The Toyminator

by Robert Rankin

Genres: Fantasy; Contemporary Fantasy; Humorous Fantasy

Synopsis

Somewhere over the rainbow and just off the Yellow Brick Road stands Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And things are not going well for the city's inhabitants. There have been outbreaks of STC - Spontaneous Toy Combustion - and there are strange signs and portents in the Heavens. Preachers of Toy City's many religions are predicting that the End Times are approaching and that a Toy City Apocalypse will soon come to pass. But can this possibly be true, or is there a simple explanation - an alien invasion, for instance. With the body count rising and the forces of law and order baffled, it is the time for a hero to step forward and attempt to save the day. Well, two heroes actually, Eddie Bear, Toy City Private Eye and his loyal sidekick, Jack: our courageous twosome are about to face their biggest challenge yet, to save not only toykind, but the world of mankind too. Which should keep them out of the pub for a while.

Release date: June 2, 2011

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 365

Sample

The rain came down in great big buckets, emptied from the sky.

The city’s population stayed indoors. Those of the clockwork persuasion greatly feared the rain, for rain brought on the terrible
rust, the terrible corrosion. Those of fur dreaded sogginess, and those of wood, the stains. The rubber ducks were happy,
though, but then they always are.


The city was Toy City, formerly Toy Town, and it stood there, somewhere over the rainbow, just off the Yellow Brick Road and
beyond the mysterious Second Big O. And it stood there at this present time a-soaking in the rain.


The city’s population blamed the rain upon the recently deposed mayor. In fact, the city’s population now blamed almost everything
upon the recently deposed mayor. And not without good cause for the most part, although blaming him for the inclement weather
was, perhaps, pushing it a bit.


Not that the city’s population were above pushing it a bit, for had they not risen up against the mayor and marched upon the
mayoral mansion with flaming torches, pots of tar and many bags of feathers? And had they not dragged the city’s mayor from
his mayoral mansion, performed unspeakable acts upon his person and cast him beyond the city’s gates, with the advice that
he should never return, come wind or, indeed, come rain?


Indeed they had.

It had all been most unpleasant.

And if the tarring and feathering and the endurance of unspeakable acts and the casting forth from the city had been most unpleasant for the mayor, these things were as nought when compared to those things that were done to him by the
kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker, when the ejected mayor returned to the city under cover of darkness to seek sanctuary
at his manse. Having cleaned up the ex-mayor, the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker had demodified him. Which is to
say that he removed all the modifications that he had made to the mayor in return for a great service that the mayor had performed
for the city, in fact a great service for which he had been granted the office of mayor.


The kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker did not demodify the mayor in order to add insult to injury. He did not do it
out of cruelty. Rather he did it out of compassion, blaming himself, he said, for making modifications that should never have
been made – playing God, as he put it. He apologised profusely to the ex-mayor as he put him through the process of demodification.
He told the exmayor that it was all for the ex-mayor’s own good and that the ex-mayor would thank him for it one day, and
then he had given the ex-mayor a nice cup of tea, patted him upon the head and sent him upon his way, offering his own words
of advice, to whit, that the ex-mayor should in future keep within his remit and not aspire to a position above his natural
station in life.


‘Now go and be good,’ said the Toymaker, slamming shut his front door behind the ex-mayor.

The door of Tinto’s Bar hadn’t opened all evening. What with the rain and everything, business had been slack. Business, in
fact, was no business at all and Tinto’s Bar was empty.


‘I blame it on the ex-mayor,’ said Tinto, to no one but himself, as he stood behind his bar, a dazzling glass in one dextrous
hand, a bar-cloth in the other. ‘I remember the good times, me. Well, I would if there’d ever been any.’


Tinto’s Bar was long and low, all patterned in black and white chequerboard. A long and low counter it had, with a row of chromium barstools. There were tables and chairs that were shabby, but served. A dolly called Nellie, who worked the
weekends. A pot man called Henry, who didn’t.


Tinto the barman was something to behold. He was of the mechanical persuasion, powered by a clockwork motor, his body formed
from pressed tin and glossily painted, though much of the gloss was now gone. His head was an oversized sphere, with a smiling
face painted on the front. His body was a thing-a-me-oid (a cylinder with a hemisphere joined to each end of it), painted
with a dicky bow and tuxedo. His arms were flat, though painted with sleeves and shirt cuffs, and the fingers of his hands
were fully and wonderfully articulated.


Now, in the light of things that are shortly to occur, it might be well to mention that Tinto was a practising member of The
Church of Mechanology, which was one of The Big Four religions in Toy City along with The Daughters of the Unseeable Upness,
Big Box Fella, He Come and The Exclusive Brotherhood of the Midnight Growlers. Mechanologists held to the belief that the
Universe was a vast clockwork mechanism, with the planets revolving about the sun by means of extendible rotary arms and the
sun in turn connected to the galaxy by an ingenious crankshaft system, the entirety powered by an enormous clockwork motor,
constantly maintained, oiled and kept wound by The Universal Engineer.


The Universal Engineer was pictured in religious icons as a large and jolly red-faced fellow in greasy overalls and cap. He
held in one holy hand an oily rag, and in the other the Church’s Sacred Writ, known as The Manual.


Followers of The Church of Mechanology considered themselves special and superior to all other varieties of toy, in that being
clockwork they were in tune and at one with the Universe.


It could be argued that The Church of Mechanology was something of an End Times cult, subscribing as it did to the belief
that, as individual clockwork toys enjoyed only a finite existence, due to the ravages of rust, corrosion, spring breakage and fluff in the works, so too did the Universe.


Elders of the church spoke of The Time of the Terrible Stillness, when the great mechanism that powered the Universe would
grind to a halt, the planet would no longer turn upon its axis, the sun would no longer rise and even time itself would come
to a standstill.


And at present, what with all the chaos caused by the exmayor when he was the then-mayor, there was much talk amongst the
practising Mechanologists that The Time Of the Terrible Stillness was now rapidly approaching. In fact, the elders of each
of The Big Four religions were presently preaching that The End Times were well and truly on their way, and everyone knew
whose fault that was.


Tinto examined the dazzling glass and found it pleasing to behold. At least you knew where you were with a glass. If it was
a beer glass, then you were probably in a bar. And as Tinto was in a bar, well, at least he knew where he was. Which was something.


‘I think I’ll close up early tonight,’ said Tinto to himself, ‘take a couple of bottles of five-year-old oil upstairs, watch
the late-night movie, Rusty the Rotten Dog, drown my sorrows and pray for sunshine tomorrow. You have to make the effort, don’t you? And laugh, too, or so I’ve been
told, because you’ll cry if you don’t. And crying really rusts tin toys, as salt water’s worse than rain.’


Tinto had recently taken to the reading of certain ‘self-help’ books. It was all very well being a practising member of The
Church of Mechanology, or rather, in truth, it was not, it was just too damned depressing, and although Tinto could not actually remember any particularly good times, he was generally
of a cheery disposition. Or he had been until recently.


Tinto was presently reading Become A Merry Old Soul in Thirty Days, penned by a certain O. K. Cole, a prominent Toy City Pre-adolescent Poetic Personality.* Tinto had even taken on The Fiddlers Three to play in the bar during Sunday lunchtimes. The Fiddlers Three had driven away his Sunday
lunchtime clientele.


‘It never rains, but it damned well buckets down,’ said Tinto, ‘yet a smile costs nothing and brightens any day.’

A noise of an unexpected nature drew Tinto’s attention towards the door of his bar. For this noise came from its creaking
hinges.


‘Custom?’ queried the clockwork barman. ‘On such a night as this?’

The hinges creaked a little more; some rain blew into the bar.

‘Who is there?’ called Tinto. ‘Welcome, friend.’

The door, a smidgen open, opened a smidgen more. The brown button eye of a furry face peeped into Tinto’s Bar.

‘Howdy doody,’ called the barman. ‘Don’t be shy, now. Hospitality awaits you here. That and beer and any seat that suits you.’

Smidgen, smidgen, smidgen went the door and then all-open-up.

And then … and then …

Tinto peered and had he been able Tinto would have gawped. And had his face been capable of any expression other than that
which was painted upon it, there is just no telling exactly what this expression might have become. Tinto’s voice, however,
was capable of all manner of expression and the words that now issued through the grille in his chest did so in what can only
be described as an awed whisper. And those words were …


‘Eddie, Eddie Bear – is that really you?’

A sodden teddy stood in the doorway, a sodden and dejected-looking teddy. It put its paws to its plump tummy parts and gave
them a squeeze, eliciting a dismal groan from its growler and dripping raindrops onto Tinto’s floor.


‘It is you,’ said Tinto. ‘It really is.’


Eddie Bear did shakings of himself. ‘I couldn’t borrow a bar-cloth, could I?’ he asked.

Tinto’s head revolved upon his tin-plate shoulders. ‘You,’ he said, and his voice rose in volume and in octave also. ‘You! Here! In my bar! You!’


‘Me,’ said Eddie. ‘Might I have a beer?’

‘You!’ Tinto’s head now bobbed up and down, his arms rose and his dextrous fingers formed themselves into fists.


‘I’ll go,’ said Eddie. ‘I understand.’

‘Yes, you … yes, you.’

Eddie turned to take his leave. Turned in such a sorrowful, forlorn and dejected manner, with such a drooping of the head
and sinking of the shoulders, that Tinto, whose fists were now beating a rapid tattoo upon the highly polished bar counter,
felt something come over him that was nothing less than pity.


‘No,’ said Tinto, his fists unfisting. ‘No, Eddie, please don’t go.’

Eddie turned and gazed at the barman through one brown button eye and one blue. ‘I can stay?’ he asked. ‘Can I really?’

Tinto’s head now bobbed from side to side. ‘But you—’

‘Were mayor,’ said Eddie. ‘Yes, I know and I’m sorry.’

‘And you were—’

‘Modified by the Toymaker. Hands with fingers and opposable thumbs, I know.’ Eddie regarded his paws and sighed a heartfelt
sigh.


‘And—’

‘Eyes,’ said Eddie, mournfully, ‘blue glass eyes with eyelids. All gone now. I’m just plain Eddie Bear.’

Tinto said nothing, but beckoned. Eddie crossed the floor towards the bar counter, leaving behind him little paw-shaped puddles.

‘Sit down, then,’ said Tinto. ‘Have a beer and tell me all about it.’

‘Could you make it something stronger than beer, please?’ Eddie asked, climbing with difficulty onto what had once been his
favourite barstool. ‘I’m soaked all the way through and whatever I drink is going to get watered down.’


‘I’ve got a bottle of Old Golly-Wobbler,’ said Tinto. ‘It’s pretty strong stuff – even the gollies are afeared of it, and you know how those bad boys like to put it away.’


‘Make it a treble then, please,’ said Eddie.

Tinto, who had been reaching up for the bottle, which stood upon a glass shelf between the Old Kitty-Fiddler and the Donkey
Punch (a great favourite with male ballet-dancing dolls), hesitated. Tinto’s head revolved towards Eddie. ‘You do have money?’
he asked.


Eddie shook his sodden head and made the face of despair.

‘Thought not,’ said Tinto. ‘Then you’re only getting a quadruple measure.’ For Tinto had trouble with maths.

‘That will be fine, then.’ And the corners of Eddie’s mouth rose a little. But not any more than that.

Tinto decanted a measure of Old Golly-Wobbler, which might well have been a quadruple, into the dazzling glass that had so
recently afforded him a small degree of pleasure because he knew where he was with it, and pushed the glass across the bar
top towards the bedraggled bear. The bedraggled bear took it up between his trembling paws and tossed it away down his throat.


‘Much thanks, Tinto,’ said he. And Tinto poured another.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Eddie, when further Golly-Wobblers were gone and a rather warm feeling was growing in his tummy
parts. ‘I tried my best, I really did. I tried as hard as.’*

‘And that’s where you went wrong,’ said Tinto, decanting a glass of five-year-old oil for himself and emptying it into his
grille. ‘No one wanted change, Eddie. Folk hate change and they came to hate you for trying to bring it about.’


‘But things needed changing, still need changing.’


‘No they don’t,’ said Tinto, and he shook his head vigorously. A nut or screw inside came loose and rattled all about. ‘And
now you’ve given me a headache,’ said Tinto. ‘When will all this madness end?’


‘Pour me another drink,’ said Eddie.

‘And you’ll pay me? That would make a change. And a pleasant one, too, I’m thinking.’


‘Things do need changing,’ Eddie said. ‘Toy City is a wretched dystopia, Tinto, you know that.’

‘I don’t,’ said Tinto. ‘What does dystopia mean?’

Eddie told him.

‘Well, I’ll drink to that,’ said Tinto.

‘And so it needs changing.’

‘Doesn’t,’ said Tinto. ‘Certainly it’s grim. Certainly toys don’t get a fair deal. But if we didn’t have something to complain
about, then what would we have to complain about?’


Eddie Bear put his paws to his head. ‘I saved this city,’ said he, ‘saved it from the Toymaker’s evil twin. He would have
wiped every one of us out if it hadn’t been for me.’


‘And your friend, Jack,’ said Tinto.

‘Yes, Jack,’ said Eddie. And he made a wistful face. ‘I wonder whatever became of Jack. He travelled into the world of men—’

‘The world of men?’ said Tinto. ‘A world populated entirely by meatheads? There’s no such world. That’s a myth, Eddie. A fantasy.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Eddie, making imploring ‘more-drink-please’ gestures with his paws. ‘There is a world beyond this one. Jack
met a man who came from there. And that’s where Jack went.’


‘Didn’t,’ said Tinto, and he poured another drink for Eddie.

‘Did too,’ said Eddie.

‘Didn’t,’ said Tinto. ‘A little bird told me that he changed his mind, decided it was more fun to stay in the city with his
girlfriend – that Jill from Madame Goose’s bawdy house.’ Tinto made the sacred sign of the spanner over the portion of his chest where his heart, had he possessed one, would have been, out of respect for the late Madame Goose who had come to
an untimely end. ‘That Jack hung around with that Jill for a while, but she soon spent all his money and he was reduced to
working as a griddle chef in a Nadine’s Diner.’


‘He never was,’ said Eddie.

‘True as I’m standing here before you, large as life and twice as special. She left him, of course.’

‘And a little bird told you this?’

‘A robin. His name was Tom.’

‘I don’t believe a word of it.’ Eddie downed his latest drink and began to fidget about on his barstool.

‘Don’t do it,’ said Tinto.

‘What?’ said Eddie.

‘What you’re about to do.’

‘And what am I about to do?’

‘Try to balance on your head on that barstool.’

‘I wasn’t,’ said Eddie.

‘You were,’ said Tinto. ‘I know you well enough, Eddie. I know you’re all filled up with sawdust and that when you drink,
the drink soaks down to your legs and so you stand on your head so the drink goes there instead. And then you get drunk and
silly and I have to throw you out.’


Eddie shrugged and sighed. ‘My legs are now rather drunk,’ he confessed. ‘But Jack, still in Toy City? I can’t believe it.’


‘Not his fault,’ said Tinto. ‘He was in love. Females will do that kind of thing to you. Put you off what you’re meaning to
do. Confuse you, fiddle you out of your money, then run off with a wind-up action figure. I can’t be having with females,
me.’


‘Have you ever had a girlfriend, Tinto?’ Eddie asked.

‘Loads,’ said Tinto. ‘And they all confused me, fiddled me out of my money and ran off with a wind-up action figure. Except
for the big fat one.’


‘She was nice, was she?’

‘No, she ran off with a clockwork train. What was that all about? I ask you.’


Eddie shrugged. ‘We all have a tale to tell,’ he said, ‘and most of those tales are sad.’

‘And that’s what bars are for,’ said Tinto, ‘so you can tell them into the sympathetic ear of a caring barman.’

‘Quite so,’ said Eddie, raising his empty glass between his paws. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers to you, too,’ said Tinto. ‘Now pay up or I’ll kick you out, you bum.’

Eddie laughed. ‘Most amusing,’ he said.

‘No, I mean it,’ said Tinto. ‘It’s all your fault that it’s raining.’

‘It’s not my fault at all.’

‘ ’Tis too,’ said Tinto. ‘Everything’s your fault. Everybody knows that.’

‘Doom and gloom,’ said Eddie Bear.

‘Still,’ said Tinto, ‘you have to look on the bright side, don’t you? Or so I’m told. I’m reading this book, you see. It’s
going to make me merry in thirty days.’


‘So how long have you been reading it for?’

‘Oh, more than four days,’ said Tinto. ‘It’s about forty-four, I think.’

‘It’s so good to be back here,’ said Eddie.

‘I thought I was throwing you out.’

‘I have some money coming soon.’ Eddie made encouraging motions with his glass.

‘I fail to understand the motions you’re making with that glass,’ said Tinto, ‘but what money would you have coming soon?’

‘I’ve gone back to my old profession,’ said Eddie.

‘Walking round the garden?’ said Tinto. ‘I never really understood the point of that. A “teddy-bear thing”, I suppose.’

‘Not that, nor taking picnics in the wood. I mean my profession as a private eye. I’m setting myself up in Bill’s office.’


‘Bill Winkie?’ Tinto made the sacred sign of the spanner again. ‘Have you noticed, Eddie, that folk who come into contact
with you seem to come to very sticky ends?’


‘It wasn’t my fault, what happened to Bill. We were as close as.’ Eddie made a very sad face, for Eddie had loved Bill Winkie.
Eddie had been Bill Winkie’s bear. Eddie had avenged Bill’s death, but Eddie still missed Bill. ‘I won’t be changing the name
on his door,’ said Eddie. ‘It will still be “Bill Winkie Investigations”.’


‘Well, I doubt if you’d get too much business if you advertised yourself as “Ex-Mayor Eddie Investigations”.’

Eddie made growling sounds. ‘In Bill’s memory,’ he said. ‘And I am confident that I shall soon have several wealthy clients
on my books.’


‘But you haven’t yet?’

‘Not as such.’

‘Not as such?’ said Tinto.

‘Well, I haven’t managed to get back into the office yet. It’s padlocked up. And now I’ve only got these.’ Eddie sadly regarded
his paws.


Tinto made a sighing sound. ‘That was a pity,’ he said, ‘the Toymaker taking those hands he’d fitted you with. Spiteful, that,
I thought, although—’


‘Although what?’

‘Well,’ said Tinto, ‘it wasn’t right, was it? A teddy bear with fingers and thumbs. That was all wrong. There was something
really creepy about that. And I never liked those eyes he gave you, either. Teddies don’t have blinking eyes. It’s not natural.
It’s—’


‘Stop it,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s all right for you. Try living with only paws for just one week, see how you like it.’

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t like it, but that’s not the point. We’re all here for a purpose. I’m a clockwork barman. That was what
I was made to be. Not a fireman, or a clown. Or a train! The city functions because the toys who live in it do what they were
intended to do.’


‘But the city doesn’t function. The city is in a mess.’

‘There you go again.’ Tinto shook his head once more and once again it rattled. ‘You can’t
go trying to change things, Eddie. Things might not be to your liking, but things are the way they are and we just have to
get on with it. Although not for much longer, it appears.’


‘Does it?’ Eddie asked.

‘It does, because The End Times are coming upon us. The Time of the Terrible Stillness draws near. Which, popular opinion
agrees, is all your fault, by the way.’


‘End Times,’ said Eddie. ‘That’s as mad as. And it’s not my fault.’

‘I’m prepared to be reasonable.’ Tinto poured himself another five-year-old, but hesitated to refresh Eddie’s glass. ‘I’m
prepared to say that you are only partially to blame.’


‘I’m not even partially to blame.’


‘You’re just in denial,’ said Tinto. ‘You need closure. It’s all in the book I’m reading. I’ll lend it to you as soon as I’m
finished. Which should be in about fifty-three days, by my reckoning.’


Eddie fidgeted some more. ‘If you won’t give me any more drink I will be forced to stand upon my head,’ he said.

‘And I will be forced to throw you out.’

Eddie offered Tinto a bit of a smile. ‘It’s very good to see you again, Tinto,’ he said. ‘It’s as good as, it really, truly
is.’


Tinto poured Eddie another. ‘It’s good to see you, too,’ he said. ‘Even though you’ve brought The End Times upon us.’

Eddie Bear was more than just drunk when he left Tinto’s Bar. He was rather full of bar snacks, too. Well, he had been rather
hungry, and Tinto had become somewhat over-lubricated and somewhat generous in the process. As one will do if one is that
kind of a drunk. He had also lent Eddie his copy of Become A Merry Old Soul in Thirty Days. Eddie was struggling to carry this, but at least it wasn’t raining any more.


The streets were still deserted; street lamps reflected in puddles, gutters drip-drip-dripped. Eddie’s footpads squelched
horribly, but as his feet were drunk he didn’t really notice.


Eddie had no destination. He’d been sleeping rough for weeks, trying in vain whenever the opportunity arose to enter Bill’s office, slinking away at the approach of footsteps, hiding
where he could.


Just how he thought he could set himself up as a detective and actually find any clients who didn’t know and hate him was
anybody’s guess. But Eddie was a bear of substance and although he was presently down, more down in fact than he had ever
been before, he was far from out.


Although, perhaps, not that far.


Eddie stumbled and squelched and hummed a little, too. It had been very nice of Tinto to offer him a welcome. He would definitely
reward the clockwork barman for his kindness sometime. Possibly even financially. Well, anything was possible. Eddie hummed
and stumbled and squelched. And Eddie felt optimistic, for the first time in what felt like an age. He’d pull through, he
knew he would. Pull through, somehow. Make good. Make the population of Toy City proud of him. Make the Toymaker proud of
him. He’d do something. He would, he really would.


And he would seek out Jack. Yes, he would definitely do that. Jack had been his bestest friend. They had been partners; together
they had defeated the evil twin of the Toymaker. Together. He would seek out Jack and they would become partners once again.
Do great things together. Jack could do things, great things. He could do things that Eddie could not, such as pick the padlock
on Bill Winkie’s office. For Jack was a meathead; Jack had hands with fingers and opposable thumbs.


‘Jack and me,’ said Eddie, as he stumbled and bumbled along, ‘we were as close as. We were bestest friends. If Jack is still
in the city I will find him. I will get on to that first thing in the morning. But for now I need somewhere cosy and dry to
spend the night. An alleyway, perhaps.’


An alleyway presented itself, as they will when you are in your cups. Especially if you are in need of the toilet. Eddie was
in need of the toilet as much as he was in need of somewhere cosy and dry, and so the alleyway that presented itself was a
sort of dual-purpose alleyway. Or triple-purpose alleyway, if one were to be exact. Or quadruple, if you were Tinto.


The alleyway that presented itself to Eddie was of the type that was greatly favoured by 1950s American-genre private eyes.
It had one of those fire escapes with a retractable bottom section, some dustbins and the rear door of a nightclub, from which
drifted the suitably atmospheric tones of a mellow saxophone.


Eddie bumbled and stumbled into the alleyway and relieved himself to the accompaniment of much contented sighing. Even though
sighing wasn’t usually his thing. He lifted the lid off the nearest dustbin and then drew back in disgust. Bears have sensitive
noses, after all. Another lid and then another, and then he found an empty dustbin and a new one, too. Eddie flung Tinto’s
book into this empty dustbin and, after something of a struggle, followed it.


‘Hardly the most salubrious accommodation,’ said Eddie, drawing the lid over himself and preparing to settle down for the
night. ‘I will probably laugh about this one day. But for all the life that’s in me, I cannot imagine what day that might
be. But,’ and Eddie did further settlings, ‘that day will come.’


And Eddie Bear, in darkness, settled down to sleep.

And slept.

And then awoke.

With more than just a start.

A terrible clamouring came to the ears of Eddie, a terrible rattling and jangling about. His dustbin bower was being shaken.
Ferociously.


‘Give a bear a break.’ Eddie put his paws to his head. The din and the shaking grew fiercer.

Eddie rose and gingerly lifted the lid.

A great white light dazzled his vision. Sparks flew from somewhere and leapt all around and about.

Eddie’s mismatched eyes took it all in. Whatever it was. There was a glowing orb of light, a sphere of whiteness. It grew,
right there, in the middle of the alleyway, from nothing to something.


The shaking and rattling and the jangling too grew and grew. And then, just like that, because there was no other way to it,
it ceased. The shaking and the rattling and the jangling and the sparking and the light. It was gone, all gone.


But something else was there.

Eddie cowered and peeped through the gap between bin lid and bin. Something had materialised. Out of nowhere. Into somewhere.
In this very alleyway.


It crouched. And then it rose. And as Eddie looked on, he could see just what this something was.

It was a bear.

A toy bear.

And this bear looked like Eddie.

Just like Eddie.

The bear rose, flexed its shoulders, glanced to either side.

And then made off at the hurry-up.

Eddie Bear sank down in his bin and gently lowered the lid.

‘I think I may just give up drinking,’ Eddie said.

The morning sun rose over Toy City. It was a big and jolly sun with a big smiley face and its name was believed to be Sam.

So the sun of Sam* shone down and the Toy City folk awoke.


The economy, for Toy City had such a thing, as everywhere seems to have such a thing these days, whatever the word might mean,
was a little on the decline hereabouts. Wages were down and prices were up and the niceties of life seemed as ever the preserve
of the well-to-dos, those who had, having more, and those who had not, less. The heads of the have-nots drooped on their shoulders as they trudged, or wheeled, or trundled to their places of
work. Factory whistles blew, traffic lights faltered, trains were cancelled, dry-cleaning failed to arrive back upon the promised
day and how come one is always in the wrong queue in the Post Office?


A rattling and jangling and shaking all about awakened Eddie Bear, from a sleep without dreams, because toy bears do not dream,
to recollection, then horror.


‘Oh my, oh dear. Whoa!’ Sunlight rushed in upon the bear as his bin bower was raised and upended. And, ‘No!’ shrieked Eddie,
affecting that high-pitched whine of alarm that o