The stories behind stuffed animals

Sometimes I write stories that are tied up with their own happy little endings. But occasionally something even cooler happens after it's all said and done, and I don't want my readers to miss out on the after-party. That is precisely what happened after I wrote last month about a little girl named Ally and her best friend, Hanky. Ally Conley is a first grader at Eastern Heights Elementary School in Elyria. Hanky is a much-beloved, sorta-orange octopus she received as a gift before she was even born. He hasn't left her side since, her constant companion even when her parents aren't around: sleeping, during hospital stays. And, two days before Christmas break, Hanky went with Ally to school. But at some point time Hanky fell out of Ally's backpack. When she got home and discovered he was missing, an all-points bulletin was sent out through the school. Custodians and teachers and the principal were in on the search, but Hanky didn't show. There is no underestimating the heaviness of the situation. Christmas vacation without your best friend? Without knowing where he was, if he was scared and alone? It was unthinkable in the Conley house. Ally has a back-up Hank, but that's really just for short moments, when Original Hanky needs washed. She has a special blanket, too — "Hanky and Blankie go everywhere," her mom, Anastasia, said, but still. Appeals went out on social media for the lopsided, mostly flat, no longer fuzzy friend. "We know someone went home with it," her mom wrote. "She is devastated." She was right. A few days later a parent contacted the Conleys. Their daughter, a student at the school, had spotted some boys on the playground "being mean" to Hanky. Though she didn't know Hanky or who it belonged to, she felt sorry for the ragged little octopus, picked it up and brought it home to keep him safe. Ally was reunited with Hanky and I wrote the story, which caught my eye because I am a sucker for a kid-reunited-with-her-stuffed-animal-friend kind of story. I understand that kind of bond. I used to write often about my daughter and her Pingu the penguin and to this day my small, mostly fuzz-less stuffed cat named Charlie sits on my library shelf. When I met Ally in person for the first time this week, she introduced me to Hanky. I told her about my Charlie. Both of them, to be honest: 30-some years after I'd acquired the first Charlie I gave birth to the second, a daughter I named Charlie. Maybe childhood companions carry more weight than we realize. I visited Ally that day to bring an unexpected ending to her story. After the Hanky reunion article ran in The Chronicle-Telegram, a Canadian book publisher contacted me. She happened to find the story and was so delighted by it she wanted to send Ally "Terry The Ten-Tentacled Octopus," a new book her company just released. Ally and I briefly discussed the average tentacles an octopus should have — which everyone knows is eight, but it seems Terry has 10, while Hanky only has seven; don't ask — and the other books she received, too. I explained to Ally that a second set of the same books also was sent, and these ones were going to be donated to the Avon Lake Public Library, in honor of Aurora. Aurora, like Hanky, was also a lost little stuffy, found in the Children's Department two Thanksgivings ago. The staff named her Aurora because that was the the name on her maker's tag. The little tabby with green eyes was also worn, obviously well-loved. Her nose had been used for a pacifier. She was marked with a tag — where she was found, the date — in the lost and found, but no one claimed her. But then the staff got creative, posing her in an incredible series of adventures on social media while looking for her owners. Aurora in a tiny Elvis sequined jumpsuit, in a Bob Ross wig, demonstrating yoga poses, wearing miniature 3-D glasses and eating popcorn, sneaking around the library at night. People starting following the library's online accounts just to see what the cat was up to. She's a superstar to the kids who visit, staffers say. Aurora's owner, 6-year-old Anderson Stahl, finally found her. Her real name was Kitty, and she'd been his constant companion. There was a loving reunion, and in a moment of bravery and bighearted thinking, he said good-bye to Kitty/Aurora, letting her live at the library and be a friend to kids there for good. Ally's mom told me that right when Hanky was lost, it seemed a particularly bad time for another bad thing to happen. I know what that is like, when the weight is too much. But the way Hanky came back — and seeing the rally of kindness of strangers, who cared so deeply about a little girl missing her octopus, brought such an unexpected lot of good. So if you happen to be at that library and run across a book about a 10-tentacled octopus, now you know how it got there. I just thought you might want to know what happened behind the scenes. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.