What Zozo first noticed about the dancer was her posture. Most toys slumped a little—they couldn’t help it, of course, being mostly plush stuffed toys as they were. But the dancer stood exceptionally straight with one arm arched gracefully over her head, and her legs very close together and her toes pointed. She wore bright-red dance shoes and a blue skirt that puffed out around her waist.
Her hair was dark and up in a neat bun at the top of her head. Her face was painted on like Zozo’s, but the painter had used a far more delicate touch. The dancer’s eyes were glued on and fringed with long curling lashes, and her straight thin nose was in perfect proportion to the serene curve of her mouth. And whenever the wind blew a little and the dancer swayed, there was a quiet jingle of a bell. Zozo could not see it, but he believed it was inside her, in the place where her heart would be. And Zozo cherished the sound of that bell, for in it he heard a music unlike any he had ever heard—a song that seemed only for him.
Over time Zozo came to admire the dancer greatly, but always from afar. He never became too friendly with any of the toys in the Bonk-a-Zozo, even after hours when the children went away and the carnival was dark. Zozo was more or less a king after all, and as a king, he had a certain dignity and distance to maintain. At least that’s what the toys believed.
Also, Zozo was sure that the dancer would be claimed quickly, and then she would be gone so there was no point in being friendly. The dancer was far too beautiful to remain in the Bonk-a-Zozo for long.
However, the dancer did remain. The inventor had hung her behind the other toys at an angle no child could see. And he had set her so she faced Zozo, not outward toward the midway.
She was the only toy who had ever faced Zozo.
At first Zozo worried that the dancer was sad about being overlooked time and time again. But she never seemed sad. Her expression never changed. And gradually, over the years, Zozo felt a connection growing between them, something unspoken and fine, like a golden thread linking them together. He took great comfort in seeing the dancer day after day as the seasons came and went.
In time the dancer became all Zozo thought about or focused on. He did not notice when things began to change at the carnival. He did not notice the crowds growing thinner, the line at the Bonk-a-Zozo getting shorter. He did not notice that some of the rides had closed around his booth, that several signs had gone up saying UNDER REPAIR, and that still, no repairmen ever arrived so the signs were never taken down.
Zozo did notice when one day the inventor did not return. The inventor had always left for the night, but he had always come back. Then one morning he did not.
For days no one came to open the Bonk-a-Zozo booth. The toys were uncertain and afraid. There was much chatter and worry among them. “Are we closed? Will we be thrown away?” they asked one another. The dancer spoke up.
“All will be well,” she assured them. “Zozo will find a way.”
This quieted the toys. They swiveled to peer at Zozo on his throne. Zozo was deeply happy to hear the dancer’s faith in him. He smiled as best he could and nodded. “Yes,” he told them. “I will find a way.” And so the toys calmed and were no longer scared. But that night Zozo worried. They believe in me, he thought. I must find a way. But what could he do?
Belief is a powerful thing. It can bring about extraordinary changes. For Zozo the toys’ belief grew and burned inside him until he had something toys rarely ever have: a heart.
At first Zozo didn’t know what had happened to him. He felt so strange. He knew he was somehow different. When he looked up at the dancer and she looked back at him, he felt a joy more intense than he had ever known. But he also had feelings that he did not like at all. Try as he might he was not able to do anything to help the toys. He could not move on his own. He could not speak in a way that any human could hear. All he could do was hope. Something must happen, he thought. If I cannot make something happen, then why am I here? Why do the toys believe in me? Days went by and nothing changed, and yet, the toys continued to have faith in him.
Zozo’s joy began to shrivel. It shriveled until it became something else: a deep, humiliating shame. He knew he was failing the other toys, and this awful understanding simmered inside him, dimming his hopeful heart.
After more days than the toys could count, someone did come, but it was not the inventor. It was a man Zozo had never seen before. Though he reopened the booth, this man did not smile at the children when they arrived. And though he knew about the secret button under the counter that made Zozo fall backward when he wasn’t hit hard enough, the man did not give any second chances.
“No wonder this place wasn’t making any money,” the man had grumbled. “The old man’s practically been giving the toys away.”
Word began to spread among parents and children that Bonk-a-Zozo was not as easy as it used to be. For a while children still lined up; they still tried to get a toy. But now they nearly always went away empty-handed. The stuffed animals grew dusty and stopped caring whether they slumped or not. On the rare occasions when a child did win a toy, the man never replaced it with another. In time there were so few toys left that the dancer was now in plain view.
Slowly the man made other changes too. He moved Zozo back even farther from the counter. He replaced the soft balls with hard ones. Now when Zozo was bonked—which wasn’t so often anymore, but still happened occasionally—the bonk was not a gentle one. The bonk chipped some of the paint off Zozo’s face. It dirtied his velvet suit. It made the ruff tilt to one side and the hat bend at an odd angle.
Soon the line dwindled to nearly nothing at Bonk-a-Zozo. Days would pass, sometimes weeks, without a single customer. And after a while the customers weren’t young children anymore, but older-looking ones or even adults who sneered at Zozo and laughed at his dirty suit and crumpled hat.
Somehow the carnival remained open even though hardly anyone ever came. The Bonk-a-Zozo booth began to sag on one side. The paint peeled. An even thicker coat of dust settled over everything. The few toys who were still there no longer talked among themselves, and Zozo felt they no longer believed in him or in anything at all. They had become hopeless.
But Zozo remained sitting on his throne. What else could he do? His only consolation was the dancer. At least she was still there, still standing directly across from him, gazing at him with her lovely eyes and serene smile. The fine golden thread still linked them together. She was the only thing who kept the light of Zozo’s heart burning. She stood there and silently reminded Zozo of his glory days, of the time when his suit had been clean, when his ruff had been starched. She reminded him of a time when children and grown-ups alike laughed with joy, not with bitterness. He could feel that she still believed in him.
One day a family came to the park. The father had visited the carnival as a child and wanted to now show it to his own daughter. But of course nothing was as he remembered, and the family was just about to leave when the little girl stopped right in front of the Bonk-a-Zozo.
“Oh, Daddy, look at that dancer! She’s so pretty! Can we try to get her, please, please, can we?”
A pain hit Zozo deep in his heart. He was startled by the pain, and he looked at the dancer, and she looked back at him. If she was taken, if the golden thread between them was cut, he did not know what he would do.
Still, it had been a long time since a child had won a toy, any toy. Why should this little girl be any different?
As the child picked up the ball, Zozo let his gaze drift away from the dancer, and he focused on a point far off over the child’s head, as he always did. He sat straight and tall as ever, and he waited.
The first ball missed, of course. And so did the second.
The third ball, however, did not miss. It hit Zozo right in his chest, right over his heart.
It was as if a bolt of lightning had blistered Zozo’s soul and knocked him backward. And by the time his mechanics brought him back upright again, he was numb and desperate. He heard the little gir
l laughing with joy. And he also heard the jingling of the dancer’s bell.
“You will be my favorite toy,” he heard her say. “And I will call you Nina.”
It seemed to take forever for his throne to rotate back in place. As it did Zozo saw that the dancer was no longer in her spot. He could see the small hook from which she had hung; it still had a shine to it, unlike the other rusted hooks that had been toyless for so long. There was a tiny piece of ribbon from her dress still wrapped around the hook, and it rippled in the chilly breeze. Zozo could not accept what he was seeing. But he could hear the almost rhythmic sound of the dancer’s bell growing fainter.
His pedestal gears clicked his platform into place just in time for him to see that the girl was clutching the dancer with both hands. They were already walking away.
The dancer’s face was barely visible above the girl’s shoulder. Zozo could see her bright beautiful eyes. He could hear every step the little girl took for it shook the doll’s bell. Then the family rounded the corner of the midway and were out of sight. Gone. He could hear the bell no more.
The golden thread was broken.
Nothing mattered to Zozo after that. Not the feel of the balls hitting him. Not the dirt on his face or the rips in his costume.
It did not matter when more and more signs saying UNDER REPAIR were posted. Nothing was ever going to be repaired at the carnival; nothing was ever going to be fixed. Zozo knew that now.
It did not matter that the man stopped showing up for days on end, that he stopped showing up altogether. It did not matter that the carnival closed for good and the booth was abandoned.
It did not matter that the hot sun baked Zozo’s painted and cracked face, or when the cold winds blew or the hard rains pelted him. It did not matter that the Earth itself began to slowly melt and sink, pulling Zozo down, down into the darkness.
5
An Awfully Huge A-Venture
For Billy and Ollie, nothing really changed after the night Ollie had officially been made a favorite—except that life got even more yum.
All day long there were forts to build and trees to climb and bikes to ride and games to make up. Billy and Ollie lived most of their time in made-up adventures. Sometimes the couch was made of rocks, and the carpet was a sea of lava, and they had to make their way to the kitchen by stepping on chair cushions to avoid being melted. Sometimes they were bumblebees and buzzed and hovered everywhere making a bzzzzzzzzzz sound and stinging the car. It didn’t matter if it was rainy and they were inside, or if it was sunny and they were out. All that mattered, from morning to night, was that Billy and Ollie were always together, never apart.
When Billy was small he would simply grab Ollie by an arm or leg or ear—whichever was handiest at the moment—and carry him from place to place. As Billy grew bigger, however, his parents gave him a backpack, and that backpack happened to be the perfect size for carrying Ollie around on an A-venture. This was Billy’s way of saying “adventure.” So when he would say to Ollie, “I believe we need to go on a huge A-venture,” the toy always knew what he meant.
An A-venture could involve something with Billy’s mother and father, like going to the zoo or a baseball game or even just the grocery store. But an A-venture could also be something for just the two of them—Billy and Ollie, alone together. These were called “huge A-ventures.”
A huge A-venture could be a trek through the tallest mountains in the world, a place so remote only a tribe of fierce abominable snowmen dared call it home. (This was the hill in the front yard down the street.) A huge A-venture could be a voyage across dangerous distant seas (this was usually across the living room carpet, which was ocean blue) in pursuit of a band of pirates and a chest of stolen gold. A huge A-venture could be a trip to the moon via a rocket ship (really a refrigerator box), which sat in the backyard.
There were a few rules about huge A-ventures, but they were grown-up rules. If Billy and Ollie were on their own, they always had to let the parents know if they were leaving the house, and later, as Billy got older, the yard. A lot of times conversations would go like this:
Billy: Just wanted to let you know that Ollie and I are going to toddle to the moon today.
Mom: Sure, honey, that’s fine. You’ll be leaving the yard, then?
Billy: Prob’ly.
Mom [To Billy]: Okay, Billy, just remember the rules. [To Ollie]: And Ollie, remember to keep Billy safe.
Ollie: Tell the Mom “ditto.”
Billy: Ollie says “ditto,” Mom.
Neither Billy nor Ollie knew what a “ditto” was, but Billy’s father often said it when he seemed to agree with something. And they both liked the sound of it. So “ditto” was their way of saying yes with deep enthusiasm.
* * *
Leaving the yard meant following the Number One Big Rule: Never Cross the Street Without an Up (which was short for “grown-up”).
This was big. It was a “deal breaker,” as Billy’s mother and father put it. It was “bad news.” And it was also “highly illegal.” As far as Billy and Ollie could tell, anything that was against the rules was “illegal.” And there were many “illegals.” Cookies before dinner were “illegal.” Not brushing your teeth before bed was “illegal.” And crossing the street alone seemed to be “super illegal,” which could lead to the thing they feared the most: “being in trouble.” Trouble was a place they never wanted to be near. You could be standing around without a care in the world, and suddenly you would be in trouble for something you maybe even forgot you’d done.
You were then surrounded by a cloud of “bummer.” And it felt terrible. And you didn’t know what would happen, but it wasn’t going to be good, because your parents are “mad at you,” and when they are “mad at you,” it is not at all fun. It was the total absence of fun. It was frowns and “go to your room” and “you can’t play,” and nobody talks and you don’t know when it will be over. And you start thinking about Hansel and Gretel and running away or being lost in the woods or trapped by scary old ladies and eaten or turned into frogs or just lost from all happy tuck-ins and kisses good night and all the world’s yum.
Once “in trouble,” it seemed to take forever to get out of it. Trouble time went 50 times slower than regular time and 377 times slower than fun time, which went faster than any other time. Which is very strange and unfair and extremely true. But being in trouble would always pass, and the world would be bright again and there would be smiles and going-outs and plays and have-funs.
But the memory of being in trouble kept Billy and Ollie very aware of doing what they were told, which wasn’t a problem, except when their ball happened to roll into the street. Then it took an extra second for Billy to remind his feet not to leave the sidewalk, but to wait at the edge of the curb for a neighbor or some other Up to throw the ball back.
Sometimes Billy and Ollie would be standing there, waiting for a ball to be thrown back, and they would speculate on what would happen if they even let one toe of one foot drift from the curb.
“There’s prob’ly an alarm,” Billy would say.
“And the police would come,” said Ollie.
“And they’d lock us up in the jail.”
“Yeah.”
“And throw away a key.”
There would be a pause, and then Ollie would say, “Sounds a lot like being in trouble.”
“Yeah.”
Luckily, Billy and Ollie only had to cross a single street in order to get to their favorite place: the park. And there was a nice man called a Cross Guard who made sure that Billy and Ollie made it across the street safely. Cross Guard’s real name was Mr. Beasley, and Billy just called him Mr. B.
The park was at the end of the block, and it had massive old trees (bigger than the trees in Billy’s yard) and a playground. The two of them wondered a lot about the word “playground.”
“Are there other kinds of ground?” Ollie asked.
“Gotta be,” replied Billy. “Bummer ground, where bummer
s happen . . .”
“Wow,” said Ollie.
“And how wow,” said Billy.
With bridges and tunnels and ropes and swings and monkey bars and a slide, the park was a place for many huge A-ventures. It had other kids as well, which was great, and Billy and Ollie had lots of friends there. There was Hannah of the Runny Nose, who was very nice and always had at least one nostril clogged. She could even blow booger bubbles when asked, which made her almost enchanted to Billy and Ollie. And there was Perry, who had many freckles and was very good at making things up and sharing any good sticks he found. And there was Butch, who had a very short haircut and preferred muddy places, which was fun, but he would sometimes act nice and then “commit mean,” then afterward say he was sorry, it was an accident, even though it wasn’t. Most of the time Billy and Ollie preferred to play alone, just the two of them, because Ollie, like all favorites, instantly and completely understood Billy so that when Billy would suddenly say “Ninjas—in the bushes,” Ollie would immediately respond with “Gotcha covered,” and they would be lost in a game with rules that didn’t need any explaining.
Sometimes Billy’s parents came to the park with Billy and Ollie, but more often as Billy got bigger, they didn’t. And that was okay. There were always other parents or friendly neighbors around, always on the lookout for anything amiss, so Billy was totally safe when he was at the park.
But the park was no longer safe for Ollie. Not since he had been favorited. Billy and Ollie didn’t know it yet, but they were being watched. Watched by beings who did many illegals and were not nice, who committed mean very often, and came from grounds that had once been for play but were now dark and cruel and unforgiving.
Billy and Ollie were about to be in a kind of trouble much worse than any they had ever known.
6
The Creeps