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In one fluid motion, Bertie yanked the wooden doll out of his pocket and handed it to Susan. “I found it on the circus grounds before we left.” He said it so fast that the words came out in a big jumble, one bumping into another. Susan gave him a strange look as she lifted the wooden boy up to the sunlight, examining it. “It’s not a doll,” Bertie added hastily. “It’s a wooden figurine, which is really very different because—”
“He looks like you,” Susan interjected. She didn’t seem the least bit concerned about whether it was technically a doll or a figurine. She touched a finger to the boy’s bright red hair. “A lot like you, actually.”
“That’s why I took him,” Bertie admitted. “That and . . . he reminds me of my mom.” He blinked in surprise. He’d said it. And hearing it out loud, in his own voice, had actually felt good. “I have this memory of her giving the same kind of figurine to me when I was younger. When I look at him, it’s like the fog in my head clears a little, and I can remember things about her again. Just bits and pieces: her voice, her hair, the way she laughs. But it’s more than I’ve had in a long time.”
“Like a memory trigger,” Susan said thoughtfully. “We did an experiment like that in school once. All different things can trigger memories: smells, sounds, images.”
“Well, what’s not triggering a memory is this.” Bertie reached over, turning the boy upside down so Susan could see the two green T’s stamped onto its foot. “I’ve been trying like crazy to figure out what it means.”
Susan burst out laughing. “Every kid in America knows what that means!” She paused, her face darkening. “Well, every kid who didn’t grow up with Claude un-Magnificence,” she amended, crossing her eyes at the memory of Bertie’s cocoa-swilling uncle. “It’s the logo for Toddle’s Toys.”
Bertie plucked a blade of grass, wrapping it slowly around his finger. “Toddle’s Toys,” he repeated.
“Toddle’s Toy Emporium is the biggest toy store in the country,” Susan told him. “Probably even the world. I’ve never been, but kids at school used to talk about it all the time. It’s this huge building supposedly, and it’s filled with every toy imaginable, tons you’ve never even heard of before. . . .”
Susan might have continued, but Bertie had stopped listening. Because in his head several pieces were suddenly clicking into place, one after another.
Toddle’s Toy Emporium. An image of a watery-eyed woman flashed through his mind. That’s where she’d said she’d taken Tilda! But he’d seen that name elsewhere, too.
Everything had happened so quickly the night of their escape that he’d forgotten all about the check he’d taken out of Claude’s cocoa urn, the one inscribed with the words For the rabbit. Bertie dug into his pocket. Please still be there, he begged silently.
At the very bottom, he felt it: a thin sheet of paper coated in lint and crumpled into a ball. His breath released in fast spurts as he smoothed it out on the grass. For the rabbit, someone had written along the bottom, just like he remembered. Typed in the top left corner of the check was a name: The Toddle Family. And beneath that name was an address: 1 Toddle Lane, Hoolyloo City.
Click. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Tilda was at Toddle’s Toy Emporium, the very place where Bertie’s wooden boy had come from.
And he had the address.
He turned to Susan, a smile spreading across his face. “Looks like we’re going to the biggest toy store in the world,” he said.
The Daring Escape of the Misfit Menagerie Page 19