“Stay in formation until I can get him free!!!” Ollie shouted, leaping up to Billy’s knees and stepping on the Super Creep’s gum-smeared head.
“Yikes!” said Ollie.
“Back atcha,” replied the Super Creep.
“ ‘President Billy’?”
“It’s been a weird night,” said Ollie. Then he slashed at the last threads of Billy’s wrist bindings with his sword and cut right through them.
“Wow,” said Billy. “You’re a good battler, Ollie!”
“Thanks, Billy,” said Ollie, feeling kind of proud and glad and super relieved, all at the same time. And Billy felt the same way.
“I thought I was gonna rescue YOU!”
“Well, I learned how to from YOU,” Ollie answered as he yanked away the last of Billy’s bindings. There was no time for hugs or slobbers or any of that stuff. There was a battle going on.
“Now, let’s get out of here!” Ollie ordered.
“Ditto,” Billy agreed, hopping up, shaking the bonds from his legs. But first, there was something he needed to do. Because he was mad now, mad at Zozo for all the illegal and means he’d done. He wanted to find that clown toy. But Zozo was nowhere to be found.
Billy saw Ollie looking at the dancer doll on Zozo’s worktable.
“It’s almost exactly like Mom’s,” Billy said.
Ollie nodded.
“I bet Mom misses her. The way I’d miss you. I’m gonna bring her home to Mom!”
Then Ollie knew what he had to do.
For the first time, Ollie didn’t agree. In every game, or huge A-venture, or just goofing around, Billy had always been the leader. But things had to be different this time.
“No, Billy,” Ollie said—not in a mean way or in a fun way, but in a sort of older-sounding way.
“Huh?”
“We can’t take her,” said Ollie. “She belongs to Zozo.”
“But she looks just like Mom’s Nina. . . .”
“But she’s not your mom’s Nina. Your mom loved her Nina to pieces in long, long olden days ago. It wouldn’t be the same,” said Ollie.
Billy thought about that. He knew there could only ever be one Ollie. But before he could agree, a sudden, alarming jerk and sway rippled through the room, followed by a sharp rhythmic crackle of breaking concrete, as if a giant hammer was pounding upon the tunnel floor. The lamps began to swing in different directions. Then the back wall of the chamber crumbled down, filling the room with rubble and dust.
Junks and Creeps alike scattered as concrete and bricks tumbled toward them.
Billy scooped Ollie up.
Out of the clearing haze crept a terrifying, crab-like multi-legged machine, taller than a man, with the legs made of mismatched girders and pieces of old carnival rides. At its center was an old bumper car, painted with a smiling face—the kind of cheerfully hideous face you only find at carnivals. And there, behind its steering wheel, sat Zozo, the clown king, his face gruesomely lit by the dingy flashing carney bulbs that pocked the machine. A single scorpion-like tail, attached to the back, coiled and struck through the air.
“Uh-oh!” said Pet Rock, who had been thrown during the thick of battle by Lefty and was now on the floor, right beside Ollie and Billy. “I think this might be a good time to shout the run-away word.”
Ollie couldn’t agree more. “RETREAT!” he commanded, though he needn’t have, as everyone was already retreating as fast as they could. Billy spied Pet Rock and grabbed him.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” said Pet Rock.
Ollie turned on his walkie-talkie and yelled instructions to Tinny. “Surface Chilly! Send in the cans! We’re escaping!”
Zozo struck at them with the scorpion tail. Ollie and Billy darted out of the way. The tail struck a wall behind them, and it began to crumble down. Billy and Ollie dashed toward the docks.
Zozo and his machine were close on their heels, knocking down walls and smashing through doorways that were too small. The Creeps swarmed right along with him, like an army of crazed spiders.
“Does retreating mean we aren’t brave anymore?” shouted Lefty, holding Keys while Clipper Greenfellow soared full speed toward safety.
As the Junks and toys scrabbled onto the dock of the Tunnel of Love, however, there was no sign of Chilly.
“Uh-oh!” Ollie looked anxiously from the swan boat to the surface of the water. “There’s not enough room on the swan boat for everybody.”
But at that instant, Chilly breached the surface like a giant cork, sending water splashing up as if a bomb had gone off.
“Hooray!” yelled Junk and toys alike. As Chilly settled, his door swung open and out sprang Tinny and his brigade of cans. And not a moment too soon, for the Creeps were spilling down toward them, determined to halt the escape.
Ollie shouted. “Tinny! You gotta hold ’em till we get the old toys aboard.”
Tinny and his cans—armed with their bows, spears, and swords—made a protective line, three cans deep, while Ollie and the rest of the Junkyard Gang helped the toys evacuate.
Once most were onboard, Ollie commanded, “Now, aim Keys toward the door!” The Junkyard Gang knew exactly what to do and were at the ready to feed the typewriter with an endless supply of tacks that would fire like Gatling guns from his keys.
The Creeps made a formidable mass of cheerful wickedness and were actually singing a gruesome sort of war chant, banging their weapons against their metal shields or chests or whatever part of them would make noise.
“Slash! Cut! Tear the toys up!
Off with the arms!
Off with the legs!
Off with the toys’ little bitty heads!”
Meanwhile, the last of the old toys were being hurried toward the swan boat. And Billy heard some sort of mutiny taking place.
“I want to fight!” said One-Eye Teddy, who appeared to be leading a group of teddy bears who refused to be evacuated. “We, of the League of the Bears of Teddy, demand the right to fight!” he yelled. He turned to Billy. “Mr. President! You have executive powers. Grant us a pardon. Let us do our duty!”
Billy had to remind himself of the little bit of history he knew about teddy bears. They were invented way back in horse times in honor of a real president of the US of America named Teddy Roosevelt, who was a soldier who went up a hill to fetch a pail of water or something, and there was a big fight, and so teddy bears were invented, and Billy thought they must be sort of soldiery too.
“Okay, teddies!” Billy agreed. “Get with the cans!”
“Yes, Mr. President!” They all saluted smartly and then joined the line. Billy saluted back. The battle was about to begin, and he needed a weapon. Then he spied it.
In the great clutter of carnival odds and ends that was scattered around the Tunnel of Love dock lay a flagpole from one of the old attractions. It wasn’t long, but it was long enough. And the tattered flag affixed to it was simple. Just one word, or rather, a name, was emblazoned across it: ZOZO. And on the end of the pole was a carefully carved head of a clown, its peaked hat making a sort of spear point. Billy snatched it up.
Meanwhile, Zozo’s mechanical monster, too big to fit through the doorway to the docks, began pounding the doorframe, its scorpion-like tail smashing the supports around it.
Then came a terrible, deafening crash. The walls around the door collapsed, and in crawled Zozo on his awful machine. The chanting Creeps let out a fearsome cheer, and they made ready to attack.
Billy gripped his pole-spear tightly. Then—yeowwwch!—something bit him on the ankle. Hard. He looked down. The Super Creep’s head was caught on his sock! It must have fallen there during all the craziness. Billy yanked it off and brought the battered head to eye level.
“You gotta stop Zozo, kid,” the Super Creep said, his voice raspy. “He’ll tear up everybody. He don’t care about anything but his hurt and hate.”
Billy was just tucking the poor Super Creep’s head into his pocket, about to reply, when Ollie broke
past Tinny’s cans. Yelling “Charge!” once more, he plunged all by himself, toward Zozo and his army.
32
The Fireflies of TRUTH
In an instant, Zozo struck, and this time his aim was true. He hit Ollie, pinning him to the ground. Ollie struggled to sit up, but the front legs of Zozo’s machine pressed heavily upon him. Then the machine kneeled, bringing Zozo eye to eye with the struggling toy. Its scorpion-like tail arced menacingly, poised to strike again, its sharp point ready to rip Ollie to shreds. The Creeps, shrieking joyfully, ran pell-mell toward Billy and the ragtag army of toys and Junk.
“Let ’em have it!” shouted Billy. And the Junkyard Army made the air thick with tacks and arrows and pieces of pointy junk. It was a withering barrage.
The first line of Creeps crumbled like dried leaves, but the next wave sped forward, hitting the line of Tinny’s cans like a landslide.
Keys let fly with thousands of tacks, typing a jillion words a minute, faster than any human, while the Junkyard Gang kept up the steady stream of pointy projectiles as if they’d been battling danger their entire lives. The tacks pierced the Creeps with such force and accuracy, they could barely advance. They were knocked to pieces or pinned to the floor or one another, becoming a comical clot, a staggering mass of Creeps and clutter and uselessness.
Billy rushed forward to help Ollie. The teddy bears, like crazed Cossacks, followed close behind, thrusting aside every Creep that Keys hadn’t crippled. It was a battle royal! A chaos of forks and cans and toys and Creeps, slashing and fighting and tearing away at each other till the whole room became a blur.
A great many things happened in the next few seconds. Time seemed to slow down as the fates of many were decided.
Zozo was wild with hate. He could not stop himself. For Zozo had only one thought: the Homemade must die. He let the scorpion-like tail strike.
And strike it did.
But it did not hit its mark.
At the last instant, Billy lunged, and with a speed he did not know he possessed, he blocked the deadly tip of the machine’s tail with the flagpole. The tip hit the pole’s carved clown’s head, splitting the head nearly in half. It could go no farther.
33
Remembering
Ollie was sure he was dead. He just couldn’t figure why there was a small wooden Zozo head directly above him, with the tip of the scorpion tail between its eyes. He turned and saw Billy stood next to him, holding a spear thing. On its end was the splintered wooden Zozo head.
Then he looked over and saw Zozo, the real Zozo, in his monster machine. But Zozo wasn’t looking at him, he was looking up. And so was Billy. Ollie’s gaze shifted to the same direction.
It was the fireflies. More fireflies then he had ever seen. Thousands of them. Brighter than he thought possible. They were swirling, coming together into a sort of shape. A familiar shape.
Ollie scooted out from beneath the pierced spear. As he stood, the battle came to a halt. Everyone was transfixed by the sight of the fireflies.
The fireflies drifted closer and closer together until the shape they were forming grew unmistakable. It was the face of Nina the dancer doll, but as a thousand blinking points of light. Their glow filled the dock with a strangely comforting wax and wane of light.
And from it came a voice, a voice almost chime-like. Nina’s voice.
“Stop, Zozo. There is no need for worse,” she said. “These toys have done you no wrong.”
Zozo said nothing.
“I never forgot you, Zozo,” the dancer doll continued. “I was your favorite and you were mine. But I became a favorite to a child and lived a long and generous life. And when that child loved me to pieces, I became a spirit. A guardian spirit who watched over another favorite, the toy called Ollie.”
Ollie turned to face Zozo.
“I’m not your enemy, Mr. Zozo,” he said.
Zozo looked grimly at Ollie, then questioningly at the vision above him. His hate continued to ebb, but he uttered not a sound.
Nina grew brighter. “He’s telling you the truth, dear Zozo. The bell was mine. You remembered its sound well. It was Billy’s mother who favorited me. She kept that bell and placed it in Ollie when she made him. But dolls and bells aren’t enough. I could not come back to you until the hate left your heart.” She grew brighter still. “Zozo,” she beseeched, “you were once a king and did your best to comfort all. Remember. Remember. Please remember.”
And at last Zozo’s expression shifted. Despite the rust, despite the flaking paint, his face softened. His eyes never leaving the vision above him, he finally spoke. He spoke softly, and kindly, in a way that had not been heard since long, long ago.
“I remember,” he whispered. “I remember now.”
At that, more fireflies appeared, seemingly coming from every direction, until they formed Nina in her entirety from head to toe. This Nina of light drifted over to Zozo and cupped his face with her hands.
And in this miraculous light, Zozo’s face grew less fierce and frightened as the decades-old hate dissolved. “I remember,” he whispered again with a tenderness that was unexpected. “I remember.” And this moment seemed endless, outside of time. Each of them, even the creepiest Creeps, felt a strange peace as Zozo and Nina remembered.
And everyone waited.
Waited to see what would come next. What came next was a snap—the loud snap of breaking concrete—and the room quaked like doom. No longer able to take the strain of the missing walls, the ceiling began to sag.
“It’s going to collapse!” cried Topper.
A massive chunk of ceiling began to give way. In a moment everyone would be crushed. Because of Zozo. Because of his hate. Long, long ago, he had been unable to help his toy friends. He would not let that happen again.
He raised his machine’s legs, as well as the scorpion’s tail, until they reached the sagging ceiling and braced against it.
“Go!” he commanded, sounding like the king he once was. “Hurry!”
Billy grasped Ollie by the ears and he, along with the last of the toys, the Junks, and even the Creeps scrambled onto the swan boat and Chilly. Another section of ceiling fell, but Zozo used all his machine’s legs and tail to keep the ceiling from caving in. The last of them scrambled onto the swan boat and Chilly, and just as the ceilings, the walls—everything—began to crumble, Zozo used one leg to shove the boats off and down the canal.
Billy held Ollie close as they looked back to see the room cave in completely. The fireflies were gone—and so was the glowing Nina.
So was Zozo.
Buried.
But once again . . . a king.
34
“Good-Bye” is Not So Good
There is a strange quiet after a great struggle.
The swan boat was ashore outside the Tunnel of Love. Chilly was back on his wheels, and reattached to Clipper Greenfellow. As they stood there, they each knew that their lives would be different somehow. Friendships had been made, great journeys taken, battles fought and won, enemies were now allies. Billy stood looking at the confusion all around him. Talking gloves and paintbrushes, ancient toy warrior spoons . . . It was hard to get used to. Ollie was sitting on his shoulder and could tell Billy was shivering a little as he picked up Pegasus from the grass.
“I guess we’ll have to find a new word for all of this,” said Ollie.
“It was a real adventure,” said Billy.
“Not A-venture?”
“Nope. That’s a little kid’s word. This was an Adventure.”
Ollie thought about that. He wondered if he and Billy would ever have another huge A-venture again. The wind began to pick up, and something bright in the sky caught their attention. It was the fireflies, weaving in and out until they formed two familiar shapes. One was the Nina. And the other? They weren’t sure at first, and then they all knew.
“It’s Zozo,” whispered Elephant in awe. Every toy, Creep, and piece of Junk began to whisper his name again and again.
“Zozo.” “Zozo.” “Zozo.”
Billy was the only one who didn’t say his name. But Ollie did. Zozo had been a toy, like him, and seeing Zozo and Nina—two glowing spirits, drifting in the wind, drifting above the trees and out of sight—moved Ollie. Zozo has forgotten his hate and remembered, thought Ollie as he put his hand over his chest. His heart had been on a long, long journey.
So much had happened and so many things had changed so quickly that words seemed very inadequate. For with all the change, there also came to each of them a quiet understanding:
It was time to go home.
And going home meant parting ways for this mismatched band.
So it was that the Junkyard Gang climbed aboard Chilly and readied to head back to the yard. Good-byes were new to Ollie. He’d said good-bye to some dogs at the park, but this good-bye felt like a much bigger good-bye. It felt like a good-bye for a long, long time. Or an “I don’t know when I’ll ever see you again” good-bye. Or even, even, EVEN a forever good-bye. And that was something big for Ollie. It felt much bigger than those two small words.
Billy felt it too, for though he really didn’t know these pieces of stuff very well, they had helped rescue him and they were Ollie’s friends and even that felt strange, that Ollie had friends other than Billy. This sort of bothered him, actually. He felt a tinge of jealousy. But he pushed that feeling away and, with Ollie sitting on his shoulder, he walked up to the all-terrain mobile-junk attack vehicle.
“Thank you, guys,” he said shyly.
“You’re welcome, Mr. President!” the Junkyard Gang said loudly and in unison.
Billy sort of shook his head and smiled. “I’m just Billy.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. President I’m Just Billy!” they replied. Billy decided not to correct them again. Then came one of those times when no one knows what to say, so they don’t say anything for so long that it gets all weird and uncomfortable. Finally, Ollie jumped down from Billy’s shoulder and stood among his new pals. Reeler, Topper, Clocker, Brushes, Lefty, Keys, Chilly, Clipper, Pet Rock, and Tinny gathered around him. They’d only known one another for one night, but sometimes that’s enough.
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