The Teddies Saga by Daniel Kraus

Author:Daniel Kraus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

23

No doubt Garden E’s dozers had been larger. But in this bigger, blanker, blacker space, the truck was like the moon, hurtling toward Earth. The wheels bounced like boulders through the truck’s own exhaust. Its front grill flashed in the orange highway lamps. It honked like a gull and hissed like a snake. Hot stink waves bent around it.

It was a garbage truck.

The truck might even be heading toward the trashlands. How grimly fitting, Buddy thought, that after Reginald got squashed into the tire treads, he might end up back at the Cemetery of Sorrow.

The truck came fast. Buddy’s fluffy teddy brain told him to stay on the sidewalk and watch helplessly as the garbage truck rumbled toward Reginald and his gummed foot. But Buddy’s Real Silk Heart was a different matter. He believed he heard it rustle in his stuffing—whispered reminders in a soft, fabric language that Buddy had given up being a watcher the instant he’d left Garden E.

Buddy ran. Down the sidewalk, over the curb, onto the road.

“Boss! You numbskull!” Sunny shouted. “Don’t!”

“Wheeeee!” Sugar cried. “Look at the blue teddy zoom!”

Buddy hit Reginald at full speed. They smashed together. Buddy thought he felt his Real Silk Heart crash against Reginald’s: thump-thump. Or maybe it was just the garbage truck’s wheels: THUMPATHUMPATHUMPA—

Using all of his pipsqueak weight, Buddy yanked on Reginald. He saw the chewing gum stretch from the gray teddy’s foot. It would break. It had to break. He knew an instant of hope, a thing thinner and more rubbery than the gum.

When the gum snapped back in place, reality snapped back too. The truck was seconds away. He and Reginald were finished. They’d had one shot to escape Garden E. One shot to find children at the Yellow Plastic Hills. All of it ruined by a stupid wad of chewing gum.

Reginald’s eyes clacked against Buddy’s.

“Run,” the gray teddy insisted.

Buddy stomped a foot into the chewing gum so he was stuck too.

“We started together,” Buddy said. “We’ll end together.”

Reginald nodded, like he’d anticipated this reply.

They embraced as tightly as two teddies could, and the garbage truck ran over them.

The world went tornado black.

Buddy felt destroyed. He felt flattened. Here was the strange part. At the same time, the garbage truck’s hellish heat made him aware of his itty bittiest parts. The stitches beneath his arms, burning. His plastic nose, hot as liquid tar. The Polyester Fibers and Plastic Pellets of his body, warm as stoked charcoal.

He was peeled from the earth. He was soaring.

At that instant, the Voice came back.

“Is this death, U.S. REG. NO PA-385632?” it asked. “Or is this simply knowledge?”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.