- Well, Sally's birthday
is actually on the 25th of December,
but we don't think it's right
that she gets more than her sister does on Christmas day.
Do we?
- No.
- No, but it was her 10th
and she always used to like soft toys.
So we got her one of those custom made teddy bears
from the Make A Mammal Workshop.
- Paid for every extra.
Made it smell like bananas when you smelt it.
Everything.
- Yes, and when you go in there, they let you-
- Don't smell like bananas anymore, does it?
Smells like some-
- Well, no one's going to be able to smell it
on the television, are they?
So it's, it's not a necessarily detail.
- Waste of fucking money.
- Anyway, when you go in, they give you hearts
to stuff right inside the best chest yourself
with your fingers.
There's no blood though, is there?
- Not when they do it, no.
- No. And they give the hearts to all the kids that come in
and they, what did they say?
Oh, rub it on your heart so it loves you.
Rub it on your knees so it needs you.
Rub it on your eyes so it cries when you're not there.
- They put a lot of thought into the wordplay.
- Yes, and you can buy these special hearts
with a little button inside them.
So when you give the bear a squeeze,
the heart actually beats inside the bear's chest,
like a real one for what, 15 seconds or so?
It's a cute idea.
- In theory, yeah.
- [Mom] So on Christmas day we gave Dostoevsky to Sally.
- We paid for it. So we got to name it.
- We wanted to try
and encourage her to read proper books when she grows up.
We could have called it Dog-stoevsky
if we got her a dog one.
- I don't think they want other people to do the wordplay.
- Which is fair enough.
They're good at it.
- She can't be trusted with dogs anyway.
- No, not anymore.
So Sally gave the teddy bear
a great big Christmas day cuddle
and she could feel its heart beating inside its chest.
You should have seen her face light up.
It was a picture, wasn't it?
- I should have taken a picture
back when she was okay in the head.
- And then she says, "Mummy-"
- Why does his heart stop beating?
- Sally, if you want his heart to keep beating
you have to get him a cuddle.
(dramatic music)
And the thing is,
we didn't really think she'd feel quite so responsible
for keeping the bear
not dead. (heart beating)
- She didn't sleep that night.
- No.
She just kept hugging him and hugging him
and telling him everything was going to be fine.
We didn't think anything was wrong at first.
We just thought she really liked hugging it.
In hindsight-
- She didn't want to go to prison for murder.
- No.
And so after 78 hours or also she just calmed down,
God bless her soul.
- I'm not sure she has a soul-
- By the time she went-
- I'm not sure there's God either.
- Well she must've worn the battery out
or the button got stuck
because the heart just wasn't beating anymore.
And we didn't expect her to try quite so hard
to bring Dostoevsky back to life.
- Didn't expect a lot of things.
- Every time she asked us to take her down to the butchers
on a Saturday morning, we told her the same thing.
- Real organs won't bring it back to life.
- But we didn't want to discourage her
from being interested in science.
It was making her read proper books,
which is what we wanted in the first place.
So we said she could use the basement.
- We wouldn't let her have it upstairs.
Not with how soggy it got.
- He got.
Sally, I told you, not in the kitchen.
(knocking on door)
So every day after school
she'd rush straight downstairs
and with her doctor's books and put her little costume on
and do her best to resuscitate the teddy bear.
- We're not sure when she decided
that conventional science wasn't enough
or, to be honest, actually,
how she even knew about the occult in the first.
- Yes, she did start drawing runs on the basement walls
with a hopscotch chalk just after the term started.
Looking back we really should have been
a bit more suspicious when she offered to take
Rufus out for walkies.
- She never did like that dog.
- Her sister was devastated when she saw the body.
There was so much blood.
It was all smeared around her mouth like, well, like blood.
We don't know how much she drank of it in the end,
but Rufus's carcass was dry as a desert by the time...
- We did think about punishing her, didn't we?
But we thought the better parenting choice
would be to make her undo the damage.
- Yes. She's down in the basement now
because when the ritual succeeded,
which did take us all by surprise, full credit to her,
we made a deal with her.
If she could bring Rufus back to life
like she did for Dostoevsky,
then we'll get rid of Dostoevsky.
(growling)
(rushing footsteps) (door slams)
Here he is.
You have to give him a bit of a squeeze above the sink
just before you pick him up
just to minimize all the dripping, but other than that.
- Sally doesn't play with him anymore.
(door slams)
That's exactly why she doesn't get double at Christmas.
- He does wait outside the basement door for her,
pawing at it again and again like a kitty
drowning in a sack.
It'd be cute if it- - Wasn't actually happening.
- Well, as Sally's back to not sleeping,
for different reasons this time.
He does love her but, um...
Well, the feeling is not exactly mutual.
- All that money we spent
making it smell like fucking bananas.
(Dostoevsky gurgles)
- He does love her.
He does need her.
He does cry when she's not there.
Actually it's, it's more of a screech.
(Dostoevsky screeches)
We haven't decided how we're going to put him down yet.
- Not even sure if it's possible.
(dog whimpers)
- Rufus?
Bill, it is Rufus.
She's done it!
Sally's done it!
I told you she'd manage.
(dog whimpers)
- Excuse us.
(upbeat music)
(Dostoevsky growls)