TITLE: Teddy's Big Adventure, part 2 of 2
AUTHOR: "Matrix Refugee"
RATING: G (My first ever G-rate!)
ARCHIVE: Now that ff.n is being a BEAST, yes!!! (Permission given already)
FEEDBACK: Please, please, pretty please??
SUMMARY: Teddy is lost. What will David do?
DISCLAIMER: Nope, I don't own "A.I.", or else this would be a screen story for a one-hour DreamWorks TV special, maybe at Easter, on HBO. I don't own the lyrics of "Teddy Bears' Picnic", which are public domain, as far as I can tell. Oh, and the cuter (as in less painful) torture Effie exerts on Teddy was inspired by an idea from my friend Twinkle on the "A.I." Role-Playing group on Yahoo!
NOTES: I had a blast with this. Lots of concepts flying around, which should make it appeal both to the more mature elements in us, as well as to our inner "David" or "Darlene". Also, I don't mean to demonize little girls in this one: "Effie" was just based very much on a girl I help babysit. And if you want to make this a multi-media experience, check out the MIDI on this page:
Especial thanks goes to Ruby T. O'Neil and to Laurie E. Smith for pointing me toward the lyrics. I'm dedicating this fic to you guys, and also to Jack Angel, the incomparable voice of "Teddy".
WARNING: Mild violence, sort of. Not the worst, of course, but it might give Teddy the horrors....but there's enough fuzzies to compensate (and there's a bit of a teaser as well.).
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Part Two: Found
Monica called David in just before supper. "But Teddy might come when I'm not looking," he said.
"Maybe you could draw a poster we could hang up at the grocery store," Monica said.
David's worried face brightened at this. "Sure, Mommy. You come up with the best ideas." And he bounded off to the sewing room.
"That'll hold the little guy for a while," Martin said, watching this as he did his homework.
After dinner, David showed Monica his posters. Each had a brown and tan crayon drawing of Teddy and a message:
'Please send Teddy home to me. I lost him in the Haddonfield Library and I need him back. He has brown fur on most of him and tan fur on his face and tummy. If you find him, please call me at...'
"That's very good, David," Monica said. "Let's take it to the store tomorrow when we go shopping."
"Thank you, Mommy," David said, hugging her.
"You sure it's gonna work?" Martin said, eying it a little puzzled.
"It has our phone number so they can call us when they find him," David said. "And everyone goes to the store, so someone will see it, maybe the person who found Teddy."
"Sounds like a good plan to me," Henry said.
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Teddy wasn't sure quite where he was going. He had been switched off when Gladys brought him to her house. So he kept walking, looking for a familiar road he knew led home.
As he trotted along, he passed a house where Effie, the unpleasant little girl was playing, running about in the front yard while her father mowed the lawn. That wasn't safe: she could get hurt. He really had to get home, but she had to be warned as well.
He turned onto the path up to the house and waddled after Effie, across the grass. He caught up with her and put his paw on her leg.
"You will get hurt playing where your daddy is working," Teddy said.
Effie looked down at Teddy. "Oh, it's you! You found me!" she cried. She scooped him up and ran with him into the house. At least this got her away from that dangerous place.
She carried Teddy to her room, clearly a girl's bedroom, with lacy curtains trimmed with pink ribbon, a pink carpet, a lace-trimmed bedspread and pink and white furniture. Lots of dolls sat on the shelves of the cupboards and bookcases, or lay plopped on the floor, some with clothes on, many without.
"Everyone, we gotta new friend!" Effie cried. "This is Teddy!" She plopped Teddy on the bed, in amongst a lot of stuffed animals. "She just walked in."
"I'm a he," Teddy said.
"Well, you'll have to be a girl, 'cause this room is for girls ONLY," Effie said. She ran to a box of doll clothes in a corner and pawed through it, singing something:
"If you go out in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise
If you go out in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic
"Picnic time for teddy bears
The little teddy bears are
Having a lovely time today
Watch them, catch them unawares
And see them picnic on their holiday
See them gaily gather 'bout
They love to play and shout
They never have any cares
At six o'clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they're tired little teddy bears!"
Effie drew out a pink tutu covered all over with rainbow spangles and sequins.
Teddy eyed the doll dress as Effie jumped back on the bed. She grabbed Teddy and started to pull the dress onto him. "I think this will fit just right," she said.
"I'm a he," Teddy replied, insistant.
"You're a girl now. You gotta wear a girl outfit," Effie said.
Teddy growled, but there was little he could do. She wasn't hurting him, but he couldn't wriggle away.
"Wanna see yourself?" she said, holding Teddy up to the full-length mirror in the other corner.
Teddy saw his reflection. He growled: he didn't look right.
"Don't growl: you look pretty," Effie said,
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Next day, when David went with Mommy to the store, he brought the posters. Mommy spoke with the store manager, asking her if she'd let them put up the posters.
"Of course," said the store manager. "I had a dog that ran away when I was about your age. But we got him back when we put up posters."
David smiled broadly and looked up at Mommy. "It will work. It has to work."
"I hope it does," she said.
The store manager herself hung up the posters, one near each of the two entrances.
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Later that evening, a tall, slender young man with black hair stood before David's poster, reading it, his bright green eyes taking it all in.
"Are you gonna stare at that poster all night or should I do the shopping all by myself?" snapped the shorter man next to him. "Earth to Frank, Earth to Frank."
Frank, the taller man, turned to his friend. "Sorry about that: I just couldn't help noticing that poster."
The shorter man glanced at it. "Kids losing their Supertoys," he grumbled.
"You never lose anything like that, Hal?" Frank asked, leading the way in.
"Never had anything like that to lose," Hal groused, following Frank.
"You poor thing," Frank said. And that poor kid, whoever he is, he thought. There's a story behind this...
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"It's quite remarkable," Dr. Hobby said, as he spoke with Henry via videophone the next day. "It's beyond remarkable: David developed this kind of attachment on a Supertoy, to the point that he's genuinely worried for it when he lost it. You find that only in young children."
"I know, Martin was like that when he was six," Henry replied, his eye on the photo of Martin, David and Teddy, which he kept on his desk. "He misplaced an action figure, one of his first, and he got a little distraught, but not the way David has with losing Teddy."
"It seems the David line senses emotions stronger than most children," Hobby said. "I'll have to examine David. With your permission of course."
"You can talk with him, but I won't have anyone taking his brain apart," Henry said. He caught himself, concerned that he might have cost himself some trouble by the way he spoke. But Hobby seemed to ignore it.
"That's understood. I only intended to have Dr. Jeanine Salla, our robo-psychologist talk to him," Hobby said, reassuringly.
"Good, he'll be in good hands," Henry said. Dr. Salla had worked with David after the "Blue Fairy incident". "I'll see what we can do after we find Teddy."
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"Frank, I need a human interest story for Saturday's 'Style'," LeClerck, the chief editor of the Haddonfield "Dispatch" said, standing over Frank's desk in the office of the paper. "I got two empty quarter columns and a space for a photo that need filling for the Saturday edition. Make it interesting."
"How about a nice, gripping, dramatic dog rescue," grumbled Hal, cleaning the contacts of a digital camera, as he sat at the desk that faced Frank's.
"You alreayd did that this winter," LeClerck said. "The readers have heard that before. Just find something you haven't run in the last two months." With that, the boss moved on.
"Okay, what does that leave us?" Hal asked Frank.
Frank picked up a copy of the previous day's paper. "That's a good question." He scanned the columns of the "lost and found" ads.
"Now what's so interesting in yesterday's news?" Hal asked.
"I'm looking in the lost and found," Frank said.
"Hey, that's for people who have lost or found something, you simple simon."
Frank ignored this. In the middle of the second column, something caught his eye:
"Lost and very much needed back: Cybertronics' Teddy, model 351, two tone copper and tan fur. Call Swinton at..."
"Here's something," Frank read the ad aloud. "Swinton, could that be the family with the child Mecha? Looks like it might be the same family that put up that poster I saw last night."
"Oh, here we go again with the Blue Fairy," Hal groaned.
"They're looking for a missing Teddy."
"If they can't keep track of their Mechas, they don't deserve to--"
"Oh hush! They could be completely innocent, so don't go leapfrogging from one conclusion to the next," Frank said, reaching for the handset of his phone. He pressed nine, then dialled the number. The line rang a few times, then it picked up, but there was no answer.
"Hello...this is Frank Sweitz over at the Haddonfield 'Dispatch'. Could I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Swinton?"
He heard some scuffling at the end of the line, a woman's muffled voice telling someone to let her have the phone. Then it cleared.
"Hello, this is Mrs. Swinton," she said.
"I saw your ad in the lost and found section, for the missing Teddy. I think I can help you find him."
"How? Did you see him?"
"Not exactly. But I think I might be able to get this incident more coverage. I mean, right now that little ad is buried in the middle of the lost and found section. But if there were a little more to back it up, someone might be more likely to see it, someone who found him."
"You're telling me you want to...run a story on this?" she asked.
"I'm only proposing it."
"I don't know...David's been through so much, but he really misses Teddy..."
"I know, the 'Blue Fairy incident'. I heard about that, saw the write-ups on it."
"I suppose...could you come tonight when my husband's home?" she asked.
"By all means, of course."
"Would seven o'clock be too late?"
"My time is yours."
"Okay...is there a number I can reach you? I'd like to clear this with Henry first before I say anything definate."
"Sure, sure." He gave her his pager number.
After a few final words, Mrs. Swinton hung up. Frank switched off the phone, took out his palmtop and notated a pending appointment at the Swinton house for that evening.
"Frank Sweitz, heroic reporter," Hal said. "Champion of troubled Mechas, spun sugar to the core."
"Nope, I'm just as mercenary as you are: I'm taking one little Mecha's pain and turning it into copy. But you never know: some good might come of this."
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Monica called Henry at work, telling him about the reporter who called that day. Henry thought it sounded like a good idea if they spoke to him.
"But do you think David can handle it?" Henry asked.
"If he knows it's to help find Teddy, he will," Monica said.
When she got off the phone, Monica called Mr. Sweitz back to tell him he could come to their house at seven that evening.
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Before dinner, before she even started cooking, Mommy came into David's room and aat down next to him on his bed.
"Did someone find Teddy?" he asked. "I hear you talk on the telephone."
"No, not yet. But there's a man who wants to help us find Teddy," she said.
"Is he a detective?" David asked.
"No, he writes for the newspaper. He wants to write an article about you and Teddy, and how you're looking for him," she said. "So, he wants to come here and ask you a few things about Teddy."
David thought about this. "Everybody reads newspapers. So someone will see the...article and know about Teddy. If they have him, they can know where to go to give him back."
Mommy smiled at him. "Let's hope they do."
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Right about this time, Effie carried Teddy, or Teddina as she insisted on calling him, carried her friend outside to her playhouse, towing a bunch of other teddy bears--ordinary stuffed ones--in a pink plastic doll carriage. She was still singing the song she'd sung before:
"If you go out in the woods today
You'd better not go alone
It's lovely out in the woods today
But safer to stay at home
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic.
"That's what we're having just for you," Effie said, pushing Teddy down into a chair at the small table inside the playhouse. "Bet you never had a picnic all for you with other teddy bears."
"I belong to David," Teddy insisted.
Effie plunked the other Teddies into the other chairs. "Well, now you belong to me. You're in for a treat," she said. "This'll be more fun than anything a *boy* ever did with you." She went to a toy refrigerator in the corner, opened it and rummaged about. She took out a box of little frosted chocolate cream cakes. She unwrapped a few and broke them apart. She put the pieces on the plates before the other Teddies, but she put a whole one in front of herself. The other bears watched with still, quiet eyes.
Teddy watched Effie, following her, his ears pricked up. Mommy had sung the song sometimes, but much better than Effie did:
"Every teddy bear, that's been good
Is sure of a treat today
There's lots of wonderful things to eat
And wonderful games to play
Beneath the trees, where nobody sees
They'll hide and seek as long as they please
Today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic."
Effie put a whole cake on the plate in front of Teddy. "It's nice having something else that's alive," she said.
"I am *not* alive like you," Teddy said.
"Well, you move around like you're alive," she said, munching on her own cake. She looked at the cake in front of Teddy.
He pushed the plate toward her. "I don't eat."
"Are you just being gruffy?" Effie demanded.
"I don't eat," he insisted.
She picked up the cake before Teddy. "Oh, come on. It's nummy."
"No."
She grabbed Teddy's chin and shoved the cake into his mouth. He tried to wriggle free, but she had a firm grip on him. She worked his chin up and down, mushing the cake. Teddy couldn't taste it of course, but he felt crumbs and cream pushing into the back of his mouth, splocking onto his voice box and down inside him.
Everything went black as his system shut down to protect itself.
Effie shook Teddy. "Hey, stop fooling me. If you didn't like it, say so."
He didn't move.
"DADDY!!!" she screamed.
Effie's father, working in the garage, heard his daughter yell. The cry sounded desperate, so he ran to see what it could be.
He found Effie in her playhouse, with the bear she claimed had 'just' walked into the yard. There was cake smeared on the bear's face, which told him exactly what had happened. Effie was jabbering a blue streak about how they were just having a picnic.
"You should know these things don't eat," he said, taking the bear and carrying it into the garage.
"Can you fix him? Please, Daddy, please!" she begged.
"No, Effie, we'll have to take him someplace to fix him." He put Teddy into a large box and set the box on an upper shelf in his workshop.
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At seven, the doorbell trilled at the Swintons's house. Henry opened the door, letting in two young men, a tall, dark one and a shorter one with a camera slung on a strap about his neck. The short one insisted on being called Hal, but the tall one just wanted to be called Mr. Sweitz.
David hung back, watching from the living room. Martin came up behind him and nudged him forward.
"So you must be David, the young gentleman whose friend Teddy is missing," Mr. Sweitz said.
"Are you the man who wants to help find Teddy?" David asked.
"Yes, I am; I saw the ad your family posted in the paper I work for," Mr. Sweitz said, extending his hand to David, as if he were a grownup. David shook his hand.
Mommy led them into the living room where they could all be more comfortable. David sat next to Mr. Sweitz on the arm of his chair. He asked them several questions about teddy, how long they'd had him, how long he'd been missing, jotting down their answers on a small handheld scriber. Martin hung about, but he was strangely quiet the whole time. The man with the camera took a photo of David. Then Mr. Sweitz turned to him and asked him a few questions.
"David, what would you say to someone if they found Teddy and brought him back to you?" he asked.
"I'd give them a hug and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing him back'," David said.
Mr Sweitz smiled, a pleasant, friendly smile. "That's more than some boys your age would do," he said. David smiled back.
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"Where's My Friend Teddy?" Asks Local Child-Mecha David Swinton
HADDONFIELD--David Swinton, the child-Mecha who, last year, was returned to his adoptive family has a very important question to ask local residents: Has anyone see his Teddy Supertoy? "I was at the library on Tuesday with Mommy and Martin [his older brother]," says the dark-blonde haired and blue-eyed eleven year old, sadly. "We looked for him all over [the library], but we couldn't find him. It's like he disappeared."
David has been extremely lonely since his furry friend vanished. "They're the best of friends," says David's mother, Monica Swinton. "He misses him dreadfully." Adds David's father, Henry Swinton, a longtime employee of Cybertronics, the company which built Teddy, "He takes the little guy everywhere he goes; he's lost without him."
Teddy is about 16 inches tall with two-tone brown fur, dark cream-colored on his face and tummy, copper-brown on the rest of him. A reward of 50 NB is offered by the family to whomever finds Teddy and returns him. For more information, contact the 'Dispatch' at...
Says David to whoever finds his furry friend, "I'd give them a hug and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing him back'."
Beside the item was a photo of David, as well as one of Teddy which Monica had let them use.
"The older brother knows something about it," Hal said, the next morning, as he and Frank sat in the news room, looking over the night's work.
"I had that feeling," Frank said. "But the object right now is finding Teddy. It's Mr. and Mrs. Swinton's territory to handle that part of the problem. They seem like capable enough people."
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Saturday afternoon, Martin stepped into Henry's workshop as his dad was at work carving a set of napkin rings as a wedding present for Mom's cousin Natalie.
"Dad, you ever do something like for a prank and then you felt bad about it?" Martin asked.
"Oh, yeah. Like that time my cousin Rob and I put the firecrackers into Mrs. McDougal's mailbox," Dad said. "We didn't think the mailbox would explode, but it did. Rob got a nasty burn on his hand, too. Why, there something on your mind, Marty?"
"Aw, just wondering," Martin said, kicking a few pebbles around on the driveway before sauntering away.
Henry watched his son curiously. He knew there was something on his older son's mind, but he couldn't tell exactly what it was. He wondered if it just might have something to do with Teddy disappearing.
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That evening, Effie's father saw the article about David and Teddy.
"Did that bear Effie found say anything about it belonging to a boy named David?" he asked his wife.
"I don't remember, but didn't she jam him up? Why do you want to know?" she asked, not following.
He showed her the article. "Oh my, that sounds a lot like the bear Effie found," Effie's mother said.
"I think we better call the paper and see about getting the bear back to the Swintons," Effie's father said.
"But he's broken. We should get him fixed first."
"I'm on it."
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Effie's father found his daughter rummaging in the back of her closet. "What are you looking for?" he asked.
"I"m lookin' for a big shoebox: I'm gonna have a funeral for Teddina," she said.
"You'd better not do that: Teddy has a home he needs to go to," he said.
"But he's broken, I broke him."
"He can probably be fixed.
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Monday morning, Effie's father brought Teddy to a repair shop, a "hospital" for broken Supertoys. They had a few orders already being worked on, but the lady who ran the store said she'd fix Teddy herself: she'd seen the item about Teddy and David's poster, so she promised Effie's father she'd have Teddy fixed by that evening.
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Just before supper, the phone rang in the Swintons' house, but this time, Monica was a little quicker picking it up before David beat her to it.
"Hello, Swinton house?"
"Hello, Mrs. Swinton? This is Herman Varay; we found what we think is your missing Teddy bear."
"Really?"
"Yes, he has two tone brown fur, and he's been asking about David. My daughter found him wandering around."
"That's great, would you mind if we came and got him around seven?"
"No, of course not." And he gave Monica his address. "Actually, the sooner you get here, the better. My daughter's gotten extremely attached to him, so I'm hiding him in the garage. I jsut don't know how long it'll take before she finds him."
"We'll be over right at seven," Monica promised.
As soon as she got off the phone, Monica ran to David's room.
"David, someone found Teddy," she said.
He jumped up from the bed where he had been reading "Pinocchio", his favorite book (even if it wasn't real), and ran to Monica. "Really? Can we go get him? Are they coming to bring him here?"
"We're going to get him after dinner," she said.
Martin stood in the doorway listening to this and looking a little forlorn.
"Something the matter, Martin?" Monica asked.
"Yeah, I, uh...I'm sorry...I hid Teddy in the library. I started all this," Martin admitted.
"Well....at least you apologized for it," Monica said. "But I'm going to have to talk to your father about this."
"You can take the reward money out of my allowance," Martin said, a little reluctant, but honest.
"That sounds like a good idea," Monica said.
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Effie's father met them in the garage of his house, where he took a large box down from a shigh shelf.
"I'd let you into the house, but I had to keep Teddy away from Effie," he said. He leaned down to David and held the box down to him. David lifted the lid and looked inside.
Teddy stuck his head out of the box, gripping the sides with his paws. He looked up at David.
"Hello, David," he said.
David reached in and pulled Teddy out. He hugged his friend as if he'd never let him go. But he put Teddy down on the ground and reached up his arms to Mr. Varay. "May I hug you?"
"Well, uh, sure," the man said, sheepishly. He leaned down to David's level and let the little one put his arms about his neck. He put a slightly nervous arm about David, then let him go.
To Monica, Mr. Varay added, "Is it true?"
"Is what true?"
Mr. Varay looked from David to Teddy. "He's like the bear."
"That's just the way he came," Monica said. "He's got a heart like the rest of us."
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Henry called the "Dispatch" the next day and asked them to pull the ad he'd placed. And he also told Mr. Sweitz the good news, and to ask if he'd be interested in a follow-up to his original story.
"I just wanted to do something to help," Mr. Sweitz said, later, when he came to the Swintons' house. "It was David's poster that got me curious, then I saw your ad in the paper."
"Good thing we thought to do all that," Henry said.
"You all pitched in to set it in motion," Mr. Sweitz said.
David got up from the couch, set Teddy aside, went up to the chair where Mr. Sweitz sat, crawled into his lap and hugged him. "Now what's this for?" the reporter asked.
"Because you helped me find Teddy," David said.
"Just doin' my job," Mr. Sweitz said.
Teddy climbed up onto David's lap. At that moment, Hal the photographer snapped a photograph of them.
"Just what we need, a happy ending," Martin said, pretending to be annoyed.
David smiled at Martin. "Aren't they the best kind?"
"I think so," Teddy said.
The End
.
AUTHOR: "Matrix Refugee"
RATING: G (My first ever G-rate!)
ARCHIVE: Now that ff.n is being a BEAST, yes!!! (Permission given already)
FEEDBACK: Please, please, pretty please??
SUMMARY: Teddy is lost. What will David do?
DISCLAIMER: Nope, I don't own "A.I.", or else this would be a screen story for a one-hour DreamWorks TV special, maybe at Easter, on HBO. I don't own the lyrics of "Teddy Bears' Picnic", which are public domain, as far as I can tell. Oh, and the cuter (as in less painful) torture Effie exerts on Teddy was inspired by an idea from my friend Twinkle on the "A.I." Role-Playing group on Yahoo!
NOTES: I had a blast with this. Lots of concepts flying around, which should make it appeal both to the more mature elements in us, as well as to our inner "David" or "Darlene". Also, I don't mean to demonize little girls in this one: "Effie" was just based very much on a girl I help babysit. And if you want to make this a multi-media experience, check out the MIDI on this page:
Especial thanks goes to Ruby T. O'Neil and to Laurie E. Smith for pointing me toward the lyrics. I'm dedicating this fic to you guys, and also to Jack Angel, the incomparable voice of "Teddy".
WARNING: Mild violence, sort of. Not the worst, of course, but it might give Teddy the horrors....but there's enough fuzzies to compensate (and there's a bit of a teaser as well.).
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Part Two: Found
Monica called David in just before supper. "But Teddy might come when I'm not looking," he said.
"Maybe you could draw a poster we could hang up at the grocery store," Monica said.
David's worried face brightened at this. "Sure, Mommy. You come up with the best ideas." And he bounded off to the sewing room.
"That'll hold the little guy for a while," Martin said, watching this as he did his homework.
After dinner, David showed Monica his posters. Each had a brown and tan crayon drawing of Teddy and a message:
'Please send Teddy home to me. I lost him in the Haddonfield Library and I need him back. He has brown fur on most of him and tan fur on his face and tummy. If you find him, please call me at...'
"That's very good, David," Monica said. "Let's take it to the store tomorrow when we go shopping."
"Thank you, Mommy," David said, hugging her.
"You sure it's gonna work?" Martin said, eying it a little puzzled.
"It has our phone number so they can call us when they find him," David said. "And everyone goes to the store, so someone will see it, maybe the person who found Teddy."
"Sounds like a good plan to me," Henry said.
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Teddy wasn't sure quite where he was going. He had been switched off when Gladys brought him to her house. So he kept walking, looking for a familiar road he knew led home.
As he trotted along, he passed a house where Effie, the unpleasant little girl was playing, running about in the front yard while her father mowed the lawn. That wasn't safe: she could get hurt. He really had to get home, but she had to be warned as well.
He turned onto the path up to the house and waddled after Effie, across the grass. He caught up with her and put his paw on her leg.
"You will get hurt playing where your daddy is working," Teddy said.
Effie looked down at Teddy. "Oh, it's you! You found me!" she cried. She scooped him up and ran with him into the house. At least this got her away from that dangerous place.
She carried Teddy to her room, clearly a girl's bedroom, with lacy curtains trimmed with pink ribbon, a pink carpet, a lace-trimmed bedspread and pink and white furniture. Lots of dolls sat on the shelves of the cupboards and bookcases, or lay plopped on the floor, some with clothes on, many without.
"Everyone, we gotta new friend!" Effie cried. "This is Teddy!" She plopped Teddy on the bed, in amongst a lot of stuffed animals. "She just walked in."
"I'm a he," Teddy said.
"Well, you'll have to be a girl, 'cause this room is for girls ONLY," Effie said. She ran to a box of doll clothes in a corner and pawed through it, singing something:
"If you go out in the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise
If you go out in the woods today
You'd better go in disguise
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic
"Picnic time for teddy bears
The little teddy bears are
Having a lovely time today
Watch them, catch them unawares
And see them picnic on their holiday
See them gaily gather 'bout
They love to play and shout
They never have any cares
At six o'clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they're tired little teddy bears!"
Effie drew out a pink tutu covered all over with rainbow spangles and sequins.
Teddy eyed the doll dress as Effie jumped back on the bed. She grabbed Teddy and started to pull the dress onto him. "I think this will fit just right," she said.
"I'm a he," Teddy replied, insistant.
"You're a girl now. You gotta wear a girl outfit," Effie said.
Teddy growled, but there was little he could do. She wasn't hurting him, but he couldn't wriggle away.
"Wanna see yourself?" she said, holding Teddy up to the full-length mirror in the other corner.
Teddy saw his reflection. He growled: he didn't look right.
"Don't growl: you look pretty," Effie said,
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Next day, when David went with Mommy to the store, he brought the posters. Mommy spoke with the store manager, asking her if she'd let them put up the posters.
"Of course," said the store manager. "I had a dog that ran away when I was about your age. But we got him back when we put up posters."
David smiled broadly and looked up at Mommy. "It will work. It has to work."
"I hope it does," she said.
The store manager herself hung up the posters, one near each of the two entrances.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Later that evening, a tall, slender young man with black hair stood before David's poster, reading it, his bright green eyes taking it all in.
"Are you gonna stare at that poster all night or should I do the shopping all by myself?" snapped the shorter man next to him. "Earth to Frank, Earth to Frank."
Frank, the taller man, turned to his friend. "Sorry about that: I just couldn't help noticing that poster."
The shorter man glanced at it. "Kids losing their Supertoys," he grumbled.
"You never lose anything like that, Hal?" Frank asked, leading the way in.
"Never had anything like that to lose," Hal groused, following Frank.
"You poor thing," Frank said. And that poor kid, whoever he is, he thought. There's a story behind this...
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
"It's quite remarkable," Dr. Hobby said, as he spoke with Henry via videophone the next day. "It's beyond remarkable: David developed this kind of attachment on a Supertoy, to the point that he's genuinely worried for it when he lost it. You find that only in young children."
"I know, Martin was like that when he was six," Henry replied, his eye on the photo of Martin, David and Teddy, which he kept on his desk. "He misplaced an action figure, one of his first, and he got a little distraught, but not the way David has with losing Teddy."
"It seems the David line senses emotions stronger than most children," Hobby said. "I'll have to examine David. With your permission of course."
"You can talk with him, but I won't have anyone taking his brain apart," Henry said. He caught himself, concerned that he might have cost himself some trouble by the way he spoke. But Hobby seemed to ignore it.
"That's understood. I only intended to have Dr. Jeanine Salla, our robo-psychologist talk to him," Hobby said, reassuringly.
"Good, he'll be in good hands," Henry said. Dr. Salla had worked with David after the "Blue Fairy incident". "I'll see what we can do after we find Teddy."
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
"Frank, I need a human interest story for Saturday's 'Style'," LeClerck, the chief editor of the Haddonfield "Dispatch" said, standing over Frank's desk in the office of the paper. "I got two empty quarter columns and a space for a photo that need filling for the Saturday edition. Make it interesting."
"How about a nice, gripping, dramatic dog rescue," grumbled Hal, cleaning the contacts of a digital camera, as he sat at the desk that faced Frank's.
"You alreayd did that this winter," LeClerck said. "The readers have heard that before. Just find something you haven't run in the last two months." With that, the boss moved on.
"Okay, what does that leave us?" Hal asked Frank.
Frank picked up a copy of the previous day's paper. "That's a good question." He scanned the columns of the "lost and found" ads.
"Now what's so interesting in yesterday's news?" Hal asked.
"I'm looking in the lost and found," Frank said.
"Hey, that's for people who have lost or found something, you simple simon."
Frank ignored this. In the middle of the second column, something caught his eye:
"Lost and very much needed back: Cybertronics' Teddy, model 351, two tone copper and tan fur. Call Swinton at..."
"Here's something," Frank read the ad aloud. "Swinton, could that be the family with the child Mecha? Looks like it might be the same family that put up that poster I saw last night."
"Oh, here we go again with the Blue Fairy," Hal groaned.
"They're looking for a missing Teddy."
"If they can't keep track of their Mechas, they don't deserve to--"
"Oh hush! They could be completely innocent, so don't go leapfrogging from one conclusion to the next," Frank said, reaching for the handset of his phone. He pressed nine, then dialled the number. The line rang a few times, then it picked up, but there was no answer.
"Hello...this is Frank Sweitz over at the Haddonfield 'Dispatch'. Could I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Swinton?"
He heard some scuffling at the end of the line, a woman's muffled voice telling someone to let her have the phone. Then it cleared.
"Hello, this is Mrs. Swinton," she said.
"I saw your ad in the lost and found section, for the missing Teddy. I think I can help you find him."
"How? Did you see him?"
"Not exactly. But I think I might be able to get this incident more coverage. I mean, right now that little ad is buried in the middle of the lost and found section. But if there were a little more to back it up, someone might be more likely to see it, someone who found him."
"You're telling me you want to...run a story on this?" she asked.
"I'm only proposing it."
"I don't know...David's been through so much, but he really misses Teddy..."
"I know, the 'Blue Fairy incident'. I heard about that, saw the write-ups on it."
"I suppose...could you come tonight when my husband's home?" she asked.
"By all means, of course."
"Would seven o'clock be too late?"
"My time is yours."
"Okay...is there a number I can reach you? I'd like to clear this with Henry first before I say anything definate."
"Sure, sure." He gave her his pager number.
After a few final words, Mrs. Swinton hung up. Frank switched off the phone, took out his palmtop and notated a pending appointment at the Swinton house for that evening.
"Frank Sweitz, heroic reporter," Hal said. "Champion of troubled Mechas, spun sugar to the core."
"Nope, I'm just as mercenary as you are: I'm taking one little Mecha's pain and turning it into copy. But you never know: some good might come of this."
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Monica called Henry at work, telling him about the reporter who called that day. Henry thought it sounded like a good idea if they spoke to him.
"But do you think David can handle it?" Henry asked.
"If he knows it's to help find Teddy, he will," Monica said.
When she got off the phone, Monica called Mr. Sweitz back to tell him he could come to their house at seven that evening.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Before dinner, before she even started cooking, Mommy came into David's room and aat down next to him on his bed.
"Did someone find Teddy?" he asked. "I hear you talk on the telephone."
"No, not yet. But there's a man who wants to help us find Teddy," she said.
"Is he a detective?" David asked.
"No, he writes for the newspaper. He wants to write an article about you and Teddy, and how you're looking for him," she said. "So, he wants to come here and ask you a few things about Teddy."
David thought about this. "Everybody reads newspapers. So someone will see the...article and know about Teddy. If they have him, they can know where to go to give him back."
Mommy smiled at him. "Let's hope they do."
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Right about this time, Effie carried Teddy, or Teddina as she insisted on calling him, carried her friend outside to her playhouse, towing a bunch of other teddy bears--ordinary stuffed ones--in a pink plastic doll carriage. She was still singing the song she'd sung before:
"If you go out in the woods today
You'd better not go alone
It's lovely out in the woods today
But safer to stay at home
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic.
"That's what we're having just for you," Effie said, pushing Teddy down into a chair at the small table inside the playhouse. "Bet you never had a picnic all for you with other teddy bears."
"I belong to David," Teddy insisted.
Effie plunked the other Teddies into the other chairs. "Well, now you belong to me. You're in for a treat," she said. "This'll be more fun than anything a *boy* ever did with you." She went to a toy refrigerator in the corner, opened it and rummaged about. She took out a box of little frosted chocolate cream cakes. She unwrapped a few and broke them apart. She put the pieces on the plates before the other Teddies, but she put a whole one in front of herself. The other bears watched with still, quiet eyes.
Teddy watched Effie, following her, his ears pricked up. Mommy had sung the song sometimes, but much better than Effie did:
"Every teddy bear, that's been good
Is sure of a treat today
There's lots of wonderful things to eat
And wonderful games to play
Beneath the trees, where nobody sees
They'll hide and seek as long as they please
Today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic."
Effie put a whole cake on the plate in front of Teddy. "It's nice having something else that's alive," she said.
"I am *not* alive like you," Teddy said.
"Well, you move around like you're alive," she said, munching on her own cake. She looked at the cake in front of Teddy.
He pushed the plate toward her. "I don't eat."
"Are you just being gruffy?" Effie demanded.
"I don't eat," he insisted.
She picked up the cake before Teddy. "Oh, come on. It's nummy."
"No."
She grabbed Teddy's chin and shoved the cake into his mouth. He tried to wriggle free, but she had a firm grip on him. She worked his chin up and down, mushing the cake. Teddy couldn't taste it of course, but he felt crumbs and cream pushing into the back of his mouth, splocking onto his voice box and down inside him.
Everything went black as his system shut down to protect itself.
Effie shook Teddy. "Hey, stop fooling me. If you didn't like it, say so."
He didn't move.
"DADDY!!!" she screamed.
Effie's father, working in the garage, heard his daughter yell. The cry sounded desperate, so he ran to see what it could be.
He found Effie in her playhouse, with the bear she claimed had 'just' walked into the yard. There was cake smeared on the bear's face, which told him exactly what had happened. Effie was jabbering a blue streak about how they were just having a picnic.
"You should know these things don't eat," he said, taking the bear and carrying it into the garage.
"Can you fix him? Please, Daddy, please!" she begged.
"No, Effie, we'll have to take him someplace to fix him." He put Teddy into a large box and set the box on an upper shelf in his workshop.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
At seven, the doorbell trilled at the Swintons's house. Henry opened the door, letting in two young men, a tall, dark one and a shorter one with a camera slung on a strap about his neck. The short one insisted on being called Hal, but the tall one just wanted to be called Mr. Sweitz.
David hung back, watching from the living room. Martin came up behind him and nudged him forward.
"So you must be David, the young gentleman whose friend Teddy is missing," Mr. Sweitz said.
"Are you the man who wants to help find Teddy?" David asked.
"Yes, I am; I saw the ad your family posted in the paper I work for," Mr. Sweitz said, extending his hand to David, as if he were a grownup. David shook his hand.
Mommy led them into the living room where they could all be more comfortable. David sat next to Mr. Sweitz on the arm of his chair. He asked them several questions about teddy, how long they'd had him, how long he'd been missing, jotting down their answers on a small handheld scriber. Martin hung about, but he was strangely quiet the whole time. The man with the camera took a photo of David. Then Mr. Sweitz turned to him and asked him a few questions.
"David, what would you say to someone if they found Teddy and brought him back to you?" he asked.
"I'd give them a hug and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing him back'," David said.
Mr Sweitz smiled, a pleasant, friendly smile. "That's more than some boys your age would do," he said. David smiled back.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
"Where's My Friend Teddy?" Asks Local Child-Mecha David Swinton
HADDONFIELD--David Swinton, the child-Mecha who, last year, was returned to his adoptive family has a very important question to ask local residents: Has anyone see his Teddy Supertoy? "I was at the library on Tuesday with Mommy and Martin [his older brother]," says the dark-blonde haired and blue-eyed eleven year old, sadly. "We looked for him all over [the library], but we couldn't find him. It's like he disappeared."
David has been extremely lonely since his furry friend vanished. "They're the best of friends," says David's mother, Monica Swinton. "He misses him dreadfully." Adds David's father, Henry Swinton, a longtime employee of Cybertronics, the company which built Teddy, "He takes the little guy everywhere he goes; he's lost without him."
Teddy is about 16 inches tall with two-tone brown fur, dark cream-colored on his face and tummy, copper-brown on the rest of him. A reward of 50 NB is offered by the family to whomever finds Teddy and returns him. For more information, contact the 'Dispatch' at...
Says David to whoever finds his furry friend, "I'd give them a hug and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing him back'."
Beside the item was a photo of David, as well as one of Teddy which Monica had let them use.
"The older brother knows something about it," Hal said, the next morning, as he and Frank sat in the news room, looking over the night's work.
"I had that feeling," Frank said. "But the object right now is finding Teddy. It's Mr. and Mrs. Swinton's territory to handle that part of the problem. They seem like capable enough people."
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Saturday afternoon, Martin stepped into Henry's workshop as his dad was at work carving a set of napkin rings as a wedding present for Mom's cousin Natalie.
"Dad, you ever do something like for a prank and then you felt bad about it?" Martin asked.
"Oh, yeah. Like that time my cousin Rob and I put the firecrackers into Mrs. McDougal's mailbox," Dad said. "We didn't think the mailbox would explode, but it did. Rob got a nasty burn on his hand, too. Why, there something on your mind, Marty?"
"Aw, just wondering," Martin said, kicking a few pebbles around on the driveway before sauntering away.
Henry watched his son curiously. He knew there was something on his older son's mind, but he couldn't tell exactly what it was. He wondered if it just might have something to do with Teddy disappearing.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
That evening, Effie's father saw the article about David and Teddy.
"Did that bear Effie found say anything about it belonging to a boy named David?" he asked his wife.
"I don't remember, but didn't she jam him up? Why do you want to know?" she asked, not following.
He showed her the article. "Oh my, that sounds a lot like the bear Effie found," Effie's mother said.
"I think we better call the paper and see about getting the bear back to the Swintons," Effie's father said.
"But he's broken. We should get him fixed first."
"I'm on it."
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Effie's father found his daughter rummaging in the back of her closet. "What are you looking for?" he asked.
"I"m lookin' for a big shoebox: I'm gonna have a funeral for Teddina," she said.
"You'd better not do that: Teddy has a home he needs to go to," he said.
"But he's broken, I broke him."
"He can probably be fixed.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Monday morning, Effie's father brought Teddy to a repair shop, a "hospital" for broken Supertoys. They had a few orders already being worked on, but the lady who ran the store said she'd fix Teddy herself: she'd seen the item about Teddy and David's poster, so she promised Effie's father she'd have Teddy fixed by that evening.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Just before supper, the phone rang in the Swintons' house, but this time, Monica was a little quicker picking it up before David beat her to it.
"Hello, Swinton house?"
"Hello, Mrs. Swinton? This is Herman Varay; we found what we think is your missing Teddy bear."
"Really?"
"Yes, he has two tone brown fur, and he's been asking about David. My daughter found him wandering around."
"That's great, would you mind if we came and got him around seven?"
"No, of course not." And he gave Monica his address. "Actually, the sooner you get here, the better. My daughter's gotten extremely attached to him, so I'm hiding him in the garage. I jsut don't know how long it'll take before she finds him."
"We'll be over right at seven," Monica promised.
As soon as she got off the phone, Monica ran to David's room.
"David, someone found Teddy," she said.
He jumped up from the bed where he had been reading "Pinocchio", his favorite book (even if it wasn't real), and ran to Monica. "Really? Can we go get him? Are they coming to bring him here?"
"We're going to get him after dinner," she said.
Martin stood in the doorway listening to this and looking a little forlorn.
"Something the matter, Martin?" Monica asked.
"Yeah, I, uh...I'm sorry...I hid Teddy in the library. I started all this," Martin admitted.
"Well....at least you apologized for it," Monica said. "But I'm going to have to talk to your father about this."
"You can take the reward money out of my allowance," Martin said, a little reluctant, but honest.
"That sounds like a good idea," Monica said.
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Effie's father met them in the garage of his house, where he took a large box down from a shigh shelf.
"I'd let you into the house, but I had to keep Teddy away from Effie," he said. He leaned down to David and held the box down to him. David lifted the lid and looked inside.
Teddy stuck his head out of the box, gripping the sides with his paws. He looked up at David.
"Hello, David," he said.
David reached in and pulled Teddy out. He hugged his friend as if he'd never let him go. But he put Teddy down on the ground and reached up his arms to Mr. Varay. "May I hug you?"
"Well, uh, sure," the man said, sheepishly. He leaned down to David's level and let the little one put his arms about his neck. He put a slightly nervous arm about David, then let him go.
To Monica, Mr. Varay added, "Is it true?"
"Is what true?"
Mr. Varay looked from David to Teddy. "He's like the bear."
"That's just the way he came," Monica said. "He's got a heart like the rest of us."
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--
Henry called the "Dispatch" the next day and asked them to pull the ad he'd placed. And he also told Mr. Sweitz the good news, and to ask if he'd be interested in a follow-up to his original story.
"I just wanted to do something to help," Mr. Sweitz said, later, when he came to the Swintons' house. "It was David's poster that got me curious, then I saw your ad in the paper."
"Good thing we thought to do all that," Henry said.
"You all pitched in to set it in motion," Mr. Sweitz said.
David got up from the couch, set Teddy aside, went up to the chair where Mr. Sweitz sat, crawled into his lap and hugged him. "Now what's this for?" the reporter asked.
"Because you helped me find Teddy," David said.
"Just doin' my job," Mr. Sweitz said.
Teddy climbed up onto David's lap. At that moment, Hal the photographer snapped a photograph of them.
"Just what we need, a happy ending," Martin said, pretending to be annoyed.
David smiled at Martin. "Aren't they the best kind?"
"I think so," Teddy said.
The End
.