Short Story: Little Mr. Peterson (part 2)

Short Story: Little Mr. Peterson (part 2)

“Come. Out. Here. Right. Now!” Ms. Zatorski squealed.

The old woman grabbed a fly swatter, one of her weapons of choice, and searched the showroom. She whacked at every shelf she could reach, but only dust jumped. Stomping her way to the back room, she swatted wildly in the air, until she hit the light bulb. In the darkness, she caught the bulb with her other hand and screwed it on tightly. The imprisoned dolls screeched from the sudden light and scurried away to hidden corners of their cages.

Ms. Zatorski marched around the room with the fly swatter high above her head at the ready. “Where are you Little Mr. Peterson?”

She stopped as if she heard a noise. Spinning on one foot, she returned to the door. “I’m going to burn that little butt of yours when I...” Her voice tapered off as she turned the corner.

On the first day of his life, he ran for his life. He clambered up a shelf in the back room, trying to shake the dust off as he climbed. When he reached the top, he slipped behind a cage. Unable to sit still from the thought of filth consuming him, he shook and slapped his cotton body and coughed the dust out.

“Is that you, Larry?” Through the bars, a petrified doll stood in the centre of his cage, blindfolded with a shoelace held tight in a triple knot. In red pen, two large eyes were drawn on the white shoelace, looking in different directions.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t figured out my first name yet.What’s with the shoelace?”

“I don’t know, but my sense of sight has been replaced by a sense of impending embarrassment every morning.” He dug his mitten thumb under the shoelace to itch his ear. “Yesterday, Rat-orski stripped my clothes off at lunchtime and made me dance around.”

“Rat-orski?”

“Haven’t you smelled her breath? You must be this Peterson she keeps squawking about. I’m Harley Norville.”

“You know your first name?”

“Yeah, wish I didn’t. I was on my back on the table and she said ‘Open up, Little Harley’, and I repeated my name without thinking. Too bad when I mouthed the word, she jammed pointed tweezers in here.” He stuck out his red, cloth tongue, grabbed it with two fingers, and mumbled a few incoherent words.

Little Mr. Peterson nodded at the blind doll, but glanced over at his neighbour. The doll had a funnel, made out of a business card, glued to his nose. In the centre of the cage sat a can of rotting tuna.

“What does she want with us?”

“To sit still and shut up. At least that’s what she told me when she was tying me to a blade of the ceiling fan.”

With scrunched eyebrows, Little Mr. Peterson stared at Harley’s crossed-eyes. “There must be something more. Some lady was in the other room inspecting me and talking to Zatorski.”

“That’s just a Namer. A new one always stops in, checks us over and gives us a name. Sometimes she even names you after her, like I was. There’s a lot of Namers out there.”

On the last two words, Little Mr. Peterson glanced out the door, realizing where to find the real answers. “But she looked sort of familiar. And she acted as if she knew me.”

The blind doll stepped forward, but not in line with Little Mr. Peterson. “That’s because Gnat-orski passed your photo to her before. The day she dragged me to the big room, I saw my photo on the counter and my Namer waiting there.”

“Somebody must know why Zatorski makes us.”

“Maybe. I heard from funnel face over there, who heard from Haubrich, that one of the older guys said that when he was locked in a fridge for three days in a room next door, he kept hearing two muffled voices. Every time Bat-orski opened the fridge, he peeked through a pickle jar, but didn’t see anyone in the room until finally, when she pulled him out of the cold, he swears that he looked back and caught a glimpse of a cage on top of the fridge.”

Little Mr. Peterson stepped forward, and without thinking of the grime, he grasped two of the bars. “Do you believe it?”

The plastic end of the fly swatter emerged in the doorway, bouncing in the air, leading Ms. Zatorski into the room.

“I don’t know. People will tell a blind man just about anything.” Harley shuffled towards Little Mr. Peterson, and stopped only when he knocked his face into a bar. He rubbed his nose and whispered, “Even Zit-orski. When she was tying this rope on my head, she said to me, ‘I doubt you’ll be calling her ugly anymore, now that you can’t even see her.’ She might as well plug my ears since no one talks sense to me.” He laughed, as he grabbed the two plastic ends of the shoelace and drummed them in the air in all directions, until his flailing arms came too close to the edge and he dinged the ends against the metal bars.

At the sound, Ms. Zatorski slammed the fly swatter on the front of Harley’s cage, and his body went airborne and smashed into Little Mr. Peterson’s hands. The impact forced one hand to fall and his feet to slip from the shelf. With only one mitten hand holding on, Little Mr. Peterson peered down, but the darkness blurred his dangling feet.

“I can’t see you, Little Mr. No-pants-rville.” Ms. Zatorski bent her knees and jumped up, but only her heels left the ground. She continued to bop up and down on her toes, but the extra inch did not allow her to see into the cage a foot above her erratic hair.

Harley fumbled his way to the front of his cage and pressed his shoelace-covered eyes against the gate. “I can’t see you either.”

“Never mind that, what’re you doing in there?”

“Practicing my dancing.” He spun around twice and the ends of the loose shoelace dinged the metal cage.

She turned the fly swatter to the side and sliced it perfectly through the bars, hitting Harley on forehead with the dull edge, knocking him down again. “Sit still and shut up.”

The shock of the second hit made Little Mr. Peterson clench his one-handed grip in fear, but he slid lower on the bar. Before his hold released, his swinging feet came to rest on the cage below, which overhung the back of the shelf by a few inches. With his shoes on a steady surface, he ducked below and lay face down on the solid metal cover. He closed his eyes and twirled his moustache seven times on each side.

A light flicked on with a click. Little Mr. Peterson lifted his chin and peeked through the narrow tunnel, but the left sleeve of Ms. Zatorski’s loose sweater blocked the end. She stepped forward and the beam from her flashlight quivered as it bounced its way from ceiling to floor to objects on the walls. The clap of her low heeled wooden shoes followed the light to one corner of the room, where the ends of two shelves stood a foot apart. Turning to her side and shuffling into the tight space, her smoke-coloured sweater caught both edges. Unable to pass through, she stepped back and pulled it off. Scrawny as a shaved cat, she wore a filthy undershirt tucked into pleated, navy pants that rode high above her waist.

Ms. Zatorski snatched the flashlight and fly swatter and slid through the opening. “All the exit doors are locked, you little bugger.”

She aimed the light down the brick wall to the right. Cobwebs, a few inches long, stitched the shelves and cages to the bricks. She twitched her wrist, shining one cage at a time, but nothing moved. “I know you’re in this shop, so come out!” she yelled in all directions.

Behind her, Little Mr. Peterson hugged the cage in terror. With his brown shoes hanging over the back edge, Ms. Zatorski snapped around and pointed the flashlight down the brick wall towards him. The light flickered and went out.

The muffled rattle of batteries covered the noise of Little Mr. Peterson scrambling forward on his belly into a tiny dead-end. He curled into a ball as the rattle stopped and the light shined behind him.

After the light moved from one cage to another in silence, Ms. Zatorski lost control, swatted through the cobwebs, and whacked at each cage within her angry reach. The light flashed on and off again. Bangs and cries filled the room and rang in Little Mr. Peterson’s ears. She pushed a cage off the top shelf and the captive screamed as he plummeted to the ground. The clang and thud of the impact silenced the horrified doll.

The chaos ended when Ms. Zatorski’s flashlight died and only the dim light bulb in the centre of the room revealed her thin silhouette in the corner. She tugged her pants up, staggered back to the table, and sat down to catch her breath. As she lifted her head, a smirk crossed her face and a scratchy laugh came out. “You can’t stay missing forever Little Mr. Peterson...I can make dolls talk.”