Mittens Belong Together

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It was not true that nobody knew how they came to be together. Big people probably knew. Big people thought that they knew everything. But little things were too little for big people to care about, sometimes, and so there were lots of little things that big people just didn’t know. Floppsey and Fuzzy didn’t know why they were brother and sister, for example. They had just always been together. Twins. But the big people didn’t know that Fuzzy and Floppsey had ideas and feelings just like anyone would.

The big people just called them by their last names. They would say things like “Have you seen those Mittens?” Or “I thought I left the Mittens in the closet.” Or even, “You know a Mitten can’t just get up and walk away.”

But Fuzzy and Floppsey knew differently.

Fuzzy knew that he and his sister looked almost exactly alike. They were both a warm brown hand-knitted Mitten. And in the big people world, their job as Mittens was to keep hands warm. They were brown and fuzzy and floppy when they were just lying around. They each had a big space for hands and fingers and a little space for the thumb. Sometimes the big person who usually took them outside on walks put Floppsey on the wrong hand. And Fuzzy on the right one. But Floppsey belonged on the right. ‘R’ was her middle name. ‘L’ was Fuzzy’s middle name. Those kinds of mistakes were the kinds of little things that let the Mittens know that big people didn’t know everything. Or at least that they didn’t care about everything. Floppsey and Fuzzy knew that they belonged together. To them, that was a very big thing.

Floppsey and Fuzzy had talked about the big people sometimes. They whispered to each other in the dark sometimes when everyone else in the house was asleep.  They realized that they didn’t know very much. But they knew that they cared about each other very much. And they liked it very much when their big person would put each of them on one of his hands and carry them to the most interesting places.

They always thought that it was strange, how, afterwards, when they were lying next to each other about to fall asleep after a long walk, that Floppsey and Fuzzy had not seen exactly the same things along the way. Oh, they did see many of the same things, but they had different ideas and feelings about them. And sometimes Fuzzy would see something completely different that Floppsey hadn’t seen. And sometimes it was the other way around.

They usually fell asleep, Floppsey lying with her thumb over Fuzzy’s hand before they were done whispering to each other. Or sometimes it was the other way around. But they cared about each other very much. They knew that much for sure. They had always been together and they always would be.

Until one day.

Fuzzy and Floppsey had been out for a walk with the big person. The big person often walked even when the weather was very cold. They were glad about that. The world outside was a fascinating place. That day was sunny and not very windy. There were wisps of clouds high in the blue sky. The branches of the trees were bare of leaves.

Floppsey and Fuzzy hadn’t been playing close attention to precisely where they were going. They were each looking at little things along way. Floppsey saw a broken yellow pencil. Fuzzy saw a penny. It was tails. And there were so many other things to see. Brown leaves blown against fences. The grass in places was still pretty green for winter. Cracks in the sidewalk. And shadows. And more. They knew that the place where they had gotten to was called a park. It had something to do with the place having lots of trees, they thought. They had whispered to each other about it many times.

And then the big person took Floppsey and Fuzzy off of his hands and jammed them into his coat pocket and bent over to tie his shoe. And then they walked again.

Except Floppsey hadn’t gotten jammed all of the way into the coat pocket. After a few steps, she flopped onto the sidewalk.

Fuzzy tried to yell, but he knew it was no use. Big people had never been able to hear them. Mittens had always had very soft voices.

He tried to climb out of the big person’s coat pocket but he couldn’t get his thumb unstuck. He couldn’t even see Floppsey. He could barely even hear her shouting his name. He could see, over his head, a tall sycamore tree with bright white bark shining in the sun. If he could have jumped down, perhaps, Fuzzy could have run back to where Floppsey had fallen.  

Except he knew that Mittens can’t move by themselves in broad daylight. Not that they hadn’t tried before. And even at night, it had to be almost pitch black for the Mittens to move. They had liked to play hide and seek and sometimes they had fallen asleep and ended up separated. But the big person would always find them again. Sometimes they would go out with the big person at night for a walk and later they had whispered whether they might be able to move in starlight. They had never gotten the chance to find out.

Fuzzy was frantic. Several times he had gotten almost to the top of the coat pocket and then the daylight had frozen him just at the edge where he could peek over and barely see where Floppsey had fallen.

She must have been lying all alone on the sidewalk.

Floppsey could just barely see Fuzzy’s thumb from where she lay on the sidewalk. She had been crying invisible Mitten tears. Her own thumb was pointed in the direction she had seen Fuzzy being carried away. There was a fountain not too far away. No water burbled out of its top because it was winter. She had never actually seen it burble, but she had heard the big people talking about it when they walked by from time to time.

Floppsey felt so helpless. She soon couldn’t even see the big person any more. All she could do was lie there – her thumb pointing to where she had last seen her brother. Mostly she felt all alone. Floppsey began to cry again.

And then a squirrel came along the sidewalk and picked up Floppsey in his teeth. Floppsey was almost too big to carry, so the squirrel half dragged Floppsey along the ground. He had Floppsey half-way across a street when a car came around the corner. The squirrel dropped Floppsey and ran. The car just missed running over Floppsey and she must have fainted.

And then the next thing that she remembered, she was being lifted up into the air. It was another big person that Floppsey had never seen before. She wore pink Gloves. Floppsey tried to speak with them but they couldn’t understand her. It sounded like they were speaking a different language that Floppsey had never heard before. The pink Gloves looked sadly at Floppsey as she started crying again. She could see that much. They were trying to help, but there was nothing anyone could do.

The big person had slipped Floppsey over her right  hand and the right pink Glove. Her hands were smaller than her big person’s hands. She rubbed Floppsey against her cheek and then took Floppsey off and looked straight her and said something in that funny sounding language that the Gloves had been speaking. And then the big person started walking. But she was going the wrong way.

Floppsey yelled as loudly as she could that they needed to go back to the park and then up the other sidewalk where her big person had gone. It was no use. Soon they were in a neighborhood that Floppsey had never seen before. The big person took her inside and set Floppsey on a chair and took out a thing and flashed it at her. Then she went to this other thing that her own big person had and started doing something with it. Soon she had a piece of paper with a picture of Floppsey on it and some marks. Floppsey was pretty sure that they were words like big people and Mittens used. She knew what books were and she had seen these marks in other places and on other things. But she couldn’t read. And maybe these marks on this paper would sound funny just like the big person and he pink Gloves had spoken.

The big person put her pink Gloves back on and picked up Floppsey and walked out the door with the piece of paper in her other hand. Soon they were back in the park. The big person put the piece of paper on the fountain with some sticky stuff. Floppsey knew that it was no use trying to tell the big person that Floppsey had been dropped by the tree. The big person said some more funny sounding words to Floppsey. The big person smiled at Floppsey like everything was going to be all right and then she squeezed Floppsey tightly and rubbed her against her cheek. Floppsey thought that she was trying to be kind, but Floppsey could only think about being together with Fuzzy again. She could only cry. The big person went back home with Floppsey stuck in her coat pocket.

Fuzzy had been trying to think. He had never thought so hard before. He had never had so much to think about before and he didn’t know where to start. He knew about little things. He and Floppsey could talk about colors and shapes and things. They knew what some big things like buildings were because the big people would talk about them. And things like sidewalks and doors and dogs and cats and squirrels. And they had always talked about being together. They had even heard big people talk about being together. It wasn’t just Mittens. Big people could love each other too.

After a long time, the big person stuck his hand into his coat pocket. He pulled Fuzzy out. He looked at Fuzzy and asked out loud where his other Mitten was. Fuzzy tried to tell him, but he knew it was no use. He tried to point his thumb back the way that they had come, but he couldn’t move even a thread.

The big person was saying all sorts of things that Fuzzy already knew – that he must have dropped Floppsey somewhere. And then he shrugged. He put Fuzzy on his left hand – the right one – and turned and started back the way he had come. Fuzzy could tell that he was looking for Floppsey. Fuzzy wished he could tell the big person about the sycamore tree.

It wasn’t long until they got to the tree. Fuzzy tried to look everywhere but he could see no sign of Floppsey. The big person kept on walking. Fuzzy began to cry. Soon they were back home. The big person said something about the other Mitten being lost forever. Except that in Fuzzy’s fuzzy mitten mind, she wasn’t just the other mitten. She was his sister. They belonged together. They loved each other. That was everything.

And then the big person said something about retracing his steps one more time. He hadn’t even taken off his coat. He hadn’t even taken Fuzzy off of his hand. They walked out the door.

They walked exactly the way they had walked before. Fuzzy looked everywhere he could but he was sure that Floppsey had been dropped by the tall sycamore tree. And then they were at the park. And Floppsey was not by the sycamore tree. He knew that she couldn’t move in broad daylight, but where could she be?

The big person kept walking slowly. And then he yelled. He pointed Fuzzy toward the fountain. “Look!” Fuzzy looked. “That’s the other Mitten.” Fuzzy looked again. It looked like Floppsey but it was just a picture with marks around them.

“That’s not very far from here,” the big person said. Then Fuzzy began to remember how he and Floppsey had talked about words. It was another way to speak that big people knew. And that was a picture of Floppsey. Until that moment, Fuzzy had had no idea that a Mitten could be a Mitten and a picture at the same time.

The big person took the paper and began walking in a different direction. In not very long they were knocking at the door of a strange house. A big person came to the door. The big person threw the door wide open and held Fuzzy gently in her hands. She spoke with funny sounds and pulled Fuzzy and the big person inside.

Floppsey was lying on a chair by a window next to two pink Gloves. She cried out when she saw Fuzzy and he cried right back. They said each other’s names several times over and then they realized that they didn’t know what to say.

The smaller big person picked Floppsey up and carried her over and placed her thumb to thumb and hand to hand on the big persons hand. Fuzzy and Floppsey whispered to each other. They told each other they would save all of the other little things for later. They mostly wanted to whisper about love and how glad they were to be together again.

And then the big person put Floppsey and Fuzzy together on the chair and the two big people were mostly talking with their hands. Their speaking words tumbled over each other and then after awhile they were sitting at a table together, each one holding a brown cup in one hand. Floppsey and Fuzzy whispered to each other until they fell asleep in the chair.

Some times later, they all went out walking together. Sometimes Floppsey was holding Allesandro, the Italian Pink Glove, or Fuzzy was holding Sophia, Allesandro’s sister. And sometimes it was the other way around.

  

The ending and another beginning of

belonging together.