“Well, this place is horrible.”
Lisa Marie couldn’t really argue. Theodore had led them into a large room that was lit all around with old-fashioned oil lamps. Rusty pipes ran along the exposed brick walls. Patches of damp bloomed on the ceiling, and there were even little clumps of mushrooms growing in some of the corners. Lisa Marie immediately recognized them from the Bumper Book of Poisonous Things she’d once borrowed from the library and made a mental note not to get too close.
None of these things were the most disturbing part of the room, though. That honour went to the teddy bears.
There were a hundred or more of the things, all different shapes and sizes. They hung from the pipes on lengths of rope that were wrapped around their tummies, their arms hanging limply, their glassy eyes staring at the floor below.
That didn’t apply to all of them, though, Lisa Marie realized. Some of them didn’t have paws. Or eyes. Or even tummies, in some cases. At least half of them looked unfinished, like they’d been stitched together wrong, and several were oozing stuffing out of holes in their seams.
There were one-legged teddies, no-legged teddies, and at least a couple with three legs. One had its face put on upside down, while another’s ears sprouted from the side of its head like the handles of a trophy.
If you ignored their missing parts, most of the bears were the same size as those being made in the factory, but a couple were Bearvis-sized, and one was so small Lisa Marie could’ve held it in the palm of her hand with room to spare.
“Look at that one,” Vernon whispered, pointing to another. “It’s just a head on a foot.”
“Yes, terrible shame!” Theodore called back over his shoulder. “Poor fellow. I call him Sir Hopsalot.”
He began to gesture around the room. “That’s Jimmy Three Legs. Uncle Noface. Tiny Norman.”
“You named them all?” said Lisa Marie.
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”
“Uh, because it’s creepy and weird?” Vernon said.
Lisa Marie elbowed him in the ribs. “Ignore him. I name all my teddy bears.”
“Which proves my point,” Vernon said.
Lisa Marie spotted something half hidden by a sheet in the corner. It was big and bulky, with a tangle of wires coiled up at the bottom. There was something familiar about the shape.
“What’s that?”
Theodore followed her gaze, then let out a little yelp. “Oh, nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about that. Nothing to see there.”
He was too late. Lisa Marie crossed to the sheet and pulled it away. Her eyes widened when she saw what had been hidden beneath it.
“It’s one of Ursine’s machines. This brings bears to life, doesn’t it?”
“What? No! That thing? No!” Theodore said, wringing his paws together. He sighed. “I mean … yes. It should. Don’t tell anyone, but I pinched it from the rubbish. Him Upstairs was throwing it away, and I just thought… Well, it would be nice to have some company.”
“Why didn’t you use it?” Vernon wondered.
“It’s broken. I tried to fix it, but…” He tapped his head. “It’s all just stuffing up here, you see? I’m built for cuddling, not electrical engineering. I probably should have thrown it away, but it was hard enough to drag down here without anyone seeing me, so I just left it.”
The old bear suddenly looked very nervous. “You won’t tell on me, will you? I could get into terrible trouble.”
Lisa Marie blew some dust off the machine’s control panel and tugged gently on some loose wiring.
“I promise we won’t tell anyone,” she said. “If you do me a favour.”
“A favour? What kind of favour?” Theodore asked.
Lisa Marie grinned. “Find me a screwdriver.”
“What do you want a screwdriver for?” Vernon wondered.
Lisa Marie glanced down at Bearvis. “We’re bringing back the King.”
A teddy bear in a frilly pink tutu halted in front of the giant-eye screen and snapped off a salute. The eye glared down at the bear for a few long silent moments.
“What are you wearing?” Grizz’s voice eventually demanded.
“It’s a tutu, sah!” barked the bear, performing another crisp salute.
Grizz sighed. “I can see it’s a tutu. I suppose what I really want to know is why are you wearing it?”
“We ran out of army uniforms, sah!” the bear replied, saluting again. “But we found some other outfits in one of the storerooms, so we’re wearing them.”
Grizz’s voice became a menacing growl. “So, let me get this straight. Half of my terrifying teddy bear army is dressed as ballerinas?”
“Oh no, sah,” said the bear, firing off yet another salute. “There were only a few tutus. The rest was a mix of other stuff. We’ve got some Vikings, a few pirates…”
“That sounds more promising,” said Grizz.
“Lollipop ladies, clowns, funny little penguins…”
Grizz sighed again. “Those are less promising. But enough. Give me a progress report.”
“Ursine Kodiak has been restrained as requested, sah!” the soldier-bear replied.
“And those little meatbag kids…?”
“Um, we’re still searching, sah! Cuddlyplump and Mr Fluffton are making their way to the basement. We think the children are—”
“You think?” Grizz’s voice barked, making the speakers rattle and buzz. On-screen, the eye blazed furiously. “I don’t want think, I want them found.”
“Sah, yes, sah!” the soldier-bear said, stiffening and saluting again. He crisply about-turned.
“Wait,” said Grizz.
The soldier-bear about-turned again so he was facing the screen.
“On second thoughts, don’t bother. They’ll come to us soon enough. Everyone get ready.”
“Uh, ready for what, sah?”
“Ready to get in those tanks and planes, of course.” Grizz’s voice became an excited rumble.
“We’re going to take over the world!”
“Sah, yes, sah!”
The soldier-bear about-turned.
“Hang on. I wasn’t finished.”
The soldier-bear about-turned again. If this kept up, he was going to get dizzy.
“The big meatbag. The grown-up. What did you call him again?”
“Ursine Kodiak, sah!”
“Have him brought here.”
A robotic arm reached into a container fixed to the side of one of the machines and pulled out a tiny microchip no bigger than a postage stamp.
“I’ve just had a truly diabolical idea!”
“Very good, sah!” replied the bear. Then, with a curtsy, he rose on to the tips of his furry feet, raised his hands gracefully above his head and danced his way to the exit.
Lisa Marie’s head and shoulders were fully inside the machine. Her voice echoed as she called out to Vernon.
“OK, I think I have it this time. The thermal coupling had a loose capacitor.”
“That’s the first thing I’d have checked,” Vernon lied. “The thermal … thingy.”
“Should we switch it on?” asked Theodore.
“Only if you want to chop my head off,” Lisa Marie replied.
Vernon’s finger hovered above the power button. “Tempting…”
Lisa Marie quickly pulled her top half out of the machine and glared up at her brother. He flashed her a grin. “I wouldn’t actually have pressed it,” he said. “You know, unless you got really annoying.”
There was a bit on the front of the machine that looked like an old car headlamp. It creaked as Lisa Marie angled it at a spot on the floor.
“You sure about this?” Vernon asked.
Lisa Marie took a deep breath, then nodded. “It’s going to work. It has to. I’ve checked all the components, and everything seems to be in place.”
“And you don’t want to test it first?”
“There might not be time,” Lisa Marie said. She closed her eyes for a moment,
whispered something hopeful-sounding, then positioned Bearvis so the headlamp was pointing straight at him.
“Vernon, Theodore Steiffenhume the Third, you might want to stand back,” she warned them. “Just in case anything does go wrong.”
“Very good,” said Theodore, retreating a few steps. Vernon stood his ground beside her.
“I trust you,” he said, offering her a reassuring smile.
“Thanks,” Lisa Marie said. She placed her finger lightly on the power button. “Here goes.”
She pushed the button.
There was a hummmmmmmmmm.
There was a flash.
There was a bang.
Bearvis bounced off the floor, thudded against the ceiling, then ricocheted off at a steep angle. He rocketed across the room, then crashed into a stack of cardboard boxes, spilling glassy eyes and plastic noses all over the floor.
The boxes collapsed, burying the motionless teddy bear.
Vernon took a single sidestep away from Lisa Marie and the machine. “Yep,” he said. “Totally should’ve tested it.”
“Oh no! Bearvis!” Lisa Marie cried. She had just started to run to him when a door was thrown open at the far end of the room.
“Geroff!”
“You geroff!”
Cuddlyplump and Mr Fluffton tumbled in, slapping at each other. It was only when they spotted Lisa Marie and the others that they stopped.
“Well, well, well,” growled Cuddlyplump.
“What do we have here?” snarled Mr Fluffton.
“It’s them kids,” said Cuddlyplump.
Mr Fluffton tutted. “Yes, I know. I was being … what do you call it?”
“An idiot?” Cuddlyplump guessed.
“No. Menacing. I was being menacing.”
“Oh. Right. Gotcha.”
Both bears advanced, their hard plastic claws extending from inside their paws.
“If you go down in the chute today, you’re sure of a big surprise…” Mr Fluffton sang, a wicked grin creeping across his face. “If you go down in the chute today, you’re probably going to cry…”
Lisa Marie stood up straight. “You’re not scaring us.”
“They are a bit,” Vernon mumbled.
Theodore blocked the other bears’ path. “Now now, enough of that,” he warned. “I won’t put up with any bullying behaviour down here.”
Cuddlyplump bared his teeth and pounced, knocking Theodore over and pinning him to the floor. “Oh yeah, old man?” he demanded. “And what are you going to do about it?”
“Leave him alone!” Lisa Marie cried. “Get off him, you bully.”
Mr Fluffton snarled at her. “Don’t worry about him. Worry about—”
A heavy cardboard box landed on him, flattening him against the floor. Groaning, he tried to push the box away, but something landed on top of it with a thud, pinning him down.
Lisa Marie’s eyes widened. There, crouching on the box in a karate pose, was a black-quiffed teddy in a sparkling sequinned suit.
“Pardon me, son,” drawled the newcomer in a deep American-south accent. “But that ain’t no way to talk to a young lady.”
“Bearvis!”
cried Lisa Marie. “You’re alive!”
“You bet your boots I am, little darlin’,” Bearvis said. He winked at her. “Now, excuse me while I take care of business.”
With a twitch of his legs, Bearvis backflipped dramatically off the top of the box. He spun in the air, his cape billowing around him like a superhero’s.
Then he misjudged the landing and thumped, face first, to the floor.
“My fault. No harm done,” he muttered. “Totally got this under control.”
Picking himself up, he smoothed back his hair. “Now, where was I?” he asked, just as the much larger Cuddlyplump slammed into him, sending both bears tumbling and rolling across the room in a blur of fur and sequins.
“So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Hit a guy when he ain’t ready?” said Bearvis. “That’s low, man. That’s real low.”
Cuddlyplump’s face twisted into a snarl. “I don’t know who you are, but you made a big mistake messing with us.”
“Son, the only one who has made a mistake here is you,” Bearvis told him. “Also, on a side note, your breath stinks like a skunk’s behind. You might want to try mouthwash.”
Cuddlyplump lunged with his claws but Bearvis neatly sidestepped out of his path. Twisting, he delivered a spinning roundhouse kick to the back of the bigger bear’s legs. Cuddlyplump grunted as he tripped, fell, then smacked his head on another of the boxes.
“Very nicely done, my boy!” cheered Theodore, dragging himself to his feet.
“Thank you. Thank you very much,” drawled Bearvis.
Lisa Marie and Vernon quickly pulled two of the lifeless bears down from where they were dangling and unhooked their ropes. With Bearvis’s help, they tied Ursine’s hench-bears together, being sure to bind their arms in a way that meant they couldn’t use their claws to cut themselves free.
That done, Lisa Marie grabbed Bearvis and pulled him into a teddy-sized bearhug. “You’re back!” she cheered. “I knew you’d come back!”
“Of course I am, honey. And it sure is good to see you too.”
Vernon sighed. “Touching as all this is,” he said. He stared down at the two tightly bound teddy villains. “If these two idiots found us, then the rest won’t be far behind. I really hope you’ve got a plan.”
Lisa Marie smiled up at her brother. “I’m working on it. But first…” She crossed her arms and turned to the captive hench-bears. “We’re going to need some information.”
Ursine Kodiak was having a pretty nasty dream about being chased by bees. He was running for his life on his undersized feet, but running hadn’t really been his strong point, so he wasn’t going very fast.
One bee in particular was determined to sting him on the head. He kept thrashing his walking stick out at it, trying to chase it away. Deep down, though, he knew it was going to catch him. He knew it was just a matter of time before—
Ow!
The bee’s stinger stabbed him just behind his right ear. The sharp pain of the sting was enough to wake Ursine up.
“Yeowch!” he yelped, slapping a hand to the side of his head. He could still feel where the bee had stung him, even though he now knew there hadn’t actually been any bees at all.
Ursine felt a tingling at the back of his neck. It was no more than a tickle, really, but it made him feel like he was being watched. Like some secret observer was spying on him, watching his every move.
“Ahem.”
Ursine looked up to find an enormous digital eye glaring down at him from a few metres away.
“Wakey wakey, meatbag,” Grizz’s voice spat. “Had a good sleep?”
“Not particularly,” said Ursine. He found his cane on the floor beside him and started the awkward process of getting to his feet. “Now, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I’m putting a stop to it right—”
“Sit down,” Grizz commanded.
Ursine sat down.
This confused him. He hadn’t planned to sit down. He’d actively been against the idea of sitting down, in fact. And yet, here he was. Sitting down.
He tugged sharply on his beard. Again, this was not something he had planned to do. His arm had raised on its own, before giving the hair on his chin a short, sharp yank.
“Um,” he said, then he shoved two fingers up his nose as far as they’d go and wriggled them around. It was really quite unpleasant, but somehow he couldn’t stop it.
The other hand came up unexpectedly, flicked his left ear, went wibblewibblewibble with his bottom lip, then started slapping him across both cheeks, one after the other.
“Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself,” sniggered Grizz.
“What is this?” Ursine demanded between slaps. “What’s going on?”
“It’s justice, that’s what,” said Grizz. “A
meatbag puts control chips in teddy bears’ heads, and you think I’m going to just let that pass? Nu-uh. No way. Not on my watch. You know the phrase, ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander’? Well, swap ‘goose’ for ‘teddy bear’ and ‘gander’ for ‘disgusting human meatbag’.”
Ursine blinked several times. “Huh? You’ve lost me.”
“No, OK, that came out more complicated than it was supposed to. It sounded better in my head. Or digital eye. Or whatever I have now,” Grizz admitted. “The point is, those control chips you were sticking in the heads of my brothers and sisters? I stuck one in yours.”
Ursine gasped. “You didn’t!” he whimpered, then he jabbed himself in both eyes, squeezed the end of his nose, and pulled sharply on his tongue, all without meaning to.
“Oh, I totally did,” said Grizz. “And if you want me to take it out, you’re going to use that big brain of yours to help me.”
“H-how?”
Though he had no mouth, the smile could be heard in Grizz’s voice. “You’re going to build me a body.”
Cuddlyplump and Mr Fluffton both stared in horror as Vernon approached them, an electric razor buzzing in his hand. Lisa Marie, Bearvis and Theodore were gathered behind him, watching on.
“You wouldn’t!” Mr Fluffton whimpered.
“He would,” said Lisa Marie.
“She’s right. I totally would,” Vernon agreed. He flicked a button on the side of the razor, cranking up the speed. The low buzz became a high-pitched whine.
Theodore turned away. “Oh, I can’t look!”
“The boy’s gonna shave y’all bald,” Bearvis told the hench-bears. “I suggest y’all start talking, lickety-split.”
“Never!” yelped Cuddlyplump. “We’ll never talk in a million—”
Vernon brought the razor closer.
“OK, OK, we’ll talk!” Cuddlyplump wailed. “Just don’t shave us!”
Vernon stepped back and cranked the razor down to a slow hum. Lisa Marie and Bearvis took his spot, their arms folded as they began their interrogation.
Revenge of the Living Ted Page 5