Thunder's Storm (Raggedy Ann & Andy Fanfiction)

Chapter 6

"Get back here you evil doer!" Shouted Andy, chasing after a runaway Thunder. "You'll never catch me alive!" Thunder hollered back, quickly growing the distance between him and his pursuer. He may be half the size of Andy but he was at least twice as fast, and way more agile, partly due to the fact that Andy was a rag doll and just naturally floppy and clumsy. Thunder maneuvered around each obstacle in his way, making sharp turns around and tight corners, he bounded up a pile of loosely stacked blocks up onto the roof of the doll house. Losing the little balance they had, the stack of blocks came crashing down towards Andy who braced for impact, getting completely buried by the tumbling toys. "Ha! Take that copper!" Thunder shouted down to the pile of wood, he stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry mockingly. "What is all that racket?" Babette demanded, storming out to the balcony. "Some of us are trying to get their beauty sleep!" She looked over to the culprit. Thunder flattened his ears in shame, "Sorry Madame Babette." He apologized sheepishly. "Go, get out of here! Tu es un mauvais chien!" The French doll told him off, he quickly scrambled to get away and jumped down onto the pile of blocks below to avoid any more of her scolding. "Je ne suis pas un chien." Thunder grumbled in thick Canadian French under his breath once Babette went back inside. Suddenly he felt the blocks under his paws begin to rumble and shift, was this an earthquake? Andy then burst out of the rubble and tackled his target from behind, "Gottcha!" he yelled triumphantly as he put Thunder into a headlock and gave him a hearty knuckle sandwich. "Ahhh! No! Grrr!" Desperate to escape his captors iron grip Thunder started play biting on Andy's arm, ripping up a bit of his sleeve with his sharp canines by accident. "Alright, that's quite enough for today you two, break it up." Ann said, walking over to the two boys. "Marcella is gonna be home from school soon so you better clean up the mess you made." "Awwww." The two of them let out simultaneously, disappointed that their play time was over. "Come on now, chop chop," Ann encouraged, "The sooner it's done, the sooner you can rest." "Alright, alright, we hear ya." Andy released Thunder from his hold. "I don't see why I should have to clean it up when it was your fault it happened." He complained as he started pushing some blocks back into a pile. "You're just jealous that I was able to have such a sweet getaway." Thunder bragged, stacking the colourful wooden shapes on top of each other. "Yeah well you won't get away that easy next time." Andy promised, giving Thunder a determined look. "Really eh? I'd love to see it, doll face." The yellow plushie teased with a wink, pushing the rest of the blocks towards the base of the pile. They both made sure that the stack was more secure than it was when they found it, to ensure that they wouldn't be stuck on clean up duty again. "Well what do we do now?" Thunder asked, looking over to Andy for suggestions. "I don't know," He looked around, "Maybe while we're at it we should put away some of those coloured pencils over there." Andy pointed out the colouring area where there were papers and art supplies scattered everywhere. "Bleh, I suppose so." Thunder kept his belly aching to himself as they both headed over and started picking up the loose pencils and putting back into the tin. As Thunder was doing his work he noticed something that caught his eye, a sliver pencil crayon that was sharpened to a fine point. Still in a playful mood he smirked, as he knew exactly what to do with it. Picking it up in his jaws he struck an attack pose and pointed it at Andy, "En-garde!" At first taken by surprise, Andy quickly caught on to what Thunder was playing at. "Oh, do you really think you're a worthy enough opponent to duel with me, huh?" Picking up his own sharpened pencil he pointed his right at the tip of his opponents. "On guard!" Andy shouted, and their sword fight began, moving back and forth, whacking the pencils together, trying to land a solid hit on the other attacker. Across the room next to the bookshelves, Ann and the Camel were huddled up next to each other reading peacefully. Hearing the commotion Camel tore his eyes away from the novel and looked over to where the noise was coming from. "Oh goodness! Annie, should they be doing that?" He nudged his friend, getting her attention. Ann looked to where Camel was pointing, her button eyes widened in shock at what she saw. "Oh no! Camel, we gotta stop them, they could really hurt themselves!" Ann scrambled to get up, tripping a bit over her dress, she and the Camel went running over to stop the boys before an accident happened. "Stop you two, you'll poke somebody's eye out!" She yelled, panicked. "Huh?" Andy turned his head to look over at his sister. Distracted by Ann's call Thunder took a step forward, not seeing the stray crayon that lied before him, his paw stepped on it causing him to lose balance and trip, the force sending it flying towards Andy, hitting him in the chest. "Oh no, I can't look." Ann covered her eyes as she saw Thunder and Andy crash into each other, their pointed weapons taking aim. Rrrrrrriiipppp! She heard the sickening sound of fabric being torn apart, opening her eyes to see the damage she ran over to her brothers side. The pencil had sliced his shoulder clean off, his arm barely holding on by the threads of his shirt sleeve. "Oh my goodness, Andy are you ok?" She grabbed him by the arm that was still intact and helped him sit up. "Y-yea I think so." He stammered, taking his hat off and rubbing his head, he must have hit it during the fall. "Camel go get the sewing kit." Ann ordered, picking up Andy's severed arm and holding back to the socket. "Sure thing." The Camel trotted away obeying Ann's orders. "I'm alright Annie, promise. I've had worse than this." Andy tried to reassure her. Ann give him a disappointed look, "Andrew you should know better than this, what if-" "GGGAAAHHH!!!" A blood curdling scream cut her off, making both siblings nearly jump out of their skins. They whipped their heads around, only to see Thunder with a horrified look on his face. From the top of his belly all the way up to his neck he was ripped open, his white cotton stuffing puffing out of him. While toy's didn't feel pain the same way as humans do, no matter who you are, pain or not, seeing your innards spewing out of your body is enough to send anyone one into shock. The siblings rushed over to his side. "Thunder calm down, you're going to be alright." Ann tried to assure him holding the panicked plushes paw. "H-How do y'all know! Ain't n-no way a rip that big can be fixed!" Thunder was nearly hyperventilating, he felt an uncontrollable urge to breathe extra fast from having his torso sliced apart. "Try to get a hold of yourself." Andy put his remaining hand onto Thunder's chest, holding some of the stuffing in place. "If you don't stop moving around so much, you'll lose half your stuffing." He warned. Heeding his warning, Thunder did his best not to squirm, trying to calm himself down and slow his breathing. The Camel soon returned with the sewing kit, handing it over to Ann. She opened the lid and reached in pulling out a small needle and a spool of thread. "Now we don't have any yellow so white will have to do." She explained as she pulled a length of thread and slid it through the needle's eye, pulling it though about half way then tying the two ends of the thread together. "Now this may feel a tad uncomfortable, but I promise it won't hurt, ok?" Thunder was still very uneasy but he nodded, trusting that Ann knew what she was doing. "Alright then, here I go." She slowly started to stitch his chest back together, Andy holding and pushing Thunders stuffing out of her way as to not get caught in the thread. The feeling of the needle and thread sliding in and out of his fabric sent shivers down Thunders spine and he closed his eyes tight so he didn't have to watch. Ann worked her way up to Thunders neck, tying the thread into a tight knot once she reached the end of the rip. "Phew, all done!" She declared victoriously as she admired her work. The stitches weren't 100% even, but what was most important was that they were strong, it would take quite a large amount of force to rip them back open. Thunder opened his eyes and put a paw over his chest, running it over the tear he could just barely feel the little bumps of thread that were now holding him together. "See, it's like it never happened." Andy comforted, "There was no need to make such a big fuss." Thunder let out a big sigh of relief, he wrapped an arm around each rag doll and pulled them in close for a hug, "Thank you two so much, I don't know what I would've done without cha," Letting them go he sat down, looking at the floor. "And I'm sorry for getting so upset, it's just... That was my first time ripping." "Oh I understand," Ann sympathized, "Especially with a tear that big. I remember the first time my stitches came undone I was just as scared as you were." Andy chuckled, "I remember that, you were so worried that Dorothy wasn't gonna play with you again." "Who's Dorothy?" Thunder asked. "Oh Dorothy was Marcella's grandmother." Ann answered, threading a new needle. "Her great grandmother was the one who made us, and we've been passed down from her to Alice, who was Marcella's mother, and now down to Marcella herself." She explained as she started working on putting Andy's arm back on. "Geez, eh," Thunder exclaimed, "I knew y'alls must've been old, but I didn't think y'all would be THAT old." Ann giggled, "I never really thought of it that way. But it's been so long I don't even remember what the years were back then." "Me neither," Andy added in, "Probably for the best that they're forgotten." Raising her brothers arm up as she worked for a better angle, she asked, "What about you Thunder? How were you made?" Thunder looked over at her, watching her tediously sew . "Oh I wasn't made any way special like you guys, I was manufactured and sold in a happy meal at some fast food joint, around 2004 I believe." "Golly, is that how all toys are made nowadays?" Ann wondered. "I don't think so," He shook his head, "but that's where me and all of my family came from." Thunder told her as she finished her last couple of stitches on Andy's arm. She tied a sturdy knot and let him go. "Well Andy, how's that feel?" He moved and flexed his reattached arm, and gave her a big thumbs up. "Good as new!" he replied smiling. "I should probably fix these rips in your shirt sleeve too, we don't want Marcella noticing them." Speaking of the devil, the toys heard the thumping footsteps of their little girl racing up the stairs, quickly Ann threw the sewing supplies back into the kit and pushed it away, collapsing into a pile on the floor right as Marcella burst through the door. "I'm back toys! Did you miss me?"