Teddy & Co.

by Cynthia Voigt

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Cynthia Voigt

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2016 by Paola Zakimi

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhousekids.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Voigt, Cynthia. | Zakimi, Paola, illustrator.

  Title: Teddy & Co. / Cynthia Voigt ; illustrations by Paola Zakimi.

  Other titles: Teddy and Co. | Teddy & Company

  Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. |

  Summary: “A group of lost toys live on an island, and their community must adapt as new toys come and go.” —Provided by publisher

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015043447| ISBN 978-0-553-51160-4 (trade) |

  ISBN 978-0-553-51161-1 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-553-51162-8 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Toys—Fiction. | Teddy bears—Fiction. |

  Friendship—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Toys, Dolls, Puppets.

  | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship. | JUVENILE FICTION /

  Action & Adventure / General.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.V874 Td 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780553511628

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: A New Day

  Chapter 2: Teddy’s Idea

  Chapter 3: Prinny and Zia Join In

  Chapter 4: Explorers

  Chapter 5: Lost

  Chapter 6: A Discovery on the Beach

  Chapter 7: Mr. B

  Chapter 8: Teddy’s Next Idea

  Chapter 9: Prinny’s Swimming Lesson

  Chapter 10: Teddy’s Swimming Lesson

  Chapter 11: Clara

  Chapter 12: The Reign of Queen Clara

  Chapter 13: The End of the Reign of Queen Clara

  Chapter 14: Teddy Goes to Sea

  Chapter 15: A Rainy Day

  Chapter 16: Another Rainy Day

  Chapter 17: And Another One After That

  Chapter 18: Prinny’s Good Idea

  Chapter 19: Teddy’s Party

  For all nine of you —C.V.

  Night was over, it was morning, and Teddy’s red wagon was pulled up close to the window. Teddy was looking outside to see if the weather was good enough.

  Good enough meant: Not raining.

  Not good enough meant: Raining. Because if it was raining he had to stay inside, stay dry, and not go outside to see what might have happened in the darkness of night, when he was inside, sleeping.

  That morning, the weather was good enough.

  The night’s wind had blown itself out of the sky and dragged all the clouds after. Now a yellow sun floated just over the horizon. Teddy looked out his window at the big old beech tree and the low hill behind it, where four tall pines pointed up into the sky like spears, or candles on a birthday cake. Teddy looked out his window at the new day.

  From his window, everything seemed the same today as yesterday, but what if it wasn’t?

  “Umpah?” he called.

  A soft gray elephant came into the room, accompanied by the sweet smells of good things baking in the oven. “Good morning, Teddy,” he said. “I’ve made peach muffins.”

  Teddy wasn’t thinking about muffins. He was thinking about all the things that might happen in a night. “What if we slept outside?” he wondered.

  “You wouldn’t want to do that,” said Umpah. “There would be no roof, no windows and doors to close against cold and rain. There would be no protection from the kind of wind that was blowing last night. Didn’t you hear it?”

  “I don’t care about those things,” Teddy answered, even though he knew Umpah had the right of it.

  “Houses are warmer and safer than outside. So are burrows, and caves.”

  “That’s why they’re called shelter,” Teddy said. “That’s what shelter means. But still, things happen at night, outside, all night long.”

  “Things also happen all day long,” Umpah argued. “Daytime things. We go out during the day and we stay inside at night.”

  “But why?” asked Teddy.

  “Because that’s the comfortable way,” Umpah explained. “Don’t bother yourself thinking about it.”

  “It’s no bother,” Teddy said.

  Umpah waited another pair of minutes, in case Teddy needed something else explained to him. But Teddy just stared out the window, so Umpah went back to his baking. He had no desire to sleep outside, even if there was bright moonlight and no wind. He didn’t want Teddy sleeping outside either, alone, all night long. Just for one thing, what if he was frightened and Umpah was sound asleep and didn’t hear him call? Or what if it suddenly started to rain, for another? How would Teddy get inside? He couldn’t make his wagon move by himself.

  Umpah took a damp cloth to clean the flour from the countertop.

  Teddy looked out the window and tried not to wonder what it might be like to sleep outside, among the mysterious shadows that moonlight casts when it falls through the wide, leafy branches of a beech tree, under a sky so filled with stars that there is almost no room for black empty spaces between them. Then he saw Sid’s pointed nose sticking out from his burrow under the beech tree roots.

  Some nights, Teddy knew, Sid wrapped his long, striped body around one of the branches and slept outside. But Teddy couldn’t do that. He didn’t have Sid’s long, thin shape, good for wrapping around branches. He was a brown ball of a bear. He had a furry round brown head with bright button eyes, a short brown snout and little brown ears. He had no neck and stubby arms, a round brown belly, and he had lost his legs a long time ago. He knew he would fall right off any branch and plop down onto the ground.

  Sid slipped out of his burrow and slid along the path to Teddy’s house. He saw Teddy, but he was heading for muffins and had no time to say Good Morning. He had no time to knock, either. He slid right in through the door and went to the kitchen. Teddy heard Umpah say “I’ve got peach muffins.”

  He heard Sid say “I especially like peach muffins,” and then he thought he could hear the sound of muffins being swallowed whole, one after another, one muffin, two, three, four muffins, five.

  “Good,” said Sid. “Thank you, Umpah. I feel better.”

  “Did you feel bad?” asked Umpah. “Are you sick?”

  “I was only empty and now I’m full. Can Teddy come out?”

  “Yes of course,” Umpah said. He pulled Teddy’s wagon out into the front yard and returned to his baking.

  When it was only Teddy and Sid and no Umpah, Sid moved the handle of the red wagon to where Teddy’s arms could reach it, then slithered around behind to put his head against the back and get it moving. Teddy steered by pushing against the handle. He pushed with his right arm to turn left and he pushed with his left arm to turn right and Sid pushed from behind and it all worked pretty well.

  They went down the dirt path to the sandy beach,
to see what the nighttime tide had carried in. That day, it was only a dead pine branch and some eelgrass. Sid looked, but there was nothing to eat hidden among the long black wet grasses, so he slithered back to Teddy and Umpah’s red house and had a two-muffin snack.

  Alone on the beach, Teddy counted the waves as they rolled gently to shore, nibbling at the sand. The tide was going out and those waves gave him an idea to wonder about. He wondered if fewer waves came up to the shore when the tide was going out than when it was coming in. So as soon as Sid returned, he said, “When I say Go, turn around to face the beech tree and start counting to one hundred. I’ll count how many waves come in during that time. Then, when the tide is coming in this afternoon, I can count again while you count again too. Ready,” he said, “get set—”

  “I don’t know how to count to one hundred,” Sid said. “Can I count to twenty? I know how to count to twenty.”

  Teddy thought. “Can you count to twenty two times?” he asked. “Two times, one right after the other? And no rushing.”

  “I can do that,” said Sid. “I think,” he said. “Will it take long? Because what if I get hungry?”

  “Not very long,” Teddy promised. “Are you ready? Ready, get set, go!”

  Teddy began to count very quietly, noticing every little wave that came creeping shyly up toward his wagon.

  When Sid cried “Twenty! Twice!” Teddy stopped counting and memorized the number he’d reached, which was twenty-six.

  After that they watched seagulls taking naps on top of the water.

  “Aren’t they cold?” Teddy wondered.

  “What do they eat?” was Sid’s question, which reminded him, “Isn’t it time for lunch?”

  After a good lunch of banana muffins, the two friends returned to the beach. There, they saw the ospreys, who had a nest in the tallest of the four pines. The ospreys spread out their wings and flew in wide circles until they saw something move in the water far below. Then the birds dove down, falling straight as stones through the air, and sometimes they caught a fish and sometimes they didn’t, but it was always interesting to watch.

  “They’re hunting,” Teddy explained to Sid.

  “Hunting food,” Sid explained to Teddy.

  “The tide is coming in now. Let’s count again,” said Teddy.

  “I need to eat something first,” said Sid. “To keep my strength up. Counting takes a long time.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Teddy said.

  When Sid came back and they counted, Teddy got a different number. It was thirty-one, so he could say “I knew it!” and feel clever.

  “Knew what?” asked Sid, who didn’t care about being clever.

  “The water wants to be on the beach. So it hurries up onto the sand,” he explained, “but when it has to leave, it goes as slowly as it can. That’s what the numbers say.”

  Sid thought that over and decided, “You can’t eat a number.”

  By then it was almost day’s end. The sun was sliding lower, coming close to the tips of the pines, and Teddy’s shadow on the sand was stretching out long in front of him, trying to touch the water. “Time to go inside,” he said sadly.

  “Time to eat! Almost!” Sid agreed. Working together, they got the wagon turned around and took the path to the red house.

  Before he called Umpah to pull him inside for the night, Teddy looked back at the beach, then at the red-and-orange-and-pink sky spread out behind the pines. He sighed with contentment. “Do you know what tomorrow is?” he asked.

  “Breakfast!” Sid answered.

  “Tomorrow’s a new day. Who knows what might happen tomorrow,” Teddy said.

  “First breakfast, then snack, and then lunch,” Sid predicted.

  “Look at everything that happened today,” Teddy said.

  “And then supper!” Sid shouted.

  “You know those three apple trees?” Teddy asked. He was in the kitchen, breathing in the good smell of just-baked muffins.

  “The ones at the end of the path?” Umpah asked.

  “Yes,” said Teddy.

  “Of course I do,” said Umpah. “Why?”

  “Do you ever wonder?” Teddy asked.

  “No,” said Umpah. “You’re the wonderer. You’re always wondering about something.”

  “That’s because I have a round brown brain,” Teddy explained, and didn’t say anything more.

  Umpah, who was big and soft and gray and patient, waited for a while, but Teddy just waited back at him. Finally he gave up and asked, “Don’t I ever wonder what about those three apple trees?”

  “Wonder why we always stop at the end of the path,” Teddy said.

  Umpah knew the answer to that one. “Because we don’t know what comes after.”

  “If we went farther on, we could find out what comes after. That’s my idea,” Teddy told him.

  “I was afraid of that,” said Umpah. “Why do we want to do that?”

  Teddy didn’t have time to begin his list of reasons because at that moment Sid slipped through the kitchen door, all of his many colors bright in the morning light. “Am I interrupting anything? Like breakfast?” he asked hopefully.

  “I made muffins,” Umpah said.

  “What kind?”

  “Blueberry.”

  “I do especially like blueberry muffins,” Sid announced.

  “I know,” said Umpah.

  Umpah was a baker and Sid was an eater. What Teddy liked was the smells in the kitchen when Umpah baked.

  “Blue is a flavorful color,” said Sid, taking one muffin and swallowing it whole, then taking another.

  “My idea is to go past the three apple trees,” Teddy told him.

  “There’s no path,” said Sid. “You’ll miss lunch.”

  “We could take a picnic,” Teddy said.

  “I do especially enjoy picnics,” said Sid, downing a third muffin.

  “Maybe Peng would like to come too,” said Teddy. “And Prinny. And Zia.”

  Umpah said, “I didn’t say I was going.”

  “But I can’t leave the path without you,” Teddy reminded him.

  That was true. Teddy and Sid could move the red wagon easily enough on dirt paths and packed sand, but when the way was rough or marshy or full of bushes, only Umpah was strong enough to pull or push the wagon along. Without Umpah, Teddy couldn’t go past the apple trees.

  Sid warned Umpah, “If Peng comes, and Prinny, and Zia, and if there is a picnic, you’ll need to make more muffins.”

  “I don’t think I want to go beyond the apple trees,” Umpah said.

  “You could still make more muffins. You could make muffins and we could have our picnic under my beech tree,” Sid suggested.

  Because Sid had his burrow down among the beech roots, he considered it his own personal tree.

  “But don’t you wonder,” Teddy asked again, “what happens after the apple trees?”

  “Probably nothing to eat,” Sid told him.

  “But I want to find out. For sure. I want to know,” said Teddy.

  “Well,” said Umpah. “Whatever happens, Sid’s right. We’ll need more muffins. You two had better wait outside.” And he pushed Teddy’s wagon out into the sunlight. Sid followed them—after he’d taken the last blueberry muffin and swallowed it.

  Outside, the grass shone green and the sky shone blue. At first, Teddy and Sid stayed still, to blink away the brightness. They breathed in the salty air and listened to the little waves wash along the edge of the sandy beach. They saw three gulls flying in circles around one another and arguing about something. Then Teddy said, “You could tell Peng about my idea.”

  “It’s a long way to Peng’s cave, and uphill,” Sid said. He turned to look at the rough, rocky hillside that protected everything and everybody when bad weather came down from the north. Some thick, low bushes grew among the boulders on the hillside, and many little gulleys waited for rain to fill them. Peng’s cave was partway up the steepest bit, between two boulders. That was t
he way Peng liked to live: in a cool, shady place where it would be too much work for anyone to bother him with a visit.

  “Peng will want to know about it,” Teddy said.

  To visit Peng’s cave that sunny morning, Sid slid around behind Zia’s pink house and up the hill. He slithered around rocks and bushes, across gulleys, going up and up until he arrived at Peng’s doorway. Sometimes Peng pretended not to hear visitors knocking, so Sid pushed the door open and went right in.

  “Knock, knock,” said Peng’s voice, coming from a shadowy corner. “Did I hear anybody knocking?”

  “Teddy has an idea and he wants to tell it to you,” Sid said.

  “If he wants to tell me something, he can come where I am,” said Peng.

  “No he can’t,” said Sid, which was true.

  “Humph,” said Peng, because he already knew that.

  “You should come.”

  “If I have to,” Peng said.

  He waited for Sid to politely tell him Of course you don’t have to, but instead Sid said, “Let’s go.” Sid was about ready for his picnic lunch, or at least a snack.

  Sid slithered and Peng waddled and eventually they arrived at the red house, where Teddy was waiting for them in his red wagon, with his idea all ready to be told. In his most excited and persuasive voice, Teddy said, “We could go beyond the end of the path! Past the apple trees! And see what comes after!”

  Peng didn’t like Teddy’s idea. He didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t like anything about it. Peng was made all of wood, so it was awkward for him to turn from one side to the other. Also, it was hard for his wooden brain to change the way it thought about something. He looked over one shoulder and then turned stiffly to look over the other, to see trouble. Trouble was always on its way and Peng was always not surprised when it arrived.

  He looked at the path that led through the grass to the apple trees. He couldn’t see the trees, but he knew they were there, at the end of the path. He explained it to Teddy. “If you’ve never been to someplace before, you don’t know where it is. When you don’t know where someplace is, you are lost.”