Guardian Angel's Deputies Seek Hero

20250927

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

It was hours after the last school bus, yet Jimmy-Jims wasn’t home. Teddy finally left his post at the window and crawled under the bed to snuggle against Lurk, who wrapped a comforting scaly arm around the distraught stuffy and mumbled reassurances.
After another anxious, dusty age a whisper came. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Hello?” Teddy crawled to peep out. “Who’s there?”
The voice wasn’t JJ, or his parents, or friends. Teddy didn’t recognise it. But it sounded worried and kind.
“Oh!” His paws flew to his mouth. If his button eyes could widen they would have. “Are you an angel?”
They certainly looked like the figure which went on top of the Christmas tree. Just much bigger, with stress lines.
“Yes.” The angel smiled at the toy’s wonder. “I’m Jimmy-Jims’s guardian angel.”
“Ohh! He never mentioned you.”
“Well, you see…” The angel’s smile faltered. “We’re rather out of fashion these days. He doesn’t believe in me. That’s why I need your help.”
“You want me to tell him about you?”
“No - I mean, please do! But JJ’s in trouble, and I need you to help me save him.”
“Trouble??” Teddy burst out from under the bed to clutch at the angel’s robe. “What’s wrong? Let’s go!!”
“JJ was being bullied again, and he ran off into the woods, and fell and hurt himself.” The angel’s worry was plain now. “His parents and everyone are looking for him, but if they don’t find him fast… I know where he is, but none of them can hear me. That’s why I need you.”
“Ok! Let’s go.” Teddy stretched his arms up.
“I-I’m sorry, I can’t carry you, I’m not corporeal!” The angel waved their hand through a bedpost to demonstrate.
“Oh.” Teddy looked uneasily at the doorknob, which was very high and very slippery. “Um. Maybe I can stack enough books to make stairs…”
A snuffling snort came from under the bed, then a pale scaly snout emerged.
“Lurk?”
With a single resolute whimper the monster left his safe space and hauled himself, eyes squinched against the painful scary brightness, to Teddy’s side.
“Oh, Lurk! You’re a hero!” Teddy hugged his friend’s arm. “You can reach the door, can’t you?”
Lurk grunted and crawled, with Teddy’s guidance, to the doorway. His many hands groped their way up the wood until one found the doorknob. Then a single twist and he fell forwards into the hall, his yelp almost drowned out by Teddy’s excited squeaking.
“Thank you! Thank you both!” The angel was close to tears. “Now we just need to contact an adult! If only people still had house phones…”
“Ones with buttons? That would be nice.” Teddy scratched his ear in thought. “We could find a neighbour?”
“That seems best.” The angel leapt to their feet. “You two get downstairs and open the front door, I’ll see who’s around.”
They turned into a ball of light and whooshed out the closed window.
Teddy rested a paw on Lurk’s shoulder. He could feel the monster trembling; being out in the open was entirely against bed-monster nature.
“I’m scared, too.” Teddy assured him. “But we need to be brave, for JJ! As soon as we’ve found an adult who’ll listen we’ll get you back to bed.”
Lurk nodded and gave his best brave grunt. Even screwed shut his eyes were leaking tears. Mostly because of the light. But he lifted Teddy onto his shoulders and followed directions.
Bump bump BUMP down the stairs, Teddy clinging on for dear life. By the time they’d figured out the door latch the angel was back.
“I’m afraid the only person is Mr Wilkins. Unless you think Mrs Adams…?”
Teddy shook his head. “I don’t have lips for her to read. And JJ never taught me how to write. Can Mr Wilkins not hear you? He’s the sort of man who believes in angels, isn’t he?”
The angel paused, their nose wrinkling, then delicately said “He’s the sort of man who believes he believes in angels.”
That sounded like Grown-Up Speak. Teddy decided not to ask. Instead he patted Lurk, who had started whimpering on hearing Mr Wilkins’s name.
“Then we’ll just have to hope-”
The angel’s head shot up. “A delivery driver! Quick, get to number twelve!”
With a harried grunt Lurk shouldered the door open, his fear of venturing into The Outside overcome by eagerness to avoid their shouty neighbour.
Though the decorative greenery they threaded until Lurk threw himself with a relieved groan under the nearest parked car. This was better; almost the same shelter as a bed. And enough of them that he could dart from cover to cover.

Assad finished photographing the package and turned back to his van - only to pause at the frantic squeak of “Help! Help!”
He looked around, expecting a fairy or such, and instead a scaly monstrous thing galloped towards him with a teddybear clinging to its back.
“Uhhhh-”
“Mr! Please!!” The teddybear wailed. “JJ’s in trouble and we need to call his mum but we don’t have a phone and-”
“Whoa, whoa.” Assad crouched down, keeping away from the monster’s jaws. “It’s ok, little guy. What number?”
“It’s on my tag!”
Assad smoothed out the crumpled strip of fabric and entered the number.

At the other end, the angel screamed futile pleas at JJ’s mum, who on seeing the unknown number shoved her phone away to keep searching.

Assad looked between his ringing phone and the anxious duo.
He was already sliding behind on his stringent schedule. His boss was going to be livid.
Such was life.
He opened the door to the passenger seat and said “Hop in. You know where JJ is?”
“Um.” The teddybear clasped its paws and stared at empty space, then turned back to Assad and nodded.
“Then let’s go. I’ll try calling again on the way.”
“Thank you Mr Hero!!”
Assad grinned despite himself. Now that was worth being chewed out for. “All in a day’s work, citizen.”

Prompt was “Write a short story about a child going missing, where it’s up to the child’s guardian angel, the monster under their bed, and their favorite stuffed animal to team up and rescue them!”