Once upon a time, Adele was going to brush her teeth. Then, toothpaste fell on Wellie, Adele’s stuffed animal!
“Daddy!” Adele yelled. “Wellie got toothpaste on him.”
“Okay.”
Adele walked out of the bathroom with Wellie and Ellie. Ellie was Adele’s other stuffed animal. “Will Wellie have to go in the washing machine?”
“Yes,” Adele’s dad replied.
“Can you put him in the washing machine now?”
Adele’s dad was working on writing a book and did not respond. So Adele decided she might as well wash off as much of the toothpaste as possible. Adele went to the sink. She washed off the strawberry toothpaste, but Wellie smelled like strawberries. The bad yucky strawberry smell.
“Leave Wellie on the table,” Adele’s dad answered.
“Okay.”
***
The next day when Adele woke up, she found that Wellie had not gone in the washing machine overnight. “Why didn’t you put him in the washing machine?”
“I forgot to.”
***
The brave Wellie stepped into the washing machine. None of the other stuffed animals had volunteered to go with him. Wellie was shivering and was about to cry as the door of the washing machine closed.
Adele watched her father pour in the washing machine’s soap.
“Wait,” Adele said. “The setting for the washing machine is wrong. It is supposed to be on tap cold but it is only on cold.” Adele switched the setting from cotton to delicates.
Wellie was quite annoyed about Adele getting toothpaste on him. But he had bravely let Adele leave him in the washing machine. He saw Adele press the start button, water and soap came streaming down from the top of the washing machine. The machine started to spin, Wellie thought he would throw up.
Ellie knew she would be very bored. She would have to wait for Wellie a whole 33 minutes according to the mister (Adele’s dad), who could apparently read washing machines.
“Bye Daddy,” Adele called after him as he left.
“Bye Adele,” he called back.
“Wait, Wellie is disintegrating!”
“Oh my god. He is not. Wellie looks perfectly happy.”
“How is he happy?” Adele questioned.
“He looks so happy.”
“No! He’s dying, save him!” Adele knew he was not dying, but Wellie’s arms were flailing, and it looked like he was drowning.
Wellie was sleepy. He felt like going to bed. He saw Ellie, and it looked like she was trying to tell him something. He couldn’t figure out what though. The washing machine noise was way too loud to hear anything.
Ellie was horrified. Plain horrified. She couldn’t bear watching Wellie die like this, so she tried to tell Wellie that his trip in the washing machine had almost ended.
Only four minutes left. Adele looked back at the machine. The soap was going down, and Wellie couldn’t breathe. Then the washing machine started to speed up! It went so fast that Wellie was a great big spinning blur.
Adele paused the stop button, and took Wellie out early. She wouldn’t make him suffer any more.
Wellie was quite tired when Adele took him out, but he had survived!
Epilogue
Later that day, Wellie lay drying on the windowsill watching Ellie and Adele play. At least he hadn’t gone in the dryer. He would have shrunk.