Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic (6 page)

Lumphy mumbles quietly to the bit of fluff as if he doesn’t hear.

“Or watch television?”

He doesn’t answer.

“We could play marbles.”

The fluff is taking all Lumphy’s attention. It takes up all his attention for the entire day. He won’t talk to StingRay at all.

… …

The next morning Lumphy starts looking at the fluff again as soon as StingRay comes down from the bed. He looks at it all morning, all afternoon, and all evening.

He does this for six days.

On the seventh day, StingRay comes down and pokes him in the shoulder. “Know what?” she says. “I have an
idea for getting the Girl to bring you up on the bed. Do you want to hear it?”

Lumphy stops looking at the fluff and looks at StingRay instead.

“We can decorate you,” she says. “To make you more of a bedtime buffalo. We could drape you in rabbit fur and flannel,

Hrmmh,” says Lumphy. “What?” “Is there another option?”

“Sure. We could break your tail.

“What if
you
pretend to be lost in the closet?” suggests Lumphy. “Then she’d take me, I bet.”

StingRay doesn’t think that would work. “I read something you could try,” pipes up Plastic, who has been listening in from a spot underneath the bed. “But it’s not very nice.”

“What?” Lumphy wants to know. “It’s a trick. They used it in old TV commercials and science experiments. Sub-lim-in-al messages.”

“Oooooh! Submarine messages!” cries StingRay. “Why didn’t I think of them before?”

“What are they?” asks Lumphy.

“Uhhh … It’s too complicated to explain,” stalls StingRay. “Isn’t it, Plastic?”

Plastic pauses. “I can explain a little bit,” she finally says.

“Oh, a little bit, sure. That we could do,” says StingRay. “You go ahead.”

“I read that in supermarkets they used to have secret messages playing very quietly under the music that people didn’t know their brains could hear,” begins Plastic. “Messages that would say, ‘Buy sugar cereal,’ or ‘You need to eat a lot of meat, buy it here.’ The messages would get the shoppers to do what they said.”

“This isn’t a supermarket,” says Lumphy.

“Duh,” says Plastic. “But we could do like this:
StingRay could whisper in the Little Girl’s ear while she’s asleep. When the Girl wakes up, she’ll think whatever StingRay has told her.”

“Oooooh.” StingRay is silent for a moment. “What if I whisper, ‘Don’t eat your vegetables’?

Plastic rolls side to side, nervously. “Forget I told you about it. It only maybe works, anyway.”

“If it maybe works, I want to try it,” insists Lumphy. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” says Plastic. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Then how am I going to get on the bed?” cries
Lumphy, looking up at the fluffy pillows from his spot on the rug. “I have to get up there!”

“Don’t worry,” says StingRay. “I’ve done submarine messages lots of times before. I’ll get you up.”

It is hard to think about sharing the big high bed—in fact, StingRay doesn’t want to share it at all. But even more, she doesn’t want Lumphy to ignore her and stare at his bit of fluff all day. That evening, StingRay stays awake when the Little Girl falls asleep.

… …

The next evening, after brushing her teeth and putting on her pajamas, the Little Girl lifts Lumphy up along with StingRay. The submarine message has worked!

Lumphy is so excited. Cool white pillows, patchwork quilt, warm flannel sheets, private time! He can hardly believe it’s true.

But here is what happens, up on the high bed:

Not much. The Girl’s father reads three stories aloud. He sings a short lullaby. The Girl kisses her father four times. He turns out the light and leaves.

Then the Girl kisses StingRay and Lumphy, tucks them under the covers, and goes right to sleep.

StingRay goes to sleep, too.

Lumphy lies there and stares at the ceiling.

He stares at the clock, which glows in the dark.

He stares at the curtains, blowing slightly in the wind.

He doesn’t feel sleepy.

“Psst. StingRay,” he whispers.

StingRay doesn’t answer.

“StingRay!” he whispers again, nipping her gently on the cheek.

“What?” StingRay sounds muddled.

“Want to play I Spy?”

“It’s dark. I can’t spy anything.”

“I need a drink of water,” moans Lumphy.

“No you don’t.”

“Then I need another story. Will you tell me a story?”

“I can’t think of one now,” says StingRay. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Want to sing ‘Camptown Races’?”

“No.”

“Just a little bit? I think it will help me relax. Camp-town Racetrack sing a song …”

“Doo dah, doo dah,” mumbles StingRay softly, and closes her eyes.

Lumphy stares at the ceiling again.

He stares at the clock.

He stares at the curtains.

He still doesn’t feel sleepy. He crawls to the edge of the high bed and looks down.

The toy mice are playing leapfrog. Plastic is reading one of the big books and rolling slightly side to side. The one-eared sheep is laughing with the wooden rocking horse in the corner.

Lumphy sighs, and rearranges himself on the bed. The problem is, he usually stays up late. This time of night, he likes to be doing stuff. Playing marbles, or checkers, or pick-up sticks. Something.

It is not his bedtime yet. Not even close.

Bonk! Lumphy jumps down. It hurts his bottom when he lands, but he doesn’t mind. He is so happy to be down again that he kisses all three toy mice with his buffalo mouth and then trots over to Plastic and offers to watch her roll down the staircase.

… …

Every night after that, the Little Girl takes Lumphy to bed with her. Lumphy feels he’s got it made—all the importance and extra kisses of going to sleep on the high bed, and none of the boringness. He just waits until the Girl is asleep, then hops down—Bonk!—and lives it up until midnight, when he (very cleverly) positions himself below the edge of the bed, so it looks like he fell off by mistake, and goes to sleep till morning.

StingRay feels this behavior is disrespectful. “It’s an honor to sleep on the high bed,” she complains. “You’re not taking it seriously.”

She, Lumphy, and Plastic are watching cartoons in the living room while the Little Girl is at school. “I’m not sleepy at eight,” Lumphy says, when the show goes to a commercial.

“Fine, then,” says StingRay. “Don’t get up on the bed.”

“It’s not like I have a choice now.” Lumphy is smug.
“The Little Girl takes me. She wants me, I guess, because of how much she loves me.”

“When it’s bedtime,” explains StingRay, “you’re supposed to get in bed and stay there until morning.”

“Why?”

“Because people bigger than you want you to,” pipes up Plastic. “That’s why.”

“Who knows the difference?” Lumphy asks. “The Little Girl doesn’t know I’m hopping down.”

“
I
know,” says StingRay. “And I don’t like it.”

“What
she
doesn’t know won’t hurt her. And I’m not sleepy at eight.” Lumphy goes back to watching the cartoon.

… …

But the Little Girl is no dummy. She notices Lumphy on the floor each morning by the side of the bed. One night, she gets a length of shiny green ribbon and ties it to
his tail. She ties the other end to her bedpost. “You won’t fall out now, sweetie buffalo,” she says, kissing his head an extra time to make up for all the bumps he must have suffered in his falls.

“StingRay, look at my tail!” whispers Lumphy, when the lights are out and the Girl is asleep. “Take the ribbon off!”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The Girl wants you to have that ribbon. She goes to school. She knows what’s best for you.”

“I know what’s best for me,” says Lumphy. “And this ribbon is not it.”

StingRay wrinkles her nose. “You got covered with peanut butter, and then you got covered with jam,

You’re always getting dirty. How is that someone who knows what’s best?”

“I’m older now,” says Lumphy. He walks to the edge of the bed, stretching the ribbon tightly. He leans forward, and feels the pull on his tail. “StingRay, help me!” he cries. “I’m tied up like a balloon!”

“You wouldn’t be, if you’d stayed where you belong.”

“My tail is killing me!” says Lumphy, lying. “I need to get down!”

“Be quiet, or you’ll wake the Little Girl.” StingRay flips over and closes her eyes.

… …

Being tied up makes Lumphy feel frantic. The knots in the ribbon get tighter and tighter the more he pulls. He tugs harder and harder, grunting his buffalo grunts, and
finally jumps off the edge of the bed with the ribbon still attached to his tail.

There is no bonk. Lumphy is upside down, tail side up, hanging in the air. He feels sick to his stomach.

He tries to scramble back up the side of the bed, but he can’t get his feet turned around the right way.

He wiggles and tries to lift his head up to chew on the ribbon, but his body is not very flexible.

He is stuck.

“Lumphy!” It is Plastic, rolling across the rug toward him. “Why are you upside down?”

“Untie me,” cries Lumphy.

“No hands,” says Plastic.

“Pull me.”

“No arms.”

“Chew through the ribbon.”

“No teeth,” says Plastic. “It’s normal for a ball.”

“What
can
you do?”

“Bounce.”

“Bounce me, then,” says Lumphy. “Please.”

Plastic rolls back to get a good start, and then she bounces herself hard at Lumphy, banging him against the side of the bed.

“Harder!” cries Lumphy.

Plastic bounces harder.

And again.

And a really hard bounce.

There is a ripping sound. “You’re breaking the ribbon!” cries Lumphy. “Keep going!”

Plastic does. Another ripping sound.

“Again, again! I’m almost down!”

One more bounce, and Lumphy crashes to the ground. Bonk!

He lands on his bottom, just like before. Only it feels different.

It feels like something is missing.

Something is.

Lumphy looks up at the unbroken ribbon, dangling from the top of the high bed. Something short and chocolate brown and rather good-looking is attached to it.

“Is that my tail?” cries Lumphy.

“Ummm,” says Plastic. “It probably might be.”

“I need it! I need it!” Lumphy is in tears.

“There, there.”

“What will I do without it?”

“There, there.”

“Oh, I need it very badly!”

“What for?” Plastic wants to know.

Lumphy sniffs back his tears. He tries to think of an answer.

“You look tougher without it,” says Plastic kindly, rolling around to examine Lumphy’s bottom.

“Really?”

“None of the tough buffaloes have tails,” lies Plastic. “I read it in the animal book.”

“They don’t?”

“It’s the tough-buffalo fashion.”

Lumphy thinks for a minute. “Who needs a tail, anyway?” he sniffs.

“I don’t,” says Plastic.

“I don’t, either, then,” says Lumphy, bravely.

… …

About an hour later, while Lumphy is showing his tail stump to TukTuk in the bathroom, Plastic hears a noise from on top of the high bed.

It sounds like whispering.

It sounds like StingRay.

It sounds an awful lot like a submarine message. “Lumphy murrphle wuffle rmmm floor murrphle. Lumphy murrphle wuffle rmmm floor murrphle.”

… …

The next day, the Little Girl wraps Lumphy’s bottom in toilet paper and masking tape to help it feel better. But she does not take him to bed with her that night.

In fact, she never takes him to bed again.

Lumphy doesn’t mind, though. He is leapfrogging, and laughing, and listening to TukTuk explain about hand lotion and dental floss.

He is staying up late.

After all, he’s not sleepy at eight.

CHAPTER SIX
It Is Difficult to Find the Right Birthday Present