Can You Tell Me How to Get to Paprika Place?
Michael Underwood
Charlie the Fox peered through the cloud of ashes that used to be Memphis. He’d visited Memphis once before, a lifetime ago. Back then, Charlie and his friends had just been TV personalities, custom-grown in Bunco’s genetic labs to be the perfect sticky entertainment for a Pre-K demographic.
Last time, they’d flown in to participate in the Memphis Italian Festival, when John the Producer had said they needed to shore up their partnership with Yumtoni Dinners.
Memphis had changed, like the rest of the world. Charlie activated thermal mode on his left eye and saw the landscape dotted with orange, yellow, and red — distant fires, maybe a generator or two. They’d left the last settlement a week ago after he gave up on anyone there knowing where to go.
Fluffasaurus plodded over hills for another hour, and as they crested another bomb-blasted mound, Charlie saw the group.
There were four of them — all young and scrawny, rifles slung over their backs — sitting in a circle around a fire. They might have been viewers, once. They were so much like a camping group, but nothing like the groups from his skits. His skits didn’t have guns, didn’t have machetes stuffed into leather sleeves on motorcycles.
Remember kids, don’t talk to strangers! Charlie thought, remembering the skit he’d done with Old Mr. Scary. But if he didn’t, he might never get home, and he’d made a promise.
“Can you tell me how to get to Paprika Place?” he asked from afar, tapping into Fluffasaurus’ PA system.
The group scrambled to their feet, leveling their rifles at Charlie and Fluffasaurus.
“We aren’t here to hurt you. We just want to go home,” Charlie said, his voice amplified by Fluffasaurus’ speakers.
Maybe these people weren’t viewers. If they’d been viewers, they’d recognize Charlie and Fluffasaurus. They’d be like old friends, some of their first teachers helping them learn their letters and numbers, sharing and manners.
Or maybe their parents had worked for MouseCorp or CapeCo, maybe they’d been forbidden to watch Bunco’s shows.
They shouted at Charlie, waving their guns. Charlie didn’t want to hurt anyone, so he asked Fluffasaurus to back away and give them a wide berth. His big friend roared sadly when they were away from the group.
“I know, Fluffasaurus. I wish we could make friends, too.”
In the last few days, they’d passed several small groups, usually just a handful of tired people huddled around bonfires, fighting over a bloated can of beans or irradiated soy-blocks.
All Charlie ever wanted to do was make friends, to meet people and help anyone he could. He was made for helping, for friendship, for Paprika Place.
Charlie reached out with his organic felt hand and patted Fluffasaurus’ chrome flank as they left the scrawny boys behind. The beast roared a soft response, the lowest volume setting on his speakers that had been repurposed for C3 tactical purposes.
When they were young, before Bunco re-imagined them and sent everyone to the front lines of the Market Wars, Fluffy’s roar had been the happiest sound in Paprika Place. Fluffasaurus would roar to call the whole neighborhood for lunch and dinner.
First, Messy the Garbage Monster would crash out of his dumpster and waddle over with his cardboard box shoes and his permanent frown. Then Bob and Danny would trundle out of their one-bedroom apartment, Bob fussing over Danny’s hair, arguing over who was supposed to do the dishes …
No. It hurt Charlie too much to think about them, about how it used to be. He patted Fluffasaurus and squeezed with his heels, asking his friend to turn left, toward the largest source of heat.
“Are you hungry, Fluffasaurus?” Charlie asked. Fluffasaurus’s bio-silicone eye rolled up to look at Charlie and his pal let out a low rumbling roar.
“Me too.” They’d both been retrofitted with micro-nuclear engines when they were re-imagined, but Bunco hadn’t removed their stomachs, hadn’t engineered out hunger.
Charlie hopped off of Fluffasaurus, sending up a dust cloud when he landed. He walked around to Fluffasaurus’ flank and pushed the button to open his hatch.
Back in Paprika Place, Fluffasaurus had been stuffed with fluffy tissue and felted organs, his three horns made of polished keratin and his bright-blue scales covered in soft fur. But when Bunco needed more soldiers, he had been re-imagined into an armored personnel carrier. They attached chrome plates to his flanks and dug out his insides to make room for the
cyborg soldiers of Paprika Place.
The platform hit dirt with a dull thud, and Charlie looked inside. His original eye adjusted to the dim light, seeing past the racks to the box at the far end, where Charlie stored their dwindling rations.
He locked his eyes forward, ignoring the racks. The furthest top bunk was empty. That one was Charlie’s, though when it wasn’t too cold outside, he slept on Fluffasaurus’ back rather than inside.
With the bodies.
Charlie opened the footlocker and pulled out a tube of protein, as well as one of the cookies a former viewer had tossed over the fence before they were turned away from Houston. He went back out and split the food with Fluffasaurus while they tried to decide where to go next.
#
“Can you tell me how to get to Paprika Place?” he asked for the ten thousandth time at the five thousandth town. This one was barely a village, just a cross-hatching of planks connecting cookie-cutter starter homes and a barrier wall of tires.
Only one person came to answer their call.
“What?” the girl said, a confused look on her face. She looked up, pulling back her hood to see Charlie atop the back of Fluffasaurus.
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Charlie? Charlie the Fox?” Charlie nodded. He opened his arms wide, fluff-and-fur on one side, burnt chrome on the other.
She leaned forward and said, “Fluffasaurus?” The dinosaur roared in response, low, in the strained way he did trying to re-create his old voice.
Tears filled the girl’s eyes, and she rushed forward, wrapping her arms around one of Fluffasaurus’ thick legs.
“What happened to you?” The girl looked around twelve, all lean muscle and sallow cheeks, but her voice came out much younger, a touch of repressed childhood bubbling up. How long had she been on the streets? Had her company abandoned this town, too?
“Bunco needed more soldiers.” Charlie reached up and rested his organic hand on the girl’s back, trying to comfort her. “They filled us up with the newest technology from their subsidiaries and shipped us off to war with the Mouse. All of us, Ms. Magpie, Funny Bear, Fluffasaurus. Everyone.”
The girl turned and looked at Charlie. “You just went away. My little brother was four, and one day your show was just gone.”
Charlie nodded. They’d had no more warning, just an early morning call for a location shoot that ended in a Bunco R&D facility.
“What’s your name?”
“Sally,” she said. “I go by Sal.”
Charlie scanned the surrounding block, piles of debris giving a dozen spots for a girl to take cover or lay down a pack. “Is your brother here, Sal?” Charlie asked. “I’d love to meet him.”
The girl shook her head, her lips tight. “Contaminated food,” she said, finally.
Charlie’s ears dropped, crestfallen. “I’m so sorry.”
Eat healthy, kids. Your food is your future. Charlie furrowed his brow, but he couldn’t remember the song that went with that line anymore. Not even the chorus, which he must have practiced a hundred times in the studio for the global simulcast.
Charlie stayed with Sal for a half-hour, telling stories about the show and dodging questions about the rest of the cast as best he could. When he took the cookie and put it on the shelf with the letters from viewers he’d kept through the whole war, he kept her from seeing what was on the bunks. She didn’t need to see any more death.
When the guards came to escort him out, Charlie looked back from Fluffasaurus’ neck and waved to Sal, setting his camera to record her as she waved back. Tears trickled down her face as he turned the corner to the airlock and back into the countryside. He needed every happy memory he could fit in his memory banks.
What do we have to go back to? Will Paprika Place even be there?
But he had to go back. He had to take them home.
#
Paprika Place was somewhere on the east coast, he knew that much. The show had broadcasted in Eastern Standard, and the producers had always talked about the time-delay for the west coast. Maybe they were in New York. That’s where dreams were born for American children, packaged up and streamed around the world: Kenya and Thailand and Cambodia and Kazakhstan, anywhere that Bunco could license their programming. But it could be D.C., Boston, or even down in Florida, though most of that territory belonged to The Mouse and Charlie thought they wouldn’t have been sent to California if they had started that close.
The ash and debris were still thick, so Charlie and Fluffasaurus rode on, an integrated compass keeping Charlie on his bearing of east-north-east.
Charlie patted Fluffasaurus on the shoulder, comforting himself as much as his companion. “Maybe someone in Louisville will know, Fluffasaurus. What do you think about that?”
Fluffasaurus roared, shaking the ground at his feet.
“I hope so, too.”
#
Louisville was empty. Fluffasaurus’s radar spotted a half-dozen MouseCorp projectors on the outskirts.
As recently as three months ago, he would have never intentionally gone toward a hard light projector, but the war was over, and if there was any chance someone knew about Paprika Place…
Charlie’s Geiger counter started ticking as they approached the projectors. Charlie slept inside Fluffasaurus so he didn’t have to try breathing the ash or deal with the fallout. Fluffasaurus didn’t have to breathe anymore, and was hardened against radiation.
MouseCorp’s best practices called for clusters of six pods to secure a supply depot. There had to be food out there somewhere.
Charlie hopped off Fluffasaurus and crouched low to the ground, using the abilities Bunco had given him.
Because he was quiet, Charlie had been picked to be the intrusion specialist. Charlie didn’t like that name, didn’t like the job. They gave him camouflage glands and a light-bending stealth mode, razor-sharp claws with poison pods. The producers sent him to slit throats, plant explosives, and silence troublesome civilians, and many other things that were very mean. He’d forgotten the verses to the Neighbor Song, but he remembered every death he’d caused, every cry.
We don’t hurt our friends.
Play nice when meeting new people.
After sneaking past a patrol of hard-light projections, Charlie found the remains of a food drop in a soccer field, then snuck back out with his hands un-bloodied.
Sometimes, Charlie wished he was like Fluffasaurus — loud, big, and tough. Chalie didn’t like being quiet anymore. Even now, with the food in his hands.
#
A week later, they reached the outskirts of Philadelphia. Philadelphia had stayed independent, never sold to Bunco or the Mouse or anyone. They still had a mayor and representatives, all the old government that Charlie had learned and taught on the show. When the states started privatizing cities and counties, bringing in corporate investors, Paprika Place didn’t talk about it. Not at first.
Later, they had episodes titled “The Neighborhood Company” and “My Friend Bunco,” where Bunco the Bear had joined the cast. But Bunco wasn’t like the rest of his friends. Bunco didn’t live in Paprika Place, he went somewhere else when they were done shooting.
Charlie wondered if Bunco the Bear was still alive. He hadn’t gone with them to war, and the producers never mentioned him between missions.
I bet Bunco knows where he is. But where would he be? Not in Philadelphia, for sure. Probably safe in a high tower, with lots of guards and toys.
Maybe that would be better. Because if Charlie saw Bunco the Bear, Charlie would kill him.
#
The people of Philadelphia had put up big walls to keep out soldiers, which probably included Charlie, even though he didn’t want to be a soldier anymore.
Riding Fluffasaurus, Charlie rode up to a gate when someone spoke through a loudspeaker.
“Halt. Declare yourself.”
Charlie zoomed in with his robot eye and saw a young woman on the wall, holding a military-grade rifle. He patched into Fluffasaurus’ speakers and answered.
“My name is Charlie the Fox, and this is my friend Fluffasaurus. We don’t want to hurt anyone, we’re just trying to get home.”
“You’re Bunco-made, aren’t you? Corporate forces aren’t allowed inside the commonwealth.”
Charlie shook his head, though he might be too far away for her to see. “We don’t work for Bunco anymore.” The woman raised an eyebrow, probably disbelieving him.
“Why should I believe you?” she asked.
“Because Bunco turned my friends into killing machines, and all I ever wanted to do was meet new people and be a good friend. If you won’t let us in, can you tell me how to get to Paprika Place?”
“What?” she asked.
Fluffasaurus shifted weight, and Charlie held on to his friend’s horn to keep his balance. “Paprika Place. It’s where we come from. Bunco took us away from our home and I don’t really know exactly where it is. We have to get home. I promised.”
“Come closer. Slowly, and no weapons.”
Fluffasaurus clomped forward until they were just fifty feet from the gate. The edges were rusted, but the frame was well-made. It would hold for a long time. The woman was young, maybe even young enough to have been a viewer during the early years.
“We have weapons, but they’re not armed, and we can leave everything that isn’t attached to us at the gate if that helps. We’ve been on the road for a long time.” He sighed. “And we miss people.”
For a moment, Charlie could imagine who she was back when Paprika Place was on the air. Before both of them had become soldiers.
An older woman appeared with an even bigger rifle, and the young woman disappeared behind the wall. A minute later, she emerged from a door Charlie hadn’t seen, her gun trained on his head.
Charlie raised his hands, and Fluffasaurus knelt down, front legs first, then rear. Charlie held tight with his legs as Fluffasaurus moved. Falling off might prove he wasn’t dangerous, or she might take it as sudden motion and shoot him.
We never did a skit on proving to security forces that you’re a non-combatant.
He slid down the chromed side of Fluffasaurus, his hands above his head. The woman searched him, pulled off knives, a sidearm, and the two grenades at his belt.
“There is some ordnance inside Fluffasaurus.” He stopped for a second, uncomfortable. “What’s your name?”
“Alexis. Open the hatch, then put your hands on the beast.”
Fluffasaurus roared in complaint at the name, but Charlie shushed his friend.
“We need to cooperate, Fluffy.” The dinosaur opened his hatch, and Charlie did as Alexis said. She had curly red hair tied back in a dusty bandana. Up close, she reminded Charlie of Patty, one of the co-stars in season three. Patty’d had a wonderful voice, and had always been nice to Charlie, even when he forgot the words or said something wrong.
Alexis brought a hand up to her brow and squinted as she looked into Fluffasaurus. Her eyes went wide again, and she took a step back.
“Are they all …”
Charlie sighed. “Yes. Dead.” Two by two, the bodies of Charlie’s friends and neighbors from Paprika Place filled the bunks inside Fluffasaurus. Genetically engineered puppets didn’t decay. Instead, they lay silent and still, like broken toys.
Bob and Danny were side-by-side, each missing one half of their torsos. Messy was charred black, barely recognizable. Some were burned by lasers, others torn by bullets or choked by gas, their once-joyful faces twisted into masks of pain.
“Half of us died in the last battle, the rest afterwards, when the Bunco producers told us the war was over and that Bunco was ‘moving in another direction.’ We were obsolete, a loose end.”
Alexis gave him a sympathetic smile, her throat tight as she looked back into Fluffasuarus.
Charlie balled his paws into fists, and felt himself snarling at the memory.
1,2,3. I am angry that’s okay.
4,5,6. Count to ten and breathe today.
7,8,9, and 10. Now I’m fine and I can play.
Warm stickiness flowed in his palm, blood the color of blue silicone wiring.
They were all gone, but it wouldn’t be right to bury them out there in the concrete and dust. He had to get them home. He promised.
When Charlie looked up again, he saw Alexis hauling explosives and ammunition out onto the dusty ground. She’d found weapons Charlie didn’t even remember were still there. She must have been a soldier, maybe when Philadelphia had to fight off one company or another’s forces. Had she fought The Mouse, or CapeCo? Or even Bunco, defending the city against his former masters’ other forces?
“Have you had to fight the companies?” Charlie asked.
Alexis laughed, a hard look on her face. She went back inside for another look around. Her voice echoed inside his friend, making it sound larger and more distant. “Nah, they were happy to just sit back and lose two million households in the metro area.”
A moment later, she continued. “We got the capes first, then the bears. The rats never made it up here. Word has it they got bogged down in D.C. fighting army remnants.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been in California for the last three years, I don’t know much of what happened elsewhere. I hope they left quickly.”
“They left, alright, but they left behind some kind of designer weed that near about killed all our crops. We’ll keep the weapons here, and you’ll get a two-day pass to visit. Make any trouble and we’ll send you to the bottom of the river, okay?”
Charlie stood and watched as they took the weaponry away, rifles still trained on Fluffasaurus. People used to trust Charlie. Before he’d been re-imagined, Charlie had made friends with every child he’d ever met, found a way to connect, to reassure the frightened, to inspire the curious.
His friends were counting on him, and Charlie always tried to be a good friend. Sometimes, it felt like the only part of the old Charlie that was left.
Once the ammunition was safely behind the wall, one of the older guards pulled Alexis aside.
They talked for a minute, then Alexis returned to Charlie with a sad look.
“You have to go, now.”
“You said we could come in.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said.
Charlie’s hands got hot again. He sung the Calm Down Song in his head again as he talked.
“We need to ask people about Paprika Place,” Charlie said, already knowing it was no use. They were nothing but trouble, and it had been a long time since people made friends with strangers.
From the ramparts, Charlie saw that more guards had come, with rifles and spears. One had a LAW rocket.
Alexis said, “Please. If you don’t go now, my aunt says they’ll fire.”
“I’m sorry, Alexis,” Charlie said as he crawled back onto Fluffasaurus.
“You didn’t do anything to me,” Alexis said.
“I’m still sorry.” Charlie patted Fluffasaurus on the back, and said, “Let’s go, buddy.”
And so they left Philadelphia, their lockers lighter but their hearts heavier.
#
The eight of them that had survived the last battle with MouseCorp met the producers in a red-and-blue tent as the sun crept toward the coast. The producers were there, suits untouched by the dust, the winter rain, or anything, really. The tall one turned on a LCD Flatscreen. After a few seconds, the screen flashed to light, a BuncoNews bulletin filling the screen. A blandly handsome man with silvery hair and a square jaw smiled at the camera.
“Bunco, Inc. and MouseCorp have just completed a strategic merger, bringing an end to hostilities. In response, the controlling shareholders of CapeCo have asked to be bought out. As of 5:31 PST, the American Market Share Wars are over. The combined company is re-branding as America, Inc. On behalf of America, Inc., I would like to thank you all for your support. We look forward to working with our new colleagues on delivering the best in programming to each and every one of you. Thank you and good night.”
A golden-haired producer clicked the screen off and turned to the group.
“And now that the hostilities have ended, I’m terribly sorry to say that we will not be renewing your contracts.”
MouseCorp, with their hard-light projections, hadn’t pulled any of their shows. The Mouse and his friends would be fresh in viewer’s minds, still.
Charlie looked around at his friends, to Ms. Magpie and her razor-sharp wings, Rolly-Polly the Playful Pillbug, re-imagined as a rolling pillbox, the House Band — Johnny, Sonny, Funny, and Bunny, a rock-and-roll wetwork team, and in the back, Fluffasaurus, whose big eyes welled with tears. Charlie hadn’t known that Fluffasaurus could still cry.
We’re obsolete, Charlie thought.
A moment later, two squads of Bunco troops ran into the tent, weapons drawn. The tent was swallowed by gunfire, explosions, and screams. Charlie took a blow to the head and passed out.
#
Charlie had woken to the sound of Fluffasurus’ roar. His friend had tried to find the old gentleness, but the call came out so loud it shook his bones.
The soldiers were dead, along with the House Band and poor Mr. Scary. He heard Ms. Magpie caw a cough, and Charlie scrambled over to her, his head throbbing.
He lifted up her head, and Ms. Magpie clicked her chrome-plated beak.
“Charlie?” Her voice was weak.
“I’m here,” he said.
Ms. Magpie coughed again. Charlie’s fur was matted by the wire-blue blood. She won’t make it. “I want to go home, Charlie.”
“I promise. We’ll go home now. All of us.” She touched his snout with one wing. It was cold, but Charlie felt it like it was the soft feathers she’d been made with, the brilliant blue the same as her eyes.
She tried to say something else, but choked again, then stopped. She convulsed, then went limp in his arms.
We have to go home, leave this place forever.
But Charlie didn’t know how to get back.
#
Charlie and Fluffasaurus continued east. The powerful dinosaur was tired, his internal power plant running low. They moved slowly, but finally, one cold evening, Charlie saw the towers of the Manhattan skyline in the distance, covered by the sheen of an arcology dome.
Charlie didn’t want to go to Manhattan. America, Inc. owned the dome there. Instead, they went south through Staten Island. They passed several checkpoints without incident, even though Charlie could tell they were manned. He saw figures huddling behind cover, speaking in hushed tones. They were afraid of them, afraid of Charlie and Fluffasaurus.
Charlie didn’t want to scare anyone, ever again.
He took them through the checkpoints and across the broken skeleton of the Verrazano into Brooklyn. The few people they saw in the street quickly hid away, wary of corporate soldiers. They’d all been Bunco viewers, once upon a time, and their fear stung even worse.
As they crossed the bridge to Brooklyn, Charlie saw that the borough was in ruins. Most everyone had retreated inside the Manhattan arcology dome for protection during the war, and with the other boroughs destroyed, why would anyone go back?
Charlie looked with his robot eye, and saw small figures moving at the far side of the bridge. Charlie hopped off to see if someone would stop and talk to him.
“Hello?” he called, trying to catch the attention of one of the many small figures darting between the rubble. No one came out, so Charlie walked along with Fluffasaurus, making their way through broken neighborhoods until they reached a park.
“This place looks familiar, eh Fluffasaurus?” Charlie asked.
Fluffasaurus roared in agreement. It’s here, somewhere.
They walked through the park until Charlie found a tree he recognized, a tall, tall tree they could see from the end of the Paprika Place neighborhood.
A block out of the park, Charlie fell to his knees, weeping.
Above them were tall walls with a large sign posted.
Property of Bunco, Inc.
No Trespassing.
Fluffasaurus tromped up to a loading gate, locked up by chains and gates.
This is it. Charlie cut several chains with his knives, and then pulled one chain out to hook to Fluffasaurus. The dinosaur strained against the chains, roaring again with the effort. The metal groaned, then the chains started to come apart, links breaking. Charlie pulled out loose chains one at a time, and the two of them cleared off the gate, facing a door taller than Fluffasaurus and twice as wide.
“Are you ready?” Charlie asked, mostly for himself. Until they stepped inside, he didn’t know what it would be like. It could be in ruins, or it could be sparkly and new, somehow exactly the same as they left it. Until he saw what it had become, he could always keep it safe in his memory, still the Paprika Place he’d known and loved, where Messy’s perch stood in front of Bob and Danny’s apartment, where Mr. Scary lived in the basement, banging on the floor with his broom whenever they sang songs in the living room, Ms. Magpie and the House Band and everyone else.
Fluffasaurus roared as softly as he could, and Charlie looked up, freed from his thoughts. The dinosaur nudged at the gate, which creaked and swung open.
Ruins. Charlie sighed, and walked with heavy feet into his old home.
The brightly-painted walls and roofs had faded, stripped away by acid rain or maybe even a Bunco sweeper team. They could have flattened the neighborhood easily, but leaving it in ruins was worse.
The playground was burned, the jungle gym scrapped and swings bare. The little garden was overgrown with tall weeds and small trees.
Charlie shuffled through the neighborhood, pulled along by the need to know everything, to see every corner, to find out if even one thing was still the way it was supposed to be.
As he turned the corner onto the main street, Charlie saw movement. More small figures, little glimpses of eyes and hands and feet.
“Hello?” Charlie called again. Maybe someone made it back. Maybe they re-made the ones that died, had extra copies left behind. Maybe the wounded we thought were dead were just sent back. Charlie knew it was a fool’s hope, but he was here, and it couldn’t all be gone.
A girl looked out from a window. She had big eyes and wild black hair, curled and knotted about her head. She met Charlie’s eyes and then dropped out of view.
“We won’t hurt anyone!” Charlie called, more desperation in his voice than he’d meant. He choked back a sob. “We used to live here. My name is Charlie, and this is Fluffasaurus.”
A teenaged boy with a baseball bat emerged from behind a trash can, with a little girl, probably four years old, behind him.
“You aren’t Charlie. Charlie wasn’t no cyborg.”
“Wasn’t a Cyborg,” Charlie said, correcting the boy automatically. “Two nos don’t make it right,” he sang without thinking, dropping back into an old skit. The boy raised an eyebrow at him, but from his left, Charlie heard a laugh.
Another girl, older. They came from everywhere, wild-looking children and teens in scraps of clothes, holding bats, sticks, clubs, with threadbare sacks on their backs.
“You came back,” said the girl who had laughed. The younger children shied away from Fluffasaurus, who was flicking his spiked tail back and forth, excited.
Charlie put a hand on Fluffasaurus’ side. “Calm down, old friend. We don’t want to hurt our new neighbors.”
Another soft roar.
“We traveled a very long way to get home. Do you mind if we sit down for a while?” Charlie asked, noticing they were surrounded. Maybe sitting isn’t the best idea.
The first little girl walked down the steps of the house that had been Mr. Scary’s, and offered Charlie half of a stale pastry. Charlie knelt and took the powdered treat from the girl and gave his best smile.
“Thank you.”
Charlie turned back to the crowd.
I’m home. And we’re not alone. A whole new generation. They’d need to learn, learn how to count, how to spell and read. Bunco won’t do anything for them, so he and Fluffasaurus would. They’d count like we did with Mr. Scary, and learn about sharing like with Ms. Magpie, and learn to sing like the House Band and not to be scared …
Charlie held the pastry up for all to see. “She was very nice to share. I know a song about sharing. Does anyone want to hear it?” Silence. Charlie looked back to the little girl, who blushed, hiding her face.
“Go ahead,” said the boy with the baseball bat.
Charlie smiled wide, and coughed, clearing his throat. How long had it been since he had sung to anyone but himself? His voice faltered at first, but he saw the sharing girl’s eyes light up, and his voice grew stronger. After the first verse, the boy with the baseball bat joined in with the enthusiastic tone-deafness of youth. By the last verse, Paprika Place was filled with song for the first time in who knew how long.
Charlie kept singing, his voice growing strong. Fluffasaurus sang along, his roar as soft as it had ever been.
When you care,
and when you share,
you’ll find that there is lots to spare.