his pockets with the cash of honest working farmers. We no longer had butterscotch lunches or days off from school to see the new marvels.
Still, we had our toys. To have even one toy from Greenbolt’s was to be elevated to a class of privilege among other children that some of us had never before known. A Greenbolt toy wasn’t just fun and pretty and unique; it was more comforting than a mother’s hug. It knew you better than your best friends. The toys always knew how to make a bad day better. Looking into their eyes, one could almost see a luminous spark of life. I pretended sometimes that my dragon was not a foe to be vanquished, but a wise mentor. It whispered to me secret knowledge on how best to navigate a kingdom.
The trouble began not long after New Year’s Day. There was a gangly young boy about my age named Walton Forster Jr. whose parents had bought him several toys from Greenbolt’s. He was nice enough, as boys go, but he was stubborn as a mule, with no love for childhood rituals such as arbitrary rules. In particular, he often refused to eat his vegetables with dinner. His mother was powerfully afraid he’d catch rickets or scurvy or some such, so one night she gave him an ultimatum.
“You eat all those vegetables off your plate,” his mother warned him, “or if you don’t, I’m locking all your toys in the attic for a week.”
The threat worked for the first few days, but Walton Jr. eventually had enough of broccoli and fairy cabbages. One night, he refused. It was hard to blame him; cruciferous vegetables are no one’s friend. His mother was true to her word. Upon seeing her son’s neglected vegetables, she set her fork down firmly and set her mouth in a thin, firm line. Walton Jr. didn’t budge, but glared defiantly at his mother from across the table, tin soldier in hand.
His mother was dangerously calm one moment, and swift justice the next. As Walton Jr. sat at the table, stubbornly disobeying, Mrs. Forster swept up his other soldiers and his unicorn, his toy rattlesnake, and his tin elephant, tossing them indelicately into an old wooden packing crate. At the last, she came for his remaining soldier, the first Greenbolt toy he’d been given.
“Give it here, Walton,” she commanded.
He shook his head.
“We can add a whipping to your punishment,” his mother warned. “Now give me the soldier.”
“Corporal Jenkins says a true warrior does not give in to the demands of old ladies!” Walton Jr. screamed defiantly.
“Corporal Jenkins just earned himself a long stay in the brig,” his mother retorted.
She snatched the soldier out of little Walton’s hands so roughly that one of his tin arms came loose in its socket, and you’d think it was Walton Jr.’s arm she’d broken, the fuss he put up about it. The toys were packed up and locked away in the attic.
“You’ll get them back when you learn to behave like a little boy again, and not the unnatural creature you’ve become!” His father said to him.
“I told you so many toys would spoil him,” his mother said, as they turned off Walton Jr.’s bedroom light and went wearily to their bed.
Alone in his room, Walton Jr. was a wreck. He banged on the walls and threw his mundane, older toys this way and that, not caring if they shattered against the door or fell out the window. He sobbed and howled so long and hard, you could hear him for three blocks, louder than the coyotes on the edge of town. Eventually, he cried himself to sleep and his parents thanked the heavens for a bit of quiet, intending to give him back the toys the next morning.
A soft scratching noise woke the elder Forsters up in the middle of the night. Thinking it likely rats, Walton Sr. grabbed a vermin catching net and donned his slippers, sleepily treading up the stairs to the attic. He found his son attempting to chew through the attic door. Walton Jr. lay on his side, drenched in sweat, gnawing and clawing at the old wood like a crazed beast. His mouth was full of splinters, blood dripped from his gums and lips. His pupils were so dilated, there was no color at all to them save for frenzied black. The door, of course, was well intact save for a scuffle of tooth marks in the lower corner of the frame. When his father tried to pry him away from the door, Walton Jr. bit and scratched at him with such ferocity that his parents at once began to worry that their son had contracted rabies from a stray dog.
They sent immediately for a doctor, who sedated the lad and tied him to his bed with restraints, but there was no quieting Walton Jr. He moaned for his beloved toys through a haze of opium and struggled against the leather straps holding him in place. He would not be calmed until, tearfully, his mother retrieved the box from the attic and placed his beloved tin soldier in his lap. Only then did the fervor slowly leave his eyes and his cries turn into weak laughter and murmurs of joy.
The doctor, assuming it was the imagery of the soldier that had spurred on such unnatural behavior, declared that Walton Jr. had a mental fixation with war and prescribed competitive sports as the only sure cure.
After that night, though, Walton Jr. was never quite the same. He was paler, quieter, more possessive of his Greenbolt toys. Each day after school, he would skip the schoolyard and the soda shop and hike across town to Greenbolt’s store, where he played with all the new creations until closing time. He liked to take several off the shelves and line them all up in neat rows. If any of us tried to take one, he’d bare his teeth and we’d all remember what we had heard about his attic door and opt to play with something else.
It didn’t take long for the word to spread. Mrs. Forster told her neighbors and they told theirs. Mothers and fathers gathered in each other’s parlors and spoke in hushed tones, glancing fearfully at us children as we pretended we could not hear them and went on playing with our aether-powered toys. Talk of a Responsible Parents League was mentioned with increasing frequency.
Did you hear about little Mona Lloyd? She near beat her little brother half to death when he tried to take her princess doll.
Mrs. Pearson caught her twins licking their soldiers. Yes, licking! When she told them not to she swears they just sat there, glaring at her and licking away, and she saw the devil staring out through her little lambs’ eyes.
Mr. Gaston’s been stone drunk at the pub since his wife passed last week. He cries to anyone who’ll listen to him that some wicked spirit got into his boy and compelled him to cut his mother like he did. They found the child outside the toy shop that night, covered in his mama’s blood. Mark my words, this is Satan’s work. You mark me.
But we children knew the truth, and so did Professor Greenbolt. So did the toys. There was a power in self-awareness, a power our parents did not want us to have. Their word was the law, and now the law was crumbling. Stone tablets turned to roadside dust. Sacred paper shredded into confetti for a toy-land parade. Walton Jr. had opened a gate that could not easily be shut again.
Some of us decided to take matters into our own hands before anything could happen to our toys. We knew the rumblings of parental intervention when we heard them, and we’d be thrice damned if we were going to let a little motherly concern spoil our fun. We loved our possessions and the way that sometimes our dolls’ eyes would glow luminous green. Sometimes the soldiers would whisper things to us as we drifted off to sleep. Sometimes the unicorns would sing songs of eternal, gory, glory. Sometimes my dragon crept across the cotton expanse of my bed and gave midnight lessons on how best to rule a kingdom.
While our parents continued to meet and paint banners boldly declaring Family First, while they consulted with lawyers on how one might legally run a toymaker out of town, we drew up our own plans on how to escape for good. If they wanted to take away the color of the world and strip us of joy into their own images, they were welcome to try. By the time the adults were done yammering away on their committees, we’d be long gone on a late-night train with Professor Greenbolt, off to his next destination. For Greenbolt was kind and understanding, and never did a harsh word cross his lips. Surely, he would welcome all of us as shop assistants with open arms.
Five of us crept out of our beds one snowy February night, toys clutched fi
rmly in tiny hands. We prowled the streets and empty backyards like alley cats in footed pajamas. The song of crickets masked our steps. As we crossed the town we scratched at windowsills and hooted like owls; our secret signals to the others that it was time to go.
It was nearly morning by the time we all were gathered in front of the toy shop. The crickets had gone to sleep and the earliest of early birds were beginning to stir. The viridian stripes no longer looked as fresh, and the windows did not gleam as bright, but the scent of Greenbolt’s shop still sat heavy on the air: the sweet-sharp scent of black licorice mingled with something darker. Something oily and metallic.
As we approached the door, green tendrils of smoke crept out from the cracks as if to greet us. There was no wind that night, but the smoke roiled over the snow toward us regardless.
I tried the door. It opened without sound or resistance. The little bell that chimed when someone entered was evidently asleep, for it made no noise, either. We filed in quietly, leaving trails of melted snow to mingle with the green smoke that shifted around our feet. The toys lined up on their shelves regarded us silently, expectantly. Our own toys whispered words we could not understand but nonetheless obeyed. Greenbolt was here somewhere,