Toy Story 3 (4 page)

“1
-2-2-5,” Woody typed on the keyboard. Bonnie’s toys had led him to the computer in the kitchen. Now all Woody had to do was figure out where he was—and where Andy was. “Sy-ca-more. Okay, enter!”

Trixie the triceratops hit the Return key. A map appeared on the screen. Woody couldn’t believe his eyes—Andy’s house was right around the corner!

Woody did a little victory dance, then hurried over to the pet door. “Oh, hey, listen,” he said to the other toys, “if any of you guys ever get to Sunnyside Daycare, you tell ’em Woody made it home!”

Bonnie’s toys gasped. “You came from Sunnyside?” asked Dolly the rag doll.

“But how did you escape?” Trixie asked, wide-eyed.

“Well, it wasn’t easy—” Woody broke off. He was getting a bad feeling. “What do you mean, ‘escape’?”

“Sunnyside is a place of ruin and despair ruled by an evil bear who smells of strawberries!” Mr. Pricklepants told him in a hushed voice.

“Lotso?” Woody asked in disbelief.

“The guy may seem plush and huggable,” Buttercup said. “But inside, he’s a monster!”

Mr. Pricklepants pointed to the windowsill, where a broken toy clown sat, staring out the window. “Chuckles will tell you!”

“Yeah, I knew Lotso,” Chuckles said. His voice was slow and sad. “He was a good toy. A friend. We had the same kid—Daisy. She loved us all, but Lotso was special. They did everything together. You’ve never seen a kid and a toy more in love.”

Woody nodded. He knew what that was like.

“One day,” Chuckles went on, “we took a drive. At a rest stop, we had a little playtime. After lunch, Daisy fell asleep. She never came back. . . .”

The clown explained that Daisy’s parents had driven away without her toys. He and Lotso and Big Baby had waited and waited, but they didn’t return.

So the three toys set off to find her house. “Lotso wouldn’t give up,” Chuckles explained. “It took forever, but we finally made it back to Daisy’s.”

It was nighttime when they got there. Big Baby gave Lotso and Chuckles a boost up to Daisy’s window. But they were too late: Daisy was tucked into bed beside a brand-new pink bear.

“Something changed that day inside Lotso,” Chuckles told Woody. “Something snapped.”

Big Baby wore a heart-shaped pendant with Daisy’s name on it. Lotso was so furious, he ripped the pendant right off Big Baby’s neck. Lotso wouldn’t let Big Baby or Chuckles go inside to Daisy. “She don’t love you no more!” Lotso barked at them. “Now come on!”

“We were lost. Unloved. Unwanted,” Chuckles said. “Then we found Sunnyside. But Lotso wasn’t my friend anymore. He wasn’t anyone’s friend. He took over Sunnyside, rigged the whole system.”

Chuckles reached into his front pocket. He pulled out the plastic pendant that had belonged to Big Baby. It was worn and faded, but Woody could still make out the words
MY HEART BELONGS TO DAISY

“It ain’t right, what Lotso done,” said Chuckles. “New toys—they don’t stand a chance!”

“But my friends are in there!” Woody gasped.

“You can’t go back!” Buttercup insisted.

“Returning now would be suicide,” Mr. Pricklepants told Woody.

“And what about Andy?” Dolly asked.

Trixie nodded. “Isn’t he leaving for college?”

Woody looked around at the toys’ solemn faces. He didn’t know what to do. His friends needed him. If what Chuckles said was true, Woody knew his friends would never get out of Sunnyside without his help. But Andy needed him, too. And if he didn’t get home soon, Andy would be gone . . . forever.

T
he Caterpillar Room was dark and still. Andy’s toys were locked in their cubbies. Buzz the space ranger patrolled the prison.

Bullseye looked at Woody’s hat and whimpered. Jessie reached her hand through the bars to stroke his muzzle. “I miss Woody, too. But he ain’t ever coming back.”

The bathroom door burst open. The toy dump truck tore into the room. Lotso and the gang were in the back, whooping and hollering. The truck screeched to a stop in front of the cubbies.

“Rise and shine, campers!” Lotso sang.

Buzz snapped to attention. “Commander Lotso, sir! All quiet! Nothing to report!”

“Excellent, Lightyear!” Lotso nodded at him. “Come on, we need you back at Star Command!”

Buzz hopped into the back of the truck.

“Wait!” Mrs. Potato Head cried. “What have you done with my husband?”

Big Baby stepped forward. He tossed Mr. Potato Head onto the floor. Mr. Potato Head was covered in sand and shivering. He’d spent the night locked in the Box—the Sunnyside sandbox!

“Y’all get ready,” Lotso called cheerfully. “You got a playdate with destiny.”

Later that morning, Bonnie raced happily into Sunnyside. She hung her backpack on a wall of coat hooks, then rushed off to join her friends.

Woody carefully unzipped the backpack. That morning, he had sneaked inside and stowed away to get back to Sunnyside. Now Woody peered out of the bag. When nobody was looking, he scrambled to the top of a bookshelf. He pushed aside a tile in the ceiling and climbed inside. He crawled across the ceiling, following the noise of toddlers at play.

Woody pulled a tile aside and dropped into a reading loft in a corner of the Caterpillar room. He crept to the edge and peeked down to scan the room below.

A toddler smashed the Potato Heads against the floor. Another swung Jessie around by the hair, letting her crash against a wall. Woody was horrified. It was even worse than he’d imagined!

Ding! Ding!
Woody looked down. It was the toy phone that had rolled over his foot on that first day at Sunnyside. The phone rang again. Then it knocked its receiver off the cradle and rolled back into the shadows.

Confused, Woody picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. “Uh . . . hello?”

“You shouldn’t have come back, cowboy,” the phone said. His voice was harsh and gravelly. “They cracked down since you left. You and your friends aren’t ever gettin’ out of here now.”

“I made it out once,” Woody replied.

“You got lucky once,” the phone retorted. “There’s only one way toys leave this place. . . .” He rolled over to the window and gestured to Woody to see for himself. Woody peered out. In the yard, a janitor was stuffing garbage bags into a trash chute. There was a broken toy train in the trash. It was getting tossed out with the rest of the garbage.

“Poor fella,” the phone said. “Trash truck comes at dawn. Then it’s off to the dump.”

Woody shuddered. “Look, I appreciate your concern, old-timer. But we have a kid waiting for us. Now, we’re leaving, one way or another. If you’d help us, I’d sure be grateful.”

The phone sighed. “Well, if you’re gonna get out, first thing you gotta get through is the doors.” Woody thought about the many doors—to the playground, the classroom, the front entrance. “Locked every night, inside and out,” the phone said. “Keys are left on a hook in the office.”

Woody nodded. “Got it. What else?”

“Lotso has trucks patrolling all night long,” the phone explained. “Hallway. Lobby. Playground.”

Woody wasn’t worried about that. “What about the wall?” he asked.

“Eight feet high. Cinder block. No way through it.”

Woody frowned. “That’s it? Doesn’t seem so bad.”

“It’s not,” the phone agreed. “Your real problem is the Monkey.”

The Monkey. Woody remembered a monkey—it had been at the front desk when Andy’s mom first walked into the daycare center. It had cymbals, wide eyes, and a creepy grinning face.

The phone explained how the Monkey watched the security monitors all night long. “He sees everything. Classrooms. Hallways. Even the playground.” Whenever the Monkey saw a toy trying to escape, he would screech and bang his cymbals loudly enough for all of Sunnyside to hear. The patrol trucks would race to stop the toy. “You can unlock doors, sneak past guards, climb the wall, but if you don’t take out that monkey, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Woody thanked the phone for his help just as a teacher called for recess. Woody watched as the toddlers dropped the toys and rushed outside.

“Pssst!” Woody whispered when they were gone. “Pssst! Hey, guys!”

“Woody?” Jessie cried. She rushed over to him. The others were right behind her.

“You’re alive!” Slinky cheered.

“Course I’m alive— Hey, my hat!” Woody said, taking his hat from trusty Bullseye’s mouth. He looked around. “Wait—where’s Buzz?”

“Lotso did something to him!” Rex exclaimed.
“He thinks he’s the real Buzz Lightyear!” Slinky added.

“Oh, no,” Woody groaned.

“Woody, we were wrong to leave Andy,” Jessie told him. She looked down at the ground. “I was wrong.”

Woody shook his head. “It’s my fault for leaving you guys. From now on, we stick together.”

The toys all grinned, glad to have Woody back.

“But Andy’s leaving for college!” Slinky said suddenly.

Jessie gasped. “We gotta get you home before Andy leaves tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow?” Hamm repeated. “But that means—”

Woody nodded. “It means we’re busting out of here tonight.”