Overtoyed

OVERTOYED

by

Kenneth Jay

Sometimes Evan slept in his bedroom. Mostly he played there. He was proud of his room. No other boy or girl he knew had as many toys as him. Toys spilled from his closet, stuck out from under his bed and spread across the floor. Under a yellow kite was his clothes dresser.
         Evan did not think of his room as being messy. A couple of birthdays and two or three Christmases with lots of gifts from his mother, stepfather, and many other family members helped Evan build his toy collection.
         Last night was his seventh birthday. Somewhere in the big toy pile at the bottom of his bed was a new red car. He thought this toy should be at the top of the toy heap. However, he had done a lot of playing in here since yesterday.
         Going down on his hands and knees, Evan grabbed a fire truck. He set this toy aside. Then he grabbed a plastic boat, a robot, and a dinosaur hand puppet. He set these aside too. Smiling, he crawled into the tunnel he had made.
         Inside the pile, he saw a striped rubber ball, a gray stuffed elephant, a brass flute, and a wooden airplane. Sitting, Evan squeezed the elephant in his arms. He played a few notes on the flute. He bounced the ball under his hand. He had forgotten he had these toys.
         Moving deeper into the hill of toys, he saw something shiny and red. Could this be the new car?
         As he pulled the red toy, the other toys began to slide toward him. Not wanting to be buried under his toys, Evan stood.
         To his surprise, his bed and his dresser were gone. He heard other children’s voices. At his feet were toys that did not belong to him. “Whose toys are these?” he asked.
         From behind the toys, a small girl on a tricycle rode up to Evan. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
         “This is my room,” Evan said.
         She laughed. “No, you are in my bedroom. Do you want to see all my toys?”
         “First you should see all my toys,” Evan said.
         She told him that she had the most toys in the world. Evan followed her to the other side of the toys to see if this was true.
         Beyond this pile was a pile that reached to the ceiling. All the room’s light was here. It was dark everywhere else.
         A blonde boy ran around in his socks.
         “Where are your shoes?” Evan asked.
         “I don’t know,” said the boy. “They must be somewhere here in my room.”
         “This is my room,” said the girl.
         “You are both wrong,” Evan said. “This is my bedroom, and I don’t know who you are or why your toys are here.”
         The blonde boy pointed at one of the walls. “Where is the door?”
         Stopping her tricycle, the girl got off, and then looked around the room. “I think we are lost because these are not my toys.”
         “They are not mine, either,” Evan said.
         Evan sat beside the toy pile to see what toys were there. He found a couple of small cars, a yarn doll, a stuffed giraffe, three Frisbee discs, a football, a wrinkled and torn play tent, a pair of boxing gloves, a big blue ball, and a train engine. He could not look at anything else. For the first time in his life, this was too many toys.
         The girl came closer. “I want the doll and the giraffe.”
         “And I want the football,” said the blonde boy.
         Evan thought and thought about what he wanted. Picking up the train engine, he rubbed his fingers over the train’s sides, feeling the metal smoothness. Then he set down the train engine. The boxing gloves looked great. The Frisbees had wild designs that spun into spirals under his hands. Maybe the play tent would be wonderful too. He loved toys so much that it was hard to decide.
         Evan started to remember all his own toys. His airplane. The yellow kite. The new red car. All of these toys were somewhere else. All of these toys were gone.
         What Evan wanted most was to go back to his bedroom.
         “We don’t want any of these toys,” he said. “We want our bedrooms.”
         “You are right,” said the girl. “Better than all of my toys is the funny sound my dog makes when he snores at the end of my bed.”
         “And I like when my father tells me stories,” said the blonde boy.
         “And as much as I love playing with my toys in my bedroom,” said Evan, “I love to be outside on a sunny day.” Evan laughed. “I almost forgot that I like to be outside.”
         Picking up the train engine, he set it on the floor in front of them. With a mighty push, he shoved the train engine into the shadows. To his surprise, the train’s headlight came on.
         “My bed,” said the girl. “In the light I can see my bed.”
         However, as soon as the train engine slowed to a stop, the light went out.
         Evan grabbed the train engine and shook it. He heard something rattle, but the light stayed off.
         “We have to wish real hard,” he said. “If we wish our way past these toys, maybe we can make this train go all the way back to our bedrooms.”
         “Let’s try it,” said the blonde boy. He kneeled to put his hands on the train engine.
         Then the girl grabbed the train. “Wish real hard.”
         “Think of something besides toys,” Evan said.
         “That’s hard,” said the other boy.
         “We can do this,” Evan said. “We can remember a day when we ran through the trees or rode on a pony. Wish hard.”
         Evan wished for his bedroom and for all the fun stuff he used to do before he had too many toys. Then together they pushed the train engine back into the shadows.
         This time the train engine rolled farther than Evan thought it would roll.
         As the light again showed the girl’s bed, she ran for the flowered blankets.
         “Goodbye, boys,” she said, waving.
         A few seconds later the light shone on a bunk bed with a wooden ladder.
         “That’s mine,” said the blonde boy. “Thanks for getting me home.”
         “You are welcome,” Evan said as he chased the train engine across the room. Then he smiled as he saw his bed, his dresser, the yellow kite, and his piles of toys.
         Outside his bedroom window, the sun was bright.
         As fast as he could, Evan put cars into boxes, books on shelves, and stuffed animals in a neat pile on his bed.
         Then he took the yellow kite outside to fly it.
         And those toys in the other room, thought Evan, well, maybe they were the old toys of boys and girls who remembered what it was like to play with their imaginations.
         “We are flying all the way to China,” he said, running up the hill in his backyard.