Toy Story 3 (5 page)

L
ater that night, Andy’s toys watched wearily from behind bars in their cubby prison as Ken started his roll call. Big Baby and Buzz stood guard nearby.

“Cowgirl,” Ken called as he walked down the line of cubbies.

“Here,” Jessie growled.

“Horse.”

Bullseye whinnied.

Ken kept calling out names, unaware that Woody was watching through a crack in the ceiling tiles.

“Potato Head,” Ken called. “Potato Head?”

Buzz backed up and peered into Mr. Potato Head’s cubby. He saw a potato-shaped lump lying under a blanket.

“Hey! Tuberous root man!” Buzz shouted. “Wake up!” When Buzz rattled the bars, a
real
potato rolled out from beneath the blanket.

“Impossible!” Buzz cried. He looked around the room and spotted Mr. Potato Head. He was at the window, struggling with the lock. “Hey!”

Buzz and Ken raced after him. Big Baby followed.

Woody smiled—the first part of the plan had worked! Once Buzz, Ken, and Big Baby were distracted, Woody leaned out from his hiding place in the ceiling. He used a bent pipe cleaner to snag the clothesline where the kids’ paintings were hung.

Meanwhile, Mr. Potato Head raced to the bathroom door, but it was locked tight. Buzz, Ken, and Big Baby surrounded him.

“You’re turning out to be quite the troublemaker, aren’t you?” Ken snarled.

Slinky slipped out of his cubby, unseen. He reached the middle of the room just as Woody bounced down on the clothesline. The cowboy grabbed his friend and bounced back up. Woody and Slinky crept into the space above the ceiling tiles.

As the final insult, Mr. Potato Head kicked Ken in the shin. Ken yelped and hopped up and down. “Totally! Not! Cool!” He looked up at Big Baby. “Take him back to the Box!”

Big Baby grabbed Mr. Potato Head and lifted him off the ground. “No!” Mr. Potato Head shouted. “No! Not the Box! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Woody and Slinky watched as Big Baby carried Mr. Potato Head away. Woody was impressed. That part of the plan had gone off without a hitch. He’d never realized that Mr. Potato Head was such a good actor.

Below them in the Caterpillar Room, Ken clapped Buzz on the back. “Good work, Lightyear! Resume your, uh, space guy thingy.”

Buzz saluted. “Yes, sir, well-groomed man!”

Ken turned to go, but Barbie called him back. “Ken?”

Ken walked over to her cubby. “What do you want?”

“I can’t take it here, Ken!” Barbie sniffled, starting to cry. “I want to go to the Butterfly Room! With you!”

Ken frowned. “Yeah, well, you should’ve thought of that yesterday.”

“I was wrong!” Barbie looked at him with huge, tear-filled blue eyes. “I want to be with you, Ken!” She broke down, sobbing.

“Darn it, Barbie!” Ken said. “Okay, but things are complicated around here. You’ve got to do what I say!”

“I will, Ken!” Barbie smiled at him gratefully. “I promise!”

Ken yanked open the cubby. The rest of Andy’s toys watched as Barbie climbed out, leaving them behind.

Nobody tried to stop her. It was part of the plan.

Ken took Barbie back to his dollhouse in the Butterfly Room. They rode the elevator up to the living room, where racks and racks of clothes lined the walls.

“Oh, wow!” Barbie started flipping through the racks. “Look at all your clothes! Tennis whites! Mission to Mars!” She marveled at the white tennis clothes and the space costume, then pulled out a groovy suit. “Vintage Disco!”

Ken sighed. “No one appreciates clothes here, Barbie.” He shook his head sadly. “No one.”

Barbie put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Ken, would you model a few outfits for me?”

Ken gaped at her. Obviously, no one had ever asked him that before.

He grabbed a few outfits and ducked into a changing room. He modeled the sixties suit with the skinny tie, the lederhosen, the scuba gear, the fringed vest. He even put on a radical eighties outfit and showed her some of his best dance moves.

Barbie laughed and applauded.

Ken grinned at her. Barbie watched as he hurried to the racks for more clothes. She smiled, knowing that this could keep him busy for a long time.

Outside on the playground, Mr. Potato Head begged Big Baby not to lock him in the Box. But Big Baby didn’t care. He simply tossed Mr. Potato Head in and shut the lid.

Mr. Potato Head waited until he heard Big Baby walk away. Then he found a knot in the wooden side of the sandbox. He managed to pop it out. He put his eye in his hand and poked it through the hole. The eye looked around. All clear.

One by one, Mr. Potato Head tossed his parts through the hole. Woody’s plan was going perfectly.

Leaving the Caterpillar Room, Woody and Slinky Dog crawled through the ceiling until they were over the front desk. Woody pulled back the ceiling tile. He and Slinky were right above the Monkey. He was staring at the video screen with wide eyes.

Holding Woody’s ankles, Slinky lowered him headfirst toward the Monkey. Closer . . . closer . . .

Screech!
Suddenly, the Monkey spun around and let out a deafening scream!

Slinky was so surprised that he slipped. He and Woody crashed onto the Monkey. They knocked the microphone for the building’s intercom to the floor. With a hiss, the Monkey leaped off the desk, heading for the microphone. Woody lunged after him.

Woody grabbed the Monkey, but the Monkey bashed Woody’s head between his cymbals.
Crash
!

“Go!” Woody shouted between crashes. “Get!”
Crash
!

“The!”
Crash!
“Tape!”

Slinky dashed across the desk. He grabbed the end of a roll of tape with his teeth and rushed back to Woody. Together they managed to wind the tape around the Monkey. They used practically the whole roll—they even taped over the Monkey’s mouth.

Slinky opened a desk drawer, and Woody dropped the Monkey inside.

“Go get the key!” Slinky said.

Woody dashed to the bulletin board. He found the key buried underneath some papers. “Bingo!”

Slinky climbed back onto the desk. He moved the security camera’s joystick from side to side.

In the Caterpillar Room, Jessie and Bullseye were watching the wall-mounted camera. It moved back and forth—that was Slinky’s signal. “Yodel-lay-hee-hoo!” Jessie whispered.

Hamm looked at Rex. That was their cue.

“Hey!” Hamm shouted, playing his part. “What do you think you’re doing? Keep your hands off of my stuff!”

Rex put up his fists. “Make a move, Porky!”

Hamm jumped on Rex. The two toys grappled.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Buzz shouted. “No fighting! Break it up!” He opened the cubby. Hamm and Rex tumbled out.

“Take that, Walnut Brain!” Hamm shouted at Rex as he bopped him on the head. “No wonder you’re extinct!”

While Buzz was distracted, trying to break up the fake fight, Jessie and Bullseye climbed up to the shelf overhead.

“Hey, you can’t hit each other!” Buzz pulled the two toys apart. “That’s my job!”

“Yoo-hoo!” Jessie called. When Buzz looked up, Jessie and Bullseye leaped from the shelf and slammed a clear plastic storage bin over him. Hamm and Rex hopped on top of the bin, pinning it to the floor.

“Help!” Buzz shouted, but his voice was muffled by the plastic. “Prison riot!”

Buzz charged at the side of the bin, but Hamm and Rex held it down. The bin stayed put.

Bullseye went over to a locker and pulled out a lunch box. Jessie opened it and grabbed a tortilla from inside. She slid it under the door that led to the playground. Then she knocked on the door and ran off.

Mr. Potato Head’s ear heard the knock. His hand hopped over to the tortilla and dragged it back into the darkness. Then the arm stuck itself into the tortilla. The other arm did the same. Eyes, nose, ears, feet, and even the mustache all attached themselves to the flat bread.

Mr. Tortilla Head stood up. He was a little wobbly— the bread was not as solid as a potato, but it would do. He strode off toward the playground.

Meanwhile, back in the dollhouse, Ken was showing off his karate outfit.
“Hai-ya! Wah! Wha-a-a!”
he cried as he demonstrated his martial arts moves. He stopped. “Uh, Barbie?”

She had disappeared. Ken looked around.

Suddenly, Barbie jumped out from behind a clothes rack and tackled Ken, pinning him to the floor. “I don’t have time for games, Ken,” she snarled. “What did Lotso do to Buzz, and how do we get him back to normal?”

“You can’t make me talk!” Ken cried.

It didn’t take long for Barbie to rope him to a paddle with the paddle-ball string. Barbie knew that the only way to get information from Ken was to go after the thing he loved best—his clothes.

“Let’s see,” Barbie said as she sorted through the tidy racks. “Hawaiian surf trunks.” Barbie pulled them out and heartlessly ripped them apart.

“Oh!” Ken cried out as if she’d torn his heart in two. “Barbie, those were vintage!” He took a deep breath. “It’s okay! All right, go ahead, rip them—I don’t care. They’re a dime a dozen!”

Barbie pulled out a sequined suit. “Ooh! Glitter tux!”
Rip!
She tore it in half.

Ken groaned as she tossed the pieces at him. “Who cares? Who cares? Sequins are tacky! Who cares?”

Barbie picked up a green jacket with a high collar.

“Barbie!” Ken begged. “No, please—not the Nehru!”

“This is from, what—1967?” Barbie smiled slightly.

“The Groovy Formal Collection, yes!” Ken gasped. He could hardly breathe.

“What a shame,” Barbie said, picking at the jacket’s seams.

A stitch popped. Then another. It was too much for Ken. “There’s an instruction manual!” he cried. “Lotso switched Buzz to Demo Mode!”

Barbie held Ken in her steely gaze. “Where’s that manual?”

Back in the office, Woody poked his head out the door. A security truck patrolled the hall. Woody waited for it to pass. Then he signaled Slinky Dog, who loaded a slingshot. Slinky fired the key across the hall and under the door of the Caterpillar Room.

Jessie was waiting. She stopped the key with her boot, then picked it up.

Outside, Mr. Tortilla Head struggled to climb onto a tricycle. From the handlebars, he pulled himself onto a window ledge. He looked down into the Butterfly Room. Lotso was asleep.

Mr. Tortilla Head reached for the trike’s mirror. He caught a moonbeam and flashed the light toward the Caterpillar Room.

Jessie saw the signal. She gave Mrs. Potato Head the sign, and Mrs. Potato Head unlocked the door.

Jessie, Bullseye, Mrs. Potato Head, and the Aliens slipped outside. They sneaked quietly onto the playground. They had another mission to complete.

Mr. Tortilla Head was still on the ledge when he came face to face with a pigeon. The pigeon began pecking at his tortilla.

Mr. Tortilla Head swatted at the bird. It grabbed him and dragged him along the ledge. Finally, Mr. Tortilla Head landed a good, solid kick. The bird pecked him again, then flew off.

“Yeah, fly away, ya coward!” Mr. Tortilla Head shook his fist. Suddenly, he fell to the ground as the tortilla split into pieces. There wasn’t enough tortilla left to keep him together! “Well, that’s great!”

But there was enough tortilla to hold an eye and an arm together. That part got up and looked around. In a corner of the playground was a small vegetable garden.

The eye grew wide. Vegetables! Now, that was more like it.

Out on the playground, Jessie and the Aliens managed to get Mr. Potato Head’s body out of the sandbox. Meanwhile, Barbie had dressed up in Ken’s space suit and fooled the Bookworm into handing over the Buzz Lightyear manual. As soon as she had it, she hurried to meet up with Woody.

Back in the Caterpillar Room, Rex and Hamm were guarding Buzz when Woody, Slinky, and Barbie dropped out of the ceiling.

“Woody!” cried Rex.

When Rex and Hamm stepped to the edge of the bin to greet Woody, Buzz saw his chance. He charged against the bin, knocking Rex and Hamm off balance. They fell over the edge, giving Buzz the chance to escape.

“Stop him!” Woody cried. “Don’t let him get out!”

Buzz raced toward the door, but Hamm and Rex tackled him. Barbie rushed over with the manual.

“Quick,” Woody said, “open his back! There’s a switch!”

“Unhand me, Zurg scum!” Buzz shouted as they opened his compartment. “The galactic courts will show you no mercy!”

Woody flipped the switch on Buzz’s back, but nothing happened. “It’s not working! Why’s it not working? Where’s the manual?” he cried.

Hamm flipped through the booklet. “Here we go! There should be a little hole under the switch!”

“Little hole.” Woody nodded. “Got it!”

“‘To reset your Buzz Lightyear,’” Hamm read from the manual, “‘insert paper clip.’”

There wasn’t a paper clip in sight. “Rex,” Woody cried, “your finger!”

“Oh!” Rex looked down. His finger was definitely small enough! He stuck it into the Reset hole.

Woody looked up at Hamm. “Okay, now what?”

“All right, let’s see.” Hamm turned back to the manual. “‘Caution: Do not hold button for more than five seconds.’”

Beep!
Buzz fell facedown onto the floor.

Everyone stared at Rex. “It’s not my fault!” the dinosaur cried.