Naughty Rupert reached the top of the stairs. Each stair was half his height, but he leapt down the first like a circus acrobat, then another, then another. The stairs were made of dark wood, polished and gleaming in the light from the hall lamp. Rupert didn’t stop at all, though his furry feet slipped once or twice. He reached the landing, turned to go down further, and disappeared out of sight. The other toys waited. They listened. They heard nothing.
‘Maybe Winston’s got him,’ said Nobody, with a tremor. The toys waited some more.
Nothing.
Not a sound.
Not a peep.
Until . . .
A soft bumping from the bottom of the stairs. Then again, and again, a fraction louder each time. Naughty Rupert reappeared on the landing. He was bringing something with him. It was a plastic Tupperware box with a label on it that read SEWING, though, of course, none of the toys could read. On top of the box was a pair of black-handled scissors. Rupert dragged the box across the landing behind him, then lifted it up each stair, following behind with an awkward vault.
The others were agog at his audacity. What a brave toy! What a naughty toy!
But then, with two stairs to go, Rupert made a mistake. He placed the sewing box on the penultimate stair. Aware that the other toys were watching him, he put a flourish into his leap upwards. His paw slipped. He grabbed out. His paw found the sewing box, but he only succeeded in pulling the box back with him. Then it and Rupert tumbled down, down, down. Rupert’s slide stopped halfway. The box and scissors clattered past him before coming to rest on the landing. Annie moaned in dismay before Nobody slapped his hand over the gap in the denim that functioned as her mouth.
From the dark, in Her bedroom, She spoke. ‘What is that noise?’ The toys heard Her getting up. ‘Oliver. If I catch you out of bed again, I swear you’ll wish you’d never been born.’ In horror, Sophie, Nobody and Annie turned to look at Him, but, mercifully, He was sleeping just as soundly as before. Still, Annie-In-Rags wasted no time scuttling back to the safety of the toy chest, and then, Sophie noticed with a grim satisfaction that undercut her dread, so did Nobody. Only Sophie, alone, stayed at the crack of the door.
From Her bedroom, She emerged. She wore a silk dressing gown, once fine, but now with a rip at one elbow and stains on the lacework. There was a lit cigarette in one of Her hands that she waved like a dagger. ‘Where are you?’ she called. She moved down the hallway. Sophie, exiled during the daytimes, had not seen Her in some time. There was something different about Her, Sophie thought. Black circles had spread like mould around Her eyes, and pale brown spots crept up Her hands and arms.
Then She noticed Rupert lying on the stairs, dazed and still. ‘Oh Oliver. When will you grow out of these silly jokes and be a proper young man? Why must you make it so hard for me?’ She glared at the door of His bedroom. But, just as Sophie was about to squeal in terror, Naughty Rupert actually moved. He sat bolt upright. He cringed. And, then, he started to scarper down the stairs – as if his six-inch legs could outstrip those of a fully grown woman.
She looked at Rupert, brow furrowed. Took a step down the stairs towards him.
Too fast.
Her back foot caught in a flap of carpet. Her mouth got halfway to a scream as She flew the length of the upper flight, sailing clean over Rupert. With a sharp snapping sound, She crashed in a tangled heap on the landing. Her neck was angled hideously. Her bloodshot eyes went as glassy as Nobody’s. Everything was silent again.
As if nothing had happened, Rupert carried on down the stairs, gathered the sewing kit and scissors from about Her still body, and recommenced the laborious journey upwards.
In the bed, He hadn’t stirred at all. His strawberry-blond hair fell in ringlets about His pillow.
Sophie stayed where she was. She was fascinated by the way She lay. She looks like me, Sophie thought, me when I make myself still when He opens the toy chest. But somehow, without truly understanding why, Sophie didn’t think that She could make Herself move again, no matter how hard She tried.
Sophie was still engrossed by the sight of Her body by the time Rupert had got his treasure back to the bedroom. Annie and Nobody had rejoined them, too.
‘Now,’ said Naughty Rupert, with an evil giggle, ‘Let’s make Baby all better.’
Naughty Rupert started the work, but the others soon joined in. Ears and arms and legs and eyes were reaffixed, clumsily sewn together. The needle was too big for the toys to manipulate properly, so Sophie made Annie hold it while she pushed it through, and Nobody pushed it back again from the other side. It took a long time, and when they stopped, the first glimmers of dawn were visible through the curtains. The toys had never stayed out so late before.
Now, Bunny was able to move again. But they hadn’t sewn him back together the way he’d been. His ears were fixed to his shoulders. An eye had been attached on to his groin, which Annie found hilarious, and even Sophie couldn’t help tittering at. Stuffing was glued to his head – mad, candyfloss hair. And he only had one leg, a pathetic empty fold. He still had that grin, though he couldn’t stay upright, even when Nobody helped him. He just lay on the floor, spinning around in an ineffectual circle.
The toys watched him. Unspooled thread and needles were scattered about the room.
‘Funnnnn,’ said Annie, and, for once, the other toys agreed with her. But though the evening’s events had been exciting, as exciting as anything they’d ever done, there was still a restlessness to the toys, as if they hadn’t really been sated, as if this night had only increased their appetite for more.
‘Ball?’ suggested Naughty Rupert. But from the weariness of his voice it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it.
‘No,’ said Sophie. ‘Something else.’
But what else? Annie shrugged her doughy head. Nobody tried to suggest a game of Chinese whispers, but he couldn’t pique anyone’s interest – he squandered his best shot too early, thought Sophie. Even Rupert seemed dejected – the climb had taken it out of him. All three looked to Sophie. She knew her moment had come.
‘An Unpicking. Another one.’
The toys looked from one to another, suddenly alert. Nobody and Rupert turned their heads towards Annie, but she was not as foolish as Bunny, and she scrambled away. Besides, she was the biggest, and who could say that she wouldn’t take the head off one of the others, even if they did all gang up on her.
‘No,’ said Sophie. ‘Not one of us. Him.’
And they all fixed their attention on Him, their freckled one-time master, eyes twitching in dreams. They rose as one. Gathered needles, scissors, toy drumsticks. And, without a mutter, without a whisper, they took their makeshift tools, and they circled His bed.
Stuart Johnstone
Stuart lives and works in Edinburgh. He was selected as an emerging writer by The Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust and appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2015. This, he considers to be simultaneously the most amazing and terrifying experience of his life.
He has had short stories published and is working on his second novel. The first was considered and promptly rejected by some of the most prestigious literary agencies in the world!