Toys Come Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

never talks. It does not even smile or tilt its head like the rocking horse in the corner. Instead, it is silent and still. Like the orca and the pirates in the bathroom.
    Maybe that is why the Girl can’t love it.
    In fact, she seems angry at No-Name Walrus. She throws it across the room one day, sobbing, “You’re not the same. You’re not my walrus! Not my real Bobby Dot walrus.”
    One day the Girl picks up No-Name Walrus and puts him in her backpack. “StingRay wants to come, too!” she calls down the stairs to her mother. “Can I bring StingRay?”
    “We can’t exchange StingRay,” the mom calls back. “You’ve had her for a long time.”
    “She wants to help me pick out something else. She wants to go to the store!” calls the Girl.
    StingRay is not at all sure she
does
want to go to the store. She is glad she is not being exchanged, whatever that is, but the store could be full of cash registers that ding so loud your ears hurt,
    and salespeople who put stickers on you,
    and long ropes of licorice that people swing around their heads,
    and dressing rooms with too many mirrors so you see yourself a million times.
    These are ideas StingRay has gathered from hearing the Girl talk about stores, and she worries about them the whole time she and No-Name Walrus are in the backpack, which is dark and smells like old fruit. But in the end, when StingRay comes squinting out into the light, the store is bright and cheerful: a room full of wooden shelves stacked with puppets and plush animals, puzzles, art supplies, and board games.
    “Sure we can exchange this little guy,” says the store clerk, checking the receipt the Girl’s mother offers her.
    StingRay looks once more into No-Name Walrus’s furniture eyes and sees nothing. “Goodbye,” she whispers, just in case it can understand her.
    Then the clerk tosses it gently into a bin of other, identical walruses, and suddenly StingRay cannot even tell which walrus she lived with for a week, and which are strangers.
    It was always a stranger walrus, she supposes. It was never going to be anything else.
    The Girl is allowed to pick out a toy the same price as No-Name Walrus was. She browses the shelves of stuffed animals, holding StingRay by the tail. StingRay has never seen so many toys.
    It is kind of disturbing, actually.
    “Hello there,” StingRay whispers to a woolly knit dolly with button eyes. “I like your blue dress.”
    The dolly doesn’t answer.
    “That’s great ruffly lace,” StingRay adds, friendly.
    Still no answer.
    It is a stranger dolly.
    The Girl stops before a small plastic tiger with an angry, almost sour-looking face. “Excuse me,” whispers StingRay. “May I offer a helpful tip?”
    No answer.
    StingRay persists, still whispering: “You might want to look a little more adorable. The goal is to make my girl want to take you home. Not to scare the socks off her with your angry toothy tiger mouth. You have to make yourself as lovable as possible. Look!”
    StingRay makes her most lovable face.
    No answer from the tiger.
    As StingRay looks around the shop, all the toys seem asleep. Nobody moves or smiles or blinks.
    The Girl touches a cuddly soft goldfish, its lips pursed in a kissy-face, its plush a sunny yellow.
    (Oh! StingRay hopes the Girl won’t get another fish. She wants to be the only fish.)
    The Girl moves along and touches a white seagull with orange feet, plump and dapper.
    (Now that she thinks of it, StingRay hopes the Girl won’t get any marine animal. She wants to be the only marine animal.)
    The Girl touches a floopy gray elephant.
    (Truth be told, StingRay hopes the Girl won’t get a plush creature of any kind. She wants to be the only plush creature.)
    The Girl should get some dominoes, thinks StingRay. Or a board game. Or a puzzle. That way StingRay will only have to share specialness and cuddles with Sheep, who really isn’t that cuddly anyway.
    The Girl touches a—what is it? The chocolate brown tail of