Detective Raccoon

Brianna was hovering on the threshold of sleep when Detective Raccoon climbed up onto the bed. It wasn’t something the stuffed toy had ever done before, but Brianna’s active imagination never doubted the possibility that he could. “It’s past my bedtime,” Brianna yawned.

“Apologies, mademoiselle,” said Detective Raccoon. He stood respectfully by the rise in the duvet representing Brianna’s knees, his furry paws folded behind his back. Over the collar of his felt trench coat, nylon whiskers drooped with scholarly concern. “I am afraid this matter cannot wait.”

Brianna sat up against the pillows. “Is this about the princess?”

Most of Brianna’s toys resided either in a chest that doubled as a window seat, or in a basket in her closet reserved for cuddly critters. These animals, like Detective Raccoon, were more easily accessible to the hand and eye for emergency snuggling, and served the dual purpose of scaring away any monsters that might seek to colonize the closet while Brianna wasn’t looking.

Up above the toy chest was the castle. The factory-crafted plastic towers housed a kingdom of peg-bodied Playmobile figures, living under the benevolent rule of a beautiful fashion doll with cascades of shiny golden hair. Normally, these cheery figures were the subject of epic quests, daring swordfights and magical mishaps that all seemed to involve the working catapult on top of the sticker-studded battlements. But today, sometime in the late afternoon, the polyurethane nation fell into a static state of bewildered mourning. The princess had disappeared.

Detective Raccoon tucked his furry little mitts into the pockets of his 1/8 scale coat. “I’m afraid it is, mon cheri. I have carefully considered the evidence of this case, and I must conclude there is a corrupting influence. The princess could not have departed on her own.”

“Are you sure?” Brianna asked him. “You seem to get around pretty well.”

“Perhaps within the confines of this chamber, cheri,” agreed Detective Raccoon. “But the princess is nowhere within this room. And at a thirteen-inch height, it would be beyond her to turn the handle on the door.”

Not particularly practiced in estimating measurements, Brianna chose not to argue that point. “She could have left while the door was open. Mom doesn’t close it until eight o’clock.”

“Directly after you are made to tidy up each night.” Detective Raccoon folded his black-ringed tail into a little seat, and leaned back against it with a leisurely confidence. His eyes, though, remained keen, their button brightness focused on Brianna’s face. “I know you are diligent in this task, since any toy left lying around would deprive you of dessert the following night. And that would be totally unfair, would it not?”

“Totally.”

“Bon.” Detective Raccoon winked at her. “So, mon ange, we know there was no toy left outside this room by accident before the door was closed.”

Brianna frowned, twisting a braid of her dark hair around her finger. “But she could have been taken away on purpose.”

“This is my thought.”

“The cat did it.”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Detective Raccoon held up a warning finger. It was stitched together with all the benign fingers of his mitten-like paw, but the effect was the same. “Do not make assumptions, mon petit! Do not leap at the first plausible explanation. It is not for us to guess what could have happened, but to discover what did happen.”

“Okay,” said Brianna, tossing a braid over her shoulder. “How do you know it wasn’t the cat?”

Sliding off the side of the bed, the polyester investigator rummaged around for a bit, making the occasional animalistic grunt with a distinctly Belgian accent. A moment later, he pulled himself back up onto the covers with a frayed and wooly ball, covered in teeth marks that had ultimately failed to extract the tinkling bell inside.

“The cat has a very predictable nature,” Detective Raccoon explained. “With toys of any kind, she is always bringing them to a person, so that she may soak up the approval of performative success. If the cat had taken the princess, she would bring her straight to your mother, your brother, or yourself in exchange for congratulatory chin scritches.”

Brianna had to give him that point. “Well, what about Benji? He’s always hiding things around the house.”

“Your brother could not have taken the princess, mon cheri. This room is protected by the sign on the door, which clearly states, ‘No Boys Allowed.’” Detective Raccoon tossed the cat toy off the end of the bed with a solemn shake of his whiskers. “Your mother has no motivation for taking the princess, because you have been on especially good behavior. And your father, of course, does not live here anymore.”

Despite the frail glow of the unicorn nightlight, the room seemed to grow a little darker. Brianna shrank down under the covers, pulling the blanket up to her tightly clenched chin. “Okay. So if it wasn’t any of them, who could have taken the princess?”

Touching a fuzzy paw to Brianna’s blanket-bound knee, Detective Raccoon said gently, “J’accuse, mademoiselle.”

Brianna’s mouth set into a hard line. “You have no proof.”

“It was your chore, was it not, to take out the trash tonight?” Detective Raccoon nodded toward the window. “And as I say, you have been on your best behavior. The princess has not been seen since you rolled the bins to the curb.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Brianna growled. “Everybody loves the princess! Why would I bin my own doll?”

Detective Raccoon nodded, his paws in his pockets. “I was troubled by this question, mon infant, tangled in the stuffing of my little grey pelt. The princess has always been your favorite. What motive could have propelled you to bin her? For what reason should your love sour into rejection?

"It is the intoxicating and irrational monster: jealousy. The princess is beautiful. She has status. She has yellow hair, like the woman your father lives with now. More than that, mon coeur, she is a princess, a damsel in distress. Always, in every story, she is going to be rescued.

"Nobody is coming to rescue you.”

Fingers curled, tight and bloodless, to the covers on the bed. Brianna had pulled the duvet up to her nose, her dark eyes watching Detective Raccoon as he started to pace along the footboard.

“Yes, the jealousy that has wrapped its vines around your heart was once a little seed of insecurity. The fear that no one will save you, that you are not worth saving, that you cannot be saved. Without fully being able to even articulate the danger, you know you are vulnerable alone. Watching your father leave has fed the fear that everyone in your life will leave you. That you are, deep down, not enough.

"You began to see love itself as a dwindling resource, a scarcity. With the princess being so obviously loved, you began to see her not as your friend, but as your rival. And when the opportunity arrived, you dispatched the competition. Swallowing the terrible silence of one who does not know if they are a damsel or a monster.”

Detective Raccoon climbed up onto the little hill of Brianna’s foot, and sat watching her with his whiskered chin in his felt-fingered paw. “You are correct, mon petit ange, I have no proof. But I know what happened as well as you know it yourself. You never needed a detective to tell you what you did, but to work out why a good girl would ever do such a thing.”

Pushing the blanket away from her face, Brianna said, “Well? Am I a damsel or a monster?”

The soft face of the stuffed toy was downcast. “Only a monster would betray an innocent friend. Once you have done this, one who is capable of this, is not a damsel anymore.” The button eyes turned back toward the window. “But there is still time, before the bin men come, for you to rescue her.”

Brianna jerked the duvet out from under the raccoon and pulled it up over her head, shivering and huddling under the blanket as tears erupted from her face. “It doesn’t matter! We aren’t friends anymore! Dad’s not coming back! I’m a monster now!” She hiccupped a sob. “And nobody’s coming to rescue me!”

Soft paws padded up the mattress. Acrylic fur brushed against Brianna’s cheek, pushing the braids away from her face. “A monster cannot be saved from itself. A damsel cannot choose to be loved. But you, my friend, can choose to love others in spite of everything else. That is what heroes do.”

When Brianna opened her eyes, the raccoon was back in the basket with the other cuddly toys.

The empty space loomed where the princess should have been. Brianna wiped her nose and pushed back the covers, pulling her rain boots on over her bare feet. She was determined to put things right, even if it cost her a night’s dessert to be up and about after bedtime. Braving the darkness at the end of the drive, before the bin men took her chance at redemption away.

Knowing, no matter how sorry she was, she could not choose to be forgiven. But she could choose to do the right thing anyway.

That is what heroes do.