(Chapter 2) THE TOYBOX
                                   
     The next morning Eddie sat at the kitchen table feeling sleepy, thinking
about the nightmare he had again last night. He didn't remember seeing
anything in the cave, only hearing a shrilling sound and screaming. Not
seeing anything at all seemed worse then seeing something. Trying to think
of something else he stuck his harmonica in his month and played a tune
while he opened a new box of cereal.
     "I get the prize this time Eddie! If you take it, I'll tell!" blurted Patsy as
she climbed into her chair. "Mommy said you had another nightmare, did the
Boogie Man get you?" she laughed.
     Eddie ignored her. Not even Patsy is going to ruin my day and if I
finish my cereal before she does, I can sneak out without having to take her
with me, Eddie thought. He began to gobble down his breakfast and no
sooner did he finish his last spoonful then the doorbell rang.
     "That must be the gang," Eddie said as he ran to the door grabbing his
coat and Toomie along the way. Patsy watched Eddie run to the door and
tried to fit three spoonfuls of cereal in her mouth before chewing. 
     "Wwwait foor meeeh," she tried to say as milk and cereal ran down her
face.
     "Hurry up Griffin," shouted Sue as she ran to the nearest puddle and
jumped in to make a big splash, then ran to the door to stand with Kennedy
and Joey. Griffin dropped his bike in the middle of the driveway and ran
toward the door when he noticed the puddle Sue had jumped in, and ran
back to jump in it. 
     I'll show them how cool I can be by making a bigger splash than Sue,
he said to himself. Griffin bent his knees and leapt into the air and landed in
the middle of the puddle. As he went down, water went up, but not out,
water went straight up under his rain coat and back down into his boots.
          "Come on Griff, stop fooling around, you goof," Sue said impatiently. 
     Griffin shook his legs from side to side and slished-sloshed his way to
the door. Eddie opened the door to see his four friends standing there in
yellow rain gear and gum boots up to their knees, looking very wet and
droopy. Eddie's mom soon arrived at the door and looked at them, then at
the sky.
     "Hi, Mrs. Jones," said Sue to Eddie's mom as she led the way through
the door.
     "You kids better stay in today, it's going to be a stormy day," she said
as she ushered them inside. Sue, Joey, Kennedy and Griffin began to take
off their coats and boots. Griffin pulled off his boots and dumped the water
out on the floor. Hearing Mrs. Jones sigh he tried to quickly soak up the
water with his wet socks, but all he did was spread the water around.
     "Never mind Griffin, I will clean it up, give me your socks and I will dry
them for you," said Mrs. Jones.  "You can play in Eddie's room today. Eddie,
you're missing some socks, are you leaving them at school or something?"
     "No, maybe Toomie's burying them," said Eddie.
     Disappointed and already bored they climbed the stairs to Eddie's
room. They sat in the room with gloomy faces, the only one happy was
Toomie who couldn't decide which face to wash first. 
     Eddie lay on his bed and put his legs up in the air pointed toward the
ceiling. He squinted his eyes and imagined that he could walk on the ceiling
upside down.
     "Let's play house; I will be the wife and Eddie can be the husband and
you guys can be our children," said Sue excitedly.
     "Euww, no way!"said Eddie tossing his baseball up and down in his
hand. 
     "Let's sneak outside and play," he said.
     "Oh no, no, no we'll get into trouble, let's just stay here and play
quietly," said Kennedy with a worried expression on her face. "Your mom
said so."
     "Hey, what about getting something to eat?" said Joey smacking his
lips. "I haven't eaten for at least an hour." 
     "You're gonna get fat! I have an idea, let's make a fort out of the
blankets. We can use the dresser, chairs and the toybox to hold it up," said
Griffin as he flung open his arms and hit Sue in the head.
     "Watch it Griff, you're messing up my hair," snapped Sue.
     They all agreed to build the fort and began by pulling the blankets off
the bed. They moved some furniture around into a circle and stuffed one
corner of the blanket into the top dresser drawer, another corner tied to the
bed post, the third corner they tied to a chair, and the last corner of the
blanket they tied to the lid of the toybox.  
     "Let's pretend that this is our spaceship," said Joey looking over their
creation and trying to imagine a spaceship from one of his favourite TV
shows. The rest looked at the "spaceship" and saw nothing but a blanket
draped over furniture.
     Joey crawled under the blanket telling the gang to hurry up. They
looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders as if to say, why not? There's
nothing else to do, and followed him under the blanket.
     "Eddie you can be the captain," said Joey moving some pillows around
to sit on.
     "Why does Eddie get to be the captain?" snapped Sue.
     "Because it's my blanket," Eddie snapped back.
     "Ok, I will be the pilot," said Griffin and adjusted himself in front of the
toybox holding his hands out like he was holding a steering wheel. "Where
to?"
     "And I will be the doctor," said Kennedy. 
     "Then I want to be the beautiful Admiral Lolanda," said Sue as she
propped herself up higher on her pillow.
     "Admiral! I'm in charge here," shouted Eddie. "It's my  ship."
     "If I am not the admiral I'm not playing," said Sue crossing her arms.
     "Fine! We'll just ignore you. What are you going to be Joey?"asked
Eddie as if he didn't already know.
     "I'm the cook!" said Joey. "Let's go down to the kitchen and make..." 
The blanket suddenly swelled upward as a gust of wind blew in.
     "And I will be the pet dog!" yelled Patsy as she jumped under the
blanket. She sat next to Toomie who was very glad to see her. Placing Mr.
Tuddles beside her, she beamed a spiteful smile at Eddie. Eddie tried
pushing Patsy out, but she wouldn't budge.
     "Patsy get out, you're too little to play with us!" yelled Eddie.  
     "Mom said I could play with you guys, and if you don't let me play I
will tell on you," said Patsy.
     "We already have a dog; it's Toomie," said Eddie and patted him on
the head.
     "Then I'll be the cat, meow, meow, meow," said Patsy. Eddie tried to
push her out again. "Mommm...." Patsy started to raise her voice.
     "Ok, ok, just sit there and be quiet," snapped Eddie as he looked down
at her feet to see she had her stupid pink bunny slippers on. "This is starting
to be a crappy Saturday. I don't want to play this anymore," he mumbled to
himself rolling his eyes up into his head. 
     Sue looked over at Patsy, whose rank was as low as a person could
go a cat. Still not too sure what rank she was, she moved her pillow over
and in front of Patsy, so she was at least not last on the list.
     "Ok we are taking off!" yelled the pilot. "Countdown 5,4,3,2,1 BLAST
OFF!!"
     They started to shake themselves as though they were having a rough
takeoff. Eddie sat with his arms crossed, wishing they had just gone outside
when Mom wasn't looking. Or even raiding the kitchen would be better then
this, he sighed. He watched his friends play out their parts, making up
stories as they go. He tried to ignore them and hoped they would give up
this stupid game, 'til Joey made him laugh.
     "Burrrp!" belched Joey.
     "Ewww, you're gross," Joey, said Sue moving away from him.
     "Whaaaat! My dad says it's good for you. He says if he didn't burp he
would explode.  Do you want me to explode?" said Joey looking seriously.
     "At least it wasn't the other end," laughed Griffin. Sue just shook her
head with disgust.
     "If Eddie isn't playing then I want to be captain," said Sue staring at
Eddie for a challenge.
     "I'm playing; I was just trying to figure out which planet to explore,"
said Eddie.
     Eddie decided to join in. He figured this couldn't be all that bad, if Joey
was being rude and he had Sue to argue with. So they played together for
about an hour when Eddie's mom knocked on the door.
     "Shhh, do you hear that? It must be an alien," said Patsy.
     "You're the only alien," smirked Eddie. Patsy stuck her tongue out at
him.
     "Eddie, Patsy, I 'll be in the basement doing the laundry, please
answer the phone," she said through the door.
     "Ok," answered Eddie.
     "Meow, Meow, Meow," said the cat.
     "Shut up Patsy, you are getting Toomie excited," said Eddie as Toomie
licked Patsy face.
     "Will someone die or something, so I have something to do," said the
doctor.
     "Look out! We're going to hit an asteroid!" yelled the pilot as he leaned
to the right.
     They all stopped what they were doing and watched Griffin who was
trying to keep the game going. To add to the special effects, Eddie blew on
his harmonica making an awful racket. They leaned left and then to the
right, pointing and making gestures to show they had just missed hitting an
asteroid, when something in their make-belief world was really happening.
     "Swoosh!" A bright green light erupted up from the toybox. Startled by
the glowing light they jumped up pushing their heads up into the blanket and
covered their eyes.
     "What's that? asked Sue rubbing her eyes.
     "Is it a toy?" asked Griffin as he pushed up his glasses on his face.
     "No, I don't have any toys with a green light," said Eddie "This is the
green light I've seen in my nightmares."
     "Run!!" screamed Patsy. 
     They all scrambled out from under the blanket and huddled in the
corner of the bedroom. They rubbed their watery eyes trying to refocus from
the bright light. They stared in disbelief, frightened by the sudden
interruption of their game. Where it covered the toybox, the blanket was
glowing green and lightly humming. Surely there must be a toy making that
light, Griffin thought. But, just to be sure he kept his distance.
     "Eddie go see what it is," said Griffin.
     "Maybe you should call your mom," said Kennedy. Then Toomie
started to bark. 
     "Toomie is still in there!" shouted Patsy.
     "Toomie, come here, Toomie, Toomie!" yelled Eddie. Eddie started to
walk closer to the blanket and noticed that Toomie's bark was fading, like he
was getting further away. "I am going in!  Patsy let go of my arm and stay
here." Eddie moved closer and closer to the blanket and realized he could
not hear Toomie's barking anymore.
     "Toomie...Toomie," he said quietly as he lifted up the blanket.
     The gang stood back watching the blanket glow. Eddie crawled under
the blanket. Toomie was nowhere to be found and the green light was still
glowing from the toybox. On his knees Eddie approached the toybox with
caution; he could hear the beating of his heart as he looked inside. His eyes
squinted against the green light. Strange, all my toys are gone, he thought
to himself.
     "What do you see Eddie?" asked Griffin.
     "I 'm not sure," Eddie replied.
     "Toomie, Toomie," shouted Patsy. As Patsy began to call for Toomie,
Eddie heard faint barking coming from somewhere inside the toybox.
     "I think Toomie has gone into the toybox and disappeared. Come see,"
said Eddie.
     Except for Kennedy they moved slowly toward the blanket, then one
by one carefully crawled under the blanket. Kennedy, still standing in the
corner suddenly realized she was all alone, which now seemed worse than
what was going on in the toybox. So she ran over to the blanket and crawled
in. They kneeled around the toybox and looked in.
     "Move over Joey, I want to see," said Sue as she pushed Joey.
     "Where are all the toys?"a sked Patsy.
     "I don't know," said Eddie.
     "Listen I can hear Toomie barking down there," said Kennedy.
     Off in the distance they could hear Toomie barking, but it was not from
the bedroom or outside, it was from down in the toybox. Their eyes started
to water from staring into the bright green light.
     "Look! I think that there are some stairs down there," said Griffin
leaning into the box.
     "Go see what's down there, Eddie," said Sue.
     "No way!" said Eddie.
     "But Toomie's down there!" cried Patsy as she hugged Mr. Tuddles
tighter.
     "Griffin, you're the smartest, you go," said Kennedy. 
     Griffin peered into the box, then shook his head no.
     "Then I'll save Toomie you bunch of scaredy-cats," said Patsy and
climbed into the box, disappearing down the stairs into the green light.
     "Patsy stop, don't..." said Eddie, but it was too late, she was gone.
     "Patsy are you there?" yelled Sue into the box.
All they could hear was Patsy's faint voice calling for Toomie.
     "You better get your mom," said Kennedy.
     "I can't, I'll get into trouble. I'm supposed to look after Patsy.  She's
always trying to get me into trouble. Joey, go get our shoes," said Eddie
looking into the box.
     Joey ran down the hall and returned with the shoes.  "What do we
need our shoes for?" asked Joey.
          "Aren't you guys coming with me?" asked Eddie.
     "What! Are you crazy!" shouted Kennedy.
     "I have to get Patsy, what, are you chicken?" said Eddie not feeling too
brave himself.
     "I'll lead the way, because I should be the leader," said Sue.
     She grabbed her shoes and pushed Eddie aside and walked down the
stairs ahead of him. Eddie followed her down the stairs.  For once he didn't
mind her leading the way.
     "Well, we better follow them, besides I might find something neat for
show and tell on Monday," said Griffin climbing into the box. 
     Joey followed Griffin as he was sure that it must lead down to the
kitchen. Once again Kennedy was left behind, by herself. Looking around and
hoping that this was just a bad dream, she saw Mr. Tuddles lying on the floor
next to her. She swept him up into her arms and squeezed him so hard, one
of his eyes popped off.
     "Oh, oh, oh please come back you guys," she quivered as she
struggled to get her shoes on. She looked into the box and quickly sat back.
Should I go? But they might all be dead, or should I stay? But then I would
have to explain all this to their parents, the police or worse I 'll be on TV!
she thought to herself. The more she thought the more her heart raced.
     "I better take Mr. Tuddles to Patsy, I know she will worry," she said
and slowly climbed into the toybox. Kennedy closed her eyes, took a deep
breath and started her descent into the green light. Afraid of falling or what
might grab her, she finally opened her eyes. Looking around, all she could
see was fog, a green fog. She held Mr. Tuddles way out in front of her,
extending her arms as far as they would go, so that Mr. Tuddles would be
the first one to get it, if anything happened.