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Proto—it was still hard for Buddy to believe it. Proto: the first Furrington Teddy sewed by the Creator known as the Mother. Proto: the shrewd trickster hero in the teddy tales spun by Reginald. Proto: who persuaded the Mother to sew eight other teddies known as the Originals. Proto: whose story ended right here at Furrington Industries, where the Suit had corrupted the Mother’s formula for the best teddies in the world.
After escaping the teddy village in the cellar, finding the factory above had been a shock.
Finding Proto behind a dusty glass case had been an even bigger shock.
Now that Proto was freed, Buddy could take a good look at him. Proto had the same pudgy teddy belly and stubby teddy limbs as Buddy and his friends. But the Suit had made a lot of changes to Furrington Teddies. For the first time, Buddy saw those changes plainly.
And those changes hurt.
Buddy and his friends’ plush was made of “Ryulexster,” a synthetic fabric. Proto, however, was made from the Mother’s cherished Softest Fabric in the World. Proto’s plush was blue, the same as Buddy’s, yet not at all the same—Buddy marveled at Proto’s glossy, velvety depths.
Buddy and his friends had cheap plastic eyes prone to scratches. Take, for example, Pookie, the fork-legged red teddy who’d died leading their escape from the trashlands—she’d had a big white scratch through her left eye. Proto’s eyes, however, were the Mother’s original marble, as deep and mysterious as the starry skies Buddy had seen on the darkest of nights.
“Proto, tell us about the Mother,” begged Reginald, the gray teddy.
“No, tell us about the Originals,” said Sunny, the yellow teddy. “How do we stack up?”
“I would like to hear more about this factory,” said Nothing, the white teddy. “I used to live beneath it, you know.”
Buddy, the blue teddy, stepped forward like the leader he was.
“All good questions,” he said. “But first … after all that time trapped inside a case … are you okay, Proto?”
All about the teddies lay shards of glass from the display case they’d shattered to free Proto. The old teddy had fallen out straight on his muzzle like he’d forgotten how to walk. Sunny, always attuned to her Teddy Duty, had been the one to rush forward and help Proto to his feet.
Proto was still relearning how to move. He lifted an arm. It squeaked and progressed stiffly. Finally, Proto’s paw reached his head. Buddy stood taller. Proto was going to salute the four courageous teddies who’d freed him!
Instead, Proto combed back a patch of spiky plush.
“You are speaking to Proto.” His voice was more musical than any teddy Buddy had heard, like a tiny orchestra inside his stuffing played every word. “The case wasn’t cozy-wozy, as I used to say of the Mother’s home. But I am fine. I am perfectly fine.”
“You said you have so much to tell us,” Buddy reminded him.
He wondered if Proto had anything to say about Forever Sleep—that supposedly wondrous state of nothingness that took over once a teddy was embraced by a child.
“I do indeed,” Proto replied. “But first—what in the world has happened to you, poor teddies?”
Proto had been locked here since long before Buddy, Sunny, Reginald, and Nothing were created. It made sense to Buddy that he’d have just as many questions as they did.
Buddy gazed down at himself. What had happened to them? His fur was scuffed all over from gravel. His tummy had a hole in it where Daddy had stabbed him with a trash poker. His nose was fractured where a Cherub had shoved him to the boiler room floor.
It must be a strange sight for a teddy like Proto, who’d never seen much of the outside world at all.
“Your feet,” Proto pointed out. “Why, they’re not blue at all.”
Buddy held out a foot for examination. It was a brown mishmash of stains.
“That’s from the trashlands,” he said. “And from the journey to the city. It was a difficult trip, Proto. Our friend Horace got stolen by a garbage gull. Our friend Sugar got torn up by a teddy-monster named Mad and then stuffed into a hungry sink.”
“A hungry sink?” Proto harrumphed doubtfully and gestured at Reginald. “You there, gray teddy. Explain those scars all over your back.”
“I’m a bit embarrassed of those,” Reginald said. “The cellar teddies hated themselves so much, they persuaded me to hate myself too.”
Proto double-harrumphed and swept a paw at Sunny. “All those holes, yellow teddy. Don’t tell me the sink had teeth!”
Sunny inspected the four-hole patterns all over her body. “The Cherubim had forks. And they really liked to use them.”
Proto pulled off an impressive triple-harrumph before squinting at Nothing. “And what woe befell you, my white friend?”
Buddy hated to see Nothing’s flaw called out but Nothing didn’t seem to mind. When she’d been built in this factory, the right half of her body had been sewed on higher than the left, so that one eye was rather above the other and she walked with a limp.
“Manufacturing error,” Nothing replied. “But Buddy said we all have manufacturing errors. Some of them you just can’t see.”
Buddy smiled at Nothing. The white teddy hadn’t yet mastered smiles, but she gave it another try. The right half of her mouth-thread slanted upward, leaving the left half of it behind. Well, it was a start.
Text copyright © 2023 by Daniel Kraus.
Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Rovina Cai.
