“Do you want something or not?” asked the skein of yarn through the window. She let out a little groan. “I’m about to go on break.”

  “Already?” asked Emma. “You just opened!”

  The skein of yarn shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’ll have schnitzel,” said Louise.

  “Me too,” said Gustav.

  “There isn’t any,” said the skein of yarn. “I just have water and lettuce.”

  “How come?” asked Emma.

  “Because models don’t eat anything else,” said the skein of yarn. “You saw that. Actually, I can even scrimp on the lettuce.”

  “But what smells so good here?” asked Gustav, sounding forlorn.

  “My own food.” The skein of yarn winked slyly and was just about to shut the window when Gustav cried: “Stop!” and shoved his fist in. “We’re hungry!”

  Emma had never seen him so angry.

  “Pooh! That’s what they all say. That doesn’t matter,” argued the skein of yarn.

  Gustav shoved his face close to her. “Do you know that right here in this area there are two police officers running around? Very clever guys. They’re looking for a nonbutton, one that’s a child. Are you a child, perhaps?”

  “Wh . . . What?” stammered the skein of yarn. “What kind of thing? I’m not a child. Whatever that is.”

  “Oh, really?” asked Gustav. “Should I just call the two police officers?”

  “No! No!” shrieked the skein of yarn. “Fine. Here, have something!” She handed Gustav a plate.

  “Schnitzel,” he said, triumphantly. “I knew that’s what I smelled.” Miffed, the skein of yarn slammed her window shut.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Louise.

  “What? That the skein of yarn didn’t want to give us anything to eat?” Emma turned to Louise.

  “No,” she said dreamily. “The two models thought my hat was chic. They said I could get into the castle wearing it. That can mean only one thing, right?”

  “This is delicious,” grunted Gustav.

  “No, not delicious,” said Louise. Her eyes lit up. “It means that I’m valuable! Don’t you agree?”

  THE FAKE COWBOY

  Emma, Louise, and Gustav wandered along the crocheted street for some time. Here and there were holes in the pattern, and they stumbled into them if they weren’t paying attention. Emma got her shoe tangled up in a loose piece of wool and fell. It didn’t hurt a bit, though; it was a little like slipping on a rug.

  “Just keep going straight, that’s what both of them said.” Louise was full of energy since the models had praised her hat.

  “Not so fast,” gasped Gustav. “We don’t have to rush that much.”

  “Oh, yes we do,” retorted Louise. “Because it’s almost afternoon, and we haven’t met a single button since that silly snack bar. If we don’t find a town or something by evening, we’ll have to spend the night on this crocheted road, whether we want to or not.”

  Gustav made a long face, and Emma didn’t have the slightest desire to spend the night on the street either, even if it did have such a pretty pattern. And besides, the crocheted road was coming to an end. Now, they were walking on sand; it was going uphill, and there were strange objects lining the street. Cacti? No, these were not real cacti; they were poison-green round pincushions with numerous pins stuck in them.

  They nodded indifferently as Emma and her companions walked by.

  “Ouch!” said Louise. She had accidentally stepped too close to a cactus pincushion.

  “Just watch out,” one of the needles piped up.

  “Psst,” whispered Gustav suddenly. “Do you hear that?”

  They stopped and listened. It sounded like loud singing, very close by. Emma climbed onto a low velvety rock right in front of her and stuck out her head.

  “There!” she shouted, surprised. She peered down into a little valley, where a group of brown metal buttons was sitting around a campfire. They were wearing fringed leather vests, cowboy hats, and boots with spurs.

  “Play it again, Jesse,” they bellowed, at which point one of the buttons blew into his harmonica and stamped his foot to the beat.

  Old cowboy Jefferson,

  on a ranch did dwell.

  But he guzzled so much whiskey

  that the ranch did not do well.

  Hey, the ranch did not do well.

  The metal buttons jumped up during the last line, danced boisterously around the flickering fire, boxed with their fists in the air, and swung a lasso made of darning cotton. Nearby, a grasshopper grazed, wearing an embroidered saddle they had buckled onto him.

  “What kind of characters are those?” asked Louise.

  “Outlaws,” murmured Gustav.

  “You mean, they break the law?” asked Emma.

  “Yes. Real Wild West guys.” Feeling uneasy, Gustav watched the raucous mob. One of the buttons tripped while he was dancing and landed flat on his face. To Emma’s surprise he broke out in tears.

  “Sniveling sissy!” a half-rusted button yelled at him. “If you had blubbered like that panning for gold on the Klondike River, they’d have made mush out of you!”

  “Plastic mush!” called another.

  “Leave him alone. He was never a real cowboy.” A copper button with a greenish face and a star embossed on his stomach waved his hand contemptuously. “He’s never swung a real lasso. He was just on an imitation leather vest in the store! Humph! C’mon, go home to your girly-vest!” He laughed loudly, took the lasso from his hip, and flung it wildly in the air.

  Emma, Louise, and Gustav watched the lasso fly by in amazement.

  The fake cowboy button was still lying on the ground, sobbing loudly. “. . . Can’t help it . . . on sale . . . ”

  Emma couldn’t understand any more. She felt bad for the cowboy, even though she thought he could have shown a little more spunk.

  “Another song!” somebody hollered.

  But Jesse, who had the harmonica, had fallen asleep, and the others couldn’t wake him up, no matter how much they jostled and tugged on him.

  “Then Walter should sing a song,” the star button decided.

  With a malicious grin, he turned back to the poor fake cowboy button, who was crawling around on the ground looking for his glasses.

  “I can’t sing,” he whimpered. “I can’t do anything. I’m not even made out of metal, even if I look real, just plastic. It was a big sale, I . . . ”

  “Shut up!” barked the star button. “You sing something now. Move it!”

  “Sh . . . Sh . . . She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes,” croaked poor Walter desperately.

  Emma couldn’t stand it anymore. She jumped up and headed toward the cowboys.

  “Don’t!” squawked Gustav. “Have you gone crazy?”

  “Hey, look,” one of them said. The cowboy buttons gaped at Emma, who had appeared like a ghost from behind a cactus.

  “What the heck is that?” whispered the star button. “An Indian?”

  “I’m a child,” Emma retorted rather sharply. “And you should be ashamed of yourselves for picking on Walter like that. If you want a song, then why don’t you sing one yourselves?”

  “Because we don’t know any. We only know the song about old Cowboy Jefferson. Nothing else,” said the star button, befuddled.

  “And why not?” Emma put her hands on her hips. “Didn’t you learn any songs in school?”

  The buttons thought it over for a while. Walter stood up and knocked the dust from his pants.

  “We never went to school,” somebody answered at last. “We’ve always just been cowboys.”

  “Cowboys?” Emma looked at them skeptically.

  “Gold Rush, California, 1849,” said the star button with pride. “My owner was sheriff at first, and then the richest cowboy in the Wild West.”

  “I was there too,” yelled the rusty one. “I was sewn on the first blue jeans. My sister was a cute little copper rivet; later, she emigrated to Colorado. Those were the days.” He stared off at the sunset, a faraway look in his eyes. The others murmured their approval.

  “And you never sang anything there?” asked Emma.

  The buttons shook their heads. “We always drank so danged much whiskey. We can’t remember anymore.”

  “Now,” said Emma, more agreeable, “I can teach you a few songs. But first you have to promise me that you’ll leave poor Walter in peace and not harm me or my friends.”

  “And how are we supposed to know that you won’t turn us in to the police?” asked the star button.

  “Because we are wanted by the police,” said Gustav in a stern voice.

  Unnoticed, he had come closer and was pulling the reluctant Louise by the arm behind. “We want to go to the lake and then to the castle.”

  “To the castle? What do you want there? That’s where all those stuck-up jerks live,” said Jesse, who had awakened in the meantime.

  Walter nudged him. “There’s a lady here, don’t you see that?” He pointed at Louise, who was turning even redder than before.

  “We just want to get there,” retorted Gustav. That Constance was his reason was something he kept to himself. It didn’t look like the cowboys understood much about love.

  “A song.” The husky request resounded from all sides. The grass-hopper whinnied in alarm.

  Emma sat down on the ground. “Well, all right,” she began. “First, there’s ‘Aunt Lucky from Kentucky’ and then ‘Oh, Susanna’ or even ‘Oh My Darling, Clementine.’”

  “Could you also sing ‘Oh My Darling Constance’?” Gustav asked.

  Emma nodded.

  Louise, in the meantime, had settled down next to Walter and was stroking his hand. “Don’t worry about being made of plastic,” she consoled him. “Maybe it will be a very valuable material someday. Who knows? The world changes so quickly.” Then she joined Emma in the song; and after a while cheerful singing rang out from every mouth through the little valley.

  The cowboys let Emma and her friends spend the night around their campfire, but, despite how tired Emma was, she couldn’t fall asleep for some time. This was mainly because two cowboy buttons very near her were fighting about whether or not their lives had changed since the invention of the zipper. And furthermore, Louise chatted with Walter late into the night. The poor guy had suffered his whole life long, first from being poorly sewn onto a cheap imitation leather vest, and then from immediately falling off.

  “Everything about me is shabby and unimportant,” he whined in a low voice.

  Louise, despite everything, found this preferable to her life as a spare button.

  Emma gave a little sigh of frustration. The buttons’ problems seemed ridiculously small compared to her own problem: Would she ever find her way back home?

  Finally, she fell into an uneasy sleep.

  NASTY MERMAIDS

  The next day, the cowboys accompanied Emma, Louise, and Gustav to Western Town. It was teeming with wild metal buttons, all looking a bit ragged and unwashed. From a bar came the sounds of raucous caterwauling and laughing.

  “This must be the town Mimi and Kitty mentioned. Where the people have such bad taste,” murmured Gustav. He cast a sidelong glance at a stubbly-bearded silver rivet wearing dusty boots and a holey vest, who was lolling on a wooden bench in front of the saloon, smoking a pipe.

  Somebody dumped a pail of water out a window onto a button who was walking by. In a flash, he picked up a rotten apple from the ground and threw it toward the window. Something clanked.

  “I don’t think the people here care at all if you’re valuable or not,” whispered Louise.

  “Hey, look,” shouted Emma, momentarily surprised.

  The three friends could hardly believe their eyes. A little ahead of them were the paper clip and the coin from the hippie commune! They were fastening a sign over a store: Office and Sewing Supplies for the Modern Cowboy.

  “Hello!” Emma called and waved at them.

  “Well, what a coincidence,” shouted the paper clip excitedly.

  “So, you managed to escape too? You’re safe from the police here; they never come to this town. My friend the coin and I have found a new home here. It doesn’t matter to the cowboys if you’re a button or not. We’re just opening our store. Do you need anything?”

  Emma turned to look at her friends. “I don’t think so. We really just want to get to the castle.”

  The coin’s eyes widened in horror. “To the castle? Why? There are so many police there! Better stay here. You could work in our store,” he said, turning to Emma.

  The paper clip nodded. “As a sales clerk. I take care of the ads, and the coin does the finances. What do you think?”

  Emma felt her heart warm. What a friendly offer. But then she shook her head. “That’s very kind, but I have to get back to my mother.”

  “Do you know how to get to the castle? Or at least to the lake?” Louise broke in impatiently. “If there’s any way to do it, I’d like to get out of this town before sundown. I really don’t like the way some people here are looking at my hat!”

  In fact, quite a number of cowboy buttons had stopped, nudging their pals and pointing to the red stone.

  The coin made an apologetic face. “I’m sorry; I have no idea where to find either the castle or the lake.”

  “But I do,” came the sound of a shaking voice behind them.

  They turned around and caught sight of Walter, the fake cowboy button, who was standing bashfully in front of the store. Hastily, he jumped to the side, just as a scuffed leather button came staggering by and almost knocked him over.

  “Walter,” said Louise happily.

  “I kn . . . kn . . . know the way to the castle,” said Walter, looking at his boots, which were made of plastic as well.

  Louise twisted her hat back and forth coyly, until it almost fell off.

  “Wonderful,” said Emma. “Absolutely wonderful. Maybe you could come with us and show us the way?”

  Walter was so happy that his plastic face cracked a little.

  “There’s nothing I would rather do,” he said.

  Following Walter, they waved to the coin and the paper clip one last time and trudged out of town single file along a road of tattered corduroy.

  Emma thought about whether her aunt and uncle had noticed that she had disappeared. Would they look for her? Or, would her uncle simply be happy to have one less child to see? She banged into Gustav because Walter had come to a halt.

  “There it is,” he said solemnly and pointed downward. A glistening gray lake extended as far as the eye could see. Little waves rippled with a rustling sound onto a shore of thin, light green fabric. Emma stuck her head out. It looked like a lake, and yet . . . .

  She swiftly ran down to touch the water. Bewildered, she looked up.

  “Silk,” she said. “The lake is made of soft, cool, flowing silk! How can that be?”

  “Yeah, well, what should it be made of?” asked Walter, astonished.

  “Water,” answered Emma. “Lakes are normally made of water.”

  “Water?” squealed Louise, shocked. “But that’s not good for your skin at all! It’ll make you rust!”

  Emma hadn’t even considered that. “Now, that may be—but how are you supposed to swim through silk? That’s impossible.”

  Louise shrugged her shoulders. They all stared at the languid gray mass that fluttered softly back and forth in the wind.

  “Could we run through it?” asked Gustav. “Hopefully we all have regular shoes on?”

  Emma ran a few steps into the lake, but to her bewilderment, she sank in, just like in a lake made of water.

  “I don’t think this will work.” Dejected, she looked around.

  “There!” she shouted in relief. “There’s a boat!”

  And, in fact, a short distance away there was a boat rocking in the silk sea. It was made from a half empty spool of thread. It was tied to a little pier and seemed to be asleep.

  “Hurray!” Walter cried and jumped onto the pier in order to bring the boat in. Then he climbed in carefully.

  “Watch out,” droned the lethargic spool. “I’m not so young anymore. Do you have buttons with you? Otherwise I can’t go.”

  “We do. Some very pretty ones, even.” Walter looked over at Louise quickly.

  Gustav, Emma, and Louise squeezed in, almost capsizing the tiny boat. But finally they managed to float out on the rippling waves.

  “So, where’s the island?” asked Louise. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Do we have a compass?” asked Emma. She didn’t exactly know how a compass could help them, but she knew that sailors in olden times had always managed with a compass.

  “No. We’ll find our way to the castle anyway,” said Gustav, calming her.

  “To the castle, to the castle, to the castle.” The sudden singsong seemed to be coming from under the water.

  Walter got so pale, that you could see through him. “Wh . . . what was that?” he whispered.

  “What, what, what—you’re getting a wet butt!” the voice sounded again. Somebody snickered.

  And then their little boat began to rock.

  “Hey! What’s going on? Who’s there? What are you doing here?” Emma cried, full of fear.

  Only loud laughter, clear as a bell, sounded in answer. The boat was rocking so much now that Emma felt sick. They’d surely tip over soon.

  “Stop!” Gustav roared. “Stop this instant!”

  “Don’t get all excited, old man!” A face popped up all of a sudden at the bow of the boat. A little figure pulled itself up effortlessly and sat down politely on the edge. The button had a wagging fish tail; she was fashioned top to bottom from a gorgeous iridescent material and had flame red hair, as well as numerous freckles. “We just want to have a little fun!”

  “A little fun?” Gustav yelled in indignation. “A little fun? We’re practically tipping over! And none of us can swim; we’ll sink to the bottom right away!”

  “Oops,” said the iridescent button. “You can’t swim?”

 

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