“How do you do,” said the new toaster in a barely audible voice when the TV introduced it.
“How do you do?” the toaster replied warmly.
Neither could think of anything else to say. Fortunately there were more introductions to be effected. The Hoover had to go through a similar ordeal when it met the apartment’s vacuum cleaner, which was (just as the Hoover had feared) one of the new lightweight models that looks like a big hamburger bun on wheels. They were polite to each other, but it was obvious that the new vacuum looked on the Hoover as outmoded.
The blanket had an even worse shock in store. The last two appliances to appear in the living room were a vaporizer and a long tangled string of Christmas tree lights, both of which had been hibernating in a closet. The blanket looked about anxiously. “Well,” it said, making a determined effort to seem accepting and friendly, “I think there must still be one more of you we haven’t yet met.”
“No,” said the TV. “We’re all here.”
“But is there no other… blanket?”
The TV avoided the blanket’s earnest gaze. “No. The master doesn’t use an electric blanket anymore. Just a plain wool one.”
“But he always… he always…” The blanket could say no more. Its resolution deserted it and it fell in a heap on the carpet.
A gasp went up from the apartment’s assembled appliances, which until now had had no idea of the extent of the blanket’s injuries.
“Doesn’t use an electric blanket!” the toaster repeated indignantly. “Why ever not?”
The screen of the TV flickered and then, evasively, started showing a gardening show.
“It isn’t the master’s choice, really,” said the Singer sewing machine in its funny clipped accent. “I daresay he would be delighted to see his old blanket again.”
The blanket looked up questioningly.
“It’s the mistress,” the sewing machine went on. “She says she becomes too hot under an electric blanket.”
“The mistress?” the five appliances repeated.
“Didn’t you know?”
“No,” said the toaster. “No, we haven’t heard anything from the master since he left the cottage three years ago.”
“Two years, eleven months, and twenty-two days, to be precise,” said the alarm clock/radio.
“That’s why we determined to find our way here. We feared… I don’t know what exactly. But we thought that… that our master would need us.”
“Oh,” said the sewing machine. It turned to watch the gardening show on the TV.
As unobtrusively as it might, the new toaster crept back into the kitchen and resumed its post of duty on the formica countertop.
“Two years, eleven months, and twenty-two days is a long time to be left alone,” the radio asserted at rather a loud volume. “Naturally we became concerned. The poor air conditioner stopped working altogether.”
“And all the while,” said the lamp, “never a word of explanation!” It glared reproachfully at the TV, which continued to discuss the problem of blister beetles.
“Can’t any of you tell us why?” the toaster demanded earnestly. “Why did he never return to the cottage? There must be a reason.”
“I can tell you,” said the vaporizer, inching forward. “You see, the mistress is subject to hay fever. I can help her a bit with her asthma, but when the hay fever starts in on her, there’s nothing anyone can do, and she is really very miserable then.”
“I still don’t understand,” said the toaster.
The sewing machine spelled it out. “Rather than go to the country, where there is bound to be ragweed and pollen and such, they spend their summers at the seaside.”
“And our cottage—our lovely cottage in the woods—what is to become of it?”
“I believe the master means to sell it.”
“And… and us?” the toaster asked.
“I understand there is to be an auction,” said the sewing machine.
The Hoover, which had comported itself with great dignity throughout the visit, could bear no more. With a loud groan it grasped the handle of the perambulator as though to steady itself. “Come,” it gasped. “All of you, come. We are not wanted here. We’ll return to… to…”
Where would they return? Where could they? They had become appliances without a household!
“To the Dump!” shrieked the blanket hysterically. “Isn’t that where junk belongs? That’s all we are now—junk!” It twisted its cord into an agonized knot. “Isn’t that what the pirate said we were? Junk! Junk! Junk! All of us, and me most of all.”
“Control yourself,” said the toaster sternly, though its own coils felt as though they were about to snap. “We’re not junk. We’re sturdy, useful appliances.”
“Look at me!” cried the blanket, displaying the full extent of its worst tear. “And these mudstains—look!”
“Your tears can be sewn up,” said the toaster calmly. It turned to the sewing machine. “Can’t they?”
The sewing machine nodded in mute agreement.
“And the stains can be cleaned.”
“And then what?” the Hoover demanded dourly. “Let us suppose the blanket is repaired and cleaned, and that I’ve mended my cord and got my dustbag into working shape, and that you’ve polished yourself. Suppose all that—what then? Where shall we go?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere. I’ll have to think.”
“Pardon me,” said the TV, turning off the gardening show. “But didn’t I hear you say something about a… pirate?”
“Yes,” said the sewing machine nervously. “What pirate did you mean? There’s not a pirate in this building, I hope?”
“Never fear—we don’t have to worry any more about him. He captured us but we escaped from him. Would you like to know how?”
“Goodness, yes,” said the TV. “I love a good story.”
So all the appliances gathered in a circle about the toaster, which began to tell the story of their adventures from the moment they had decided to leave the cottage till the moment they arrived at the door of the apartment. It was a very long story, as you know, and while the toaster told it, the sewing machine set to work sewing up all the rips and tears in the blanket.
The next afternoon when the blanket came back from Jiffy Dry Cleaners on the other side of Newton Avenue, the apartment’s appliances put on a splendid party for their five visitors. The Christmas tree lights strung themselves up between the two ginger-jar lamps and winked and bubbled in the merriest way, while the TV and the stereo sang duets from all the most famous musical comedies. The toaster was polished to a fare-thee-well, and the Hoover was likewise in fine fettle once again. But most wonderful of all—the blanket looked almost as good as new. Its yellow was possibly not as bright as it had been, but it was a lovely yellow, for all that. The exact same yellow, according to the TV, of custard and primroses and the nicest bathroom tissues.
At five o’clock the radio’s alarm went off, and everyone became very still, except for the blanket, which went on whirling gaily about the living room for some time before it realized the music had stopped.
“What is it?” asked the blanket. “Why are you all so quiet?”
“Hush,” said the radio. “It’s time for The Swap Shop.”
“What is The Swap Shop?” asked the blanket.
“It’s the program on listener-supported radio station KHOP,” said the toaster excitedly, “that is going to find a new home for us! I told you not to worry, didn’t I? I told you I’d think of something!”
“Be quiet,” said the lamp. “It’s starting.”
The radio turned up its volume so that all the appliances in the living room could hear. “Good afternoon,” it said, in a deep, announcer-type voice, “and welcome to The Swap Shop. Today’s program opens with a very strange offering from Newton Avenue. It seems that someone there wants to swap—now listen to this list!—a Hoover vacuum cleaner, an AM alarm clock/radio, a yellow electric blanket, a te
nsor lamp, and a Sunbeam toaster. All this in exchange for… well, it says on the card here: ‘You name it.’ What’s most important, I’m informed, is that you should have a real and genuine need for all five of these fine appliances, since their present owner wants them to be able to stay together. For sentimental reasons! Now I’ve heard everything! Anyhow, if you think you need those five appliances, the number to call is 485-9120. That number again, 485-9120. Our next offer is not quite so unusual. Seems there’s a party on Center Street who is offering, absolutely for free, five lovable black-and-white—”
The radio tuned out KHOP. “Didn’t he make us sound super!” it exclaimed, forgetting in its excitement to stop speaking in the announcer’s voice.
“Come over here by the telephone,” the Hoover urged the radio. “You’ll have to talk to them. I’m just too nervous.”
All five appliances gathered about the telephone and waited for it to ring.
There are two schools of thought about whether or not appliances ought to be allowed the free use of telephones. Some insist that it is flatly against the rules and should never be done in any circumstances, while others maintain that it’s all right, since it is only another appliance one is talking to, in this case a telephone. Whether or not it’s against the rules, it is certainly a fact that a good many appliances (lonely radios especially) do use the phone system regularly, usually to contact other appliances. This explains the great number of so-called “wrong numbers” that people get at odd times. Computerized exchanges could never make so many mistakes, though they end up taking the blame.
For the last three years, of course, this issue had not mattered very much to the appliances, since the phone in the cottage had been disconnected. Ordinarily, the Hoover would probably have opposed the notion of any of them using the phone, as it did tend to adopt the conservative attitude. But first there had been the absolute necessity of calling Jiffy Dry Cleaners and having them pick up the blanket, and that had established a clear precedent for their phoning in to KHOP and offering themselves on The Swap Shop. And now here they were all gathered round the telephone, waiting to talk with their next master!
The phone rang.
“Now whatever you do,” warned the Hoover, “don’t say yes to the first person who happens to call. Find out something about him first. We don’t want to go just anywhere, you know.”
“Right,” said the radio.
“And remember,” said the toaster, “to be nice.”
The radio nodded. It picked up the telephone receiver. “Hello?” it said.
“Is this the person with the five appliances?”
“It is! Oh my goodness yes indeed, it is!”
And so the five appliances went to live with their new mistress, for as it happened it was a woman who’d phoned them first and not a man. She was an elderly, impoverished ballerina who lived all alone in a small room at the back of her ballet studio on Center Street in the oldest part of the city. What the ballerina had swapped for the appliances were her five lovable black-and-white kittens. The appliances’ former master never could figure out how, upon returning with his wife from their summer vacation by the sea, there had come to be five kittens in their apartment. It was rather an awkward situation, for his wife was allergic to cat fur. But they were such darlings—it would never have done to put them out on the street. In the end they decided to keep them, and his wife simply took more antihistamines.
And the appliances?
Oh, they were very happy. At first the Hoover had been doubtful about entering service with a woman (for it had never worked for a woman before, and it was somewhat set in its ways), but as soon as it realized what a fastidious and immaculate housekeeper its mistress was, it forgot all its reservations and became her greatest champion.
It felt so good to be useful again! The radio would play beautiful classical music for the ballerina to dance to; and when she became tired and wanted to sit down and read, the lamp would light her book; and then when it grew late and she’d finished her book, the blanket would give off a steady, gentle warmth that kept her cozy all through the long, cold night.
And when it was morning and she awoke, what wonderful slices of toast the toaster would toast for her—so brown and crisp and perfect and always just the same!
And so the five appliances lived and worked, happy and fulfilled, serving their dear mistress and enjoying each other’s companionship, to the end of their days.
*
The story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (August 1980):
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Document ID: 47ad8711-154f-4f8e-8d1b-1fa29316ba85
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Document creation date: 29.10.2013
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Thomas M. Disch
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The Brave Little Toaster tblt-1 Page 5
