Read Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic for Free Online

comes down one morning to play on the shaggy rug where he, Sheep, and Plastic are sitting around doing nothing. “Why not me?”
    “You have to be clean to go in the bed,” says StingRay. “There can’t be crumbs and peanut butter up there.”
    “Why not Plastic, then?”
    “You have to be furry,” says StingRay. “Balls don’t ever go.”
    “It used to be
me,
before she came,” mutters Sheep.
    “I don’t care,” chirps Plastic, who has been spending much of her nights rolling down the stairs and then bouncing back up again three at a time. “Do you want to come watch me on the steps, Lumphy? I roll down like a race car!”
    “Not really,” says Lumphy. “I’ve seen you roll before.”
    “It’s totally different on the
stairs”
pleads Plastic.
    “It doesn’t seem fair,” says Lumphy to StingRay, “that you go up on the high bed every single night. What do you
do
up there?”
    “Private stuff,” says StingRay. “Between me and the Little Girl.”
    “But why don’t I get to do private stuff?”
    “Sorry. It’s not like I have a choice. The Little Girl takes me. She wants me, I guess, because of how much she loves me.”
    “She loves me, too,” says Lumphy.
    “Of course she does. Just not enough to go up on the high bed. Don’t feel bad.”
    “Hrrummmph.” Lumphy turns his tail to StingRay and pretends to be interested in a bit of orange fluff he sees on the rug.
    “Lumphy?”
    Lumphy nuzzles the bit of fluff and doesn’t answer.
    “Want to go look out the window?”
    Lumphy mumbles quietly to the bit of fluff as if he doesn’t hear.
    “Or watch television?”
    He doesn’t answer.
    “We could play marbles.”
    The fluff is taking all Lumphy’s attention. It takes up all his attention for the entire day. He won’t talk to StingRay at all.
    … …
    The next morning Lumphy starts looking at the fluff again as soon as StingRay comes down from the bed. He looks at it all morning, all afternoon, and all evening.
    He does this for six days.
    On the seventh day, StingRay comes down and pokes him in the shoulder. “Know what?” she says. “I have anidea for getting the Girl to bring you up on the bed. Do you want to hear it?”
    Lumphy stops looking at the fluff and looks at StingRay instead.
    “We can decorate you,” she says. “To make you more of a bedtime buffalo. We could drape you in rabbit fur and flannel,
    and put a big pair of fuzzy slippers
on your feet,
and maybe some bows and ribbons
on your tail,
and some pink and yellow feathers.
You will look so cuddly, she will have to take
you to bed.” “
    Hrmmh,” says Lumphy. “What?” “Is there another option?”
    “Sure. We could break your tail.
    Just a small break near the end,
maybe by using a hammer on it when nobody
is looking,
and then you would be injured.
The Little Girl would wrap your bottom up
in toilet paper and masking tape,
and bring you to the bed to get well.”
    “What if
you
pretend to be lost in the closet?” suggests Lumphy. “Then she’d take me, I bet.”
    StingRay doesn’t think that would work. “I read something you could try,” pipes up Plastic, who has been listening in from a spot underneath the bed. “But it’s not very nice.”
    “What?” Lumphy wants to know. “It’s a trick. They used it in old TV commercials and science experiments. Sub-lim-in-al messages.”
    “Oooooh! Submarine messages!” cries StingRay. “Why didn’t I think of them before?”
    “What are they?” asks Lumphy.
    “Uhhh … It’s too complicated to explain,” stalls StingRay. “Isn’t it, Plastic?”
    Plastic pauses. “I can explain a little bit,” she finally says.
    “Oh, a little bit, sure. That we could do,” says StingRay. “You go ahead.”
    “I read that in supermarkets they used to have secret messages playing very quietly under the music that people didn’t know their brains could hear,” begins Plastic. “Messages that would say, ‘Buy sugar cereal,’ or ‘You need to eat a