“My apologies,” Wombat said quickly. “I didn’t realize I was disturbing anyone.”
“Humph.” The bird studied him for a second, cocking her beak. “What kind of animal are you?”
Wombat lifted his snout. “I’m a wombat of the rare hairy-nosed variety.”
“A what?” the bird replied.
Wombat sighed. “A hairy-nosed wombat.”
“No way.” The bird let out a low whistle. “So you really came. She said you would, but I had my doubts. No offense to you, sweetie. It’s just that prince charmings are a dying breed these days.”
“Prince charming?” Wombat’s fur bristled with pride. “I suppose that does suit me—wait.” He looked up sharply. “Who said I’d come?”
The bird flapped her wings, exposing their shimmery silver lining. “Tilda, of course.”
Wombat teetered unsteadily on his paws. “You’ve seen Tilda?” He whirled around, looking high and low. “Tilda, my love? I’ve come for you!”
The bird flinched. “No need to shout, honey. She’s not going to hear you in here.”
Wombat’s snout quivered. “Where is she then?”
“The highest room of the Toddle family house.” The bird pointed her wing at a tall stone house in the back of the Toddle compound, where a tiny pinprick of light shone in the window of its turret. “That’s your girl’s new home. Or prison, depending on how you see it.”
Wombat kept his eyes trained on the turret. For once in his life, he was at a complete and utter loss for words. So he did what any self-respecting wombat would do and stole some from Smalls. “Well, holy horseshoe,” he said.
Invisible Boy
Bertie woke to the sound of footsteps. “Smalls?” he murmured. He patted the ground next to him without opening his eyes. But seconds passed, and no sun bear cuddled up to him. Nearby, the footsteps grew louder. Two footsteps, Bertie realized, not four. Human footsteps.
He bolted upright, suddenly wide awake. The memory of last night came flooding back to him. He’d only meant to lie down in the wooden tree for a minute, but he must have fallen asleep. Moving quietly, Bertie crept down the stairs and peeked out the door of the tree. The footsteps belonged to a woman. She was wearing a blue-and-white-striped uniform shirt and a nametag that read: MARIE, Certified Toy Specialist! Sunlight poured in through the store’s windows as the woman eyed the lamp Bertie had turned on last night.
“Someone must have forgotten to turn this off.” She shrugged and began moving through the store, flipping light switches and straightening shelves. “I hate working Saturdays,” she mumbled. “Always the busiest day of the week.” She stopped behind a long blue counter and pushed several buttons on the cash register. She was opening the store, Bertie realized. He ducked back into the tree, his heart pounding. He just hoped Smalls and Wombat knew to hide.
• • •
Footsteps. Smalls heard footsteps above him. And not Bertie’s, either. Heavier, denser footsteps. He leapt to his paws. His fur was sticky with honey, and several empty jars were scattered around him. A few feet away, Wombat was fast asleep, his head resting on an empty jar of yogurt-covered pretzels. “Wombat,” he hissed, nudging him awake. Last night, they’d stayed up for hours brainstorming ways to save Tilda from the turret she was trapped in. At some point, they must have both drifted off. “Wombat,” he said again, nudging him harder.
“Tilda?” Wombat’s head snapped up, his eyes popping open. “Oh. It’s just you.”
“Me and someone else,” Smalls said. He gestured to the ceiling, where the footsteps were working their way across the main room of the store.
Wombat flicked his ears, listening hard. “Not Tilda,” he said with a sigh.
“No, but someone we probably don’t want to see us,” Smalls pointed out. “Not if we want to find Tilda—and Rigby and Susan too.”
That got Wombat to his feet. As he stretched out his paws, Smalls gathered up the empty jars, burying them in the bottom of a large tub of jellybeans. He clumsily rearranged the honey tower, hoping no one would notice that it stood a little shorter than yesterday. At the last minute, he snatched another jar in his teeth. A bear couldn’t be expected to skip breakfast, after all. “Follow me,” he whispered to Wombat. Padding softly across the floor, he took off to find a place to hide.
• • •
It didn’t take long for the store to fill up with people. Bertie looked nervously around as he slipped out of the tree. But he quickly discovered there was no need to worry. In the midst of all those kids—climbing and running and playing and yelling—no one so much as batted an eye at the sight of a small, red-haired boy emerging from the tree.
Bertie stretched his arms overhead as he stood there in the bright light. Kids streamed past him as if he wasn’t even there, as if he could be anyone. It reminded him of how he used to long to be Invisible Boy, a hero who could turn invisible at will. “It looks like I finally got my wish,” Bertie said. And in a toy store, of all places.
Immediately, he began to scan the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of Susan’s blue skirt and long blond hair. The room was packed with kids their age; everywhere he looked, he saw flaxen blond hair and g olden blond hair and strawberry blond hair. But there was no acrobat’s uniform in sight. There was no Susan.
Bertie spun slowly around, studying the store. It looked as huge from the inside as it had from the outside: rooms unfolding into more rooms, stairwells shooting up and up. If Susan was here, she wouldn’t have known to wait for him in the main room. Knowing her, she would have hidden Rigby outside and would now be traipsing from floor to floor, searching high and low for him. She could anywhere. And so could Tilda.
Bertie’s cheeks puffed up in a smile. It looked like it was time to explore Toddle’s Toy Emporium
A Stuffed Piglet
Smalls was going stir-crazy. He’d never been very good at standing still, and for the past hour he hadn’t so much as moved a muscle. It was working, though. Standing in the back of Toddle’s Stuffed Jungle, between a life-sized tiger and a giraffe whose head scraped the ceiling, Smalls and Wombat had barely been glanced at. The problem was, Smalls wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it.
Smalls sniffed discreetly at the air. If Rigby and Susan had managed to stay on the train, they could be arriving at Toddle’s at any minute. Smalls might not have Rigby’s impeccable sense of smell, but any bear worth his fur could easily sniff out a dog in an otherwise human crowd. He inhaled slowly, searching for a hint of Komondor fur or dog breath lingering amid the rubbery scent of toys and the perfumed scent of humans. But he caught nothing. Smalls’s stomach churned uneasily. It doesn’t mean they won’t come, he told himself.
“Mom, look!” A girl with dark brown pigtails knelt in front of Wombat, ruffling his short, bristly fur. “This piglet stuffed animal looks so real!”
The girl’s mom stopped next to her. “I don’t think that’s a piglet, honey. It looks more like a beaver to me.”
“No, no.” The girl’s dad came over to join them. He had shaggy hair that was just as dark as his daughter’s. “It’s a wombat, honey. Most likely a hairy-nosed one, judging by his snout.”
A pleased snort escaped Wombat.
“He makes noises!” the girl squealed. She squeezed Wombat’s stomach, trying to make him snort again. “And he’s warm too, like a real animal! Can I get him?” She looked beseechingly up at her parents. “Puh-leeeaaazze? I won’t ask for anything else this trip, I swear!”
“How much is it?” her mom asked. She crouched on the ground, studying Wombat. “I don’t see a price tag . . .”
Smalls stiffened. Of course there was no price tag. Wombat wasn’t for sale! A terrible scenario suddenly flashed through his mind. The girl’s mom getting the manager. The manager coming up with a price. And the girl walking out with Wombat tucked under her arm.
Or just as bad—the manager realizing why, exactly, Wombat didn’t have a price tag.
“It doesn’t matter,” the
girl’s dad said. “Because you’re not getting it, Hannah. You have enough stuffed animals! We’re here for a jewelry-making kit, remember?”
Hannah sighed. “I know . . .” She gave Wombat a final longing pat before following after her parents.
Smalls blew out a sigh of relief as the family disappeared from sight. “That was close,” he whispered.
“Too close,” Wombat murmured out of the side of his mouth. “Which is why we need to construct a method to save Tilda pronto.”
Thanks to the bird Wombat met last night, they knew where Tilda was now. But even after hours of brainstorming, they still hadn’t come up with a fail-proof way to save her. Smalls knew that the longer they stayed in the store without acting, the more they risked being discovered. They needed a plan. One that would help them get Tilda back—and distract him from worrying about Rigby and Susan in the process. “If only Alfie were here,” he sighed. “I bet he’d know a way to use his quill sword to get to Tilda.”
“Or his karate kick,” Wombat agreed.
Smalls was quiet for a moment, trying to channel the brave little hedgehog. Slowly, a list began to form in his mind:
What Alfie Would Do:
1. Use a mouse hole to sneak unseen into the Toddles’ house.
2. Unlock Tilda’s turret prison with a sharp quill.
3. Duel courageously with the poufy-dressed girl holding Tilda captive.
It was a great plan, if you were a prickly, three-inch-tall, sensei-trained hedgehog. But those were Alfie’s strengths, not Smalls’s. “That’s it,” Smalls said suddenly. “Alfie would tell us to use our own strengths to come up with a plan! And I know exactly what my strength is.” He flicked his ears forward happily. “I’m going to make a list.”
“Of course you are,” Wombat said. Out of the corner of his vision, Smalls caught Wombat rolling his eyes, but he chose to ignore it. His lists never failed him.
“Ways to Rescue Tilda,” he began. “One. Climb up the side of the stone house.”
“And slip and perish before we can rescue her?” Wombat gasped. “No, much too risky. Two,” he said. “Propel boulders at her window in the turret.”
“And get caught breaking a window?” Smalls countered.
“Valid point,” Wombat admitted. They were both quiet for a minute, thinking.
“We could have that bird you met fly up to her window,” Smalls offered.
“Or better yet,” Wombat said slowly. “I could fly up to her window!” He looked up at the ceiling, where a toy hot air balloon hovered above them. It had a basket just large enough to fit a hairy-nosed wombat.
“That’s brilliant!” Smalls exclaimed. It came out a little louder than he’d meant it to, and he quickly clamped his mouth shut. He looked around, worried someone might have heard his grunts, but between the patter of footsteps and the cheers of kids and the yells of parents and the rattle of toys, it was clear no one had noticed. Still, he lowered his voice back to a whisper. “And to think my next suggestion was for you to blend in as a stuffed piglet,” he joked.
Wombat looked over at him, his round eyes lighting up. “That might actually be quite useful once I’m inside.” A little boy ran past them, and Wombat automatically fell silent. He waited until the boy was gone to speak again. “It looks like we’ve found our plan.”
“See?” Smalls said smugly. “I knew a list would help.”
• • •
Bertie had been searching the Emporium for over an hour. He’d been through every aisle of the main floor and every inch of the candy room. He’d been up and down stairwell after stairwell. He’d passed a trampoline the size of a small pool and racks of dress-up clothes. He’d seen nooks filled with tea sets and toy barns and entire play kitchens. But no matter where he looked, he found no Susan, no Rigby, and no Tilda.
He let out a frustrated sigh as he headed back to the Stuffed Jungle to check on Smalls and Wombat. Before he’d started exploring that morning, he’d helped the animals get settled in a hiding spot there. Now, as Bertie wove through the aisles of teddy bears and penguins and stuffed snakes, even he had a hard time picking out the bear and wombat nestled between a huge stuffed tiger and an even larger stuffed giraffe. He broke into a relieved smile. They were still safe there, at least for now.
He gave Smalls a tiny wave before hurrying across the store once more. “Susan?” he called out tentatively. And then louder: “Susan? SUSAN?”
An elderly woman with a basket full of toys looked his way, but no Susan answered his calls. Bertie could think of only one other option. Squaring his shoulders, he marched over to the customer support desk in the corner of the room. The desk sat on a raised, swiveling platform and had the word HELP plastered across it, made up of dozens of twinkle lights. The tall, bespectacled man behind the desk looked a little queasy as the platform spun him around and around. “What can I do for ya?” he asked. His nametag said HARRY, Certified Toy Specialist! He adjusted his blue-and-white-striped bowtie before waving Bertie up.
The store began to cycle around Bertie the instant he climbed onto the platform. Toys winked in the corner of his vision, and the crowd blurred into a single, moving mass. He pressed his hands against the desk to steady himself. “I, um, I’m looking for a new toy,” he told Harry. His voice was higher than usual as the lie spilled out of him. “I was told it was coming in on the next train shipment, so I was just wondering if you could, well, tell me when that would be?”
“Let’s see . . .” Harry drummed his fingers against the desktop, looking thoughtful. “We are expecting a big shipment of toys, but the train makes several stops at our other factories along the way, so I can’t say for sure when it will arrive. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Could even be the next day, if the factories move slowly.”
Bertie’s shoulders sagged. What if it really took days? He took a deep breath. He would just have to find a way to stay at Toddle’s until the train got there.
He looked back up at Harry. He had one last question for him. “Also, can you tell me if Toddle’s has some kind of petting zoo or pet store?”
“Not as far as I know,” Harry said with a laugh. “Unless you’re talking about the Stuffed Jungle, of course.”
Bertie’s heart sank. The check for Tilda had been written by the Toddle family! She had to be here somewhere. “There are no animals at all?” he pressed. “Because I heard there was a circus animal here now.” Bertie arranged his face into a mask of innocence. “An Angora rabbit?”
Harry shook his head, making his bowtie jostle. “A rabbit? Where did you hear—oh!” He snapped his fingers. “You must be talking about the Toddles’ new pet. Sorry, son, the rabbit doesn’t live at the toy store.” He pointed out the window, toward the huge stone house on the other side of Toddle compound. “That rabbit’s living the royal life with the Toddles’ own daughter.”
Bertie Rots
Bertie collapsed in a beanbag chair, his thoughts spinning wildly. Getting to the Emporium had been difficult enough. How was he going to get into the Toddles’ house now? The house might be in the same fenced-in compound as the Emporium, but there was at least half a mile of distance between them. If he even started walking toward the house in broad daylight, someone from the Emporium would surely stop him before he got very far.
In broad daylight. Of course! What he had to do was wait for nightfall, when the store closed up and all the employees went home. He’d been able to sneak into the Emporium at night; it was his best bet for the Toddles’ house too.
Bertie stood up, a fresh burst of energy rushing through him. Hopefully Susan and Rigby would arrive soon. Then he and Susan could find a way into the Toddles’ house together. The thought gave him a happy, buzzing feeling as he hurried again toward the Stuffed Jungle to check on Smalls and Wombat. Fortunately, they were right where he’d left them, standing stock-still between the stuffed tiger and giraffe. He fought the urge to plop down at Smalls’s paws and tell him everything he’d just learned. He knew the less attention
drawn to the animals right now, the better.
He gave them a tiny smile before slipping away. As he paused in the middle of the store, it hit him that he now had an entire day to fill. And he knew exactly what to do with it.
He touched a hand to his pocket with a smile. He could finally research the wooden boy. Bertie thought of how excited Susan would be if he learned something new about the figurine—maybe even remembered something abo ut his past—by the time she arrived. It was the perfect way to pass his time.
But as Bertie took off through the store, searching for any signs of the wooden toy, his attention kept jumping. For most of his life, he’d had no toys and hardly any opportunities to play. Now, everywhere he looked, he saw both. He couldn’t help it; each toy seemed shinier than the last. They drew him to them like he was a puppet on strings.
First it was the train set winding through the main room. His uncle had never let him have a train set; he’d laughed in his face the one time Bertie had asked, spitting a chewed-up fingernail at him for good measure. But here was a massive, elaborate set, complete with bridges and stations, and it was just sitting out in the open, waiting to be played with.
After that it was the motorcars: a small racetrack of miniature cars with real wheels and windows that rolled down. Bertie couldn’t resist sliding into one, letting his hands grip the steering wheel.
“Wanna race?”
Bertie looked over sharply. A boy was sitting in the motorcar next to his, smiling expectantly. He had wildly curly hair and skin the color of a coconut husk.
“Me?” Bertie blushed as his voice squeaked slightly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to a boy his age—really spoken to him, not just served him cola at the circus’s concession stand. He wasn’t sure he even knew how.
A Valiant Quest for the Misfit Menagerie Page 11
