “She’s been to school.”

“Beach beach beach!” yells Plastic. “King me!”

“If you’re not going to listen, Plastic,” says StingRay, “I don’t know why you bothered asking. And,” she adds, moving away from the checkerboard, “I don’t feel like playing anymore.”

“I’m listening,” says Lumphy. “What did you do when you went to the beach and met the garbage-eating shark?”

“Ummm,” says StingRay, looking carefully at a fancy blue pillow that has captured her attention.

“Huh?”

“Hrrmplle mmmunuh nnn.” StingRay nibbles on a bit of pillow fringe.

“Hey, did you really see a shark?” asks Plastic, accusingly.

“Well …,” mutters StingRay, inspecting the opposite corner of the pillow with great interest. “I just know about them, okay?”

“Did you even really go to the beach?” Plastic bounces up and down.

StingRay crawls under the pillow so her friends can’t see her face. “Well, not in person.”

“Beach beach beach!” yells Plastic again, rolling around in circles. “Does anyone want to finish the checker game? I have a king!”

“Shut up, Plastic!” says StingRay loudly. “I hope you go to the beach and never come back.”

… …

A few minutes later, the Little Girl packs Plastic in a tote bag along with a cotton blanket, sun protection, and some sand toys. Off they go for the day, happy as can be.

Back in the bedroom, StingRay has crawled under the blue pillow and won’t come out. “Why didn’t the Little Girl take me to the beach?” she moans. “I’m the one who sleeps on the high bed. I’m the one who’s a fish.”

“People like bounce at the beach,” comforts Lumphy, sitting near the pillow. “Plastic is bouncier than you are.”

“Bouncers and floaters,” adds the one-eared sheep, nibbling the pillow fringe.

“What?” asks StingRay.

“Floaters. Toy boats, bath toys. Bath toys go to the beach all the time.”

“Do you think the Girl likes floaters better than sinkers?” wonders StingRay.

“I’m just saying, she takes them to the beach.”

“I’m a sinker,” says Lumphy. “What about you, Sheep?”

“A sinker for sure,” says the sheep. “All this wool, weighs me down.”

“I’m a floater,” says StingRay in a loud voice.

“Are you?” asks Lumphy. “Wow.”

“I can float as well as Plastic, any day.”

… …

StingRay spends the next hour thinking very hard. Truth is, she has never floated in her life. She has never even gotten wet.

But the Little Girl likes floaters. And a fish is a fish, and a fish should swim. What if the Little Girl sees Plastic floating and loves her better than me? she wonders. What if she loves her better,

and starts to sleep with her on the high bed with

the fluffy pillows,

and sends me to the dump,

and says “StingRay who?” whenever anyone

mentions me?

It is a terrible bunch of thoughts.

When no one is looking, StingRay sneaks down the hall to the bathroom.

TukTuk is there, hanging on a rod.

“Hello,” says StingRay as if nothing is out of the ordinary. “Don’t let me bother you. I’m just going to do my regular floating that I do.”

“Your tag says ‘dry clean only,’ ” remarks TukTuk.

“So?” says StingRay. She puts the plug in the bathtub, turns on the water, and gets in.

“So that means don’t take a bath.”

“I’m a fish,” says StingRay. “I can float.” She sits in the tub, feeling the wetness seep into her plush belly and flippers.

“No you can’t.”

“Can, too! Look at me!”

“Your tummy is still on the floor of the tub.”

“Mind your own business,” snaps StingRay. “I’m doing my floating.”

The water is icy cold. StingRay tries to ignore it. She is waiting for her tummy to come off the floor of the tub. Waiting for proof she is a floater.

But her tummy stays right where it is.

The water goes over her gills, then over her back.

It goes over her eyes, and covers the tip of her tail.

… …

Plastic rides in the trunk of the car, where it is very hot. Then the car stops, and she is lifted out. The air is fresh and salty.

The ocean really does go on and on forever. Plastic can hardly keep from wiggling, she is so excited.

The Little Girl and her parents get their beach blanket and cooler and umbrella set up. They have paperback novels and a portable radio, too. The mother wears a baseball cap and a black bikini. She forces the Little Girl to put on suntan lotion, and the Girl whines. The father runs down to the water and back, yelling about how cold it is. The Girl drinks apple juice from a cardboard box.

Then Plastic is tossed straight up in the air until she nearly touches the sun.

She is rolled through tunnels of damp sand and comes out the other end.

She is the center of a game called Keep Away.

She is perched on top of a large sand castle.

She is tossed onto the surface of the ocean, where she floats upon the waves.

And floats.

And floats.

For longer than she’d like, floating all by herself.

And then, she is eaten.

An animal with musky, wet fur takes Plastic in its jaws with a sudden snap. She can feel the sharp teeth and the floppy warm tongue. The creature makes soft grunting noises as it paddles out of the ocean and onto the sand. Plastic tries to wiggle free, but it has her tight.

Is it a shark.? Plastic wonders.

Does it think I’m a tasty piece of garbage?

The possible shark trots across the sand wagging its tail. It heads a long way down the beach. Again, Plastic tries to get out of its grip, but it has a good hold. It trots and trots, occasionally poking her with its tongue.

Then the possible shark drops Plastic onto a pile of seaweed, pins her down with one enormous paw, and begins to chew.

… …

In the tub, StingRay is completely underwater.

At the beach, a possible-shark tooth pops Plastic’s rubber skin.

In the tub, StingRay is soaked through her sawdust insides.

At the beach, the air whizzes out of Plastic until she is soft and squashy.

StingRay tries to lift a flipper to pull herself out, but the water makes her so heavy she can’t move.

The possible shark tries to swallow Plastic.

StingRay: “Help!”

Plastic: “Stop!” Help! Stop!

But TukTuk can’t move, and the possible shark isn’t listening.

… …

Plastic is stuck in the back of the possible shark’s throat. Very uncomfortable.

“Gagaglah.” The possible shark chokes, coughs, chokes again, coughs—and spits Plastic out onto a pile of seaweed.

Plastic knows she has to get away fast. But what can she do? She is halfway deflated, very un-bouncy. The possible shark licks its chops—but as it swoops in for another chomp, Plastic turns her body so her puncture hole is pointing right at its face. Then she squeezes her rubbery skin together as tight as it will go, pushing her last bit of air out the puncture with a loud, farty noise.

PBBBLEH!

The possible shark is confused.

It pulls back.

It makes a whimpering sound.

Then it trots away, with its tail between its legs.

Yippee! thinks Plastic.

I can’t stay here, though. It might come back., and eat me later.

The seaweed around her is gray-green and scraggly. There are clumps of it all over the beach, drifting in and out as the waves skim across the sand. Plastic checks to be sure no one is looking at her, then slips under a big piece. Rolling is hard with so little air inside, but she uses all her strength—and moves gently forward, and around, until she is wrapped thoroughly in seaweed. Then she waits until she hears a big wave crash on the shore.

As the ocean water rushes toward her, Plastic rolls along the edge of the water, pretending that the wave has caught this unsuspecting and surprisingly round blob of seaweed, and merely happens to be pulling it along. With each crash of the breakers, Plastic rolls a bit further in the direction of the Little Girl and her family.

Once, a wave really does catch her and she bangs up hard against a big rock.

Once, a small crab waves a mean-looking claw in her direction.

And once, a possible shark of a different nature (short legs, curly fur) sniffs her with frightening curiosity.

With tremendous effort, Plastic keeps moving until she hears the Little Girl’s voice. Then she slips out of her seaweed cover and bold-face rolls back to the beach blanket, as fast as she can possibly roll.

… …

StingRay is soaked through with cold water, and so heavy she cannot move. From the bottom of the tub, she hears a sound.

“Warble glub lub mangle.”

Fortunately, her eyes are on the top of her head, so she can see what’s above her. Lumphy and the one-eared sheep are sitting on the edge of the tub!

The rushing sound of the tap makes it impossible to make out what they are saying. And though she is glad to see them, StingRay can’t think how they will rescue her, since both of them are sinkers.

After hating her friend all day, she wishes Plastic were here.

I was mean to her, thinks StingRay, and now she’s gone to the beach and might not ever return.

I’m a sinker,

and a stinker, too,

and if I rot and drown and dissolve in this tub,

it is probably better than I deserve.

“Warble glub lub mangle,” StingRay hears again, and then—silence. Lumphy has turned off the tap.

“Glurb lurb swubbble wubble.”

He has pulled up the plug by its chain, and the water is running out.

StingRay is humiliated. She almost wishes they hadn’t found her, it is so embarrassing to be a soggy plush sinker fish.

And yet, she is very glad they did.

When the tub is empty, Lumphy and Sheep jump in and pull StingRay out. She is soaked through. They yank TukTuk down from the rod and wrap StingRay in the towel; then Lumphy jumps up and down on both of them to squeeze out as much of the water as possible. Then he and Sheep hang TukTuk back up and help StingRay to a nice sunny spot by the window in the bedroom, where she can dry herself the rest of the way.

StingRay can barely mutter “Thank you”—but Lumphy and Sheep don’t mind.

… …

The Little Girl’s mommy has industrial-strength tape and a bicycle pump. When the family gets home from the beach, she brings Plastic down to the basement, tapes her puncture shut, and pumps her full of air.

Plastic is carried upstairs to the bedroom good as new, except for the small patch of clear tape covering the hole. She can sense it whenever she rolls—a slightly lumpy feeling—but she hopes no one else will notice.

It is excellent to have her bounce back.

It will be excellent to see Lumphy.

It will be excellent to see the sheep.

It will even be excellent to see StingRay, in spite of the mean thing she said about hoping Plastic went to the beach and never came back.

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.”