A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There

by Richard Roberts

  My mouth tried to hang open. I boggled. I swear my button eye got slightly larger, I stared at her so hard. She was right, and I had forgotten that completely. It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time to tell Sandy, who could have prevented this situation.

  Pincushion shook her head and sighed, sounding disappointed. “First, box.”

  A guard elbowed his way forward through the rest of the squad, holding a large cardboard box with a picture of me on it. Or at least, a picture of me if I were whole. HEARTFELT was even written in big pink letters over the picture.

  Oh, my.

  “Second, shears.” Another guard took a pair of scissors out of its helmet and passed them to her. They were so big and heavy she had to hold them in both hands.

  “Oh, my. No. Not again!” I shouted, but I could resist even less than last time, especially when one of the guards took a tight hold of my cap. I kicked my feet, but that accomplished nothing.

  Pincushion leaned in, and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as she cut through the stitches on my nose, and both sides of my head. The flaps the bundlish had sewn on hung open, and Pincushion pulled my glasses free.

  Oh my oh my oh my.

  “Third. Put her in.”

  I opened my eyes to see the Heartfelt box open, all brown and dark inside. I kicked my feet and shook my head and yelled, “No no no no no!” All the nice clothling librarians looked scared and sad. Some chewed on their fingers.

  Metal hands slid me into the box, and closed the lid.

  Now everything really was dark.

  I had to fight. I banged against the side of the box with my fists. I threw myself from side to side, hitting the walls with my shoulders.

  Nothing.

  The box rocked gently. It felt so quiet and comfortable in here. So sleepy.

  Something went thump, the box shook, and then got still.

  No! No sleep! I had to fight! I beat against the wall some more, and yelled, “Let me out! I’m not new! This isn’t my box! Someone help!”

  Now I couldn’t even budge the box. Someone stuck it in place tight. Somehow. Somewhere. I didn’t know.

  No backup glasses. My bag didn’t go into the box with me. Pincushion beat my plan and my backup plan right at the start.

  Sandy relied on me. Sandy needed me. And here I sat, in the dark, getting sleepier and sleepier. Maybe I’d been in the box for a long time? Maybe it was too late to help her? Maybe she’d already been sent back Elsewhere?

  I’d failed. I was nothing without a human after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  What was that noise? Did I fall asleep? There was no reason to stay awake, no reason to move.

  I would do it anyway. Pushing myself up, I thumped the wall of the box with my fist again.

  It rattled. Not a lot, but it moved. That meant… that it wasn’t stuck in place anymore!

  Oh, my. Oh, my. Yes. Knock it over, Heartfelt.

  Putting both hands against the cardboard, I shoved. The wall bent a little, and the box tilted a little, but just a tiny bit.

  Still not strong enough.

  No! Did I say no already?

  I shouted it. “No! I will not give up!” Backing up to one end of the box, I threw my whole body against the other. It tipped, but didn’t fall, so I slammed against the other side. Then the first side again. Then maybe one of the others? I didn’t care, didn’t keep track, just banged around as hard as I could.

  The box wobbled, tilting farther, until one time it tilted far enough. The whole thing fell forward and hit the floor. Me, too. I also hit the floor. That was a good place to punch the top of the box. Even better, I could kick it!

  One good kick and the lid flew open, letting in light. I crawled out into the light. Not a lot of light, but more than in the box.

  What was this tiny room? It wasn’t very wide, but it was awfully tall, and had a bar stretching between the walls way up past where I could reach. The big, human big, door was shut, with light leaking around the edges.

  That light didn’t show me much. The room was bare. Besides the box—oh, and me, of course—the only thing was…

  “Glasses!” I squeaked, so surprised it was barely a whisper.

  They weren’t my glasses or Sandy’s glasses, but they were glasses! I shoved them on my face, and snapped the little flaps sewed onto my head shut. Their fuzzy magic worked. The glasses sagged down my nose, but they stayed in place, and anyway looking over the top a little would give me a sharp and inquisitive expression.

  So, I was in a closet, in a building that expected humans or bundlish. Those weren’t rare. Oh, don’t be silly, Heartfelt, of course Pincushion would take you straight back to the palace. Except she’d already out-thought you twice…

  Despair wouldn’t help Sandy or me! My next step would be to figure out how to open the closet door. Although figuring out what was going on would help. Oh, of course! The bundlish had betrayed both me and Pincushion! How very bundlish of them.

  The door opened, to my dumbfounded surprise. Maybe further bundlish intervention?

  Pincushion stood silhouetted in the sudden explosion of light, witch hat rising to a point in her silhouette.

  And here I stood like a fluff-head. I should have rushed her while she didn’t expect me to be out. She had time to cast a spell now, and there was no way I could defeat that.

  But you’re going to try, Heartfelt! If only she hadn’t walked in right now!

  Why was she carrying my backup glasses in both hands?

  Jump her, Heartfelt!

  She jumped me instead. Slamming into me, she wrapped her arms around my middle, since I was too tall for her to grab my shoulders. She squeezed and shook me from side to— oh, wait, this was a hug.

  I was quite sure Pincushion hadn’t hugged me even once back at the Endless Picnic, and now this was… three times after we became enemies?

  “You’re out!” she yelled. “And with glasses? Oh, yeah, someone helped you escape, right? Of course, you couldn’t have done this alone, I mean, come on. But I don’t mind. It’s great! I was coming to bring you glasses myself, see?”

  As she released the hug and held up my secret pair, which had completely failed in secrecy, I found something to say. “What?” Brief, perhaps not witty, but to the point.

  “Oh, the glasses?” She took a couple of steps back, holding them up and smirking. “I decided there’s such a thing as too much of a fluff-head. You’re going to be so dull to talk to if you can’t at least be coherent.” Raising my failed backup glasses, she spun the end in the air. “And it’s not like I have anything to be afraid of. Your human’s glasses are pressed against a mirror somewhere no one knows about and you couldn’t get to if you knew.”

  No one knows about… how was I supposed to fix this? Even with my glasses back, nothing was coming to mind. I would have to get the information out of Pincushion, and at the moment, nothing seemed less likely.

  Still, I tried. “Oh, my. That well-hidden?”

  No, she didn’t take the bait. She smiled sadly, and reached up to pat my cheek. Her voice turned gentle. “It’s okay, Heartfelt. She should never have sent you off alone. You’ve never been able to take care of yourself.”

  Taking hold of a pin in her shoulder, she pulled it loose. It turned out to be short and thick, with a particularly big pinhead. Placing it against my nose, she slid it all the way in, pushing the nose piece of my glasses snugly in place, and holding them up as well.

  Then she took another couple of steps back, out of arm’s reach, took hold of the failed backup glasses, and pulled, intoning, “Ribbon of Love Binding Valentine!”

  Ribbon of—oh, my. Heartfelt, you fluff-head, you should have been physically overpowering her!

  Better late than never. I lunged forward—

  The glasses turned into a long pink ribbon, which flew out to meet me, wrapping around my neck and dragging me backward. The ends writhed around behind me, until from the brushing at my shoulders I knew they’d tied into
a pretty bow.

  Well, that was novel, but would it protect Pincushion from me?

  I raised my arm, and immediately the loop around my neck yanked tight like a noose. I tried to claw at it, but my whole body went numb and I fell over on my side.

  After a couple of seconds of that, it slowly released. Pincushion crouched down and stroked my cap. “I’m not mad. You had to try, even if you couldn’t succeed, right? It’s like running off on a quest for your human. You may be a fluff-head, but you’re a brave fluff-head. I appreciate you for what you can do, and don’t expect you to be any better. Now, come on.”

  She took my hand in hers, and I climbed to my wobbly feet. Twisting my head helped fluff out the stuffing in my neck again. While I did that, Pincushion pulled me forward out of the closet, explaining, “Come on! Now that I’ve got you away from that human troublemaker, there’s so much I want to see and do with you.”

  We emerged into her bedroom in the palace, which I’d half-expected. It hadn’t changed, although the sheets were mussed a bit this time. With her human gone, she’d be sleeping in her own bed.

  Most importantly, Princess Charity’s clothes were still in a brown pile on the chair!

  Not that I could do anything about it.

  Letting go of me, Pincushion crossed a hand over her middle, and tapped her chin with her fingers. The gold point of Sandy’s witch hat hung down her like a cape from behind. In a distant, rhetorical tone she asked, “What first? The bounce room? The tower where the wind sylphs visit? The cake hole? That room is almost dangerous. No, we’ll sit on the throne first. It feels so weird, you can’t imagine it until you do it.”

  Beckoning, she walked out into the hall, turned, and stepped out of sight.

  Of course, she was expecting me to try something. On the other hand, why not try something? I just had to out-think her. There were lots of hiding places in this room, but the best would be to squeeze behind the dresser by the door. It wouldn’t look like I could fit, but if I folded the arms of my glasses along the back of my head, I could compress myself into that little gap, and slip out the other end while she searched the room, then run for it.

  Of course, I wasn’t running anywhere with this thing around my neck. I didn’t see anything sharp, and didn’t have time to look. I grabbed the ribbon collar, and pushed it up, smooshing my cheeks in to pull it over my head.

  It didn’t cinch tight! Had Pincushion overlooked this? I fiddled it over the earpieces, yanked it off my head, and stopped dead in place.

  Oh, my. I couldn’t move.

  Pincushion had not been foolish after all. She walked in immediately, right up to my frozen body, and wriggled the ribbon back into place around my neck. It did have the big pink bow I thought it would. I couldn’t move until it was actually in place again, which gave her plenty of time to explain, “I knew you’d have to try for yourself. Being told things ahead of time isn’t your specialty. No, you can’t take it off, and the farther you get from me, the tighter the ribbon will fasten. You needed a little freedom of movement, just not too much.”

  Giving the golden witch hat a tug, she added with an extra note of confidence, “And you can’t steal this, either. It’s sewn on.”

  She had me. I could only rebel up close, and successful escape wouldn’t do me any good!

  No. I would… something. The important part was to keep thinking. Keep fighting! But not obviously. Fighting in a “pick your moment and find a way out” sense. Although just at the moment, I had no idea what that would be.

  For now, all I could do was follow Pincushion out into the hall. She steered us toward the clothling stairs, and gave my elbow an eager squeeze. “This is what’s best for you, Heartfelt. I promise. Hey, I know what to do first!”

  She dragged me by the arm to the clothling stairs, and when they turned into a chute and I fell down on my back, she sat primly on my chest to ride all the way to the bottom. When we slid out the bottom, she hopped right to her feet and shouted, “Guards! Carry us!”

  Two seconds later, a pair of guards scrambled up to us, banging against each other to stop and salute with their spoons. They whacked each other in the heads, and personally, I didn’t blame them. I certainly found Pincushion quite intimidating at the moment!

  Once they got themselves straightened out, they kneeled, placing their forearms on the floor. Pincushion sat on one, and rolled her eyes when I didn’t move. “You don’t have to be right next to me, fluff-head. It’s fine! You’ll get plenty of warning when you’re too far away. It’s just so you don’t run away. Now, come on! If we wait too long, I swear they’ll forget how to stand up.”

  Cautiously, I took a seat on the other guard’s arm, and they both climbed back up to their feet. Pincushion leaned back in hers, arms folded behind her head, and ordered, “Take us to the fair, Jeeves!”

  “Is my name Jeeves?” her guard asked mine as they clomped towards the Great Hall and the Western exit of the palace.

  “No, it’s ‘Nitwit,’” snipped Little Mi— uh, Pincushion.

  “Don’t make her mad, Nitwit!” urged my guard.

  Pincushion was ahead of me, but she must have given them quite a look, because they jerked straight upright and started marching with particularly stiff, formal steps.

  They also drifted apart, and when I was far enough behind Pincushion that I thought I could, I whispered up to my guard, “I thought you remembered how to stand up very well.”

  His march took on a touch of swagger.

  They carried us through the grand palace, out into the fair outside.

  Princess Charity hadn’t changed this at all. People laughed and talked as they wandered around, watching jugglers and buying cotton candy. Brightly colored balloons looked like they would carry the tents they were tied to away. A curious bug-shaped plastic doll balanced on six legs on a thin stick standing straight up, balancing both himself and the unsupported stick, in fact. A huge grey elephant clothling, as tall as a guard and much faster, wobbled past on stumpy legs, with his stumpy arms sticking straight out.

  Pincushion’s guard bumped shoulders with mine, which let her reach over and tug on my sleeve. “Hey, fluff-head, watch this!”

  Leaning way forward, which forced her guard to scoop her up so she couldn’t fall, Pincushion grabbed hold of the elephant’s trunk. She yanked hard, and the trunk let out a gurgling honk. The elephant itself stopped, grinned, and giggled.

  “Go on! Try it!” Pincushion urged.

  My guard obediently held me over, and the elephant did seem happy, so I gave its trunk a pull. It honked, and the elephant gave another titter. Encouraged by this reaction, I yanked again and again, trying to make a simple tune. I completely failed musically, but the round grey clothling jumped up and down with glee as I tried.

  Pincushion smiled broadly at me, her glowing happiness marred by three pins through her face. She clapped her hands, and said, “See? All you need is a little help, and you can have fun, too. Come on!”

  Our escorts carried us around the circle of the palace. A marionette with a wobbly head gave me a little bitty plastic bottle with a straw stuck in it. I drank. Orange juice. Not tea, but refreshing out here in the warm sunlight.

  “Here! Here! Bend down, stupid!” At Pincushion’s instruction, her guard dropped to his knees, and shuffled into a tent he couldn’t have stood up in.

  “You, too,” I whispered encouragement up to my guard. He hurried up to crawl in on his knees beside his friend.

  Inside were racks and racks of hats. Big knitted ones with poofy ends. Little bitty top hats. Squashed flat things. Dimpled cowboy hats. None of them were gold, of course.

  A stiff plastic baby-shaped doll (did he count as a marionette?) stood behind a counter, half a dozen top hats stacked up on top of each other in a precarious tower on his head. “Your Sidekick to the Princesship!” he gasped, “It’s an honor! Take anything you like!”

  Pincushion hopped down to the floor, so I followed her. Ignoring the salesdoll, she be
ckoned with her cleverly sewn fingers and said, “Come here. These are the interesting ones.”

  She stood in front of a small rack different from the ones that dominated the tent. Here, about a dozen masks hung on hooks. Pretty things, like kitten faces and sparkly pink figure eight masks with feathers sticking out the side.

  I examined them, impressed. “Oh, my. These look awfully magical. Do you become someone else when you put them on?”

  Pincushion waved a dismissive hand, and scoffed, “These? They’re as magical as a dropped ice cream cone. You feel a little different, but that’s just because they’re masks. The really magical—”

  She broke off, frowning in thought, and announced, “Guards. We’re leaving.”

  Metal arms scooped us up, and our escorts got back on their feet—mine rather more sleekly than hers. Pincushion didn’t say anything more, just pointed, and they walked. Walked for quite some time, passing a number of things that would have been worth stopping at, particularly a display of barking balloon animals. Her purpose only became clear when I saw the wall of darkness in front of us.

  Our guards rattled nervously, but a line of guards with halberds rather than spoons stood at the border, along with one of those hulking, shiny, box-headed elites. They sidestepped without comment to let Pincushion through—and me with her.

  The night side of the capitol had changed. A lot of the tents were knocked down. I didn’t see any food stands. Marionettes with skeleton paint crawled around on all fours, although they did more leaping than crawling. Some of them hung on the wall of the palace itself. The light came from torches, their stands tilted askew but still upright.

  Not everything had changed. A band of skeleton painted marionettes played guitars and little trumpets in a jazzy, sarcastic tune. The dancers jumped and crawled and savaged each other to the rhythm. In the distance, bells rang in harmony.

  Bells? Oh, my.

  A different figure approached us. A tall clothling, but really only half again my height, weaved through the animalistic marionettes. Her dress was nothing but torn rags now, and a mask with savage painted teeth, slanted angry eyes, and weaving red lines covered her face. She staggered as if she were sick, shoulders drooped and arms hanging, but her erratic gait always ducked past the flying rioters as if by pure luck.