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ISBN: 978-1-101-61097-8
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
Acknowledgments
For Dad and Mom:
Thanks for blazing such a bright trail for me.
CHAPTER 1
LEWIS
Our scouting party cautiously crossed the border of Toddlandia, exiting Todd’s closet to wade through the Fiber Forest to the huge shriveled mass that once was round, smooth, and red. I was eager to understand the message Great Todd had left us, which was now turning wrinkled and spongy, its two green leaves withering on its stem. Not all of my friends agreed that the offensive object was meant to tell us something. But I believed the all-wise Todd did nothing by chance.
Persephone had sighted the Red Thing near the Refuse Dome shortly after we were returned to Toddlandia following the reign of terror by the Great Todd’s evil classmate, Max Loving. My friend Herman, who had recently been elected mayor of Toddlandia, had taken an exploring party of some of the younger Toddlians to see if His Greatness had perhaps left some dirty clothes behind. For some reason, which I hoped studying the Red Thing might help us to understand, Todd had not been leaving us food in his closet lately.
At first we assumed the Red Thing was a gift from Todd, meant for us to play upon and explore. We swung from its thick brown stem, slid down its slick scarlet sides, and played hide-and-seek in its shadows. We even harvested some of its lovely, shiny skin to use as wallpaper for our dwellings, exposing a bright white interior, which amazingly, after a few minutes, turned to brown. What a magical thing Todd had bestowed upon us! Being something of an artist, I also spent several pleasant hours painting it from various angles.
But over time the Red Thing had ceased to be an object of fun and beauty. In fact, recently it had begun giving off an offensive odor. A white, fuzzy substance had started growing around the stem, and where the skin had been removed, the brown surface turned black and squished between one’s toes. All this had led Mayor Herman to proclaim with “scientific certainty” that the Red Thing was indeed rotten.
This very morning, while the Great Todd was getting ready for school, I thanked him for his gift, telling him how much pleasure it had given us. I then suggested very gently that he might want to remove the Red Thing, since it now stank. His response was a curt “You ever think I might have meant to leave it there? Huh?” (In his defense I must say that he was in an unusual hurry and somewhat cross from having broken a shoelace and spilled Dr Pepper on his English homework. He seems to always be in a terrible hurry these days.)
Lesson to Lewis: leave His Greatness alone before he sets out on his journey to the fearsome place called Middle School. But when else could I speak on behalf of our people? Even I, loyal Toddlian that I am, see that our ruler has little time for us anymore. We are often left alone until late at night when Great Todd returns from the Mall. Whatever a Mall is, it must be an enchanted kingdom, for he is constantly asking his mother to transport him and Duddy there. Rarely upon return does he even remember to fling us his sweaty socks or grunge-encrusted gym clothes. I would be grateful if he would only fling me a friendly “Good night, Lew,” the way he used to.
“Halfway there, friends,” Herman panted as he pushed the fibers in front of him aside. “The stench grows stronger!”
Persephone pulled off her cowboy hat and wiped her brow. “If this ain’t the most goldurned ridiculous waste of energy! I ask ya, Lew, has Todd ever left us some kind of secret code to cipher? If he wants to get somethin’ off his chest, he says it right out.”
Some of the others grunted in agreement.
But Herman shook his head. “Not necessarily. We must remember that the Powerful One’s ways are not our ways. He is most awesome and perhaps, like a dutiful parent (insofar as I understand parenting), he desires to teach us by a system of rewards and punishments.”
“Ooooo,” chorused the other Toddlians.
Persephone crossed her arms and muttered, “Rewards and punishments? What are we, a bunch of unbroke broncos?”
“Perhaps,” Herman said, “we need to consider our ways and not presume to know more than our Supreme Ruler. In the words of Albert Einstein, ‘A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.’ ”
More “ooo”s and some applause.
Persephone sighed and shimmied up a carpet fiber to “get a look-see.”
“Well, we’re nearly there, amigos,” she said. “Though we’da been there and back if we’da rode the crickets I wrangled.”
“You know how I feel about crickets, Persephone,” I reminded her quietly.
“I have an idea,” Herman huffed as we approached the rotten Red Thing. “What if we offer a tribute to Todd to show him we appreciate his care and leadership? Like the ancient Romans did to pacify their gods?”
Persephone stopped walking and turned to Herman. “Are you sayin’ we should sacrifice fleas and such? ’Cause fer one thing, it sounds purty messy, and fer the other, I don’t think he’d appreciate it much.”
I shuddered. “Certainly you don’t mean that kind of tribute, Herman?”
Herman rolled his eyes. “Of course not! I meant we could perform deeds of kindness.”
We were close to the Refuse Dome now, which was an enormous white cylinder with a rounded top where Todd kept things he no longer wanted. The objects within were somewhat fascinating to us Toddlians, but unfortunately the slick white sides were very difficult to climb. The sickly-sweet stench of the Red Thing was so overpowering we held our noses.
“Deeds of kindness!” Persephone exclaimed. “We did Todd’s computer homework jest last week. I had a dadgum charley horse fer three days from jumpin’ all over the keyboard.”
“Very noble of you, indeed,” Herman said. Todd’s Erector set was next to the Refuse Dome, and Herman slowly scaled a crane. “But let us pause to discuss this. I was thinking of something a little more formal.” He stopped climbing, cu
pped his hands around his mouth, and addressed the Toddlian crowd below. “My fellow citizens, no doubt you have noticed that our beloved home, Toddlandia, is in a state of rapid decline.”
I heard a groan behind me. “Do we have to do this now?” shouted Jasper, an adolescent Toddlian who often seemed to be in poor humor. “I thought we were checking out the Red Thing!”
Herman fixed him with a glare. “The message of the Red Thing is meaningless, unless we know how we will respond,” he said.
Near the front of the crowd, Gerald, the eldest among us, nodded. “Mayor Herman is correct,” he said in a grave voice. “Our leader has not been caring for us as he promised to, after the incident at the fair.”
Jasper scoffed. “Sheesh, I’m just happy I haven’t broken any limbs since we stopped training for that stupid carnival ‘circus’!”
Mayor Herman shook his head. “It may be true that we haven’t suffered the degradation of being forced to perform in some kind of sideshow attraction,” he said, “but the Great Todd has not been as attentive as he might be.”
My fellow Toddlians murmured, nodding their heads. “And it’s a cryin’ shame!” Persephone shouted above the rest.
“For example,” Herman went on, “the drought we suffered this week when Lake Parkay dried up.” He motioned toward the swimming hole at the bottom of the closet. We’d named it after the brand of margarine advertised on the container. “We nearly perished of thirst before Todd remembered to replenish our water supply.”
The Toddlians grunted their agreement, growing more agitated.
“And what about the break-dancing lessons we were promised?” young Chester yelled. “Todd told us more than once he’d teach us how to do the Robot and the Worm!”
“We want the Worm!” screamed a particularly passionate Toddlian.
“We want the Worm!” chanted the rest of the crowd.
I signaled to Herman to calm the rabble-rousers. He made a slashing motion, and the Toddlians settled themselves. Herman climbed down from the crane, and we carefully approached the Red Thing.
I hadn’t seen our former playground up close in its rotten state. How could anything once so shiny and round become so dull and slumped? I bent my head back, searching the Thing’s wrinkled skin for clues as to why Todd had cursed it.
It looked as though he had taken one bite of the Thing before leaving it for us. The rust-colored skin was curled around angry-looking teeth marks exposing brown, slimy flesh. Was this a sign that Todd had tired of us, too? Were we being tossed aside for a more exciting civilization, perhaps one that lived in the glorious kingdom of the Mall?
What a horrible thought! “Maybe someone should climb on top for a better view,” I suggested, wiping my burning eyes.
Persephone, being the bravest among us, volunteered to make the climb. She lassoed the white fuzzy stem and hoisted herself into the crevice of the first wrinkle. “This Thing’s squishier ’n a slug’s belly!” she called, pulling her bandana up over her nose. “Smells worse than skunk sweat, too. Shoowee!”
We watched breathlessly as Persephone scaled the bumpy surface. Several times she lost her grip and slid, stopping herself from falling with the spurs on her heels.
“What do you see?” Herman called.
“A whole buncha nothin’,” Persephone called back. “I’m heading back down; we’ve seen all there is to see here, which is naught. This smell’s enough to make me blow my beans.” She put her hand in a hole and started to scale back down. “Fool’s errand if ever there was one,” she muttered, looking for a foothold below her.
“What’s that?” someone shrieked. Persephone saw it at the same time as the rest of us. A wriggling, slimy white creature popped out of the very hole where she had her hand. I felt my heart seize as I realized how horribly the younglings’ demand for “the worm” had been answered—indeed, this terrible beast appeared to be exactly that.
Persephone let out a shriek and yanked her hand out of the wormhole, losing her grip. I rushed to catch her as she fell, but was blocked by the crowd, which was quickly becoming a boiling mess of mayhem. “I’m all right!” I heard her yell above the noise.
I glanced up at the worm again. Its eyeless, ghostly white body was weaving back and forth, as if to defy anyone else to come near the Red Thing.
Chester let out a bloodcurdling scream. “Great Todd, we didn’t mean it!” he cried. “We didn’t want this kind of worm!”
“Have mercy on us, Great Todd!” was the cry on everyone’s lips as they stampeded back toward the safety of Toddlandia. But of course, Todd was nowhere to be found—like usual lately.
I joined Persephone in the panicked throng, and together we looked about for Herman. Finally I recognized his faint cries above the din of confusion.
We sprinted back to the Red Thing. We must save Herman!
“Help!” he whimpered pitifully. “Is anyone out there?”
“Take courage!” I answered. “Where are you?”
“Near the Refuse Dome,” he moaned. “Please … hurry!”
I followed his voice and found him crumpled in a heap at the base of the Refuse Dome’s curved wall. “Trampled in the stampede,” he said through clenched teeth. “I fear … for my tibia bone.”
His left ankle was swollen and already turning a gruesome green. “Let’s hope it’s merely sprained,” I said. “Can you put your arm around my shoulder?”
He nodded, and together we hobbled in the direction of Toddlandia. I wished I had given in and ridden a cricket, for Herman’s sake. “There can be no argument now,” he said solemnly. “Todd left the Red Thing and its revolting resident as a form of punishment. We have angered him yet again and have incurred his wrath.”
“Sssshh!” I commanded. “Your pain is making you downhearted. Remember how many times Todd has protected our people from danger! Why would he turn on us now?”
Herman grew fatigued. We stopped to let him rest, and he raised his eyes to mine. “You forget that his reasoning is far different from ours.”
“Todd is my friend,” I protested. “Why would he be so cruel?”
He grimaced and took a deep breath. “Todd is not your friend, Lewis. He’s your god. And an angry one at that.”
My heart sank within me. “But can’t he be both?”
CHAPTER 2
A big hunk of blueberry bagel fell onto my shirt, and I swatted it off, only to notice something weird. Holy frijoles! Where was my collar? I looked over my shoulder, and sure enough, I had my shirt on backward! I had to get it turned around before she—before anyone—came into class.
Mr. Katcher’s office door was open, so I snuck inside and clicked it closed. I almost set the bagel on a stack of funky-smelling plastic bags, until I looked closer and saw they were full of dead frogs. Gagadocious. I held the bagel with my teeth and spun the shirt around so Koi Boy was facing forward. Now if I could only get my head on straight. I still felt like I had when I left the house this morning: half asleep.
That’s what I got for getting up thirty minutes early so I could stop by Dale’s Deli and stand outside for ages, watching for her. I’d actually showered and everything. Which kind of backfired, because my hair was wet, and it was freezing out.
I’d waited, teeth chattering and hair still dripping, as long as I could without being late for first period. Finally I arrived at the sad conclusion that Charity Driscoll wasn’t actually coming to the deli that morning, so I dashed inside and bought a bagel, since I’d skipped breakfast to get there so early. I was too jittered up to think about asking for cream cheese.
I muscled down another bite. Like the bagel, my brilliant scheme had a hole in it.
I strolled out of Katcher’s office and headed to the sink on the back wall for a drink of water. I gulped down a big mouthful, feeling guilty as I remembered that in my rush to leave the house this morning I’d forgotten to refill Lake Parkay for the Toddlians. Hopefully they weren’t super thirsty. I’d make it up to them this afternoon by gi
ving them a sip of my Dr Pepper.
Did my shirt smell like formaldehyde? I sniffed it just in case. Nope. Nothing but Dad’s Old Spice.
“Yeah, Buttrock, you really stink!” an all-too-familiar voice blared in my ear. “I’ll take that off your hands.” Max Loving helped himself to what was left of my bagel.
“Good morning to you too, Max,” I said dryly.
Totally invading my personal space, Max backed me into the corner where Mr. Bone Jangles, the life-size skeleton, hung. “Oh, it’s not a good morning. Not for me, not for you, and especially not for your little buggy buddies.”
My gut clenched around the half-eaten bagel. Max hadn’t even mentioned the Toddlians to me for a couple of weeks—ever since we humiliated him by scaring him snotless when he came to my house to try to take my skateboard. I’d once thought Max was the coolest kid at Wakefield Middle School, but I quickly learned he was just the biggest bully. Even his henchmen, eighth graders Spud and Dick, seemed to have dumped him after the whole skateboard debacle. What was he after now?
Max was breathing heavy and starting to foam around the lips like a mad dog. He shoved me right into the skeleton. The plastic bones rattled, and Mr. Jangles’s leg fell off. Max picked up the femur and thumped my chest with it.
“You and those little buggers cost me my Xbox.” Thump, thump. “And I had to borrow the hundred bucks the fair fined me from my parents, who are making me pay back every penny.” He shoved a meaty finger into my chest. “If you and your dorkwad friends hadn’t ruined my Flea Circus Redux by switching your bug people with those ants, I’d have made enough for an Xbox and then some.”
In Todd We Trust Page 1
