It all began, as things often do ~ in fact, as things always do; one minute it seemed that Carousel had no Doorstops in the shop, whatsoever, and next minute the shop was suddenly full of them.
Just which of the Doorstop families came first remains a matter of some dispute. The local historians of Shalford are inclined to the belief that it was the Doorstop Cord Teddies but others always point to reports in the national press indicating that it was the Doorstop Cord Dogs, otherwise known as Cordies, that came first, particularly in view of the Cordie Dogs being the Queen's favourites.
Either way, they arrived, each completely unaware that their two families were closely related one to the other and, truth to tell, each with a little, if not quite hostility, then what can perhaps best be described as a certain standoffishness towards one another.
The three Cord Teddies ~ Cord-Roy, Cord-Roger, and Cord-Rose ~ whose first name, incidentally, was their surname and whose second name was their first name 'cos that's just how they do things in Doorstopland, where everyone is of one accord, so to speak, and which makes it all the more unusual that the two families should initially display any unfriendliness towards one another; it being a matter of record that rarely is there discord, at least according to the tales of cordiality we hear from Doorstopland ~ anyway, the three Cord Teddies were quite confounded when they first espied the three Cordie Dogs ~ Cord-Rover, Cord-Rex and Cord-Ruaridh (pronounced by mere mortals as Cord-Rory but spelt R-u-a-r-i-d-h because he considers himself to have somewhat dubious connections with the Emerald Isle where, for reasons best known to Emerald Islanders, it is exactly how it is spelt ~ in a manner and style that no-one could possibly remember even if they are Irish ~ quite fiendish really.
Cord-Roy made it his business to step forward and say quite directly - something which this mild mannered and polite cord teddy found rather difficult - to the three Cordies, "Excuse me, if you don't mind, I say, excuse me!"
The three Cordies stopped in their tracks, nonplussed at such a bold request.
"Y-Yes," responded Cord-Ruaridh (pronounced Rory for reasons set out above), who, despite appearances to the contrary, had quite a good head on his shoulders for such situations and was well known for his quick repartee. "Yes, you are excused and we don't mind in the least," he answered, quick as a flash, his initial astonishment put, for the time being, to one side ~ his left side, to be precise, where he thought it wouldn't get in the way.
"Don't mind in the least what?" Cord-Roy asked, with something of a puzzled look. This wasn't going exactly as he had planned; he didn't want to get flummoxed; something that had happened previously, on occasions.
"We don't mind whatever it is that you don't want us to mind when we excuse you. Isn't that just what you asked for?" Cord-Ruaridh (pronounced Rory) replied politely and, he thought, rather cleverly even though, in thinking it, he knew that he shouldn't really pat himself on the back for being clever although, truth to tell, he couldn't really pat himself on the back because he couldn't reach his back, which was something of a relief, but it was only a relief at this very moment, because, if he was honest, there were times when he would like to be able to reach his back but enough of that.
"Whatever!" said Cord-Roy, a little dismissively, as he found himself losing all interest in the conversation, after all, he thought to himself, didn't he have a great deal of potential door stopping to engage in; he couldn't waste time bandying words in such a manner, could he? The very idea!
So it was that the two Cord families first became aware of one another. As time passed, that day, they eyed each other with some puzzlement from different parts of Carousel.
The Cord Teddies ~ Cord-Roy, Cord-Roger and Cord-Rose, grouped themselves behind the greeting card stand whilst peering intently at the Cordies. The Cord Dog Cordies ~ the Queen's favourite doorstops ~ Cord-Rover, Cord-Rex and Cord-Ruaridh (pronounced Rory, as already explained a tiresome number of times) all gathered near the marbles trying not to give the impression that they had lost any of theirs.
The two groups of doorstops would have looked very sweet and rather cuddly if the situation hadn't been quite so serious. As it was, some time passed before any more words were exchanged, although each of the two groups did tend to mutter amongst themselves whilst looking somewhat suspiciously and nodding rather pointedly at the other group and then rolling their eyes to the ceiling with a few, what sounded like exasperated 'tuts', sighs and knowing nods in the direction of the others.
Eventually, Cord-Roy shuffled forward only to be met, in a similar shuffling fashion, by Cord-Ruaridh (pronounced Rory, for the umpteenth time of telling).
"Hello," said Cord-Roy, in a manner that many might have thought rather sheepish if it wasn't for the fact that Cord-Roy was a Teddy and it's difficult for teddy bears to appear sheepish in much the same way that sheep find it difficult to appear teddyish.
"Hello," Cord-Ruaridh (pronounced...oh! enough of that) responded, in the private, though mistaken, belief that he was dominating the exchange.
"Have you just arrived?" Cord-Roy asked, politely.
"No," answered Cord-Ruaridh ( pro,,,cede without further explanation regarding pronunciation), "we've been here for some time. Have you just arrived?
"Certainly not!" exclaimed Cord-Roy, "we've been here some time and a bit more."
"A bit more what?" Cord-Ruaridh wondered aloud.
"A bit more than some time."
"But you don't know how long 'some time' is, do you?
"You'd be surprised at what I know"
Cord-Ruaridh gave a look that said he'd be surprised if Cord-Roy knew anything at all judging by the conversation so far but refrained from saying so, saying instead,
"Where are you from?"
During this brief exchange, some further shuffling had taken place and Cord-Roger and Cord-Rose were now either side of Cord-Roy whilst either side of Cord-Ruaridh were Cord-Rover and Cord-Rex all looking very supportive, if a little apprehensive.
The Cord Teddies responded all together.
"We are from Lake House, Woodside Park, Catteshall Lane, Godalming," they all sang out in unison and with much dramatic effect.
"WHAT!" exclaimed the Cordies, also in unison and with even more dramatic effect, "that's where we are from!"
The Cord Teddies blinked in utter astonishment, "WHAT!" they retorted, looking from one to the other. Cord-Roger looked in a bewildered fashion at Cord-Rose. Cord-Rose looked despairingly at Cord-Roy and Cord-Roy stood looking dumbfounded. Eventually, he composed himself sufficiently to enquire of the Cordies generally, "but how did you get here?
Cord-Rex saw his moment to utilise his oratorical skills. Edging forward, with as much swagger as a rather heavy and somewhat chubby doorstop could ever expect to muster, he announced that, "Andrea sent us. She just took us from the shelf, packed us in a box and said, 'You're off to Carousel in Shalford, you lucky little doorstops' and off we went and here we are," he concluded with a final flourish of his paw.
If the world had suddenly stopped turning it would have been much less of a shock to the Cord-Teddies. For some time they just gawked. Eventually, Cord-Roy swallowed hard and stuttered out, "b..b..but, but Andrea sent us, as well. She took us from the shelf, put us in a box and said, 'now then, my sweet little Cord Teddies, off you go to Carousel in Shalford. It'll be an adventure for you and mind you behave yourselves and try, always, to uphold the doorstop code ~ to never let a door close that's meant to be open,' and that was it; off we went and here we are."
Try as they might the two sets of doorstops could not make any sense of it; rarely in their short but interesting doorstop lives had such a puzzle confronted them, and so, they just accepted it for doorstops, generally, have a fairly phlegmatic disposition ~ fate had thrown them together and that must be how it was meant to be. So be it.
Eventually, they came to a common understanding and, although each group was inclined to occupy a different section of Carousel, there were ever increasing occasions when they found themselves intermingling; sometimes the odd smile was exchanged and Cord-Rover, Cord-Rex and Cord-Ruaridh could often be seen standing aside to make way for Cord-Rose who would almost always blush slightly and flutter her long lashes whilst muttering her grateful thanks to what she was beginning to think were those most gallant of all doorstops, the Cordies.
It was on one of these ~ passing one another occasions ~ that Cord-Rose, much to her bewilderment, when she found herself considering events a little later on, suddenly asked in what she thought was her sweetest voice, "Hello, I keep seeing you in the shop. What is it that you actually do?
Cord-Ruaridh was quite nonplussed for he thought that it was obvious what they did.
"We stop doors," he answered, somewhat haughtily, whilst puzzling to himself about the general level of intelligence that Cord Teddies were endowed with.
"Oh!" Cord-Rose responded, "Oh, I see, do you mean that you are, in fact, Doorstops?"
Cord-Ruaridh winced inwardly and gave a further withering look, saying, "That's exactly what I mean."
By this time the other two Cord-Teddies had gathered round and Cord-Rose turned to them adopting, in the process, her most quizzical, all-knowing stance. "Guess what?" Cord-Rose asked of her fellow Cord-Teddies. Try as they might, the other two Cord-Teddies could not guess what it was that Cord-Rose wanted them to guess what of, so they gave in and asked to be told the answer to guess what.
Looking as if she had only just realised that she was one of life's superior beings with answers to many of life's little conundrums, in particular, the 'guess whats' of life, Cord -Rose announced, "The Cord Dogs are all Doorstops like us."
"Doorstops like us!" Cord-Roger repeated. "Doorstops like us!" Cord-Roy repeated, as well, not wishing to be outdone when it came to repeating pointless phrases.
"Yes," confirmed Cord-Rose, "Doorstops like us."
As this clever interchange of guess what had been unfolding in the aisle between Balloons for All Ages and Baby's First Steps, Cord-Rover and Cord-Rex had sidled up. They took a keen interest, looking the Cord-Teddies up and down as if seeing them in an entirely new light.
Cord-Rose felt, under the circumstances and in light of the fact that there appeared to be rival doorstops on the premises, that it was her bounden duty to express in no uncertain terms the full extent of the Cord-Teddies capabilities. Somewhat brazenly, she announced,
"We must introduce ourselves. This is Cord-Roy and this is Cord-Roger. What are your names?" Then she added, without a pause and without any thought for the consequences or the veracity of her words, "Oh, and by the way, you might like to know that we Cord Teddies don't just stop doors ~ we can push doors, as well." With a smuggish smile of satisfaction she folded her teddy-type arms, raised one eyebrow and winked at her fellow Cord-Teddies, Cord-Roy and Cord-Roger.
Cord-Ruaridh felt an urgent need to rescue the honour of Cordies the world over,
"I can push too," he announced, "and my name is..."
"Ican Pushtoo!" Cord-Rose interrupted, surprise written across her pretty face, "that's a odd name for a Doorstop, if you ask me. Have you ever heard of a group of Doorstops with a surname of Ican?" she enquired of her fellow Cord-Teddies, each of whom shook their head,
"I did not say that my name was Ican Pushtoo," Cord-Ruaridh endeavoured to clarify, "I said that 'I can push too' then I was about to give my name which is..."
"There you go again," said Cord-Rose, with a note of triumph, "well we don't know the Ican family but, if you'll excuse the familiarity, I shall call you Pushtoo and you can be my friend 'cos you look a reasonable sort of doorstop, even if you do have some difficulty making yourself clear when asked a simple question." Cord-Rose beamed and fluttered her long lashes.
Cord-Ruaridh, pronounced Rory, as has been previously well established but now also known as Pushtoo, decided to approach matters from a different perspective there being little further benefit to be derived from attempting to further clarify his real name.
"Now that we are getting to know one another, why don't we have a little game?" he suggested.
"A game!" exclaimed the Cord-Teddies, gleefully beaming from one to the other, for they all liked games, "what sort of game?"
Cord-Ruaridh appeared to think deeply for a moment and then said, "A pushing game, we could have a pushing game."
Cord-Rose gave a start and then for some reason nudged Cord-Ruaridh. In fact, she more than nudged him, she gave him something of a push whilst saying with a nervous giggle, "Pushtoo wants to have a pushing game, tee-hee, tee-hee-hee. How does it work, your pushing game?"
Pushtoo, that is, Cord-Ruaridh, picked himself up, brushed himself down and said as simply as words would allow, "You Cord-Teddies align yourselves on one side of the front door and we Cordies align ourselves on the other. Then someone calls 'One, Two, Three, Go' and those on the door stopping side of the door try to stop the door from shutting whilst those on the other side of the door try their hardest to make it shut"
The Cord-Teddies looked from one to the other with puzzlement writ large upon their features.
"But what's the point?" asked Cord-Roy, as politely as he knew how.
"The point is," exclaimed Cord-Rex, just as politely but with a certain steeliness in his demeanour, "we'll see who the best Doorstops are, won't we?"
"No," Cord-Roger quickly responded, "we won't know anything of the sort."
"And why," asked Cord-Ruaridh, with an air and a look of a Cordie whose patience was wearing thin, "won't we know anything of the sort?"
"Because it's a well known fact in Shalford that it's much easier to push doors to than it is to stop doors being pushed to." The other Cord-Teddies nodded their agreement. "And that means that the group doing the pushing are probably going to win, doesn't it?
Cord-Ruaridh gave a look of resigned indulgence, "but we'll change sides to make it fair."
"Even so," Cord-Roger persisted, after some consideration, "the ones doing the pushing will always win and what's the use of that? What's the use of a Door Pusher? In fact, who's ever heard of a Door Pusher, for that matter? Doorstops are useful, Doorpushers are useless. You're barking up the wrong tree if you'll excuse the pun ~ Cord-Dogs, Cordies, barking, woof-woof, get it?" Cord-Roger and the Cord-Teddies all got it and chortled merrily. The Cordies looked somewhat grim of countenance.
Cord-Ruaridh thought that he had put far too much thought into thinking and planning the pushing game and thought, even further, that the Cord-Teddies hadn't thought it through thoroughly, although they probably thought they had, but thinking and doing are two different things, as any Doorstop knows only too well.
His suggestion was that they just try it and who knows they might enjoy it. After all, he explained, somewhat philosophically, you never really know, in this world, what's going to happen till it happens and, anyway, he was only suggesting it so that they could all become better acquainted and there was nothing wrong with that, was there?
Eventually, they all gathered around the door, which was half open in preparation. The Cord Teddies produced a coin and said that, if it was going to be a proper game, then they should toss a coin to see which side would be doing the Doorpushing and which side would be doing the Doorstopping, even though it was quickly pointed out that they were going to change over sides when one of the opposing teams had achieved an initial victory, it was still thought important to proceed in as sportsman like and sportswoman like way as possible.
Cord-Roger tossed the coin but he did so with a certain amount of over exuberance and undue vigour and it rather annoyingly landed in a glass vase on one of the very high display shelves.
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Cord-Roy, who often found himself disappointed when disappointing things happened. "We'll never be able to recover it. We need another coin."
Nobody had another coin, in fact, the one they had tossed into the vase wasn't really theirs, Cord-Rex having found it on the floor a little earlier.
They wondered and wondered what to do and then Cord-Rover had a moment of inspiration. "Look!" he called out and pointed to the vase. "I can see the coin through the glass vase. I can see that it's Heads and we called Heads so we get to choose whether to push or shove."
"Not so fast," Cord-Roger demanded. "It's true that we can see that the coin is showing Heads but we are looking up at the side that would be facing down if it had fallen to the floor. That means Heads would not have won, Tails would have won so we are the ones who should chose whether to push the door or stop the door and, by the way, we don't normally say shove as it's considered a little vulgar in the world of Doorstops and I'm surprised that you don't know that"
Cord-Rover was not used to being chastised and looked a bit crest fallen at these words of admonishment but, that aside, after some further discussion on the subject the competition began with the Cordies doing the door stopping and the Cord Teddies doing the door pushing.
"Are you two pushing?" Cord-Rose demanded of her two friends, when all her efforts had achieved no discernable movement of the door.
"Of course we are," they answered together, whilst simultaneously wondering whether Cord-Rose was actually pushing or just appearing to do so.
They could all see the Cordies grinning at them through the glass of the door and, not surprisingly, their mocking grins infuriated them. How could it be so difficult to beat a bunch of Cordies they all thought privately to themselves whilst preparing to redouble their efforts.
"Wait a minute," Cord-Rose called out, "I have a better idea. Let me turn around and that way I can dig my heels in more and push harder. That should do the trick."
Cord-Rose turned around and the competition resumed with Cord-Roy and Cord-Roger pushing as hard as they could and Cord-Rose, her back firmly against the door, frantically working her legs as if peddling a go-cart.
Just as the door seemed, almost imperceptibly, to move there came a howl of anguish from Cord-Rose, "Ow! Ouch! Oow, Ow and Ouch again," she yelled, her voice full of pain.
"What is it?" Cord-Roy asked, in a most concerned voice, "what's the matter Cord-Rose?"
"A splinter," she wailed, "I've got a splinter."
"Where?" asked Cord-Roger.
"I'm not prepared to say," Cord-Rose answered, quickly and quite emphatically, her face blushing a little in some embarrassment.
"But how can you get a splinter from a coconut doormat?" Cord-Roger wondered aloud. "We are all standing and pushing or standing and doorstopping on this large coconut mat. I don't see how you can get a splinter from a coconut mat."
"Well you may not see how but I can feel how," Cord-Rose retorted a little tartly.
By this time the three Cordies had come around the door to see what the commotion was all about. Cord-Roy explained as best he could and they all cast sympathetic glances at Cord-Rose who could be seen rubbing a part of her anatomy that well brought up Doorstops don't normally rub in public.
Suddenly she let out a combined shout of triumph and pain and held out something that glinted in the light. "Ah-hah!" she called, "not a splinter, after all, it's a drawing pin."
"A drawing pin!" one of the Cordies exclaimed, "How did that get there?"
"Just what I would like to know," Cord-Rose said with a accusatory stare, first at the three Cordies and then at Clare, behind the counter, who was completely oblivious to what was happening and was busy sorting things.
The Cord-Teddies and the Cordies all discussed the extraordinary turn of events for some considerable time, until it was too late to continue the competition. Clare came from behind the counter to shut the shop for the day, exclaiming as she saw the doorstops, "Who's been moving all the doorstops around? Customers, I don't know! They must have been trying to see which doorstop they liked best. Well, I can understand because you are all very nice, aren't you?" With that she gathered them all, a little unceremoniously, in her arms and replaced them on the doorstop display stand.
A little while later, Clare left the shop having cashed up for the day. She turned off most of the lights, locked up and left the shop in semi-darkness.
It wasn't long before the doorstops could be heard muttering amongst themselves.
"We'll never know which of us were best at door pushing and door stopping," a voice said.
"Never mind," another voice called, "we are all very good at door stopping, which is what we are brought into this world to do and we are probably all just as good at door pushing, which we are not brought into the world to do. So, you see, it was all rather pointless, wasn't it?
"I said that it was pointless, all along," Cord-Roy called out.
"It might have been pointless to you," Cord-Rose quickly contradicted, "but it wasn't for me. I can still feel exactly where the point was," and she rubbed that area that shall remain nameless in deference to her dignity.
The others all laughed at her little joke and, if there was a point, then it was at that very point that all the Cord-Teddies and all the Cordies became firm friends, which was just as well, for they would certainly need each others support for the many adventures that lay ahead.
Rumours began to abound about a pair of pigs, who were making the way unaided to Carousel