Toys Come Home by Emily Jenkins Read Free Book Online

care if the people hear him.
    Oof! Lumphy hurls the shoe with all his might.
    Clack, clack, clackally! It doesn’t go far (it is very heavy), but at least it makes a noise, and Pumpkinfacehead springs to one side, electrified.

    Then she leaps over the mouse, over the shoe, and tackles Lumphy. The buffalo is bigger, but the kitten is a maniac. She rolls Lumphy back into the bedroom, biting his shaggy buffalo fur and thumping his soft tummy with her hard little hind feet.
    OoooF. Ow.
    Lumphy kicks back. He bites her ear, but his grip is not tight and she springs off him, leaps to the top of the dresser, and crouches there, surveying the room. Tail twitching.
    Lumphy plays dead and stays as still as he possibly can. He wants to check the hall to see if the tiny gray mouse is okay, but he is scared to take a step. Pumpkinfacehead is sure to pounce on the next thing that moves in the room. Her yellow eyes shine in the dark.
    “Mouse!” Lumphy calls. “Are you okay?”
    “Still here,” comes the squeak.
    “I think I have a plan!” says Lumphy.
    “Yay!”
    “When I lure it downstairs, you hide under the bookcase, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    Without taking another moment to think or be frightened, Lumphy runs. Out the door of the bedroom, down the stairs. As fast as his short buffalo legs will carry him.
    Rumpa lumpa, rumpa lumpa.
    Rumpa lumpa, rumpa lumpa.
    Pumpkinfacehead is hot behind. Lumphy can hear the thumpity thump of her feet on the stairs as he skids around the corner into the kitchen. The dishwasher looms, white and ugly. Lumphy knows he has to act fast.
    He wedges a paw into the washer and the door bangs down. He grabs a butter knife in his mouth and gallops to the fridge. Pumpkinfacehead is there now, skittering across the slick linoleum on her paws, banging into a cabinet, leaping onto the table and crouching into pounce position again. Quickly, Lumphy wedges the knife into the seal on the looming fridge, then bangs it hard with his forepaws.
    Pop! The fridge is open.
    Lumphy was downstairs during dinner. He knows there is a casserole in there.
    A tuna casserole.
    Lumphy scrambles into the fridge and scrunches his bulk to the back, getting himself behind the large casserole dish covered in aluminum foil. Then he pushes hard with his buffalo feet against the cold plastic back of the fridge.
    OooooF! The casserole clatters to the floor.
    The kitten leaps at the noise. She throws herself off the table and out of the kitchen, running a circuit around the living room several times. Then she trots back to investigate the tuna smell.
    Nervously, Lumphy pushes the casserole toward the cat, pulling off the foil so she can get a better whiff.
    Hmmm.
    Pumpkinfacehead dances slightly to one side.
    Comes forward.
    Backs up.
    Then she sticks her orange nose deep into the dish and begins rooting around for chunks of tuna.
    While she is busy, Lumphy runs silently back up the stairs.
    What to do next?
    What to do?
    The hall is empty. The small gray mouse must have made it to safety.
    But the kitty will come back. Lumphy knows she will.
    What to do?
    Oh what, oh what?
    Aha! Maybe TukTuk will know.
    She is a wise old towel and gives good advice.
    As Lumphy charges into the bathroom, words spill out urgently. “This kind-of person, kind-of kitty, I don’t know exactly, it’s a thing, a Pumpkinfacehead, very fast, very orange, eats things! Attacks! Got the mouse! Tuna fish! Coming back! Help!” he cries, leaping onto the toilet seat so TukTuk can see him better.
    “There’s a kitten visiting,” says TukTuk calmly from her place on the rack.
    “What should I do? It’ll eat the mice for sure!” Lumphy cries.
    “Be brave.”
    “How?”
    TukTuk gestures slightly with one corner. “With the spray bottle.”
    “What?”
    “The purple plastic spray bottle.”
    “Really?”
    “Trust me,” says TukTuk. “You are brave and you can do it.”
    She sounds so certain that Lumphy takes a deep breath and trusts her. He gets the