Chapter One – The Friendship
"I'm worried about Emma, Alan." Zoe's words carried. In her room, Emma rolled her eyes. Why couldn't Mom see that she was just fine? "She hasn't been the same since the – since the summer." Emma laughed to herself as she went through her closet. Of course she hadn't. She was strong now. She was a survivor.
"She's fine." Dad had her back, as always. The blue top was something she'd worn two years ago, with Taylor when she hadn't realised how weak Taylor was. She threw it in the trash bag.
"She's shutting us out. When's the last time she had Taylor round?"
"She's growing up, Zoe. People grow apart, you know that," Dad said smoothly, and Mom faltered.
"I think she needs help. Getting over something like that, it doesn't just happen without help." Emma let out a loud sigh, hoping her mother heard it. Couldn't Mom realise she was better now than she'd even been? She was a survivor, Sophia said so. She wasn't a weak little girl, and she didn't need any help. She'd survived the alley on her own, she didn't need anyone now. "She threw out all her dolls, Alan. For Emma that would be like choosing which arm to cut off." Emma laughed. They were just dolls. Only the weak needed dolls. It wasn't like having to actually choose what to... she swept her arm along the shelf, sweeping all the dolls into the bag in one move and went onto the next shelf. She was a survivor.
"You're exaggerating."
"No, I'm not." Why wouldn't Mom just drop it? "It's like those muggers just cut out part of her soul." They hadn't cut out anything, Emma knew. She was strong enough to fight them, to deserve to be rescued, and if Sophia hadn't come she'd saved herself… She gripped the first of the rag dolls, Taylor-Anne, and shoved it into the bag. No rescue for the doll, she didn't deserve it.
"I'll speak to her," Dad said, reassuringly, and Emma smiled. There it was. She was strong, she'd never get into trouble. "If I think she needs help, we'll talk. "
"Promise?"
"Promise." Emma smirked. Dad, good as always at making problems go away.
She picked up the last of the stuffed toys and plunged it into the bag as deeply as her arms could go. Bead and button eyes looked up at her, just like they had when she was a girl, and she'd held her stuffed cat to ward off the nightmares.
Maybe throwing them out wasn't enough. If she put them down the waste disposal...no, Emma knew, her mother would scream. Mom wasn't as strong as her. She let go of the top of the bag and the toys expanded, overflowing onto the floor. Fine!
She picked up the scissors off her desk, and stalked towards the bag. She'd make them small enough to fit! The long braid of a rag doll trailed out of the bag. She picked it up, placed the scissors by the dolls head and snipped the long, red, plait free.
- hair or -
Stabbing down into the doll's body the stuffing didn't loosen, or deflate. The scissors punctured its face, left a tear across the material that bled stuffing.
- do something to her face -
She picked up the stuffed, baggy, useless, old cloth cat by one ear. In enough pieces it would go in the bag. She wasn't weak any more. She wasn't. She set the scissors by the base of the ear and began to close them -
- eye or ear-
Two beings, twins in the void, parting, one large fragmenting, out of control….
[CAUTION]
[REASSURANCE]
Impact….
Emma shook herself. Why the hell she was on the floor? She got up, a little unsteadily, but everything looked normal, even the overflowing trash bag on the floor. It wasn't weakness, she was just over-tired, she was sure. Untangling the scissors from her fingers, she kicked her shoes off and curled up on the bed. As an afterthought she reached out with a foot, and kicked the saggy old cat onto her bed. If Mom saw that, maybe she'd stop bothering her. Putting her head on it as a pillow, she closed her eyes and dozed.
#
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl, and her name was Emma-Lee.
And she had a shop. It was a rather unusual shop because it didn't sell anything.
You see, everything in that window was a thing that somebody had once lost, and Emma-Lee had found. And brought home to Bagpuss.
Emma-Lee's cat Bagpuss. The most important, the most beautiful, the most magical, saggy, old, cloth cat in the whole wide world.
One day Emma-Lee found a thing and she brought it home to Bagpuss who was asleep in the shop window as usual. But then Emma-Lee said some magic words: Bagpuss, oh Bagpuss, Big, fat, furry, catpuss. Wake up and look at this thing that I bring. Wake up, be bright, be golden and light. Oh Bagpuss, hear what I sing.
And Bagpuss was wide awake. And when Bagpuss woke up, all his friends woke up too.
The mice on the Mouse Protector organ woke up and stretched.
Madeline the rag doll
Gabriel the toad
and last of all Professor Yaffle, a very distinguished old woodpecker. He climbed down off his bookend and went to see what it was that Emma-Lee had brought.
"Mya, mya, mya," he clicked. "It is a tangle of coloured threads, and they are knotted in a most particular fashion. Why, it is a crochet."
"I don't see any hoops and balls." said Gabriel. "Or mallets."
"No, no," said Madaleine, "A crochet, not a croquet. Croquet is a game. Crochet is tying threads, like knitting, but with one needle."
"Knitting with one needle?" Bagpuss was amazed. "But, but, how?"
"It has a hook on the end."
"A needle with a hook?" Bagpuss exclaimed. "I mean, I say, well, well, well"
"Sounds like a right cat's cradle to me," said Gabriel and strummed his guitar.
~"Fiddle and fable, red cat wove a cradle,
and tied herself up in the thread.
The other cats laughed to see such fun,
and followed where red cat had led."~
"All those cats tied up together. A knotty problem. A very knotty problem indeed," laughed Professor Yaffle.
"So, Professor, we should unknot them," said Madeleine. And when the mice had unknotted them, the threads lay on the floor with fringed knots like tassels on each end.
"Why, they are friendship bracelets," said Madeleine. "When people are very good friends they make bracelets together and wear them to show they are friends."
"If the bracelets are broken, what happens to the friendship?" Bagpuss wanted to know.
"Why nothing," said Professor Yaffle. "The bracelets are only trinkets."
"But two friends cared enough to make them." said Madeleine.
"Nya, Nya, Nya," said Professor Yaffle. The mice tried to tie the threads back together, but they didn't reach. "Well they will have to make new ones."
"Oh no, Professor," said Madeleine. "Those threads are far too short, mice. Go to my workbox and you will find a hook and some new thread." The mice brought out the new thread, and the hook, and set to work.
"We will knit them, we will knot them,
We will tie them tight, tight, tight.
We will braid them, and unfade them,
Clean them 'til they're pretty and bright."
And the mice cleaned the bracelets until they shone and tied them round a convenient iPhone to display them. Then Bagpuss put the friendship bracelets in the shop window so that if the person who owned it should happen to pass by, they could see it and come in to claim it.
Bagpuss gave a great big yawn and settled down to sleep.
And when Bagpuss goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep too.
The mice were ornaments on the Mouse Protector organ.
Madeleine and Gabriel were just dolls.
Professor Yaffle was a carved, wooden, bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.
Even Bagpuss himself, once he was asleep was just an old, saggy, cloth, cat. Baggy and a bit loose at the seams.
But Emma- Lee loved him.
#
Emma woke up and stretched, knocking something furry onto the floor. She glared at it. Had she been hugging the cat? That was pathetic. She got out of bed, picking the saggy, old, pink, cloth cat off the floor by one ear, and looked for the rubbish bag. It wasn't there. Mom must have cleaned it up.
Her reminder alarm went off, and Emma jumped. That wasn't a good start to the day, she'd miss breakfast. She tossed the toy onto the shelf with the other dolls that had somehow ended up there, and ran for the shower. The door was shut and Anne was singing. That just rubbed it in. Too late and no time. She washed herself off in the sink, promising herself a double-length shower tonight, and grabbed something from the closet to wear. Where the hell was her phone?
There it was, on the sill of that antique model of a shop her aunt Annette had brought her. God she would be so disappointed in Taylor now. Or maybe Annette had been just as weak as her daughter. After all, she was dead. Emma grabbed the phone with a snort of irritation as a web of threads came with it, wrapped around the phone neatly in bands. She frowned. Were those the friendship bracelets she'd made with … she sniffed – ah, pancakes – and decided it didn't matter. It looked good, so she'd keep them. Stuffing the phone in her pocket, deciding she'd deal with it on the way to school, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and ran downstairs to eat.
Author's Note: Yes, crackfic, yes blame dental anaesthetic. I was going to do one about Bagpuss repairing Emma and Taylor's relationship one item at a time, but I ran of items at four.
Bagpuss is very hard to write because Oliver Postgate was a genius, and I am not. Also, aside from the classic Bagpuss intro and exit, the stories, lyrics and poems are not from Bagpuss, they are my poor attempt to write ones that fit Worm and match Mr Postgate's music.