It was pitch dark in the train, night spilling in through the open door. “Bertie?” she said, rubbing at her eyes. She was met only with silence.
She stood up, squinting into the darkness. The freight car was filled with vague shapes: an eyeless rocking horse, a splintered dollhouse, and toy cans, littered everywhere. “Bertie?” she repeated. “Smalls?” But the car remained still, not even a hedgehog stirring.
Susan’s hands grew clammy. There was something eerie about the stillness. Even in the darkness she sensed it; it was too still. She pushed her way through the car, reaching desperately into boxes and underneath piles. But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, not a single boy or animal appeared.
She raced over to Rigby, shaking him awake. Rigby was as deep a sleeper as she was, so it took a minute. But finally he leapt to all fours, sending the tall pile of dolls and stuffed animals crashing to the floor. “What is it?” he barked. “What happened?” Suddenly he snapped his snout shut, falling silent. Lifting his nose into the air, he began sniffing wildly. “No,” he whispered. “It’s not possible.”
Susan grabbed Rigby’s back, gripping his fur between her fingers. “They’re gone,” she gasped. “All of them.” She looked slowly around the freight car as three tiny words blasted through her head like trumpets. “We’re all alone.”
Sleep Is for Weaklings
“I’m tired,” Alfie whined. Even using his sword as a walking stick, he was struggling to keep up with the others on his tiny legs. “Is it time for a break yet? Maybe a little snooze?” He yawned loudly, his pace slowing even more.
“Absolutely not,” Wombat replied brusquely. He kept his eyes on the train tracks, following them like Bertie had suggested. The moonlight glinted off them: a shining, silver path to Hoolyloo City. “In matters of love and rabbit-napping, there’s no time for snoozing.”
Alfie replied with a yawn so huge it made every quill on his back quiver.
“We do have to sleep eventually, Wombat,” Smalls said. He stuck close to Bertie as he glanced up at the sky, which was still dotted with stars. “Before the sun comes up.”
“Especially the hedgehog who stood guard on the train . . .” Alfie trailed off, yawning again.
Smalls’s heart went out to the tiny animal, who was half skipping, half jogging to keep up with them. “Here,” he said, crouching down. “Climb on.”
Alfie scurried up Smalls’s nose, making himself comfortable in the patch of black fur on the top of his head. “Ahhh,” he sighed. “Now this is the life. A comfy bed, a nice night breeze, a valiant quest . . .” Before he could finish his sentence, he was fast asleep.
Soon, Bertie began to yawn too. That clinched it. “It’s time to stop,” Smalls declared. “We all need sleep.”
“Sleep is for weaklings,” Wombat protested. “Especially when there’s a beautiful Angora rabbit awaiting our arrival.” He was in the middle of shooting Smalls a disdainful look when he was suddenly overcome with a massive yawn. He broke into a loud cough, trying to cover it up. “But if you’re all too tired to go on, then I suppose I have no choice but to stop with you.”
They wandered into the woods, Bertie sticking close to Smalls. Moonlight threaded through the branches, casting a golden glow on the dandelions sprouting up through the grass. It reminded Smalls of Mumford’s, back when the four of them were still together, and he felt a sharp sting of longing. But before he had a chance to wallow in it, something bright suddenly flashed above him. His eyes flew upward.
It was a tiny, sparkling star, racing across the sky. “A shooting star,” he breathed. The luckiest of lucky signs. Quickly, he made another wish in his mind: Return my luck to me, star. Let it bring us back together.
Clearing his throat, he hurried over to Wombat, who had stopped next to a line of bushes. “This looks good,” Wombat said. “Comfortable and hidden.” Smalls nodded his agreement. Fallen leaves had drifted under the bushes, blanketing the ground. Stifling a yawn, Wombat plopped down on an especially thick clump of leaves. “Night,” he murmured. Then faster than you could say “Sleep is for weaklings,” he was out.
• • •
Inside Chrysanthemum’s locked bedroom, Tilda was pacing. “Get. Me. Out. Of. Here,” she grumbled as she took her thirty-seventh and a half lap around the room. All five thousand strands of her silky white fur were stuffed into a frilly white princess dress meant for a doll, making it impossible for her to complete more than three steps of her sixteen-step grooming process. To make matters worse, a heavy bejeweled crown was fastened to her head, and tiny silk booties were crammed onto her paws. She looked like a caterpillar in a cocoon: ready to burst out at any moment.
Tilda lifted a paw, examining the shiny strands of fur peeking out of her booties. “Maybe if I grow my fur long enough, I could lower it out the window to climb down . . .” She let out a sharp laugh. “Right. As if anyone would ever do that.”
While Tilda continued on to her thirty-eighth and a half lap, Chrysanthemum stared dismally up at the purple wallpapered ceiling above her bed, unable to sleep. “Sure, Lauren Nicola, I’ll sit with you instead of Chrysanthemum,” she mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “Oh, Lauren Nicola, you’re soooo much funnier than Chrysanthemum.” She screwed up her face, as if she’d just eaten something sour. “After Miss-Queen-of-the-School moved away, I should have become the most popular girl. But noooo, it had to be Lauren Nicola. If only my parents had sent me away to Millstone Academy, like I’d wanted. I bet I’d be popular there. But nooooo, Chrysanthemum Toddle is too fragile to be sent away to boarding school!” Grabbing a pillow, she hurled it against the wall, watching in satisfaction as it collided with a thump before flopping to the ground.
“Who needs school anyway,” she muttered to herself. “Especially public school. I have my toys! Let’s see Lauren Nicola get a toy trunk like this.” Dragging herself out of bed, she flipped on a lamp and went over to a massive white chest. It was emblazoned with gold stripes and had an elaborate gold lock on the front of it. Chrysanthemum reached for the long bronze key she always wore on a chain around her neck. “That’s right, Lauren Nicola,” she muttered. “I bet you don’t have your very own key for your one-of-a-kind toy trunk.”
Unlocking the trunk, she pulled out a small wooden dollhouse. “Carnation!” she snapped, making the word sound more like a command than Tilda’s pretend name. “Come here!”
She sat down on the floor and set the dollhouse up in front of her. It was hand carved of a deep, rich wood, every detail completely lifelike: white shutters and a shingled roof and even a smattering of flowers along the front stoop. “You can be the bunny in the front yard,” she told Tilda.
“Whatever you say, Queen Chrysanthemum,” Tilda grumbled.
Chrysanthemum seemed to cheer up a little as she opened the top of the dollhouse, revealing two floors. There were several miniature rooms on each floor, filled with tiny furniture. In the corner bedroom, a wooden boy stood in front of his wooden dresser. He had a mess of painted red hair poking out from underneath a wooden baseball cap, bright blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles. One of the dresser drawers was open, and his tiny wooden hands rested on the pile of knitted sweaters inside.
Chrysanthemum sighed theatrically as she patted the boy on his head. “All right, all right, Sebastian. You can wear a different sweater today.” The wooden boy had a brown sweater painted onto him, but Chrysanthemum took a blue knitted one out of the drawer and pulled it over his head. “Do you like the name Sebastian?” she asked Tilda. “I chose it myself. It’s a noble name, don’t you think? Like a prince!”
Tilda wrinkled up her nose. “Personally I prefer Wombat.”
Ignoring Tilda’s squeaks, Chrysanthemum walked Sebastian into the neighboring bedroom, where a wooden girl with a painted mop of curly brown hair sat on a purple bed. “Hello, Little Chrysanthemum,” the real Chrysanthemum said.
She picked up the wooden girl, examining her. The doll was wearing a poufy purple dress and sparkly pur
ple shoes, and there was a bronze key dangling from a chain around her neck. “My very own Chrysanthemum doll,” she said proudly. “I bet Lauren Nicola doesn’t have her own doll.”
“Well, la di da,” Tilda replied. With a sigh, she lay down, resting her head on her paws. Inside the dollhouse, the wooden boy stared out at her. Tilda looked from his bright blue eyes to his strawberry-red hair to his maze of freckles. “You could be a younger Bertie,” she said sadly. A cloud seemed to pass over her face. “I wonder where Bertie is now. I wonder where they all are.” She looked out the bedroom’s open window, at the dark blue sky unspooling outside. There were no walls or floors or dollhouses out there—nothing but space, space, space. “Where are you, Wombat?” she wondered.
“Wom-who?”
Tilda blinked. A small bird had landed on the edge of the windowsill, the tips of her blue wings glistening in the moonlight. “Who’s this wombadiddy you’re blathering on about?”
“Wombat,” Tilda corrected. “And he’s the hairy-nosed love of my life, if you must know.” Her voice caught and she quickly cleared her throat. “And who are you?”
“I’m Kay,” the bird chirped. “As in the letter.” She glanced toward Chrysanthemum, who was busy laying out a meal of miniature food for the two dolls. “So you’re C’s newest toy, huh?”
“I’m not a toy,” Tilda sniffed. “I’m Tilda, a long-furred, purebred Angora rabbit!”
“Hmmm.” Kay took in her poufy princess dress and bejeweled crown. “You look like a toy to me, honey.”
Tilda let out a loud groan, her fluffy ears flopping underneath her crown. “You’re right,” she moaned. “I’m a long-furred, purebred Angora toy. If only Wombat were here. He would know what to do.”
“This Wombat,” Kay said, cocking her head. “Is he actually a wombat?”
“Not just any wombat,” Tilda said proudly. “A French-speaking, genius-IQ’d, hairy-nosed wombat.”
Kay snapped her beak, looking impressed. “I’ve never met a wombat before. Bet C over there would love to get her hands on that one. A nice new toy for her collection.”
“That will never happen,” Tilda said furiously. “Wombat’s coming and he’s going to save me!”
Kay spread her blue wings, revealing a silver lining underneath. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve got a lot to learn.” With that, she stepped off the windowsill, letting her wings carry her off toward the clouds.
“Wait!” Tilda called after her. “What do you mean by that?”
But the bird was already gone.
Battle of the Herds
There was only a hint of sun in the sky when Smalls woke the next morning. Bertie was cuddled against him, so close he could feel his tiny boy heart beating in time with his own bear one. Immediately, Smalls thought of Rigby and Susan, traveling all alone. It made him feel like one of the toys in the Forgotten Car: missing half his parts. Sadness knifed through him. Rigby would smell his way back to them; he had to believe that. He would ride the train to Toddle’s and then he would find them. It would all be okay. They would all be together—
“Do you hear that?”
Alfie’s wispy tweet cut into Smalls’s thoughts.
With a yawn, Smalls carefully separated himself from Bertie and sat up. “Hear what?” he asked sleepily.
“Every morning, I do my listening exercises, just like my sensei taught me,” Alfie said.
“And?” Smalls pressed. He yawned again. All he wanted to do was curl back up against Bertie and slip into another dreamless slumber, where their quest—and the gnawing hunger in his stomach—didn’t exist.
“And this morning I heard something odd,” Alfie continued, oblivious to Smalls’s disinterest. “There!” He clasped his paws together. “I just heard it again!”
Smalls flicked his ears forward. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s because you’re doing it all wrong,” Alfie explained. “You must close your eyes. Relax your muscles. Let your breathing soften. Only when you commune with the world around you will your senses be at their strongest.”
With a sigh, Smalls closed his eyes. He let his muscles relax and his breathing soften. “This isn’t going to—” he began. He was about to say “work” when a strange sound met his ears. A deep thrumming, like a hundred birds flapping their wings at once. “Running,” he murmured. He kept his eyes closed, listening harder. A low, threatening growl mixed in with the fast-paced footsteps. It was a growl that said: I am not your friend. Smalls’s eyes flew open. “A herd,” he gasped.
“An angry one,” Alfie added.
Nearby, Wombat sat up and stretched out his paws one by one. “Did someone say ‘herd’?”
“Yes.” Alfie reached for his quill sword, clasping it tightly between his paws. “From the sound of it, one is heading straight toward us.”
Wombat looked unbothered as he launched into his new grooming ritual. “What kind of herd?” he asked. “A herd of buffalo? A herd of cows? A herd of mice?”
“Does it matter? An angry herd is an angry herd, no matter what form they take.” Alfie’s quills twitched proudly. “The sensei taught me that.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” Wombat argued. “And I should know. I have an IQ of ten thousand.”
As Wombat and Alfie continued to argue over the herd, Bertie stirred next to Smalls. Slowly, the boy’s eyes fluttered open. “What’s going on?” he asked with a yawn.
Before Smalls could give Bertie a reassuring lick, something stole his attention. It was another growl, drifting in on a breeze, this one so low and fierce that even Wombat leapt backward in fear.
“The herd,” Alfie said with a gulp. “They’re gaining on us.”
“Those are no mice,” Wombat said.
“There’s only one thing to do then.” Smalls jumped to his paws and turned to face the other animals. “We have to get away.”
• • •
“Come on,” Smalls urged. He circled back around the others, nudging them forward. The sound of the herd was growing less faint by the minute. Smalls knew that if he gave his legs free rein, he could outrun any herd. But none of the others would stand a chance of keeping up with him. As if on cue, Bertie’s foot collided with a rock, sending him careening forward. Smalls leapt to his side, steadying him just in time.
“Giddy up!” Alfie yelled. He was standing on Wombat’s back, clutching his pointy ears as if they were reins. “Faster, Wombat! We must elude the herd!”
“I’m striving to,” Wombat wheezed. His paws were spinning wildly, his snout trembling from exertion. At that moment, Bertie tripped again, grabbing desperately at Smalls to stay upright.
“Everyone stop!” Smalls halted abruptly, signaling for the other animals to do the same. Bertie collapsed against him, breathing hard. Beads of sweat clung to his temples, and his forehead was bunched up in confusion. “Why in the world are we running?” he panted. His weak human ears were no match for the animals’, and even as the herd continued to draw closer, he heard nothing at all.
“We aren’t anymore,” Smalls replied. He knew Bertie couldn’t understand him, but the others could. “We clearly can’t outrun this herd. It’s time for a Plan B.”
“Allow me,” Alfie insisted. “Plan B’s are my specialty.”
“Along with rescuing princesses?” Wombat asked dryly.
Ignoring Wombat, Alfie reached for his sword and raised it into the air. “Fellow animals, it appears it’s time we arm ourselves for battle.” He looked at Smalls with calculating eyes. “Fangs and claws,” he declared, pointing his sword at him. “Those are your weapons. Don’t be afraid to use them!”
Under any other circumstances, the sight of a three-inch-tall hedgehog giving him orders would have made Smalls laugh for hours. But he could feel the earth groaning as the herd continued to close the distance between them. “Got it,” he told Alfie.
“And you.” Alfie whirled around to face Wombat. “How’s your throwing snout?”<
br />
“I have meticulous aim,” Wombat assured him.
“Then you’re to gather as many rocks as you can. Your job is to ward off the herd for as long as possible.”
Wombat nodded. “Just wait until Tilda hears about my heroics,” he said under his breath as he began to gather up rocks. “I’ll be her wombat in shining armor!”
While the animals twittered and grunted, Bertie watched them curiously. “First we’re running a race, and now this?” he murmured. “What is going on?”
At the sound of Bertie’s voice, Alfie and Smalls both whirled around to face him. “Now,” Alfie mused. “What are we going to do with the boy?”
“What we’re going to do is protect him,” Smalls said. Without another word, he stood on his hind legs and lifted Bertie in his front paws.
“Whoa!” Bertie yelped. “What are you doing, Smalls?”
In response, Smalls raced toward the closest tree and began to climb, holding Bertie tightly in his grip. Bertie yelled in surprise as they left the ground.
“It’s okay,” Smalls promised, hoping Bertie would find reassurance in his grunts. “I’m bringing you to a safe place.”
Bertie wrapped his arms tightly around Smalls. “I’m trusting you,” he said.
Halfway up the tree, Smalls noticed a nice thick branch, obscured by an umbrella of leaves. Perfect, he thought. Carefully, he deposited Bertie in the crook of the branch, where he could lean back against the tree trunk.
Bertie’s eyes flickered down to his legs, which were dangling loosely off the branch. I’m Fearless Boy, he told himself. No height is too high for me, no feat too scary! But even Fearless Boy had to wonder why Smalls had brought him up here. Bertie searched the bear’s eyes. There was a strange look in them: serious, guarded. He’s protecting me, Bertie realized. A shiver ran through him as he wondered what, exactly, he was being protected from.
Bertie leaned back against the tree trunk as Smalls bounded down to the ground. Now that he was wide awake, all his worries about Susan and Rigby came flooding back to him, one after another, like a dam breaking open. Hopefully Martha had never spotted them . . . but what if she had? What if she’d kicked them off the train miles later, sent them tumbling into the woods, alone and confused? They’d be hungry and thirsty and, worst of all, there would be no Smalls to protect them.
A Valiant Quest for the Misfit Menagerie Page 5
