Eddie threw up his paws and shouted, “What location, Tinto?”
“No need to shout,” said the barman. “Just the location of where the spaceship had landed, that’s all.”
8
“Toy Town?” said Jack as he drove along with Eddie at his side.
Eddie cowered in the passenger seat. “Please slow down,” he said.
Jack slowed down, but said, “Toy Town,” once more. “The supposed location of the supposedly landed spaceship. Supposedly. But I thought that Toy City is Toy Town, just grown bigger.”
“What a lovely way you have with words,” Eddie said. “Toy City is Toy Town grown bigger. But not quite in the same location. From what I’ve heard of the original Toy Town, it was an idyllic, paradisical sort of place, nestling against a sunny hillside – always sunny, of course, I don’t think it ever rained there.”
“I’m sure it must have,” said Jack, taking another corner in a dangerous fashion and sending Eddie sprawling.
“Seat belts,” Eddie said as he climbed once more onto his seat and glared a glare at Jack.
“What would those be?” Jack asked.
“Something I’ve just invented, for strapping yourself into your seat in a car.”
“Sounds dangerous,” said Jack. “You might get trapped or something, say if the car were to go over a cliff and into a river, or something. Am I going the right way? And tell me more about Toy Town.”
“It’s a bit of a way yet, and you are going the right way and the car will need a few more windings-up before we get there. But, as I say, it was the original town built for toys and P.P.P.s, from the original kit, if you believe what the followers of the Big Box Fella, He Come, Jack-in-the-box cult do. Toys lived there in harmony and happiness. Then there were more toys and suburbs were built and then places for the toys to work in were built beyond these, and then homes for the rich who made money out of these enterprises beyond this. And so on and so forth and eventually up grew Toy City, of evil reputation. Folk sort of moved away from Toy Town – it fell out of favour, reminded them of their humble beginnings. The desire for progress and evolution forced them out of their simple paradise to search for a more sophisticated lifestyle, so they came to live and work in Toy City.”
“I don’t quite follow the logic of all that.” Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “But it’s still there, is it? The original Toy Town? Who lives there now?”
“I think it’s a bit of a ghost town now.” And Eddie shivered. “You hear stories about odd folk who live there. Outcasts. I thought of going there myself after I lost my job as mayor. They make movies there, I believe.”
“Movies?” said Jack, and he grinned towards Eddie. “I’ve always wanted to be in a movie.”
“Since when?” Eddie raised an imaginary eyebrow. “This is the first I’ve heard of such a thing.”
“You mean you’ve never wanted to be in a movie?”
“Have you ever seen a Toy City movie, Jack?”
Jack shook his head. “I haven’t,” he said, “but I’ll bet they’re much the same as the movies I watched in the town where I grew up. Action and adventure.”
Eddie laughed. Loudly. “Action and Adventure?” he managed to say. “Not a bit of it – they are as dull as. Biopics, they’re called. Always about prominent P.P.P.s, with constant remakes. If I watch that Jack and Jill go up that damned hill one more time, I’ll puke.”
“He does fall down and break his crown – that must be quite exciting.”
Eddie sighed and he was so sick of sighing. “Trust me, Jack,” he said, “they’re dull. Dull, dull, dull.”
“So why does anyone go to see them?”
“It’s complicated,” said Eddie. “I’ll explain it to you sometime, but not now. And see, just up ahead, where the street lamps end – we’re almost there.”
The street lamps ended at the top of a hill. Jack drew the car to a rather unnecessarily sharp halt and he and Eddie climbed from it. Jack peered out and down at a moonlit landscape. “Oh,” was all he could find to say for the moment.
Jack stood beside Eddie, who peered in a likewise fashion, and a little shiver came to Eddie, which wasn’t caused by the chill of the night.
There was something about Toy Town that haunted Eddie. It haunted all toys in Toy City to a greater or lesser extent. Toy Town represented something, something that had been but no longer was: paradise, before the fall. In truth, few toy folk ever ventured there. Toy Town was almost a sacred place. A place perhaps for pilgrimage, but somehow, too, for reasons that, like going to see P.P.P. biopics, were too complicated to explain, a place to be feared. An other place. A place not spoken of.
It was complicated.
“Looks pretty dilapidated,” said Jack, “but in a romantic kind of a way. The way that ancient ruins sometimes do.”
“Hm,” said Eddie, and he shivered a little bit more.
“What’s that up there?” asked Jack, and he pointed.
“Ah,” said Eddie. “The sign.”
The sign rose above the hilltop. Great white letters, standing crookedly. Great white letters spelling out “TO TO LA.”
“‘To to la’?” said Jack. “What does that mean?”
“It originally spelled ‘TOYTOWNLAND’,” said Eddie. “That was the name of the original development. Seems as if some of the letters have fallen down. It’s a very long time since I’ve been here. And I think I’ve now been here long enough again. Let’s come back in the morning, Jack. Or perhaps you might come back on your own.”
“On my own?” Jack looked at Eddie. “What’s the problem?” he asked. “Eddie, are you scared of something?”
“Me?” said Eddie, straightening what shoulders he had. “I’m not scared of anything. We bears are brave, you should know that. We’re as bold as.”
“Right,” said Jack. “But you do seem to be trembling somewhat.”
“It’s cold,” said Eddie.
Jack, having eyebrows, raised them.
“Yeah, well,” said Eddie, “there’s something about this place. Something I’m not comfortable with.”
“Well, I’m not altogether comfortable myself. I’m not too keen on getting blasted by a space alien death ray, you know.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in the concept of space aliens.”
“I don’t,” said Jack, “but something zapped the monkeys and the clockwork musicians. And whatever it is, I don’t want it to zap me as well. Nor you, as it happens.”
“We shall proceed with caution, then. I’ll lead the way, you go first.”
Jack said, “Eh?” But Jack led the way. “Where am I leading this way to?” he whispered to Eddie as he led it. Down and down a hillside, through gorse and briars and unromantic stuff like that.
Eddie battered his way through nettles. “Keep a low profile,” he counselled. “And keep an eye out for anything that looks like a landed spaceship.”
“As opposed to something that actually is a landed spaceship?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Jack, keeping the lowest of low profiles despite the heightness of his height, did furtive glancings all around and continued in the downwards direction. At length, and one too long for Jack, who was now somewhat briar-scratched about in the trenchcoat regions, and who now had Eddie riding upon his shoulders due to Eddie being briar-scratched about in more personal regions, the intrepid detectives reached a bit of a road, a bit of which led into the romantic ruination of Toy Town.
“They’re pretty little houses,” Jack whispered, “but they’ve got holes in their roofs and everything. Do you really think anyone lives here any more?”