Teddy & Co. Read online

  Teddy was watching the swimming lesson, where Prinny was paddling as fast as she could and trying as hard as she could while Umpah walked back and forth, back and forth. Zia was watching the lesson too. She waded through the little waves, walking a back-and-forth path that matched theirs exactly. “Not so far!” she called. “Not so fast!”

  “Look, Zia, look at me! I’m—”

  Prinny was saying this when Umpah stumbled. It was only a little stumble, but it caused Umpah’s head to dip down, which caused his trunk to dip down, and this caused Prinny to slip down to its very end.

  “Help!” cried Prinny. There was nothing under her feet to stand on. There was only water all the way underneath her. “I can’t swim! Help!”

  “Oh dear, oh dearie me!” cried Zia, and she ran back to get the yellow life ring, and then she dashed right into the water, carrying it around her neck. “I’m coming!”

  While Zia was busy getting the life ring, Umpah caught the little pig in his trunk again. “I have you safe,” he said.

  “You let me go!” Prinny complained.

  “I accidentally stumbled,” Umpah said.

  “I was sinking,” Prinny told him.

  “Do you want the lesson to be over for today?” asked Umpah.

  “No, no, please? I can try harder,” Prinny promised.

  “I’m coming!” called Zia again, too busy going to the rescue to see that everything was now all right. She was out in deeper water by then, and it splashed up into her face. Because she had to close her eyes and shake her head to keep away the salty water, the life ring slipped off her neck and floated away. This left Zia without a life ring, in water that was deeper than her very short legs were long, and she didn’t know how to swim.

  “Help!” cried Zia. “I can’t swim! Glug!” she said as some water rushed into the mouth she had opened to call again for help.

  “What are you doing out here?” asked Umpah, who was busy taking care of Prinny. “You know you can’t swim.”

  “The life ring!” called Teddy from the shore.

  “Glug!” called Zia.

  “Somebody get the life ring!”

  “I guess if I have to,” said Peng.

  “Glug! Glug!”

  “Zia, listen. Listen to me,” said Umpah in his most un-worried voice. “Roll over onto your back and stay calm. You can float.”

  Zia didn’t feel up to staying calm, but she tried to follow the rest of Umpah’s instructions. She rolled over onto her back and—to her absolute and total surprise—she did float. How could that be? She was lying on her back on top of the water and looking up into the blue sky, as safe as if she were in her own bed. “Why, I’m floating,” she said. “Dearie me, this is quite pleasant, isn’t it?”

  Umpah, holding up a paddling Prinny, came closer. “You know, Zia, if you can float, you can swim,” he said.

  “I want to float!” cried Prinny. “Why can’t I float too? I’ve been learning much longer than Zia.”

  “If you want to try floating, I have to let go of you.”

  “Don’t let go!”

  The bright sun hurt Zia’s eyes, so she rolled over onto her stomach, where she continued floating. “Why, I can swim!” she said.

  Passing by again, Umpah advised, “If you paddle with your legs and point your nose where you want to go, you’ll swim in that direction. But don’t open your mouth.”

  Because Umpah had proved himself such a good swimming teacher, Zia did exactly what she was told. She floated for a while, and paddled; she paddled for a while, and floated; and then she headed back to shore, where Teddy was watching from his wagon and Sid was just slipping back into the water and Peng was returning the life ring to its usual spot. Sid slipped in as Zia stood up and shook herself dry. “Swimming is easy,” she said to him.

  But Sid didn’t hear her.

  Sid didn’t hear Zia agreeing with him because he was already swimming out as fast as he could to tell Umpah, in a low and private voice, “Teddy is sad. Maybe we should all go home and have muffins so he’ll feel better.”

  “Oh dear,” Umpah said, and without hesitating or explaining anything he splashed his way back to the beach, carrying Prinny out in front on his trunk.

  Prinny didn’t want to stop the lesson. “I’m not finished learning.”

  “You can practice by walking up and down, here where the water is shallow,” Umpah told her. “Try lifting your feet off the ground. Try hard, Prinny. Concentrate. I’m sure you can do it.” He was in a hurry to see what was wrong with Teddy. “Zia can help you, or Peng can.”

  “I’ve already helped,” Peng objected. “I brought back the life ring. I’m not here to help,” he told them.

  Zia had returned to the water. She was swimming back and forth now, feeling cool and wet and safe and happy. Sid swam beside her, so Prinny was all by herself in the shallows.

  When Umpah arrived at Teddy’s wagon, he saw right away what Sid meant. Teddy was sad.

  “Do you want to go home?” Umpah asked.

  “Everybody can swim,” said Teddy.

  “Not Prinny,” Umpah told him.

  “Except me,” said Teddy, and he sighed.

  Teddy almost never sighed. Umpah couldn’t think of what to say to him.

  Mr. B had returned to the beach, but he wasn’t stretching out for a nap in the sun. He was inside the life ring, sitting up straight, keeping an eye on Sid.

  “I wish my wagon was a boat,” Teddy said. “With a sail and a rudder. If my wagon was a boat with a sail and a rudder, I could sail anywhere I wanted to go. You’re small enough to fit in my wagon with me,” he told Mr. B. “We could sail together and go all around the island.”

  “Your wagon doesn’t have a sail,” Mr. B pointed out, “and it doesn’t have a rudder. You don’t have any float to keep your wagon from sinking.”

  Teddy sighed. Then he sighed again and Umpah sighed with him, to keep him company, and then Teddy had another idea. Another new idea! And this was the best idea he’d had all week, even better than the idea of teaching Prinny how to swim. He said, “The lifesaver is made to float. Isn’t it? I know how to steer with my handle, don’t I?”

  Prinny was walking by in front of him just then. She was trying to float on top of the water, trying as hard as she could, lifting first two feet, then three, then four off the sandy bottom. But whenever she lifted the fourth foot, one of the others shot right back down to touch bottom, and she knew she wasn’t floating. “If I had the life ring, I could swim,” she said, to nobody in particular.

  But nobody was paying any attention to her. Prinny sighed too, and splashed on by. Maybe, she thought, if she pretended hard enough that she was swimming, not walking, maybe everyone would believe her, and that would be almost as good as true.

  Umpah had already taken the lifesaver up from around Mr. B, who sniffed and walked away to sit by himself on the sand and be cross. Nobody paid any attention to him, either.

  Umpah carried the lifesaver to the water. He told Sid and Peng to hold it down, just under the surface, and keep it there while he pushed Teddy’s wagon into the water and over on top of the life ring. Then Sid and Peng let go of the wooden ring and it floated up, back to the surface.

  When the life ring rose up under Teddy’s wagon, the wagon rode on top of the yellow ring, and it was floating on the water. Floating, the wagon rocked gently, like a boat, back and forth, up and down. Floating, it drifted away from the shore.

  “Oh,” said Teddy. “Oh my.”

  He was floating on the water all alone—although Sid and Peng and Umpah were all nearby, if he needed help. His wagon moved slowly away from the shore, and Teddy—safe in a wagon safe on a life ring—pushed with his right paw against the handle. The wagon turned left in a big slow circle. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

  “Look at me!” cried Prinny. “Watch this! Watch me!” But they were all keeping close to Teddy, all except Mr. B, that is. Mr. B was off in a corner of the beach, stroking his long ears and
feeling annoyed.

  “This is wonderful!” called Teddy as he floated. “Isn’t swimming wonderful, Prinny?”

  And just then—maybe because she was looking at Teddy and being glad for him so she forgot to try as hard as she could—just then, Prinny relaxed, and suddenly she was floating too. She felt it and she knew it. For a minute, with all of her feet off the ground, she just kept on floating—floating!—and then, gently and cautiously because she didn’t want to tip herself over, she tried paddling. When she paddled her legs, she moved forward through the water, staying on the surface with no trouble at all. She was swimming!

  “Isn’t it fun?” cried Teddy when she had paddled out to where his wagon jounced on the small waves Prinny brought with her when she swam up close.

  “Yes!” cried Prinny.

  “I told you it was easy,” Sid said.

  “Once I learned how, it was,” Prinny told him. “Before that, it was hard.”

  “I can swim too!” cried Zia, and she was wondering something now. She was wondering: If she floated on her back holding an ice cream cone, could she have her ice cream and swim at the same time?

  One day Sid unwound himself from his branch of the big beech tree at just the same time that Zia opened her pink door to sweep out yesterday’s dirt. So they both saw it.

  Sid hung down half unwound, just staring, and Zia stood motionless, surprised and amazed, clutching her broom.

  What they saw was a very large doll seated on a big white wicker chair with a high curved back and wide curved armrests, right in the grass in front of the pink house. This doll sat under a broad green umbrella from the edges of which hung a red and white and yellow fringe. The umbrella would have protected her from rain if it had been raining, or from the sun, if the sun had risen high enough in the sky to bother her.

  The doll’s long dress was bright white, with wide gold trim shining at its neck and wrists and hem. Her brown braids were curled around her head like a crown. She had big round brown eyes and she smiled sweetly, looking off in the direction of the apple trees, although she couldn’t have seen them from where she sat. She seemed to think she was alone in the world.

  Mr. B sat at her feet, leaning comfortably back against the wicker chair. He yawned.

  “I’d better tell Teddy,” said Sid. He finished unwinding himself and slid off along the path to the red house.

  At that moment, Prinny came to find out what was keeping Zia. Prinny wasn’t dumbfounded. She didn’t stop in the doorway to stare and neither did she go off to find help. She trotted right up to the doll. “You’re beautiful,” she said.

  “Yes,” the doll answered pleasantly. “I am.”

  “And big,” said Prinny.

  “Yes I am,” the doll agreed.

  “What’s your name?” asked Prinny. “Mine’s Prinny.”

  “Clara.” The doll smiled down on Prinny from her high-backed seat.

  Then Umpah rushed up, going so fast that Teddy was in danger of bouncing off the wagon. “Whoop! Whee!” Teddy called. “Faster!” Then he saw Clara. “Oh,” he said. “Oh my. Look, Umpah, look! Do you see her?”

  Umpah, too, saw the large white chair and the big doll seated on it. He stopped in his tracks, which stopped the wagon, too, in its tracks. Umpah came to stand beside Teddy, staring just as hard.

  Prinny told them, “This is Clara.”

  Clara inclined her head graciously at them.

  “Clara, meet Teddy,” said Prinny, trotting over to the red wagon. “And Umpah.”

  Clara inclined her head graciously at them again.

  “Where’s Sid?” asked Prinny.

  Without taking his eyes off Clara, Teddy whispered, “He went to find Peng.”

  Mr. B stood up then, and stretched. He adjusted his ruff and bowed to Clara. “I am Mr. B.”

  After that, nobody said anything. Nobody said anything for a very long time, until all of Teddy’s questions burst out of him. “Where did you come from?” he asked. “How did you get here? Did you swim? Is that real gold thread in your dress? Why are you here? Who are you?”

  “I’m Clara,” the doll said again, smiling down at them all. “I’m here to be your queen.”

  Peng waddled up just in time to hear this, with Sid following behind. Peng looked over his shoulder at the Sea, as if expecting to see a boat out on the water, as if hoping that Clara was about to pack up her chair and her umbrella and go away. “I don’t know about that,” he said, in a voice filled with warnings and doubts.

  “And yes, this is real gold thread,” Clara told Teddy.

  “Your gold thread shines,” Prinny said. She turned to Zia to point out, “We don’t have a queen.”

  “I’ve never met a queen,” Umpah said.

  “Now you have,” Clara told her graciously.

  “What does a queen do?” asked Teddy.

  “I rule,” Clara explained. “I sit on my throne and I rule over you.”

  “All right, but what does that actually mean?” Teddy insisted, because he also had never met a queen before, or been ruled over, at least as far as he knew.

  “It means you are my court and you obey me.”

  “I don’t know about that at all,” said Peng.

  Clara paid no attention to him. “It means that each one of you will have a special job to do for me, a job with a title.” She thought for a few seconds, then added, “It means all of you will want to make sure I’m as comfortable as I can be. For example, I need a palace, and you can build me one.”

  She waited while they thought about this. Sid went to be beside Teddy’s wagon, to see Clara from the other side.

  After a little while, Zia asked, “You mean a house of your own?”

  “I mean a palace. A palace is much grander than a house, much larger and more beautiful. Until the palace has been built, my throne will be placed out here under the royal umbrella,” Clara announced. “At night, I can sleep in there.” She pointed toward the house Teddy shared with Umpah.

  Teddy said, “We don’t have a big enough bed.”

  “Ah,” said Clara, and she waited.

  “I suppose we could put pillows and cushions on the floor,” Teddy suggested. “That would make a big bed.”

  “That will do nicely, until my palace is built,” said Clara.

  “What is my job going to be?” Prinny asked. She told Zia, “I’m going to have my own special job.”

  Clara hesitated before she responded to this question, and the others all waited curiously—all except Peng, that is. Peng was looking over his shoulder at the hillside and thinking about returning to his cave until this disturbance of a queen had gone away. Then Clara answered Prinny. “Your first job will be to introduce everyone, one by one. I will award them their titles.”

  “What does she mean ‘titles’?” Umpah asked Teddy.

  Teddy explained. “Like Sir or Lady, like Doctor or Captain or General. A title can be who you are, or it can be what you do. Not everybody has a title,” he told Umpah, then corrected himself, “Except Mister and Missus and Miss and Ms. Everybody gets one of those, if they want.”

  “So I already have a title,” said Mr. B, pleased to know that he was different from, and better than, the others.

  “The titles I award are more important,” said Clara. “My titles are the names of your jobs. Now, Prinny, you should do as I have asked, but first you say Yes, Queen Clara.”

  “Yes, Queen Clara,” said Prinny.

  “Me first,” said Sid. He slid up beside Prinny and coiled his long, many-colored body underneath himself, like a ship’s rope, holding his head high. “I’m—”

  Clara raised her hand to silence him. She said, “Everything must be done in the proper order, which is: First, Prinny will introduce you to me. Next, I will acknowledge you. Then, I will award you your title.”

  “Yes, Queen Clara,” said Sid. He’d never talked to a queen before, but he liked it. When he was talking to a queen, everything he said became more important.
/>   Prinny introduced him and Clara said, “Welcome, Sid.” She told them all, “Sid will be the Royal Announcer. He will announce the rules I make so that you can obey them.”

  Sid liked the sound of that.

  Next, Umpah pushed Teddy’s wagon up to the throne and Prinny introduced him. “Welcome, Teddy,” Clara said, and announced, “Teddy will be the Royal Thinker. You will have the ideas, Teddy, and you will tell me about them, and your first idea needs to be about building the royal palace.”

  Teddy always liked being asked to have ideas. “Yes, Queen Clara. I already have two.”

  “Not now,” said Clara. “Not yet.”

  Umpah was to be the Royal Cook, to which he had no objection, since he was already a real cook. Mr. B was to be the Royal Consort, and he wasn’t so sure about that so he didn’t say Yes, Queen Clara as the others had. Instead, he asked, “What is a consort? What does a consort have to do?”

  Clara told him, “A consort is a Royal Prince. He dresses elegantly—as I can see by your ruffles that you know how to do. He has graceful manners, like you. And he is always at the side of his queen. You will sleep on a pillow at my feet.”

  “That’s all right then,” said Mr. B. He liked to sleep. Mr. B bowed again. He liked bowing. It made him feel graceful and important.

  Clara raised her hand to point at Peng. “Introduce him now,” she said to Prinny, who obeyed. Peng didn’t move forward to be introduced and he kept looking off to the side, at Teddy, but Clara pretended not to notice this lack of cooperation. “Welcome, Peng,” she said.

  “I don’t think I need a title, do you?” Peng asked Teddy. “I know I don’t want a job.”

  “Peng will be the Royal Advisor,” Clara announced.

  “I’m going home now,” Peng told Teddy.

  Then Clara announced. “Since a queen always knows what to do, I will never need advice. You may leave me now, Royal Advisor,” she said, speaking to Peng’s back. He was already on his way up the hill.