Teddy & Co.

by Cynthia Voigt

  “Oh no!” cried Umpah, who hadn’t thought of this. “I don’t want to be lost,” he told Teddy.

  Teddy thought about that. He said, “If we always keep the Sea to the left, getting lost can’t happen.”

  “That’s all right then,” Sid told Peng.

  “You don’t know how far the Sea goes,” Peng pointed out.

  “That’s why I want to go past the apple trees,” Teddy said. “To find out. Don’t you wonder, Peng?”

  “Yes,” said Peng. “I do. I wonder what you will do when those clouds start to rain on you.”

  “Oh no!” cried Umpah. “We shouldn’t go anywhere, Teddy. We could have our picnic right here, close to shelter.”

  “If rain starts, we can retrace our steps,” Teddy announced. He liked the sound of that. Retracing their steps sounded like something real explorers might do.

  “Then that’s all right too,” Sid told Peng.

  Peng was not persuaded. “You can go if you want to, but I don’t want to and I won’t.”

  “Umpah is baking muffins for the picnic,” Sid reminded him, but Peng was on the watch for trouble, not muffins.

  “You’d better take umbrellas,” he warned them, and waddled woodenly back to his cool cave.

  “I don’t have an umbrella,” Sid called after him.

  “It’s not going to rain,” called Teddy.

  Peng ignored both of them.

  When Prinny saw Peng going back behind her pink house, heading up the hill, she trotted out to catch up with him, calling, “Good morning! It’s sunny!” She trotted around in front of him to block his way, and Peng stopped, because he had to. “Let’s go to the beach,” Prinny said.

  “Not today,” said Peng. Prinny was young and blue and silly.

  “Tomorrow?” asked Prinny. She had white and gold flowers printed all over her, so everybody wanted to be nice to her.

  “It’s probably going to rain,” said Peng. He took two sideways steps so he could go around her and get on home to his cave. “See those clouds? It could rain today.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Prinny, also stepping sideways, to continue blocking Peng’s way.

  Peng stopped again, to tell her the sad news. “You can never be sure of anything.”

  “Oh,” said Prinny. “Oh. That’s too bad. But where are you going now?”

  “Home.” And Peng made a quick circle around her.

  She let him get by. “All right, but where have you been?”

  “At Teddy’s. He has an idea.” Peng was ready to get back to his cool, dark cave and be alone without anyone talking at him.

  “Teddy has an idea? Will he tell it to me?”

  “You’ll have to ask him about that,” said Peng. He stopped to look over his shoulder, back beyond Prinny to the beech tree and beyond that to Teddy’s house. He could see Teddy and Sid there, in the yard, planning something. Peng told Prinny, “It’s his idea, and it’s not a good one.” Then he went on his way.

  Prinny wanted to rush right over to Teddy’s, but Zia had asked her not to run off without a word. Zia liked to take care of Prinny, and worry about her, so Prinny always said a word before she ran off. She went to find Zia.

  In Zia’s house, inside and out, everything was rosy. There were the warm pink floors and walls and chairs and tables and rugs, the pale pink plates and glasses, even a pink broom, both the handle and the brush as pink as watermelon. The pinkest thing of all in Zia’s house was Zia herself.

  Zia was as round and as bright a pink as a scoop of raspberry sherbet. Her ears were a deep, dark fuchsia, as were also her little hands and her tiny feet. Two black eyes sparkled in her bright pink face, as if she was about to go dancing, and four fat black stitches ran in a row down her soft pink belly, where long ago someone had sewn up a tear in her shining pink skin.

  Zia carried an ice cream cone to lick on, and perhaps that is why she was so round that she could barely get her fuchsia hands around to the front of her bright pink self to hold her ice cream cone close enough to lick.

  “Zia!” cried Prinny, running into the house. “Zia! Zia! Listen to this!”

  Zia rested her pink broom against the pink wall. She took a long lick of her ice cream cone.

  “Teddy has an idea!” Prinny told her.

  “Oh dear,” said Zia. “Oh my dearie dear.”

  “Do you think he’ll tell it to me?” Prinny asked. “I’m going to ask him.”

  “I better come with you,” Zia said. “I worry about that Teddy with his ideas.”

  Sid and Teddy were enjoying a nice quarrel about whether you should leave before there were picnic muffins even if Peng did say it might rain.

  “I’m not hungry,” Teddy said.

  “That doesn’t count because I am,” Sid argued.

  Prinny arrived, and Zia came right behind her, puffing a little from the hurrying. Prinny said, “Teddy! I’m here and you can tell me your idea! Will you tell it to me? Please?”

  “Of course,” said Teddy. “My idea is to go past the three apple trees—”

  As soon as Teddy said that, Zia started shaking her head, No and No.

  Teddy ignored her. “—and find out what comes after. I’m going to stay close to the Sea so I won’t get lost.”

  “Umpah is making muffins,” said Sid. Just then, Umpah came outside to join them. “We’re having a picnic, aren’t we, Umpah?”

  “Umpah will push me, and Sid is coming too,” Teddy told Prinny.

  Umpah joined Zia in the head shaking. “I didn’t say I’d go.”

  “You didn’t say you wouldn’t,” Teddy said.

  “Oh dear, Teddy, oh dearie me,” said Zia. She told him, “You have no idea what you might find. It could be wild animals, tigers and lions. Or a dangerous dry desert.”

  But Teddy said, “It could be a wonderful garden, with a fountain and rosebushes, and singing birds. Or there could be friendly crickets and frogs. Or something new to eat.”

  “What kind of something new?” asked Sid.

  “Can I come with you?” Prinny asked. “Can I? Please?”

  Zia had more reasons not to go. “Also, you can never tell with the Sea, what it might do, what might crawl out of it. You better not get too close to the Sea,” she advised Umpah. “The Sea has tides.”

  “Can I go with Teddy, Zia?” asked Prinny. “To see what comes after?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Zia said. She explained, “There won’t be anyone to look after you.”

  Prinny said, “I don’t need anyone.”

  Zia said firmly, “Yes you do. You’re little.”

  “Umpah can do it,” said Prinny. “Can’t you, Umpah?”

  “No,” said Umpah. “If I do go, there’s Teddy to push and my basket to carry.”

  “Then Sid can,” said Prinny.

  “No I can’t,” said Sid. “You could easily run from me on those four fast feet of yours. You never do what I tell you.”

  “I will now!” Prinny said.

  “I’ll look after you,” Teddy offered, from his cushion on the wagon.

  “Oh dear, Teddy, oh dearie dear. How could you save her if she fell into the water?” asked Zia. “And how could you catch her if she ran off into the bushes and was never seen again?”

  “Well,” said Teddy, “I guess I couldn’t.” He looked at Prinny. “I’m afraid you really are too little to come with us.”

  “I don’t want to be little any more,” Prinny said, and she stamped her right front foot on the ground. “When you’re little, you don’t ever get to do what you want.” She stamped again. “Even if all you want to do is to go on a picnic and see what comes after.” She began to sniffle. “I want to be big, starting right now.”

  “Don’t be sad, Prinny,” Zia said. “Don’t be angry.”

  “Besides,” said Umpah, “I’m bigger than anyone else, and I don’t want to go beyond the apple trees, but I think I’m going to be doing it anyway.”

  “Besides besides,” said Teddy, who had
had another idea. “If we all travel together as far as the apple trees, we can have our picnic there. Then anyone who wants to, except Umpah, can go home. So Prinny can get an entire half of what she wants.”

  “A picnic? All together?” asked Prinny. “Can we do that, Zia? Under the apple trees?”

  “And afterward, you and I will go home,” Zia agreed.

  “And we’ll go on,” said Teddy. “To see what there is to see.”

  When they finished their picnic, Prinny and Zia went home and Umpah packed up his basket.

  “Where are we going?” asked Sid.

  “North,” answered Teddy.

  “Yes, but north where?” Sid insisted.

  Umpah set the basket down in front of Teddy and gave him the wagon’s handle. The big gray elephant pushed the red wagon to the shore, where there was a narrow strip of packed mud. When they reached the water’s edge, he turned so that his left shoulder was closer to the water, and so was Teddy’s left ear and Sid’s left eye. Then he pushed the wagon forward, leaving behind the apple trees and everything familiar.

  “What are we looking for?” asked Sid.

  “We’ll know it when we find it,” answered Teddy.

  “Yes, but what is it?” Sid insisted.

  Umpah pushed the wagon northward, along the land’s edge.

  Sid stayed close to Teddy’s side. He could have gone much faster alone, but he went slowly so that they could all travel on together. “With the Sea always to our left, we can’t get lost,” Sid explained to Umpah.

  “I know,” Umpah said.

  “Because we can always know how to get home,” Sid explained anyway.

  “We’re explorers!” Teddy cried out in excitement. “Explorers exploring!”

  The sun shone brightly and nobody cared about the line of flat gray clouds sneaking up into the blue sky behind them.

  For a long time, nobody said a word. The only sounds were the breeze brushing through the stiff marsh grass and the little waves licking at the shore, the buzz and flutter of insects, the shrieks of gulls and the occasional thump of wagon wheels when they bounced over a stone. Umpah and Sid and Teddy walked and slithered and rode along the shore, and looked and listened and didn’t talk.

  Until Teddy cried, “Stop!”

  Umpah stopped. He looked over Teddy’s head and saw what Teddy had already noticed: They had come to the edge of a stream.

  “Oh no,” said Sid. “Oh well. I guess we have to turn around. Will we be home in time for snack?”

  The stream flowed out from among trees and rushed to join the Sea.

  “Did you know we had a stream so close to our house?” Teddy asked Umpah. “I didn’t.”

  “It’s not very close,” Umpah said.

  “How deep do you think it is?” Teddy asked.

  “I’ll find out,” Umpah said, and he stepped into the flowing water. It came up to his fat gray ankles and then it rose to his fat gray knees. He turned around and came back. “It’s too deep for your wagon,” he reported.

  “Oh well,” said Sid. “But we did discover a stream.”

  “I’m not looking for a stream,” Teddy said. “I was looking for something else,” he said, and then he had an idea. “We can explore the stream to find a place shallow enough for us to cross.”

  “But…but, Teddy, what if we get lost in the woods with nothing to eat?” Sid asked.

  Teddy explained his idea. “We’ll follow the stream inland, and then, after we cross it, we’ll follow it back down to the Sea, and then,” he said as Sid took a breath to object again, “we’ll go on. With the water on our left again, so we can’t get lost.”

  Sid said, “But it could take a long time to get to a shallow enough place.”

  “It could,” Teddy agreed.

  “And we don’t have anything to eat,” Sid said again, as patiently as he could.

  “But we do,” Umpah told him. “I put extra in my picnic basket. I put in muffins for a snack.”

  “Oh,” said Sid, “that’s all right then.”

  “Let’s go,” urged Teddy.

  It was slightly uphill, so Umpah had to work hard to push Teddy’s wagon. Sid slid along beside them through the thick grass that edged the bank of the stream, and Teddy sat up as tall as he could to see what was coming next. “Bush on the right,” he would warn, or, “Big stone dead ahead.”

  They didn’t have to follow the stream very far before the ground grew level. The stream ran shallow there, and they could cross it together, Sid holding his head up high to keep it dry and Umpah’s four round feet splashing gently as he pushed the wagon through water that wasn’t much deeper than a puddle.

  Then they headed back to the Sea.

  After the stream, there were big rocks along the shore instead of a strip of mud. Big rocks are almost impossible to push a wagon over, even if you are as strong as an elephant. So they moved a little inland, twisting their way among the trees and bushes. Sid kept an eye out, to be sure he could always see the water off to the left.

  By that time, clouds were crowding close around the sun. Every now and then, one of the three travelers looked up, wondering if it was going to rain. But no one said a word about that. Instead of talking about rain, they talked about how far and how long. “How far do you think we’ve gone?” Teddy asked. “How long have we been gone?”

  “Not so far yet. Not so long,” said Umpah, only half of his attention on the questions. He had to concentrate on the job of pushing Teddy’s wagon over roots and through bushy undergrowth.

  “When can we have our snack?” asked Sid.

  “A little later, a little farther on,” answered Umpah.

  After another while, they saw ahead of them a long beach that curved out into the water like a rainbow curves up into the sky. Its sand was crowded with rocks. Teddy was pleased with the discovery. “I didn’t know there was a rocky beach, did you?”

  “We could have our snack here,” Sid suggested, but, “Too many rocks,” said Umpah, and he pushed on.

  When the beach was behind them and they found themselves moving through long grass—the water as always on their left—Sid said to Teddy, “We’ve discovered a stream and a rocky beach. What is there left to find?”

  Umpah felt funny. “Is something different?” he asked.

  “What’s different is that the sun is hidden behind clouds,” Teddy explained. He was looking all around, not wanting to miss anything. “I just want to see,” he told Sid.

  Sid didn’t think that was much of an answer. They could all see that the clouds had captured the sun. Everything did look a little different. “We have to keep the Sea to our left,” he reminded Umpah.

  The explorers went on, moving through more trees and around more bushes. Then they found themselves at another beach, one that did not have rocks scattered all over it. They stopped to look at the wide strip of sand and the gray waves rushing up against it.

  “Now’s a good time to eat,” Sid suggested. He rested his head on the edge of Teddy’s wagon, close to the basket of muffins.

  Umpah agreed. “I’m hungry too. It’s hard work, pushing a wagon over rough ground, without any path to follow.” Settling Teddy’s wagon at the edge of the sand, where it wouldn’t sink in, he set the basket down in front of Sid and opened it wide. Right away Sid swallowed down one muffin, then two, and, more slowly, a third. Umpah ate one, two, and three as well.

  Teddy studied the water, noticing how its color had changed, reflecting the cloudy sky, and how the wind was blowing white-topped waves along its gray surface. He wasn’t hungry, but something did feel different now. He wondered what it was.

  “We can go back,” Sid suggested. “We’ll have to keep the Sea on our right all the way.”

  “I want to discover something more,” Teddy said.

  “Discover what kind of something more?” asked Sid. “Maybe I could go ahead and find it for you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Teddy said. “I don’t know what it will be, but
it has to be something new. Something from farther on. Explorers discover new things,” he explained. “We can keep going, can’t we, Umpah?”

  But Umpah was snoring gently and didn’t answer.

  Sid wanted a little nap too, so they all fell quietly asleep there on the beach, with the rush of the waves for a lullaby.

  It was a misty rain washing their faces that woke them. Sid opened his eyes first and fastest. “Oh no!” he cried. “We’d better go back right away!” He turned around so that the Sea was on his right. “We have no more food,” he reminded the others. “It’s a good thing we aren’t lost, because in this mist it’s hard to see.”

  “There’s still daylight,” Teddy argued. “I think. Don’t you think, Umpah? It’s not too late yet, is it?”

  But Umpah didn’t know, so he couldn’t say, so he didn’t say.

  “We’ve come so far,” Teddy said. “Let’s go on just a little bit farther.”

  Sid looked back in the direction where home waited, such a long way behind, and he didn’t want to travel alone, even if it was to be on his way home. So he stayed beside Teddy’s wagon, keeping the Sea on his left.

  After they were back among the trees, it seemed darker, and later, and all three of them grew a little worried. They weren’t too worried, however, because they had one another for company. It’s always easier not to be worried when you have company.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” asked Teddy, as cheerfully as he could.

  Sid knew the answer to that. “We don’t have supper tonight. We don’t have breakfast in the morning.”

  “That’s not so bad,” said Umpah, panting from the hard work of pushing Teddy’s wagon. “Also, we might have to sleep outside in the rain. But the trees will shelter us.”

  “I’ve always wanted to sleep outside,” Teddy said. “So everything is fine.”