Praxis sits on the divan watching the telly. He doesn't like the show, but Suzie's friend, Carolyn, set him there when she was vacuuming, and it isn't his place to object. But it's on that dreary program again with the gray image and no soundtrack.
Why does Carolyn like it so much? She always has it on, especially when Donald is over. It's better when Suzie is home. Suzie likes proper shows, ones with bad guys that go boom or singing penguins or people that hold hands. She even likes the scary kind with red-eyed monsters that stomp on Tokyo. Praxis likes those too, as long as Suzie is there to cuddle and hide behind.
Maybe Carolyn will change the channel soon.
"Hey, it's six fifty-five. You want to miss it?" That's Donald. Maybe he'll change the channel.
"I'm coming already!"
Carolyn bobs into the room, her arms around two big bowls--one filled with popcorn and the other with chips. Despite her poor taste in telly shows, Praxis likes Carolyn. She's round and fluffy, and he's partial to round, fluffy things. He eyes the bowls with interest but without much hope. Carolyn never offers him snacks; only Suzie does, and it's been a long time since they had a tea party. Tea parties must be unfashionable these days, like trips to the park and making forts out of pillows. Fashion is so fickle.
Carolyn settles beside Praxis and pops a handful of white puffs into her mouth. "Quit hopping about, will you?" she calls. "Just turn it on already."
"I'm looking for the remote . . . Wait, here it is!" Donald hefts the black controller aloft. He stabs the power button, and sound and picture flash onto the screen.
A loud voice announces, "Stay tuned for Do or Dare: The Gameshow Where Anything Can Happen. Coming up next--"
Oh good, Praxis thinks. He likes Donald. Even though Donald isn't at all fluffy or round, he has good taste in telly. Truthfully, Praxis isn't picky, not really. He likes every show except for that boring one.
Donald sits on Praxis. Hard.
Oof.
"Hey, what's this?" Donald tugs Praxis out by a leg.
Praxis wishes he wouldn't do that. It's awkward trying to watch the telly dangling upside down.
"Just Suzie's stuffed elephant," Carolyn says. "Toss him in the corner."
"He's a scruffy thing." Donald swings Praxis about.
Praxis is not scruffy. Pink fur is the height of fashion. It's the new red. Ask anyone.
Instead of the corner, Donald plunks him on the ottoman. "There you go, fellah. You can watch your mum with us."
"You dope." Carolyn laughs and pushes another handful of popcorn into her mouth.
Praxis flumps over. Donald didn't prop his paws up like Suzie always does, so he's toppled onto his nose. But he doesn't mind; he can still see the telly out of one shiny, black eye.
"That's her!" Carolyn points at the screen. "Look, it's Suzie!"
"Welcome back to Do or Dare," the telly blares. "We have Miss Suzie Onkwin with us, and we're going to play 'How High Will We Go?'"
Suzie smiles from the flickering display. Her head fuzz is extra fluffed. Praxis has never seen the lemon-yellow jumpsuit she's wearing; it augments how bunchy she is in some places and understuffed in others. Come to think of it, she has been softer to hug than she used to be. Maybe she got mended.
A sleek man with cinnamon whiskers--he's nicely stuffed but doesn't look cuddly--escorts Suzie to the platform in the middle of the theater.
"What do you think he'll do with that old stuffed bear we gave him?" Donald shovels chips into his mouth.
"Shush and we'll find out." Carolyn bursts into fresh fits of laughter. "Oh, no!"
Praxis gapes. Why, that's the Old Major on the telly. The tattered bear is suspended by his neck, and he joggles across the screen as the winch carried him to stage center. He stares into the camera with a look of bafflement in his faded, button-blue eyes.
What on earth is he doing? The Old Major isn't a clever bear, but he is one of the most revered members of the family. He never leaves Suzie's bedroom.
"Here's an old friend your roommate was kind enough to supply us," the telly voice says. "Do you suppose we could talk you into parting with it for two hundred dollars?"
The winch lurches to a stop, centering the plush bear over a grumbly machine that reminds Praxis of Carolyn's vacuum cleaner. But it is much larger. And it has a scary mouth. The Old Major jiggles and sways as he peers into the machine's maw.
"Turn it up, quick." Carolyn prods Donald.
"No?" The voice booms from the television. "Now remember, Miss Onkwin, we won't harm a single fuzzy hair on your treasured childhood keepsake unless you give us the say so." The man in the telly pulls a handful of bills from the pocket of his shiny, green jacket and fans them for Suzie and Praxis to see.
"You turned down two hundred, so we'll go higher. Fancy giving your old bear to the Shredder for five hundred dollars?"
A shredder? Like the ones they sell on the wait-there's-more show with all the vegetable slicers and dazzle-makers?
Suzie shakes her head.
"Higher? One thousand dollars? One thousand dollars for that old, ratty bear? What do you say?"
"Don't do it!" Carolyn teeters on the edge of the divan.
Silly Carolyn. Of course Suzie won't.
"Not for one thousand," Suzie says.
See?
Her voice is tinny and faint. Praxis hopes she's been sleeping properly. It's his job to make sure, but she's been gone so many nights.
"One thousand five-hundred?"
The television audience applauds and cheers.
"No," Suzie says.
"Miss Onkwin, you certainly drive a hard bargain. How about two thousand dollars? Two thousand dollars is a lot of money. Think of all the stuffed toys you could purchase with two thousand dollars."
Praxis beams at Suzie. When will she come home? He misses her, and he isn't the only one. Pluff the Bunny and Iggy Biggy do too. Plus, he can't wait to ask the Old Major about being on telly.
"Y-yes, okay."
What? Praxis squishes his nose into the ottoman's dusty, brown fabric.
"All right then, for two thousand dollars!"
"Atta girl," Carolyn says, "holding out for top money."
The Old Major tumbles into the Shredder's jaws. A sound like a million seams tearing explodes from the telly, and piles of fluffy, tan fur and wispy, white stuffing bursts from the machine's rear.
Praxis shudders. He can't watch. He switches to looking out his other eye--mercifully blocked by the ottoman and part of one soft ear--so he won't have to see the television. He doesn't understand how this could have happened.
#
Suzie comes home later that night to a babble of congratulatory voices.
"What's it feel like to be famous?"
"Two thousand bucks! What're you going to do with it?"
Praxis hears Suzie laugh. He'd hoped and hoped that she'd make it all better when she came home, that she'd reveal the whole thing as some trick. But she presents Carolyn with a plastic baggie filled with shreds of tan fur and soiled stuffing. A winking fragment of blue plastic gleams amid the white and brown.
"On top of the money," she laughs, "they let me keep my old bear."
Praxis tries not to hear, but his ear has settled where Donald left it, flat against his head.
It's true the Old Major's stuffing had gotten clumpy, and his seams were always untidy. He'd become, by all accounts, unfashionable. But fashion doesn't mean you stop loving your friends. It doesn't mean you hurt them for dollars.
Praxis feels like a telly person with a sniffling-sneezing-coughing-aching-and-stuffy-head. From his round, fuzzy feet all the way to his long, furry nose, he's tired. All he wants is to rest, but he can't.
The Old Major's mind had become as frayed as the rest of him, but he knew when Suzie said "yes" and the winch dropped him. He understood that he'd been cast off, and he'd fallen into that shredder alone and afraid. Praxis remembers the despair on his face.
Praxis is all cold, soggy misery, like the time Suzie left him in the park after a party and it rained, but a hundred times worse. She ran to fetch him then, crying with relief. He'd been scared, and it meant a tumble through the dryer, but he forgave her. Because she hadn't meant it. If you hurt someone you love, it's okay if you're sorry, if it was an accident.
Suzie giggles with Carolyn. "Shopping at Lenox it is, then a day at the spa."
There is only one explanation. Someone has taken over Suzie's body like in that scary movie they watched Friday night. This can't be his Suzie, the Suzie he played in the garden with, who served them tea and biscuits. This isn't the same Suzie who told them picture book stories in bed.
He knows what that Suzie would have wanted him to do. There is only one thing a true friend can do.
#
The next morning, when her roommate doesn't come out for coffee, Carolyn goes to wake her. Her screams bring the landlord, Mr. Tobbins, pounding to their door.
The coroner says the cause of Suzie's death is asphyxiation. The write-up says she half-swallowed an old stuffed toy in her sleep, an elephant, and choked to death. They rule it an accident.
