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  TO MY FAVORITES,

  LEST WE FORGET

  1

  Lost and Found

  When Billy was born he was nearly lost. He came into this world with a small hole in his heart, and for the first few days of his life, he was seldom with his mother and father. He was shuffled from room to room through the maze of hallways that made up the hospital where he was born. The doctors did many tests on Billy, mostly to see how large this hole was and if, as one doctor said, “It was something to be really worried about.”

  When Billy’s mother and father were told about this hole, they were much more than worried. They were afraid in a way they had not felt since they were small children, since before they had learned the words to describe their feelings. But there were no words that could describe or give comfort to the deep unease and desperation they now felt. A new baby is suddenly the dearest thing alive to a mother and father. In one miraculous moment a bond forms that is stronger than any other in life.

  Billy has a hole in his heart. Will he be all right? He must be. This was all they would allow themselves to think.

  So as they sat at the hospital, waiting, waiting, waiting to hear any news, Billy’s parents were in a quiet, fearful agony of not knowing. When kids are afraid they hide under the covers, or cry, or scream, “I’m scared!” But grown-ups sit very still and try to act like everything is okay—even if they feel like hiding or crying or screaming, they usually will not. This is a grown-up thing called “coping,” which is just a polite way of saying they are terrified.

  Billy’s father coped by holding his hands together very tightly and clenching his jaw until it ached. And his mother coped by making a small stuffed toy for Billy. “Toy” is a word that feels pleasant in thoughts and memories. But “toy” is also a limited word. Under the right circumstances a toy can become so very much more than something to be played with or amused by.

  It can become miraculous.

  This toy that Billy’s mother was sewing was already special. It was made of various kinds of deliciously comfortable fabric, which she had chosen with great care. And its shape was very pleasing. It looked like a teddy bear, but for reasons that Billy’s mother could not explain, she had also given it long ears that were vaguely rabbit-like. So it wasn’t really a bear or a rabbit; it was something all its own. It wore a blue-striped hoodie and a red scarf around its neck and had a simple, hopeful face that gave the impression of friendliness.

  Billy’s mother had a keen eye and a mother’s instinct to guide her as she made this funny little rabbit toy. Her sewing was expert. This toy may have been homemade, but it didn’t look odd or shabby—it looked steadfast and unusually charming. This is a toy that will matter, she told herself.

  As she sat in the hospital waiting room, trying not to be scared for baby Billy, she was adding a last bit to the toy that would set it apart from any other in the world. She gently sewed into its chest a small heart. The heart was made from a scrap of fabric that came from something very dear to her—a toy she had loved as a child. The toy that had been her favorite.

  She had called that toy Nina. It was a lovely doll, and the first time she’d ever held it, the name popped into her head and somehow seemed perfect.

  Nina had been with her constantly through her childhood, and even when the doll had been loved till it had fallen to shreds, Billy’s mom had kept a bit of its once-lovely dress and the tiny bell that had been inside of Nina.

  So now these tokens of her own childhood would live on in this toy for her Billy. The bell was inside the heart, and though the blue cotton fabric was packed snugly around it, it gave a faint but pleasant jingle every time the toy was moved.

  When Billy’s mom made the last stitch, she closed her eyes for a moment as a thousand memories of Nina flooded back to her. But this remembrance was interrupted. She realized the doctor was standing there. He was holding Billy, who was wrapped in blankets and not moving.

  For a moment the parents’ hearts stopped. But the doctor was smiling at them, and they heard Billy make a yawning sound.

  “It’s a very small hole,” the doctor explained. “A few years ago we wouldn’t even have been able to detect it. It should close up on its own. And Billy will never even know he had it.”

  Billy was okay.

  Billy’s parents’ fear faded away, and before they knew it they were holding him. Billy was tightly clutching one of the toy’s ears in his surprisingly strong baby grip. He made a funny little sound: OLLY OLLY OLLY. And in that instant Billy’s parents knew the toy’s name: Oliver, Ollie for short.

  What they never realized was that another small bit of magic had occurred.

  Ollie knew his name too.

  2

  A New Moon

  That night, when they made the journey from the hospital to home, Billy never once loosened his grip on Ollie’s ear. The toy dangled and swayed as Billy’s mother carried them through the hospital. Billy’s father clumsily held bundles of diapers and medicine and towels and baby things that the nurses had given them, and he hovered closely as they walked to the front door. Neither mother nor father could stop smiling at Billy, and they barely looked at anything else. They forgot that Ollie was even there.

  When they came to the doors of the hospital, neither noticed that the automatic doors opened for them, or that the night sky was clear and filled with stars, or that a crescent moon shined down upon them. But Billy and Ollie noticed. It was their first time seeing the sky.

  As Billy’s father helped them into the car he finally looked up. “There’s a beautiful moon,” he said.

  Billy’s mother raised her head. “Yes, it is,” she said. “A crescent moon.”

  Billy squeezed Ollie’s soft, ocher-colored ear even more tightly. It didn’t hurt Ollie. Instead, it made something very important happen, something that only happens when a toy is held by a child for a very long time. As Ollie looked at the sliver of the moon, he thought his first real thought.

  It looks like it has a hole in it too, that Moon Thing. I hope it fills up like Billy’s.

  The bell in his heart jingled just a little as they settled into the car, and the father shut the door.

  Ollie didn’t know about how the moon changed. There were countless things that Ollie didn’t yet understand. A toy’s first hours of being new can be very intense. It’s as if it is awakening after a long time and learning every aspect of life all over again. Especially a homemade toy. For within their stitching and fabric, bits of their maker’s past can be felt or heard like an echo.

  So Ollie had a sort of sense of things—of grown-ups and babies and night and day. But he did not really know the words for these things yet. Or what name to give the sentiment he was feeling. So the journey in the car was full of quiet amazements. He noticed much as they drove, and thought many more thoughts and had many questions.

  The tall ones are grown-ups. Is Billy a grown-down?

  These grown-ups are Billy’s parent people. They made him. The mom parent made me. Billy is hers. But I am different.

  And then he wondered for the rest of the drive about this difference.

  He listened as they came to the place called “home” and they put Billy in the thing called the “crib,” and he watched as they quietly turned off the “lights” and then when they “fell” into a place called “sleep.” These w
ere all things that he understood almost immediately. They were pieces of the life he would now be a part of. But there were other things he felt but could not put a name to.

  There in the crib, Billy held Ollie around the neck, and their faces were just barely touching. Both were soft and warm. Ollie liked soft and warm. He liked the feelings that they gave him. They made him feel a word called “safe.” But there was something else he felt, something that was very intense, so he searched and searched in his new toy mind for a word that made it clear to him.

  And at last, as the stars and the moon shined down through the window, Ollie understood how he was different. Billy belonged to his mother and father, but Ollie knew that he belonged to only one person. That was the word he was searching for: “belonged.” He belonged to Billy.

  And he knew that this word was, for him, most important. It was like a warm blanket that would cover his whole life.

  3

  The Keeper of Safeness

  Billy wanted Ollie with him always and never went to bed without him clutched tightly in his arms. Ollie’s head was usually pressed against Billy’s chest when he slept, so Ollie listened intently to his friend’s heartbeat.

  I don’t hear a hole, Ollie thought, but then, I don’t know what kind of a sound a hole would make.

  His secret theory was that by keeping his bell heart over Billy’s chest at night, he would make the hole go away faster.

  It’s too bad his heart doesn’t have a bell in it, he mused. Then we’d be just alike.

  And they were very much alike, for they were discovering the world together. They were becoming “who they were” together. But while Ollie looked the same and never grew bigger, Billy was always going through something called a “phase,” and each of these phases brought many new experiences, which in turn had a different set of words.

  First Billy was a “newborn” or an “infant.” Ollie didn’t understand some of these words, and he was never sure why they came and went, because to Ollie, Billy was just Billy, and as far as he could make out, Billy was simply a “baby.”

  But whatever they called him, Billy was still soft and warm . . . except when he wasn’t. Sometimes Billy was “wet” and sometimes he was “stinky,” which Ollie thought was absolutely the right word. (It sounds like what it is.) But he found the idea of “stinky” very odd. What is up with this “stinky” stuff? he wondered. They should get Billy fixed. He leaks a lot. And most of it is stinky.

  Since Billy carried Ollie with him everywhere, when Billy got too stinky it usually meant that Ollie got something called “P.U.” Billy’s mom would pick Ollie up, hold him close to her nose, and say, “Peeeee yooouuu!” And P.U. always meant “a trip to the wash.” Ollie did not like the wash. At all. It was almost the only thing that scared him. It was dark and wet and loud and scary in the wash. And he always had to go through it alone. Billy was never put in the wash. He took a bath.

  There were always more changes and more words. Billy became a “toddler” after he began to walk. During this toddler phase Billy usually had one of Ollie’s ears clamped in his mouth. This was how Billy preferred to carry Ollie. I think it helps him toddle better, decided Ollie, who would forever refer to walking as “toddling.” There were certain words that Ollie really liked better than others. For instance:

  When Billy was a baby every kiss-like act involved considerable amounts of drool or spit, which the Dad called “slobber.” Ollie liked the sound of the word “slobber” more than “kiss.”

  “Slobber” sounds like, I dunno, ya mean it, he thought. “Kiss” is okay, but “slobber”? That’s the real deal.

  So when it came time for bed, Billy always got a good-night slobber from his parents. Then Mom would tuck Billy in at night, she’d say “Keep him safe, Ollie” before she left the bedroom and turned off the light.

  Ollie took this request very seriously. “Safe.” Ollie liked the way it sounded. He liked what it meant. He liked the way it made him feel. It was like “soft and warm” but better.

  So keeping Billy safe was Ollie’s favorite thing to do. He’d put his head on Billy’s chest and listen to his heart.

  I am Mr. Safe, he’d say to himself. I am the Keeper of Safeness. The Grand High Safemaster of Planet Billy.

  * * *

  By the time Billy was no longer a baby but “a little guy,” “a fella,” or just “a boy” (Hasn’t he always been one? Ollie wondered), Ollie had also developed a very particular manner of speech that Billy could understand perfectly. A big favorite was “Yum.”

  This was one of Billy’s first words, and he said it whenever he ate something he really liked. Ollie of course never ate anything, but he marveled at food and the effect it had on humans.

  Whenever Billy and his dad ate ice cream they would close their eyes and say “YUUUUUUUUMMMMM” in a way that seemed almost alarming. Mom would laugh at them and say, “You guys look so blissed out.”

  So in Ollie’s mind, “yum” was about as good as anything could get.

  Then one night, when Billy was barely six years old and was just about to fall asleep after they’d had a particularly full day of bliss and yum and fun, he asked, “Ya know what, Ollie?”

  “No. What, Billy?”

  “You know what my favorite thing is?”

  “Good-night slobbers from your mom and dad?”

  “Well, that’s pretty close.”

  “A really yum day when we get to play and stuff?”

  “That’s pretty close too.”

  “Then I dunno, Billy.”

  “My favorite thing in this room, in this house, and in this country and the whole universe of Earth and outer space and everyplace that we don’t even know about yet, my favoritest thing is . . .”

  “What?!”

  Billy looked at Ollie and smiled and said:

  “You.”

  * * *

  Favorite. That was a very big word.

  In the realm of toys, being favorited was a special distinction. It was as yum as it got. There can only be one favorite for any child, and Ollie was Billy’s. Ollie felt the same way about Billy. And he now knew a word that fit his feelings better than any other word in the world. “Favorite” is better than “slobber” and even better than “belong,” thought Ollie. It’s all those things and more.

  The other toys in Billy’s room instantly knew what had happened. They murmured among themselves in awe—“Ollie is a favorite”—over and over. A mysterious cluster of fireflies gathered outside the window, seeming to respond to the news. With a single gust of wind, they vanished.

  But there was something else that was listening that night. Something that wasn’t a toy, exactly. Or a person. But it hated favorite toys. It sent its helpers to find favorites. It searched for them relentlessly. And because of this something, Ollie would have to be the Grand High Safemaster many times in the days that followed.

  4

  King ZoZo

  Long before Billy was born, and his mother was his age, there was a clown king. In the beginning, Zozo was a happy clown. He had been crafted with great care by a clever inventor who wanted nothing more than to make children happy. And happy they were each and every time Zozo was bonked by balls they had thrown and was knocked backward from his lofty golden pedestal. For every time he fell, bells would ring and lights would blink. And that child was given the wondrous news that he or she could choose, actually choose, a toy from the array of toys that dangled from the ceiling of the Bonk-a-Zozo game.

  In those early days Bonk-a-Zozo was the highlight of a little carnival popular with local folks, and Zozo himself was quite handsome, with his high, pointed hat and his starched ruff of a collar and his perfectly fitted suit of velvet. To see Zozo in his heyday, sitting tall and proud on his throne of red and gold, illuminated by globes of light, was much like observing a king upon his throne. A kind and benevolent king who did not mind getting bonked every now and again so that a child might laugh and a toy might find a home.


  Because that was the point of Bonk-a-Zozo—the point of Zozo’s life, in fact—that these toys, Zozo’s toys, find a home, a good home, and within that home, perhaps even have the glorious fortune to be singled out, to be favorited.

  In the beginning Zozo never minded that the toys constantly came and went. He never begrudged the others their happiness, their chance of becoming a favorite to one child, because he felt himself to be a favorite to all children—at least to all the children who came to the carnival, anyway.

  Zozo felt great pride at being the center of his game. He would always sit tall and straight, waiting patiently for the moment to be bonked.

  Being bonked did not hurt, not at first. The balls the inventor used were soft, and often the children missed. Actually, that was the hurtful part in the beginning: when a child missed. Then there would be tears instead of laughter, and a lull of sadness would fall upon the toys at Bonk-a-Zozo.

  The inventor was good about giving second chances, though, and later he even installed a clever little button under the counter that he stood behind, a button that made Zozo fall whether or not Zozo had actually been bonked.

  Word began to spread among parents and children that when you went to Bonk-a-Zozo, you would not leave empty-handed. And so Bonk-a-Zozo grew quite popular, and Zozo spent a great deal of time falling and being set right. Each time he fell, the inventor would re-straighten his hat and suit and wipe away any smudges from the clown’s smiling face with a soft cloth, saying something like “Good job, Zozo!” And a warmth would flow through Zozo, and a power too, and he couldn’t wait to be placed high on his throne once more so that he could continue to do a “good job.”

  It was during this golden period of Zozo’s life that a new toy was brought to Bonk-a-Zozo by the inventor. The new toy was a doll; a dancer, to be exact.