The Bear and the Cogwheel Toys

By Elisabeth_Long

"Oy, Bear!"

The Captain's toots come from the worktable far below my shelf.

"The little girl is here!"

Beneath the Cogwheel's Toy Shop & Repair, Estd 1870 in the window appears a pair of goggles, pressing against the glass. The bright green eyes behind the lenses sweep the upper shelves. The smile that lights the child's face when she spots me is like the sunrise I haven't seen in a very long time.

Not since even before I was wedged between storage boxes here and forgotten.

'Yes, I see her.'

The gears, cogs, and vents of the toys sound like whirs, toots, and hisses to humans. But to other toys, they're real words.

And though I'm soundless, the others hear me. All woken toys whether new or old can hear each other speak.

An ancient teddy bear, I don't have all the fancy mechanisms the others do. I can't make sounds, nor can I move. All I have is a broken pocket watch stitched onto a frayed waistcoat, the ties of which are crumbling, the pocket watch slipping ever looser as time passes.

"She's early today," the Captain reports.

Captain Winnifred, as her child named her, has been at the shop for four days. The toy soldier was wounded in the line of duty protecting her child, she told us, chasing a rat away from her child's bed in the night. The compass on her copper helmet came loose. Her retractable, spinning sword snapped in two. Jedediah Cogwheel, the shopkeeper, replaced it with a brand new one with a winch hilt. He also stitched a tear in her military brocade jacket. Winnie was going home tomorrow.

The little girl turns to the woman beside her. Her mother I'm sure. They share the same shaped face and brown curly hair. They wait together at the coach stop in front of the shop. The woman is wearing a striped tailcoat vest and skirt. A large circlet of keys dangle from her leather waist cincher.

Phineas the Waterdancing Catfish thinks she works at the seaside inn. He'd been there with his child on vacation. Phin says all the staff wear similar uniforms.

Phin is getting his metallic tail fixed. The gears that make it swing side to side got rusty when his child accidentally dropped him in the sea. Jedediah is giving Phin special glass gears that won't rust. He's also getting his brass gills and whiskers oiled and his telescopic monocle cleaned.

The girl carries her usual satchel. Is she being taken to school before her mother heads off to work?

My long ago child's mother accompanied him to school and he'd bring me along. We travelled by horse and carriage then.

He'd sit me beside him. But as time passed and he grew older, he'd ignore me and I'd often flop over or fall to the carriage floor. One day I fell hard and my watch broke. The boy never noticed. He just left me there.

A servant found me. And not long after, I was packed into a box along with old clothes and blankets that belonged to my child when he was a baby. The lid closed above me...

I don't like to remember how quiet and dark it was.

I was there for a very long time.

The day the box shook and I heard voices again, the lid opened and there was Jedediah. He scooped me out, muttering something about wasting good coin at an antique auction, of my being too old, not even good for spare parts. He then shoved me up here where I've been ever since, meeting and greeting all the toys over the years that come in for repairs. Their stories make me happy but also make me sad.

'How did the girl notice me? I'm so covered in dust and I don't move like the rest of you.'

"It's because the street's new gaslight reflects off your pocket watch," Permelia the Octophant trumpets.

Permelia's trunk clanks up and down and shoots steam. How delightful! She also has the most amazing tentacles. Her body is transparent. You can see her gears and pinions spin. When those eight legs lift her up and carry her across the floor, their little joint wheels squeak. She also squirts ink, which needed refilling and why she was here.

"Old Jed should get new gaslights for the shop." Horatio the Pop-up Puppet's words are followed by a crank and a steam-whistled tune before he jumps out his tinplated, dial-covered box. His nose glows with its enclosed steam light. The silver water sprockets in his cheeks spin and release bubbles. One of these was jammed and needed refitting.

"Bear, tell us another story of the old days."

The rasp of leather against wood tells me Hattie the Rocking Horse has raised her head up from behind the counter. When her child rides on her back, steam shoots out her nostrils the faster her pistons get pumped. The pulleys that make her mechanical head move up and down were grinding and needed adjusting.

I tell a story of my horse and carriage travels. Hattie whinnies happily when I say she is like the horses of old whose breath steamed out their nostrils when they exerted themselves.

A thrumming sound approaches. The steam-driven coach hovers into sight, vapour rising from beneath its chassis. It floats up to the curb and the girl and her mother board. There are few pedestrians at this time. The pair were the only ones waiting at the coach stop.

The morning advances. I listen to the rumble of steam carriages (real horses are rare now). There're more steam-driven coaches that come and go.

Soon comes the tapping of canes and booted heels on the sidewalk.

Women in shoulder capes and bustle skirts, men in top hats, cravat shirts, and frock coats stroll past the shop window.

And oh, the airship shadows start floating by. I've never seen one. They came after my time.

The creak of the backdoor announces the arrival of the shopkeeper.

Except... it's not Jedediah. It's his nephew who watches the shop when his uncle can't. He's carrying a pair of tall posts topped with lanterns against his shoulder. Gaslights? Horatio will be thrilled.

The nephew turns to flip the sign on the front door to Open. One of the lantern tops smacks into my shelf.

My watch snaps free. The shattering on the floor has the nephew wheeling around with a scowl.

"You need to clean up, Uncle," he mutters. He sets the posts down and grabs the footstool. Next thing I see are nostrils.

"What's th–?"

ATCHOOOO!

Clouds of dust explode outwards.

I'm grabbed hard and yanked loose. My left arm tears off. Stuffing falling like snow.

"Good for the trash this is." The nephew coughs. "I'm surprised mice haven't nested in it."

I'm tossed into the trash bin. Its lid closes above me.

I spend the day in the dark, feeling something wet down my cheek from time to time.

Movement...

Hushed voices...

The lid opens.

"We got you, Bear." The Captain smiles down at me.

Hattie lowers her head and gently grasps my waistcoat with her wooden teeth, lifting me out, seating me upon Horatio's box. Phin flaps his tail to and fro, blowing the dust off me.

Permelia steamcleans me with her trunk.

The Captain has dragged the sewing kit over. I feel a push then she stitches my arm socket closed.

My old waistcoat is removed and replaced with a leather vest with brass buckles and dials and a miniature hourglass hanging from its pocket. The Captain produces a quill and paper, and with ink from Permelia, she writes something and tucks the note in my new vest.

Meanwhile, the others are tossing scraps and broken pieces of machinery out the mail slot of the front door.

"Ok, Hattie, lift him up!" the Captain orders.

"Time to go home, Bear," Phin burbles.

They get me to the mail slot.

"Good thing you're soft, Bear!" Horatio has come out of his box from behind me and pushes.

I land on the scraps outside... and watch in awe as the night airships float between the stars overhead.

Soon after sunrise, the little girl arrives. She sees me and races forward, taking me in her arms. The Captain's note slips into her hand.

"Mama look! It says 'Free to a loving home'. Please, mama, I can take good care of him!"

The mother hesitates and looks at the junk pile. Then she smiles and nods.

"I'm going to call you Thaddeus Teddy!" The girl hugs me tight.

Through the window, my friends are cheering and clapping and whistling steam.

Wait... Horatio's nose is missing. I think about that push just before the Captain stitched me.

Warmth blooms in my chest as the little girl tucks me into her coat, the glow of my new steam-powered heart lighting up the inside.