The Search for Shiny Things: Part 22

Morning came and the sun rose over nowhere and the teddy and the moth's rainbow house. The moth had fallen asleep in the living room, one wing bright red, the other striped green and black. Who knew how far into the night the moth had worked, so when there was a knocking on their door the teddy crawled reluctantly out of bed, stepped into its teddy slippers, and went to open.

Outside stood the scarecrow and the pony. "Good morning," said they. "It so happened," continued the scarecrow, "that I found myself without scheduled activity this fine day, and then when I walked down the road to find some activity to do, I stumbled upon this." And the scarecrow and the pony stepped aside and behind them was a spruce as wide and green and fresh as a spruce had ever been and would ever be. The teddy bear awed and puzzled over how the two figures could have hidden the tree behind them, because it was much taller than the pony and much wider than the scarecrow.

"We met on the road when the scarecrow tried to drag the tree here," said the pony, "and then we dragged it here, because you said you were looking for a tree like this one."

The teddy was at once overwhelmed and still puzzling over the hiding. With some prodding they got around to bringing the tree inside, with much huffing and puffing, and there it was, snugly in the corner of the rainbow living room.

The day was better already.

The moth woke up and they all ate breakfast together, when there was another knock on the door. This time came the white cat with blue eyes. "Meow," said it, a little hesitantly, "it appears I found this thing, and then found myself going this way, and your house was a bit hard to find because it is not white and drab as you said but full of colors. But I am not one to give up, and here I am, and here is the thing." And with a gentle swipe it pushed an object across the ground and to the teddy's feet. A sparkling silver star. Touched, the teddy invited the white cat inside, but no sooner had the door closed before it was knocked on again.

This time it was the panda bear and the squirrel that arrived. The panda bear had a big black sack strapped to its back, and the squirrel wore a uniform, with a too big cap that fell into its eyes, and a little camo backpack.

"We are on our way to spend Christmas with family and other relations," said the squirrel matter-of-factly, "but the panda bear's air-balloon goes where the wind goes, so we came here first and will go there later."

The teddy once again pondered how these two were related, but stopped quickly when the panda bear opened up its sack and started picking out candle candies. "I have so many left over," it said, "you should take as many as you can eat."

That was an entirely absurd impossibility, since the teddy could well eat the entire sack and more, but an amount was decided upon quickly and quietly as such things are decided upon between reasonable people, almost as if were the two old friends. Then the squirrel and the moth got involved, and the scarecrow tried to calculate, and the white cat tried to mediate, and the pony just plain interrupted, and it took quite a long time.