E. Godz Read Online Free PDF Page A

once more, and it
looked much more credible. "You might not love me, lady, but you do need me. A lot.
Any dumb floppy-eared beagle puppy with four paws too big for his body can be loved.
I'll settle for being indispensable."
    "I don't need you," Peez shot back. "I've got plenty of—"
    "—friends?" the bear finished for her. Then it laughed in her face—not giggles, full-
out guffaws of the purest scorn. "Yeah, sure, all of those wonderful, close friends you
made back in your hometown of— What was it called again? Oh right, I remember now:
Loserville. Brother, when you were in high school, you couldn't even get the chess club
nerds to hang out with you!"
    Peez didn't deny Teddy Tumtum's words. She couldn't. She'd had the uncanny little
bear for as long as she could remember, a present from her mother. What Edwina hadn't
bothered to mention to her firstborn when she'd given her the bear was that there was
something ... special about Teddy Tumtum. She'd had only the best intentions, of
course—didn't she always?—when she'd enspelled the toy so that it would be more than a
simple, inanimate source of comfort for her lonely daughter. Using the powers she'd
acquired in her spiritual scavenger-hunt past, Edwina Godz had attached Teddy Tumtum
to Peez by an unbreakable (albeit glacially slow-acting) homing hex, plus she'd
empowered it with more than an ordinary teddy bear's ability merely to listen to a little
girl's private wishes, dreams, and sorrows.
    Edwina thought she'd done a bang-up job of guaranteeing that her daughter need
never feel truly alone, but as far as Peez was concerned, Edwina's good intentions had
backfired beyond belief. Ordinary teddy bears might not be more than glorified throw
pillows, but at least they could keep all the secrets that their owners poured into their
raggedy fake fur ears. Teddy Tumtum not only listened to Peez's secrets, he remembered
them and could blab them to the whole wide world. Too bad Edwina hadn't stuck a
discretion spell on the bear while she was at it.
    "Never mind what my social life was like in high school," she told him, making a
weak stab at rebuttal. "That was then." She set Teddy Tumtum down on her desk blotter.
    "And this is now? Oooh, deep," said the bear. "I've got news for you, sugarpants, this
is now and as far as your social life goes, now sucks even worse than then. At least in the
olden days you had a few playmates who'd actually talk to you after class or even come
by the house during school breaks sometimes. So what if they only did it 'cause their
parents were trying to kiss up to your mother and her money?"
    "My mother ..." In Peez's mouth the word did not reek of apple pie and chocolate
chip cookies, but of ice and gall. "Maybe if my dear mother hadn't been so damn wrapped
up in establishing the corporation, I could've had the chance to have a real childhood and
make some real friends. But no. Instead I was dragged along like an oversized piece of
baggage while she spent all those years knocking around the country with those dumb
hippie pals of hers. And then, as soon as she could, she dumped me on one nanny after
another. Where did she find them? Is there an employment agency that specializes in
placing the poster children for substance abuse?"
    "Tsk. So ungrateful," Teddy Tumtum said, enjoying himself. "Your dear mamma got
rid of the nannies as soon as she saw that they weren't working out and found a much
better way to guarantee you'd get a good education. Think of all the money she spent on
sending you to the best day-care centers, the top prep schools! Nothing was too good for
her little Peez."
    "Nothing," Peez repeated sourly. "That's the word for what she gave me. I had no
roots, no stability, no fixed abode, no permanent mailing address, no one to care what I
did with myself as long as it wasn't fatal or didn't impact the precious family business.
The one thing I did have was a name that was so bloody ridiculous