New Home, New Life Ch. 4

The next day Emily, Woody, Jessie and Buzz spent most of the day up in the attic looking for other toys, they had already found a large old doll house built by her great, great grandfather that Emily had put in the doll room. It was a nearly perfect replica of her house with hinges on one side so it could be opened up, although Emily had decided to leave it closed to offer the dolls who would be living in it a little more privacy.
They had also found a record player and some records that Woody and Jessie had asked her to put in the toy room for them.

"Okay guys one more box and then I have to go take care of my horses." Emily said as she pulled out another box and started to open it.

"I get to come help you this time, right?" Jessie asked.

"Of course." Emily replied then grinned when she saw what was in the box.

"What is it? What's in there?" Jessie asked jumping up onto a box next to the one Emily was looking at, although she was still too low to see into it.

"Grandma always said she thought her cousin had left some of this stuff here." Emily said as she held up a Woody's Roundup record.

"Yee hah we got our selves some good music now." Jessie said excitedly as she jumped off of the box she was on and ran over to the record player to plug the speakers in while Woody disappeared behind a pile of boxes with the plug and a moment later the power came on.

"Come on let's hear some good old music." Woody said grinning as he came back out and jumped up onto the edge of the record player.

"You guys aren't excited about this are you?" Emily asked grinning.

"Of course we are, it's been darn near twenty years since we've heard this music." Jessie replied.

As soon as Emily had put the record on and the music started playing Jessie grabbed Buzz and started dancing around the room with him while Woody remained on the record player, his foot tapping along with the music until Jessie pulled him down and started dancing with him too.

Emily went back to the box the record had come out of and pulled out a Woody's roundup lunch box and a few other things, a smile spread across her face as she came to the bottom of the box, "You guys are not going to believe who I just found."

"Please tell me it's not another Woody, one is enough to deal with." Buzz said jokingly.

"Couldn't be near as bad as having two of you around." Woody replied as he came over to stand next to Buzz and Jessie.

"Nope, it's not another Woody." Emily told them as she pulled the toy out and set it on the floor in front of them.

"Stinky Pete." they all said sounding less than thrilled to see him as Woody and Jessie took a step back and Buzz moved protectively in front of Jessie, looking ready to attack it at any moment.

"Actually I prefer polka Pete or just Pete, I really don't understand why they decided to call me stinky Pete. Now would some one mind explaining why we're talking in front of a human." Pete said.

"It's a long story, they can explain later." Emily told him, "So, why polka Pete?"

"Because it's a far more fitting name for me." he replied walking over to the record player and moving it to another song, then walked over to Jessie, bowed and asked, "May I have this dance?"

Jessie hesitated looking unsure of what to do, before she could answer the Prospector Polka song started and he grabbed her hand and started dancing with her. Jessie seemed stiff and unsure for a minute but eventually relaxed.

As the song ended Pete said, "That's why I should have been called polka Pete."

"It certainly would have made sense to me." Emily said, "Now lets get this stuff downstairs and introduce you to the others so I can go get my horses taken care of."

"Can I join you? It would be nice to get some fresh air after being stuck in that box for what seems like forever." Pete said.

"Sure, I'll drop the record player off in the toy room and then the four of you can help me with the horses." Emily replied.

--

"Wow, what's with all the stuff sitting around out here?" Pete asked as they stepped outside.

"No trash service, some of this stuff has been here since before you could get your trash picked up and for years Grandma and my great grandparent's just couldn't afford to get a lot of the bigger stuff taken to the junk yard. They burned what they could and the rest got stacked out here, it's been a mess as long as I can remember. Someday I hope to get it all cleaned up, but  cleaning up almost a hundred years worth of junk takes a while." Emily told them.

Once they got to the barn Emily introduced them to each of her four horses and foal, "Be careful." she told the toys then set to work.

When she had finished Emily said, "Okay guys lets go."

"Oh do we have to? We haven't been out here that long and this poor little thing needs more attention." Jessie said petting the foal.

"You can come out and see her again tomorrow, right now I need to go take care of the cows." Emily said then smiled, "I've got a couple of calves in the other barn."

"Well why didn't you say so before? Let's go." Jessie said turning back to the foal "I'll come back and see you tomorrow my sweet little one." Jessie told it, petting it a few more times and giving it a kiss on the forehead.

After taking care of the cows and dragging Jessie away from the calves Emily took them back inside.

When they got to the toy room and the other toys saw Pete for the first time the ones who she had gotten with Buzz seemed just as distrusting and less than pleased to see him, "Hey Woody why don't you come back downstairs, I want to talk to you about something." Emily said.

"Sure, no problem." Woody replied letting her pick him up and carry him back downstairs with her.

Once they were in the kitchen Emily set him down on the counter and asked, "What's up with you guys and Pete? None of you seem very happy to see him, I'd think it would be exciting for you having the whole roundup gang together."

"We had a run in with a less than friendly Pete a while back." Woody said then told her about being stolen and nearly sent to Japan.

"Wow, no wonder you were unsure about the Pete we found in the attic, he seems nice enough, maybe the other one was only like that because of never being allowed out of his box.  I'd imagine being stuck in a box like that your whole life would leave anyone at least a little mentally unstable. On the off chance that it is a personality thing with all of his toys and he causes you any trouble just let me know and I'll ship him off to grandma." Emily told him.

"Okay. So why does you're grandmother collect Woody's Roundup stuff? So she can sell it all and make a profit someday, like Al wanted to?" Woody asked.

"No, she's actually had a few people offer to buy her collection or part of it, but she always refuses. It started out as a way to rebel against her mom after she moved out on her own when she was twenty. When she was a kid she loved Woody's Roundup and had a Jessie doll and several other Woody's Roundup things, but when she got older Jessie disappeared and she assumed her mom had gotten rid of her because great grandma always said that toys were for small children and that when you get older you shouldn't keep them. A few years later grandma found Jessie, right after finding out they were moving and great grandma told her to get rid of Jessie and the other stuff that grandma still had. When grandma said she didn't want to her mom gave her a choice, get rid of Jessie and all the Woody's Roundup stuff or get rid of her record player and all her records, she wasn't allowed to take both with her when they moved. She was a teenager and wasn't about to give up her music, although it broke her heart to get rid of Jessie. As soon as she moved out on her own she started collecting everything from Woody's Roundup that she could find, much to the disapproval of great grandma. She always says that someday she's going to find her Jessie."

"Most of the family thinks she's crazy and obsessed, especially since grandpa died, since then she spends most of her time taking care of her collection and trying to find her Jessie. Maybe it is crazy, but we've always been really close and if insanity is what it takes to keep her with us I'd rather have her be crazy. After grandpa died she just seemed to give up, like she was ready to die, she couldn't bear being away from grandpa and everyone thought we'd be burring her soon as well. Then I found a Jessie doll at a flea market, took it to her and asked her if it was hers, it wasn't and I told her we would just have to keep looking for her Jessie and that I needed her too much for her to just give up. I don't know if it was because I said I needed her so much or because she still wanted to find her Jessie or both, but within the next few days she was recovering and becoming obsessed with finding her Jessie." Emily told him.

"I never realized that toys could still mean so much to older humans instead of just to children, but how will she know when she's found her Jessie?" Woody asked.

"I don't know, I asked her about that a few times as well as asking why she's so obsessed with finding her Jessie, but it was always when we were around the rest of the family. She said she trusted me, but she'd wait to tell me when we were alone because if anyone else found out she thinks they'll try to trick her into thinking she'd found her Jessie and if anyone heard why she's so obsessed with finding her Jessie they'd probably lock her up in a metal hospital. Now that I've met you guys I wonder if her Jessie came to life in front of her, although I can't imagine she would have given her up if she had known." Emily said.

"You're right, it does seem strange that she's so determined to find the same Jessie that she had when she was a kid unless she new she was alive. I'd love to know what you find out from her." Woody said.

"I'll let you know, she's actually coming to visit me in two months, she always spends the weekend with me when my uncle comes down this way for a car show, so we'll have plenty of time to talk alone then." Emily told him.