Teddy - 1. Teddy

Teddy was old and battered. He was older by far than Jamie, and had been the first toy Jamie received when he was born, a relic of his cousin Rachel’s childhood.

Teddy’s fur was a yellowy colour, and was woolly, knotted and scraggly. His left ear had been badly chewed by both Rachel and Jamie in their infancies, and his right ear had been torn off and sewn back on more times than anyone could remember. His right eye had been lost and replaced with a shiny, red button shaped like an aeroplane. He had a hole on the side of his tummy, and though it had been patched up with a piece of blue and green tartan patterned cloth, his stuffing would occasionally poke out between the seams.

Teddy was old and battered, and Jamie loved him.

And Teddy loved Jamie. He loved him from the first moment he saw him, when Rachel had brought him to the hospital where her newborn cousin lay crying in a cot, and placed Teddy next to him. Jamie, barely any larger than Teddy, with soft, pink skin and dark brown baby hair, grasped him by a paw and pulled him close and promptly stopped crying, and that had been that. Rachel, eleven years old at the time, said, ‘He needs you more than I do now.’

Jamie had been a peculiarly happy baby. As long as Teddy was with him, he almost never cried. He slept through the night and only ever screamed for attention if he was hungry, or if he could not reach his Teddy. As a toddler, Jamie was equally peaceful, happy and bright, and he kept Teddy with him always.

Jamie threw his first temper tantrum when he was three years old, and sent off to nursery school for the first time. He had Teddy with him in the car, but when Daddy unstrapped him from the carseat, Jamie didn’t want to leave him, and Teddy didn’t want to be left. Teddy knew, however, that children were not allowed to bring their own toys to nursery, and tried to tell him that it was all right. All the same, Jamie would not stop screaming and his father had been forced to take him back home that day.

The next day, Teddy was left at home, and Jamie screamed the whole way to nursery. It was the loneliest day for them, but it became easier to bear as time went by. And the rest of the time, when Jamie wasn’t in nursery, they were inseparable.

‘I always feel safer when I’m with Teddy,’ Jamie confided to Rachel when he was four years old.

‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Rachel, ‘if you promise to keep it a secret.’

‘I will!’ Jamie promised and leaned in close.

‘It’s because Teddy keeps the monsters away!’ Rachel whispered. ‘The monsters and demons and bad dreams, he’ll keep them at bay and never let them near enough to harm you!’

And Teddy did. Jamie could go through his dreams at night, unharmed and unscathed, with Teddy at his side. When the monsters came, Teddy would fight for him and always win. And if he was a little worse for wear because of it, Teddy didn’t care, because he was protecting Jamie and that was all that mattered.

They were sitting on a dream hill one night, under a midnight rainbow, watching the stars zooming about in the sky, and Jamie said, ‘You’ll never leave me, will you, Teddy?’

‘Of course not,’ Teddy replied, smiling (because in dreams, Teddies can smile), but it was a sad smile. ‘I will never leave you. But one day, you will leave me.’

‘No, I won’t,’ said Jamie and hugged Teddy close. ‘Who will protect me if I do?’

Jamie was five years old, and he was ill. Mummy had to pick him up from school that day, because he had been woozy and feverish and breaking out in cold sweats. He was put straight to bed when he got home, clutching Teddy in his arms.

He woke up in the evening and was sick all over Teddy. It was not the first time someone had been sick on him, as he was an old bear, but it was not something one could get easily used to. So Teddy waited impatiently for Mummy to come and clean him up.

After bringing Jamie a bucket to vomit in and changing the bedsheets, Mummy put Teddy in the washing machine and hung him up to dry by his ears. Jamie was given the far less popular Bunny (who was white and fluffy with a pink nose and stitched on pink eyes) to hold onto, but it didn’t do much good. She wasn’t Teddy.

That night, the monsters came.

Jamie knew that if he fell asleep facing the wall, the monsters under the bed could see him with their magical periscope and come out and alert other monsters. But the monsters couldn’t come while he was still awake, and if he faced away from the wall they were rather less likely to show up for fear that he would see them. If he was awake when they came, they had to go away again. He knew this with the certainty that only a five-year-old has.

So in spite of his feverishness and his chills and his tired body, Jamie kept himself awake for as long as he could, staring at the shadows on the walls, clutching Bunny in his arms, knowing full well that she could not protect him the way Teddy could. In the end, he had to admit defeat and give in to his exhaustion, and slowly he drifted off to sleep.

They came one by one at first, crawling out from under the bed, slithering out of the wardrobe. Then they came in scores and hordes, through the open window, leaping out of dark corners. They climbed into Jamie’s bed and wrapped themselves around him, filling his head with bad dreams and making him shiver.

Bunny, terrified, struggled from Jamie’s arms and threw herself at the gap in the doorway, escaping into the light of the landing. Peeking in through the doorway, she saw something huge and shadowy slowly sliding through the window, and her little bunny body shook with fear.

She tumbled down the stairs and hurried to the bathroom, where Teddy still hung to dry.

‘You have to help Jamie!’ she pleaded. ‘The monsters are here!’

Teddy swung helplessly. ‘I can’t get down,’ he said. ‘Why did you come here? You should be protecting him!’

‘I can’t!’ Bunny wailed. ‘I’m too afraid…’

‘Then help me down!’ Teddy implored, swinging his body back and forth, back and forth on the clothesline.

Bunny looked around for something to climb. Catching hold of the knob on the door to the cupboard under the sink, she swung herself up onto the ledge of the bathtub and began to climb the shower hose. Holding on for dear life, she slid along the clothesline until she reached the clothes peg and unfastened Teddy’s left ear.

The weight of his still moist body was too much for the right ear to carry on its own, and it came off at the seam and Teddy fell with a thump into the empty bathtub.

Hurriedly, he hoisted himself over the edge and tumbled onto the bathroom floor.

The stairs took a long time to climb, for Teddy was a little bear and the steps were high. Already before he reached the landing, he could feel the darkness radiating out of Jamie’s bedroom onto the landing.

Jamie was being chased, hunted by great, black demons with fiery eyes, by shadows that slid across the rocky path behind him, and by large furry monsters with big teeth and foul breath. He ran all he could up the mountain. He stumbled, and got up again and ran and ran, crying for his Teddy as he went. He knew if he could just get over the mountain he would find his Teddy, who would save him from the monsters the way he always did.

Jamie reached the edge of a cliff, lost his balance, and fell.

He was startled awake, and he saw them, the monsters in his room—shadows and demons and great hairy beasts, snakes and spiders and bugs the size of labradors, and one huge, ancient thing, looming over him.

It had black, scaly skin and large, red, shining eyes, and great big leathery wings. It had glinting white fangs and curved horns and scarlet talons, and he could feel its hot, fiery breath in his face.

Jamie wanted to scream, but found that he was too afraid to, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the monster standing there over his bed, surely about to eat him whole.

Then, suddenly and without warning, the room flooded with light as the door swung open, and Jamie managed to tear his eyes away from the monster.

In the doorway stood Teddy, his red aeroplane eye flashing dangerously at the monsters, who all recoiled at the very sight of him. All except the large, black, ancient thing.

Teddy stood facing it for a moment. They stared each other down. This was an old enemy, one that teddies had been fighting since time began. Its black lips curled in a terrifying grin, and then it advanced on Teddy.

Jamie recoiled against the wall, clutching his pillow, as Teddy was flung into the air by the monster, its horn impaling the soft spot in his side where the stuffing poked out. Jamie thought, This is the end. It’s going to take out my Teddy, and then it will eat me alive!

But Teddy, old and battered though he was, still had a few tricks up his sleeve (though he had no sleeves), and as he landed on his feet behind the monster, his eye flashed again, this time with a bright, burning light. The light hit the monster, and it was as though it shrunk a little. It charged again, but this time Teddy was ready, and bounced aside before it could reach him. Then his eye flashed again, and again, and the monster, little by little, shrunk some more, and suddenly it looked less dangerous.

‘You cannot kill me!’ it bellowed at Teddy. ‘You can never defeat me!’

‘No,’ agreed Teddy. ‘But I will fight you until you grow weak, and then you’ll have to disappear!’

And the fight raged on. Occasionally, the monster would catch Teddy, charging at him with its horns or biting him with its great, white fangs, and fling him aside. But Teddy would always get up, and always flash his aeroplane eye at it, sending forth rays of light that made the monster seem ever smaller and weaker.

Soon, the monster lay panting on the floor, no bigger than a cat, its horns and fangs broken. It staggered to its feet, glaring with its fiery eyes at Teddy, and said, ‘This will not be the last you see of me!’

‘I know,’ said Teddy. ‘But it’s the last you see of him!’

And the monster flapped its wings and disappeared out of the window.

Jamie leapt from his bed and ran to embrace his Teddy. He had split another seam, where his left leg was attached to his body, and his little bob tail had almost been torn off. But Jamie carried him to bed, pushed the stuffing back in as best he could, and bandaged him with handkerchiefs.

‘Will it come back?’ Jamie asked sleepily, as he pulled the duvet over them both.

‘One day, maybe,’ said Teddy. ‘But it can’t hurt you while I’m here.’

‘I know,’ said Jamie, and then he fell asleep.

The next morning, Mummy found Bunny in the bathtub, and Teddy’s ear still attached to the clothesline. She entered Jamie’s room to find that his fever had gone down, and that he was clutching Teddy in his arms.

‘Did you go down and get Teddy from the bathroom in the night, dear?’ she asked, when Jamie stirred.

‘No,’ said Jamie. ‘He walked up the stairs, all on his own.’

‘Did he now?’ said Mummy, smiling. ‘I suppose I should sew his ear back on.’ She took Teddy from him, carefully. ‘My goodness, what have you done to him?’ she exclaimed, at the sight of the damage done.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Jamie. ‘He got hurt fighting the monster, but he won.’ He propped himself up on his elbow. ‘You can fix him, can’t you, Mummy?’

‘Of course I can,’ said Mummy. ‘It will just be a few stitches. I’ll only be a minute.’

As she left the room, Jamie waved cheerfully at Teddy, who winked at him with his aeroplane eye. Then he looked out of the window. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and not a monster in sight.

END