Cuddlepig and the Electric Victory Song

Cuddlepig had been a top rack toy since the latest movie in his franchise had hit the cinema. Admittedly, he was from the first movie, but the release of the sequel had seen him promoted from the ten token middle rack to the twenty token heights. Cuddlepig had been raised up to where he belonged. Cuddlepig was kind of a big deal. Unimoo had not been so lucky. Unimoo had also featured in the first movie, but a poorly attached eye and packaging that had become water damaged (when Weekday Marvin had not properly closed the shutters at the end of his shift) had led Unimoo to be demoted to the five token rack. Your shot could virtually miss the playing card and you would still have a chance of walking away with Unimoo. The middle rack that Cuddlepig and Unimoo had shared was now a barrier between them, all thanks to Weekday Marvin’s fecklessness, and the poor quality of the work on Unimoo’s left eye.

If Weekday Marvin had been on the racks, he would not even have been worth five tokens. His packaging was in a worse state than Unimoo’s, and Cuddlepig judged him to be only one more mustard splatter away from the free-gift bin. At least Saturday Carl kept his packaging clean, closed the shutters properly, and, most importantly of all, knew how to sell the game.

Cuddlepig had become increasingly aware of the importance of the game being pushed to the drifting lookers. The lookers all looked, how could they resist his famous face, crisp carboard back and pristine blister bubble? But not all of the lookers played, and if they didn’t play then Cuddlepig couldn’t be won, and being won was the way to freedom.

Cuddlepig hadn’t always been preoccupied with freedom. He’d spent happy weeks on the ten token rack with Unimoo watching Weekday Marvin and Weekend Carl slide back and forth in front of them taking tokens and pushing the game with varying degrees of success (Come on, Marvin! At least put the Arcade Land polo on over your mustard-stained tank top. Packaging matters!). But since his elevation, Cuddlepig had been able to see a little bit of what the Whack-a-Moles had been talking about.

The Whack-a-Mole game was positioned near the entrance to Arcade Land. The uneven voices of the concussed moles had burbled out of their battered holes nightly since Cuddlepig had found himself displayed on the rifle range. At first, Cuddlepig had paid no heed. What did the moles know? What could they know? They were well positioned to see out of the Arcade Land entrance, but how much could they learn from the fleeting paddle-dodging peeks? Anyway, whacked moles weren’t to be trusted. Apart from their notoriously poor eyesight (their plastic spectacles were routinely smashed off by zealous players) they were token dispensers, running on coins. Cuddlepig had no time for coin-heads. But still, he couldn’t shake the idea that they might be on to something.

The moles said the lookers were just the grabber claws for the ones that lived beyond the doors of Arcade Land. The ones outside rolled up to the entrance and spat out their lookers, retiring to sit in gleaming rows, waiting for their lookers to return with their bounty. The shiny rollers were huge, pristine in white light that was different to the coloured bulb flashings that lit the Arcade Land walkway. The rollers could hold up to four or five lookers under their clear screens, like super-sized blister packs. They rolled, slow and powerful, so much more organised than their scampering, waddling lookers.

When the lookers were hooked (sometimes by a glimpse of Cuddlepig, resplendent on his twenty-token rack) they became players, and then it was game-on.  The chance of being won, the idea of moving on, transcending even the top rack, took on a significance that Cuddlepig struggled to explain.

It was Saturday night. Carl was selling hard and a couple of lookers were snared. Tokens were exchanged for a rifle and the big looker took a bead on Cuddlepig’s heart. The first shot missed the playing card altogether. The big looker lowered the rifle and looked at Weekend Carl with a wry smile. The second shot missed the middle of the playing card by an ace. The big looker could shoot. Cuddlepig felt the white light of Whack-a-Moles’ tales dawning. The gun was broken and neatly reloaded with the third and final slug. The shot snapped into the dead-centre of the ace of hearts. The big looker had aimed down the barrel, ignoring the skewed iron sights of the gamed rifle. It was a twenty token shot.   

The lookers took the tokens. Free to choose any toy from the top rack, and they took the tokens. The chance to take Cuddlepig himself back to their roller, and they chose the tokens. Cuddlepig was despondent. Carl had been so sure they would pick Cuddlepig that he had reached for him and begun to lift him down from the twenty token rack, quickly replacing him on realising his error, missing the hook that Cuddlepig’s cardboard back was supposed to hang on, leaving him propped precariously between a dusty Sax-a-boom and a huge inflatable hammer. Twenty token winners were rare, it could be a long time before he got another chance to escape. A mole screamed as a swing found its mark and a hooked duck dangled on the opposite side of the walkway, the light of the coloured bulbs captured in the drips that rolled off its back. Cuddlepig did not feel so resilient. He looked down at Unimoo, still smiling despite being stuck on the five token rack as lesser toys were chosen and taken by poor marksmen and lookers who trusted the sights on the rifles. Cuddlepig wished he could be down there with his friend, instead of up on the twenty token rack, priced out of freedom. Unimoo looked up at Cuddlepig with a single winking eye, a stray thread dangling where the other eye should have been.     

Weekend Carl lifted the shutters into place at the end of his shift. The lights were out and the only sound was the electronic buzz of the music from the Whack-a-Mole game which was always the last to be turned off as Carl left. He banged the last shutter firmly into place sending a jolt through the racks in the darkness of the rifle range. The huge inflatable hammer moved and Cuddlepig tumbled, flipping to land flat on his cardboard back on the apron of the five token rack, next to Unimoo. A mole’s chuckle bubbled up from its dark hole and echoed through the dark arcade.  

To everyone’s surprise, including his own, it was Weekday Marvin who took down the shutters at opening time on Sunday. Called in at short notice to cover an absent Carl, hungover and mustard stained, Marvin was less switched on than ever and did not notice the premium prize lying on the five token rack.  

For hours lookers paraded past the rifle range, avoiding the stained and bloodshot Marvin who leaned indifferently on the counter. Cuddlepig didn’t mind, happy next to his friend and co-star down on the five token rack. He watched the world go by through his blister pack, now tinted brown and slightly blurred by a splash of one of Marvin’s many medicinal coffees. A small looker grunted like a tennis pro as he swung his paddle at ducking moles. Eventually his aggression paid off and a particularly vigorous over-head swing met a shrieking mole as it emerged from its hole. Lights flashed, the victory music played and the game surrendered a ribbon of tokens to him. Grinning, the little looker turned, tokens grasped in an adrenaline pumped fist. Trailing big lookers in his wake he strode down the walkway, ignoring the childish temptation of Hook-a-Duck, he headed straight to the rifle range.   

Marvin barely acknowledged the token slapped down on the counter next to where he slumped, and certainly didn’t bother to size the eager player up against the chart which indicated the height beneath which a looker should not be handed a loaded rifle. By the time the big lookers in the player’s party caught up to him, he was already lining up his first shot, which missed all of the playing cards by a distance. The second shot was discharged mid-stagger as the little player momentarily lost his unconventional tip-toes stance. It hit the coffee mug which steamed at Marvin’s elbow. Marvin, startled, prepared to protest, thinking better of it when met by the flat stare of the big lookers standing behind the shooter. The third shot, with the assistance of tongue-out concentration, miraculously clipped a card. A five token shot.  

The little winner pointed immediately at Cuddlepig. Only now did Marvin realise that the valuable twenty token prize was on the wrong rack. He started to make the case, explaining why he couldn’t let the premium item go at a fifteen token discount. His half-hearted argument sounded like the whitterings of a whacked mole. The big looker’s reply came like the rumbling of one of the biggest rollers from beyond the Arcade Land entrance. The exchange was brief. Marvin, wanting only coffee and peace, handed Cuddlepig to the ecstatic winner after only token resistance. Feeling the frown of the big looker still on him, Marvin’s instinctive knack for avoiding any situation which might require him to exert anything but minimal effort caused him to pause. Turning back to the racks he snatched up Unimoo. Grinning at the winner he handed over the shop-soiled cyclops as a goodwill gesture for the misunderstanding. The frowning looker gone, Marvin reached for his chipped coffee mug and slumped back on to the counter, everyone a winner.

Unimoo and Cuddlepig were carried together as the lookers toured the rest of Arcade Land. After a good-bye tour of the other games, during which they were joined by a bag full of candyfloss and a huge inflatable hammer, they began to move in the direction of the exit.

As white light began to overpower the colours of the flashing bulbs, Cuddlepig saw a choir of moles rise up as one from their holes and sing their electronic victory song. Cuddlepig and Unimoo went together, into the light.