by Dean Koontz
His vision was impaired, of course. He could see only out of his right eye, which left him with a blind side that might prove to be dangerous in future battles.
However, the thing that most concerned Patch was his appearance. He turned to the trash dumpster and leaned against it as his friends gathered behind him. He averted his face, trying not to let them see him. “Oh, just look at me. No, don’t! Don’t look at me. I’m an awful sight. Wet, filthy, with a tear in my trousers. And just look at this soggy, drooping hat. No, don’t! Don’t look! If you have any compassion, don’t stare. What a wretched mess I am, unfit to call myself a cat.”
“You look fine to me,” Amos said.
“Are you looking at me?” Patch demanded, still turned away from them, hiding his face.
“I don’t see anything disgusting about you,” Burl said. “A bit battered, sure, but there’s something noble about that.”
“Are you looking at me too?” Patch wailed.
“I think you look swell,” Skippy said. “Heroic.”
“Dashing,” Gibbons said.
“You’re all looking at me!” Patch said, and he stamped his feet in frustration.
Amos said, “Please, Patch, don’t worry yourself like this. You’re no embarrassment to yourself or to cats in general. In those old movies, Douglas Fairbanks didn’t always look as if he had just stepped out of a dry cleaner’s, did he?”
“Well … no,” Patch agreed, still facing the dumpster.
“In fact,” Amos said, “sometimes, after a big battle, he was all sweaty, his hair was messed up, and his clothes were dirty and even torn. Isn’t that true?”
“Hmmmm,” Patch said thoughtfully.
“Yet he was still a hero even when his appearance was less than satisfactory.”
Butterscotch said, “Patch, we all like to look our best, but the way we look is not as important as what we are. What’s inside is more important than what’s outside. And inside, you’re a good cat, maybe the finest cat who ever was—brave, reliable, honest, and true. And all your friends can see those wonderful qualities no matter how wet, muddy, and tattered you may be.”
Slowly, shyly, Patch turned away from the dumpster and faced the others, revealing his disfigured, one-eyed face. “How ugly am I?” he asked shakily.
“Oh,” said Skippy, “easily as ugly as Cary Grant. Easily as ugly as Tom Selleck. But not as ugly as Douglas Fairbanks.”
“But,” Patch said, confused, “none of them was ugly at all!”
“That’s my point,” Skippy said. “You’re no more ugly than Gable or Grant or Fairbanks.”
Patch gave him a one-eyed blink of surprise. He looked at each of his friends and saw no disgust in any of them. His dirty, rumpled, one-eyed appearance did not seem to shock or repel them.
“Well, now that I look at you closely,” Skippy said, pretending to preen himself, “perhaps you are a bit uglier than me, but then … who isn’t?”
Patch laughed, and so did the other Oddkins.
Grinning, Skippy put on a stand-up comic voice: “You’re a great audience, folks. I love ya. I really do. I want to take you all home with me. I love ya.”
Butterscotch had also been injured in the battle. Her right forepaw was cut, and some stuffing was blossoming from the tear in her fabric. With every step she took, more stuffing bulged out of her leg.
Somehow, Amos knew that it was dangerous for an Oddkin to lose too much of his inner material. He did not know what would happen to Butterscotch if she lost a lot of stuffing, and he certainly did not want to find out.
“That’s all right,” she said softly. “I can favor the leg and walk on three feet. I can limp along just fine. If I don’t put my weight on the foot, no more stuffing will come out.”
Amos shook his head. “Nope. On three legs, you’d be too slow to keep up with us. And we’ve got to get to Mrs. Shannon’s place as quickly as possible. Let’s find something we can use to bind up your wound.”
Among the trash in the alleyway, they turned up a few rags. Together, Amos and Burl tore one of those scraps into long strips. They used two lengths of cloth to wrap the wound in Butterscotch’s forepaw, preventing any more stuffing from dribbling out of her, and allowing her to walk without a limp.
A while ago the rain suddenly stopped falling, but now it began to pour down again as hard as ever. This time bits of sleet were mixed in. The hard, tiny pellets of ice tapped almost musically against the metal dumpster and ticked-pinged-clinked on the iron steps of the fire escape.
Leaning forward, putting his burly head down to resist the force of the wind and rain and sleet, Amos led his friends to the end of the alleyway. They moved cautiously out onto the puddled sidewalk along a major street. It was a commercial district of clothing, record, furniture, and gift stores.
At the moment, thanks to the late hour and the storm, no traffic was in sight. But Amos warned the other Oddkins to be prepared to dash for cover the instant that they saw a car or—far less likely—a pedestrian. There were many places to hide in the recessed entranceways of the dark, deserted shops by which they passed.
Amos was still not sure where he was going, but he began to feel that he was not wandering aimlessly. Something was drawing him along a particular route, guiding him ever closer to Mrs. Shannon’s toy shop. Maybe what he felt was the spirit of Uncle Isaac Bodkins gently tugging him in the right direction.
Some of the stores were illuminated by nightlights. From time to time Amos looked up to see, as best he could, what sort of merchandise was displayed in the windows. The eighth or tenth time that he glanced up, he was stunned by what he saw: books.
Books, books, hundreds of books!
Being a bookish bear, a lover of poetry and Dickens, Amos was overcome by his first encounter with a bookstore. He froze for a moment in disbelief, then dashed to the window—which was just low enough to the sidewalk to allow him to press his face and paws against the glass.
Books!
Gibbons, scholar that he was, accompanied Amos to the window. He peered with considerable interest at the wares that the store chose to display. “Ummm … yes … a rare-book store. Some nice volumes. That looks like a superb copy of The Wind in the Willows.”
“Never heard of it,” Amos said.
“Oh, an excellent story,” Gibbons said.
“What’s it about?”
“Mainly, it’s about an adventurous and daring toad.”
“Toad? Gosh, I think I’d like to read a book about a toad.”
The other Oddkins, less interested in literature, hung back, watching the avenue for traffic.
“Pinocchio,” Gibbons said. “That one’s about a marionette that comes to life.”
“Sounds good, too,” Amos said, “though I’d still prefer the tale of the daring toad, I think.”
“Charlotte’s Web. Now that’s about a pig, a spider, and a little girl.”
“No toad?”
“There can’t be a toad in every book,” Gibbons said.
Skippy joined them and said, “Hey, you guys, we’re wasting time. Let’s get a move on.”
“Books are never a waste of time,” Amos said solemnly. “Don’t you know what Rupert Toon said about books?”
Skippy, Gibbons, and the other Oddkins all groaned at the mention of Rupert Toon, but Amos could not be stopped. He stepped back from the shop window, stood with his legs spread wide. He recited the Toon poem with much dramatic gesturing:
I think books are really dandy,
better than a box of candy,
better than a brand-new suit,
better than a horn to toot,
better than a rubber boot.
Just as nests are full of birds,
books are always full of words—
“This is terrible,” Burl moaned. “Worse than being trapped in a room with a hundred mice.”
“This Toon ought to be arrested,” Skippy said. “There should be poetry police.”
Just as cows go �
�round in herds,
books are full of herds of words—
“Please stop,” Patch begged. “Please, oh, please. If I had been lucky enough to lose one ear instead of one eye, I’d have to listen to only half of this!”
Entertainment, learning—gadzooks:
all of it can be found in books.
“He stopped!” Skippy said. “I think he’s done. I think it’s over. Oh, thank heaven, the poem is ended.”
“I didn’t think I was going to survive that one,” Burl said.
“More dangerous than those alley cats,” Patch said.
“Well,” Butterscotch said, “at least it rhymed.”
Before Amos had a chance to defend the poetry of Rupert Toon, he was startled by a tuxedo-clad marionette that dashed out of the mouth of an alley only sixty feet away and skidded to a halt.
“Hey, Gibbons, look,” Amos said. “It’s Pinocchio!”
“I don’t think so,” Gibbons said ominously. “Pinocchio was a good marionette, and this one looks nasty.”
Another marionette appeared, then a jack-in-the-box, a flying toy bee, and a robot. They gathered on the sidewalk, the bee hovering over their heads, and they faced the Oddkins.
“Uh-oh,” Skippy said. “Bad guys.”
“What should we do?” Butterscotch asked.
“Fight!” Patch said, drawing his sword.
“Teach them a lesson,” Gibbons said.
“Squish them!” Burl said.
“Make them sorry they were ever assembled,” Skippy said.
Sixty feet away, the jack-in-the-box emitted a piercing, mad giggle.
“Run!” Amos said.
“I see why Uncle Isaac made you the leader,” Burl said.
Following Amos, the Oddkins turned and ran, slipping and sliding on the sleet-skinned sidewalk.
8.
VICTOR BODKINS WAS SURPRISED by how deserted the city could seem late on a winter’s night when the weather was bad enough to keep most people at home. He splashed down empty alleyways, crossed deserted streets.
Shortly after midnight, looking for some sign of the toys, he even walked up the center of a sleet-lashed avenue, scanning the entranceways and the narrow spaces between buildings on both sides. The only vehicles he saw were two street-maintenance trucks that crossed on intersecting boulevards, spreading rock salt behind them to melt the treacherous ice.
He was cold and weary. His legs ached. His palms hurt, for he had slipped a couple of times and had scraped his hands on the pavement when he had attempted unsuccessfully to break his fall.
He felt feverish. He should go home, take a hot shower, eat some soup, swallow a couple of aspirins, and go to bed. Maybe he had been feverish earlier than he had realized. Maybe he had been coming down with the flu or some other ailment when he had been on his way to his uncle’s toy factory, and maybe he had hallucinated his encounters with the living toys. Maybe none of it had been real.
What madness has overcome me? he wondered.
Still wondering, he crossed the street, waded through the thick icy slush in the gutter, and stepped up onto the sidewalk. He stood for a moment, letting the sleet tap on his bare head. Glistening beads of ice slid down his rumpled, filthy raincoat.
“Go home,” he told himself. “You went temporarily mad, but there’s still hope for you if you’ll just go home. There’s no magic in the world, Victor. You’ve always known that there’s no magic. No such thing as living toys, for heaven’s sake! Owning the toy factory has done this to you. You inherited it only hours ago, but somehow it’s put a curse on you, deranged you. The factory is cursed—yes, that’s it—and anyone who owns it is cursed to behave like a child, just as poor Isaac behaved all his life and just as you have been behaving tonight. You must go home, get some rest, and sell the factory as soon as possible, before the cursed place corrupts you the way that it corrupted Isaac. There is no magic in the world. Life is hard, unpleasant. You must act responsibly, be an adult. Really now.”
9.
AMOS LOOKED BACK AT the evil toys and saw they were gaining.
However, in its eagerness to attack, the bee flew head-on into the bookstore sign that overhung the sidewalk. The impact was like a gunshot, and the bee fell straight down to the sidewalk.
The other toys rushed past the bee, not even pausing to see how badly it had been hurt. The jack-in-the-box was in front of the pack. His hard-edged steel wheels cut through the patches of ice on the sidewalk, so he did not slip and slide.
Amos stretched his stumpy legs, trying to run faster. Squinting into the sleety, misty night ahead, he searched for a refuge.
Half a minute later, they were in front of a fire station, where one of the three big garage doors was raised. Inside, two enormous red fire trucks stood at the ready, flanking an empty bay where a third truck ought to have been. The soft, warm light of the station looked inviting.
“In there!” Amos said, and he led the Oddkins through the open garage door, past the truck, seeking a safe place.
They almost rushed straight through a doorway that connected the firehouse garage with a back room. At the threshold, startled by voices and a burst of laughter, Amos looked up and saw that the room was occupied by firemen playing cards. Apparently one of them had just told a joke. Fortunately none of them was looking toward the door. Amos lurched sideways, out of sight.
Gibbons, Burl, Patch, and Butterscotch followed.
Evidently thinking that he was the cause of the laughter, Skippy stopped on the threshold and grinned happily, standing in plain sight. He struck a comic pose, then another, and when the firemen’s laughter continued, the rabbit took a bow.
Amos reached out and grabbed Skippy, pulled him into the shadows, and whispered, “Keep out of sight!”
“They want an encore,” Skippy said.
“Quiet!”
“My public calls.”
At the front of the building, the jack-in-the-box rolled out of the sleet-filled night and into the garage.
“We’re trapped,” Gibbons said.
“Quickly,” Amos whispered. “Get up onto the fire truck before he sees us.”
They hurried around the back of the vehicle, to the other side, where the jack-in-the-box could not as easily spot them. As silently as possible, they climbed—Butterscotch and Patch jumped—onto the steel running board, which was divided into three sections. Gibbons, Burl, and Skippy were at the back of the truck. Patch and Butterscotch were on a short section of running board farther forward, just behind the front wheel. And Amos was alone, on an even shorter perch just behind the front bumper.
They wanted to climb higher, squirm in among the hoses and other equipment until they were completely out of sight. But before they could go any farther, they heard the hissing, clicking wheels of the jack-in-the-box as it rolled under the truck in search of them. They dared not move now, for fear that they would make a sound that would give away their position.
Softly, softly, the tiny wheels went click-hissssss-click-hissssss.
From under the truck, the jack-in-the-box whispered eerily: “Hello there, soft-bellied ones. Where are you? Come out and play. Come out and play with old Jack Weasel.”
Click-hissssss-click-hissssss-click.
Amos stood very still, hoping with all his might that Isaac Bodkins was watching over them right now.
“Come say hello to old Jack Weasel,” the evil creature hissed from beneath the truck.
Click-hissssss …
“What’s the matter, soft-bellied ones? Are you afraid I’ll bite?” Jack Weasel issued a thin, insane giggle.
Click-hissssss-click …
Below Amos’s perch and directly in front of him, Jack Weasel rolled out from under the fire truck. Amos was looking down on the back of the jack-in-the-box’s head, no more than a foot above the creature.
Weasel used his gloved hands to push himself another foot or two along the floor, which was wet from rain and sleet that had blown through the open garage doo
r. The water-filmed concrete was highly reflective, almost like a mirror, so there appeared to be a pair of jack-in-the-boxes, one of them rolling along upside-down beneath the other.
Halting about three feet from the fire truck, Jack Weasel looked slowly to his left, then slowly to his right, giving Amos a good view of both frightening profiles. He stared across the empty bay at the second truck in the three-bay garage, studying the shadows around and under that vehicle.
Amos dared not move even one paw. He desperately hoped that the other Oddkins were equally rigid. The slightest movement would surely catch Jack Weasel’s attention even though he was not looking in their direction; he would spot motion from the corner of his eye, and that would be the end of the Oddkins’ good luck.
“Oh, I wish I had a soft-bellied Oddkin to eat,” Weasel said with frightening, whispery urgency.
Amos shivered violently.
Jack Weasel wrapped his arms around himself and giggled softly. “Oh, my. Oh, I just can’t take it any more. It tickles me too much. Mr. Bear, I saw you the moment I rolled out from under the truck.” He wheeled around to face them. “I saw your face reflected in the floor as you leaned out to peer down at me.”
Amos had never seen such horrible eyes as Jack Weasel’s. The pupil of one was large and red, the other small and green. Both eyes were round, bulging madly from the clownlike face.
Weasel giggled again and rolled directly to the truck but not to Amos, heading instead to the second section of the running board, where Patch and Butterscotch were perched. “Hello, pretty doggy. How about coming down and playing with old Jack Weasel?”
Patch brandished his rubber sword at Weasel and said, “Get away from us, you foul devil.”
Weasel grabbed the end of the sword and tried to wrench it out of Patch’s hand.
Struggling mightily, Patch managed to hold on to the weapon.
Abruptly Jack Weasel let go of the sword and snatched instead at Butterscotch’s wounded paw. His arms were just long enough to reach her.
She gasped when he seized her paw and tried to pull free, but Weasel was stronger.
In the back room, the card-playing firemen laughed again, unaware of the strange drama being played out in the adjacent garage. Amos wished he could call to the firemen for help, but he knew that he must avoid being seen by adults.