The Slide Projector
Mr. Templeton shows the new slide projector his toyshop is selling. "It comes with this box of pretty slides," he explains. The man nods his head. "Is it reliable?" he asks Mr. Templeton. "I don't want it to break right away. My Gloria would be so brokenhearted." "It's very dependable," says Mr. Templeton. "No one has ever complained to me about it." That satisfies the man. Later, a little girl sits on the rug while her father sets up the projector. "We will show the pictures on this wall, Gloria," he says. The little girl claps her hands and laughs. "You shouldn't have spent so much," his wife reproaches him quietly. He waves a hand. "She'll like it," he says. "And it wasn't that much." His wife shuts off the lamp and the projector lights the wall. He clicks a switch and a slide moves into place. A picture of a lion. "Oh, look at that, dear," says the woman. Gloria giggles and points. The picture wobbles. "Must be something wrong with the slide," the man says, squinting inside the projector. The picture wobbles again. Then the lion blinks his eyes, paws at the ground, and roars. "Is this a moving picture?" his wife asks. He is about to say no when the lion leaps off the wall and quiets him forever with a swipe of his huge paw. The man's face gleams in bright red lines for a moment before he falls, knocking over the projector and plunging the room into chaotic darkness. Later that night we see Mr. Templeton walking through the dim light towards his shop, carrying a projector under his arm and leading a large animal on a rope. "And how was little Gloria?" he asks the animal as they stroll along.
The Tea Set
"Look what I bought you at Mr. Templeton's," he says. The little girl opens the box and then gives a squeal of delight. "A tea set!" she says. "Oh, thank you, daddy!" He smiles at her. "Now you go play with that, dear, but be careful you don't break anything." She hurries off to her room. Soon there is a little party going on. A teddy bear and a doll sit solemnly at a table with plates and teacups before them. "Drink up," she tells her guests, pouring out water from the teapot. "This is good tea." She holds a teacup to the teddy bear's lips and then to the doll's lips, too. "There, wasn't that good?" she says. Then she takes a sip of the water from her own teacup. Later, her father enters the room. The teddy bear and doll sit quietly, their arms and legs at stiff angles. "Having fun?" he asks. The girl does not reply. She sits staring at her two companions. "Dear?" he says, walking over to her. "What's wrong?" Her face is a smooth mask, shiny as the china teacup she holds in her hand. Her eyes are white and vacant, looking at the air. He reaches for her hand. It is stiff and glasslike. With a snap, it falls off. There is a tinkling sound as it hits the floor and shatters into a sprinkling of white fragments. Then there is the sound a man makes when he is trying to destroy the world with a single, wailing scream.
The Aquarium
"It is time to feed the fish," Mr. Templeton says to the group of children who have come into his toyshop. "Would you like to watch?" "Yes," they all say, and so Mr. Templeton leads the children to a corner of his shop where the lights of an aquarium twinkle in the shadows. The children gather round the glass tank and whisper among themselves about the strange bulgy-eyed fish that bump against each other in the crowded water, the streams of bubbles released by shiny silver tubes, and the landscape of colored stones and green plants at the bottom of the aquarium. Mr. Templeton brings out a cardboard box from which he takes a piece of dried grayish material rather surprisingly shaped like a human hand. He reaches over the edge of the aquarium and drops it in the water. Instantly the fish dart for the food and, in a frenzy of bubbles and foam, which makes the children ooh and aah, they eat the meat. After a moment the water clears and the food is gone. "Gosh, Mr. Templeton," says one little boy. "Can I help you feed the fish?" "Tomorrow," says Mr. Templeton, smiling. "Come here tomorrow and you can feed the fish." The next day, the boy arrives at the toyshop in the late afternoon. "There you are," says Mr. Templeton. "Those fish are hungry, so let's get to work." They go to the aquarium in the back of the store and Mr. Templeton arranges a short wooden stepladder for the boy to stand on. "Is this how you do it?" the boy says, leaning over the tank with the food Mr. Templeton has given him. "A little farther," says Mr. Templeton. "Here, I'll help you." He holds the boy by the waist, lifts him, and tips him over into the water headfirst. There is a moment of bubbling noise as the boy, his face lit by the light of the aquarium, struggles to speak under water. Then the fish turn and dart and his face is no longer seen. Carefully, Mr. Templeton lowers the boy into the furiously thrashing water until, after much splashing and noise, the boy is in. After a time the tank water grows calm, the frothing ebbs away, and the fish swim as languidly as they did before in the silent, strangely lit water. It was a week later when a nervous woman came to the toyshop to speak with Mr. Templeton. "It's about my little boy," she says.
"He has been missing for several days and I don't know what to do. I've heard from the children that he was supposed to be working for you a few days ago. Do you know where he might have gone?" "Your boy fed my fish," says Mr. Templeton, motioning to the aquarium, "and that's the last I've seen of him."
The Halloween Candy
Halloween is Mr. Templeton's favorite holiday. He stands in the doorway of his little toyshop and gives candy to the neighborhood children who come begging. One little girl is dressed as a bear. "Is that what you really want to be?" asks Mr. Templeton. "Grrrr!" the little girl says through the hole in her mask. Mr. Templeton chuckles and hands her a piece of candy. Other children come, display their gaudy costumes, and take the candy Mr. Templeton offers. "Is that what you really want to be?" he asks each child in turn. "Oh yes," say the werewolf, the snake, and the gorilla. "Oh yes," say the dinosaur, the vampire, and the crocodile. And to each of the children Mr. Templeton gives his candy. Late that night, Mr. Templeton is awakened by screams. He opens his bedroom shutter and looks down into the narrow street below. Small, colorful figures are roaming in the dim light, some snarling, others hissing or howling. Two of the figures pull open the door of a house down the way and all of them clamber inside. A few moments later there are more screams. Screams cut short. And then the strange little creatures bustle out into the street again, licking some sort of dark liquid from their faces and hands. "Mr. Templeton!" a voice calls from down below. He leans out and sees a woman at his toyshop door. "Mr. Templeton, please let me in! Please!" From up the street the bothersome creatures are drawing closer. The woman pounds on the specially reinforced metal doors, which guard the toyshop. "I open in the morning," Mr. Templeton calls down to her. "Come back then." He secures the shutters, muffling the last of the woman's hysterical pleas. Later, there are still more screams outside. Then the padding of many little feet on the cobblestones, drifting away, finally, into the night.