The Committee of Stuffed Animals

Every night, after Opal fell asleep, something remarkable happened on her bed.

It started with a twitch of a fuzzy ear. Then a slow stretch of a plush arm. Then, one by one, the stuffed animals woke up.

"Order! Order!" whispered Mr. Buttons, a round bear with one eye slightly looser than the other. He tapped a tiny wooden block against Opal's nightstand. "The Committee of Stuffed Animals will now come to session. Secretary Flamingo, please read the agenda."

Francesca the flamingo unrolled a piece of paper that was really just a grocery list Opal had found on the sidewalk. But on the back, in very small, very careful writing, Francesca had listed seventeen items.

"Seventeen items," groaned Humphrey the hippo, who was wedged between two pillows. "Can't we just do three? Three is a very respectable number."

"We have important business," said Mr. Buttons firmly. "Proceed."

Francesca cleared her throat. "Item One: The Left Side of the Bed Problem."

Everyone murmured. This was a big one.

"As you all know," Francesca continued, "Opal has been putting all of us on the left side of the bed. ALL of us. On TOP of each other."

"I can't breathe under there!" said a tiny voice. That was Pepper, a very small knitted mouse who was almost always at the bottom of the pile.

"You don't have lungs," Humphrey pointed out.

"It's the principle," said Pepper.

Mr. Buttons nodded gravely. "Proposal: we spread ourselves out while Opal sleeps so she gets the idea."

"Seconded," said everyone, except for Giraffe, who never said anything because she was very shy and also her name was just Giraffe.

"Motion carries. Item Two, please."

"Item Two," read Francesca. "The new one."

A hush fell over the bed.

There, at the very edge, sat a stuffed otter. She was brand new. Her fur was soft and unmatted. Her eyes were perfectly even. She still had a tag attached to her ear.

"Hello," said the otter quietly. "I'm... well, Opal hasn't named me yet."

"Hasn't NAMED you?" Pepper squeaked. "Oh no. Oh NO."

"Pepper, please," said Mr. Buttons.

"It took Opal three whole weeks to name ME," Pepper continued, ignoring him. "Three weeks! I was just 'the mouse' for three weeks. Do you know what that does to a stuffed animal?"

"It's the principle," said Pepper again, before anyone could interrupt.

The otter looked down at her perfect new paws. "Maybe she doesn't like me."

Nobody said anything for a moment. Because every stuffed animal remembered the time before they had a name. That strange, floaty, in-between feeling.

"She'll name you," said Mr. Buttons gently. "She always does. Moving on. Item Three."

And so the meeting continued.

Item Three was about the dog, Captain Biscuit, who kept ending up in the laundry basket. ("It's warm in there!" he argued. "I'm not complaining, I just want everyone to know it's ON PURPOSE.")

Item Four was about whether Giraffe should get a shorter name. Giraffe shook her head very slightly, and the matter was dropped.

Item Five was about the tea parties. Opal had been pouring invisible tea on them, and Francesca felt it was getting excessive. "My feathers are theoretically soaked," she said.

Item Six was the blanket situation. Item Seven was the incident with the baby cousin. Item Eight was a formal thank-you to Opal for fixing Mr. Buttons's eye last Tuesday with a piece of tape.

"It's not perfect," Mr. Buttons said, touching his eye, "but she tried. She really tried."

Items Nine through Thirteen went quickly — mostly small business about shelf positions, sunlight exposure, and whose turn it was to be carried to school on Monday.

"Item Fourteen," said Francesca, and her voice changed. Softer now. "The Crying."

The committee went very still.

Because last Tuesday, Opal had come home from school and climbed into bed with all her clothes still on. She hadn't played. She hadn't read. She had just curled up and cried into Humphrey's side until his gray fur was dark and damp.

"She held onto me so tight," Humphrey said quietly. "I wanted to hold her back."

"She told me about it," said Pepper, who had been clutched in Opal's hand afterward. "She whispered it. Her friend said something mean at lunch. In front of everyone."

Nobody spoke.

"What do we do?" asked the otter, who hadn't been there for it but whose voice sounded very small.

"We do what we always do," said Mr. Buttons. "We stay. We stay exactly where she puts us. And when she reaches for us in the dark, we're there."

"That doesn't feel like enough," said the otter.

"It is, though," said Pepper. "You'll see."

Francesca made a note on the agenda and moved on, because sometimes that's all you can do.

Item Fifteen was about the fact that Opal had started reading chapter books, and sometimes she used Francesca as a bookmark. ("I am HONORED," Francesca said, "but also, slightly squished.")

Item Sixteen was about the closet. Sometimes, when friends came over, Opal put some of the stuffed animals in the closet. Captain Biscuit had been in there twice this month.

"She's embarrassed of us?" Pepper whispered.

"She's growing up a little," said Mr. Buttons. "It doesn't mean she loves us less."

"How do you know?" asked Pepper.

"Because she always takes us back out," said Mr. Buttons. "Every single time. Before bed. She opens that closet door and carries us back, one by one."

Pepper considered this. "Okay," Pepper said. "Okay."

"Item Seventeen," said Francesca. "The last item." She paused. "Naming the new one."

The otter looked up.

"We can't name her," said Humphrey. "That's Opal's job."

"But we can welcome her," said Mr. Buttons. He turned to the otter. "What do you feel like?"

"I feel like... I don't know. I feel like I'm waiting for something to start."

"That's how it is at first," said Giraffe.

Everyone turned. Giraffe almost NEVER spoke.

"That's how it is at first," Giraffe said again, very quietly. "And then one day, she picks you up and looks at you, really looks at you, and she says your name. And you realize it was your name all along. You just didn't know it yet."

The otter blinked her shiny new eyes. "Were you scared? When you were new?"

"Terrified," said Giraffe. And then she went back to being quiet.

Mr. Buttons tapped his wooden block. "Meeting adjourned. Everybody back to positions. And remember — if she wakes up, nobody moves. Not a whisker, not a button, not a beak."

The stuffed animals settled back into their places. Francesca tucked the grocery list under the mattress. Humphrey wedged himself between the pillows. Captain Biscuit thought about the laundry basket but stayed put. Pepper climbed to the top of the pile — for once — and felt very tall.

And the otter, the new one with no name, rolled just a little closer to Opal's hand.

In the middle of the night, Opal stirred. Her fingers brushed against something soft and new. She pulled the otter close without opening her eyes. She mumbled something into the otter's fur.

It might have been a word.

It might have been a name.

The otter couldn't be sure. But she felt something warm bloom inside her stuffing, right where a heart would be, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, the waiting was almost over.

And on the left side of the bed, piled on top of each other, seventeen agenda items resolved, the Committee of Stuffed Animals slept — or did whatever it is stuffed animals do — until the next meeting.

Which would be tomorrow night.

There was always more business to discuss.