Toddler Trouble
By: Emily Broderick
Mr Pepper owned a toy shop, although he didn’t particularly like children, with their snotty noses and dirty clothes, and oh so disobedient attitudes. The children didn’t like him much either, after all he was always getting up their mummies. The shop was perched on the corner of Dowel Street and Harris Street. It was very convenient for across the gravel road was his old two story apartment. The paint was crawling down the walls in crispy curls, like nails growing painfully from crooked fingers. The air was still, cool, ready for something to happen, ready to bite.
Mr Pepper was hiding on his balcony, like a vulture, his eyes peering cautiously through the binoculars. His pistol was held in his disturbingly tight grip, and his clothes and stern face didn’t say welcome. You see, for the last few nights, Mr Pepper had been robbed, of dummies. If it were for a joke, he didn’t see the funny side of it, if it were for money, why didn’t they rob money? He was determined to find the answer. He didn’t mind the risks, he was armed after all.
The street was dark, and the occasional sound of a lonely humming, as a car drove aimlessly through the streets. Apart from that there was an eerie silence. As Mr Pepper squinted through the binoculars he saw them, for the first time he saw them. But he expected big tuff teenagers coming down the road, not thousands of little…something’s.
For the last few nights Mr Pepper had had his shop robbed, of dummies…
Now he could see every detail, they were toddlers.
He ran down the stairs and out onto the street. He wasn’t armed, he didn’t need to be armed. How were babies going to stop him? Was this some kind of joke? Towards the doors they marched, towards him. He spread his arms out, “stop,” he cried, but they didn’t stop.
They swallowed him like a slow tidal wave. He was drowning. He was being held down, four on each of his limbs. His screams were muffled because a little girl had tied her nappy onto his face. She shook her bum at him in triumph. Then a mean snotty child came along and stood in front of him.
“Goo!” he said. And within a few seconds he was tied up tightly in rope. The boy smiled and did a cute laugh. But now the babies were hungry for what they came for.
“Abba abba ooo!” The boy now screamed and they threw a rock through the glass door and charged in. They pushed over the dummy rack and grabbed all, a hundred dummies for a hundred babies. They were like monkeys, Mr Pepper noticed. They were everywhere, even hanging off the lights. He watched helplessly and in total shock. These babies were vicious. The head of the toddlers came to him, the boy. He pointed his dummy at him and held his hand firmly on his hip.
“Ata coonie oopa tak!” he said, as if to say, ‘and never try to stop us again. Then he turned to the babies. “Ama kay!” he screamed, and the babies left.
All was silent. All night. And finally the sun rose. Would anyone untie him?
