Buildings made of stacked fabric bolts leaned uneasily. Yarn lanterns flickered. Citizens — spool folk, button folk, felt creatures — whispered nervously.
Puddles exhaled. “We made it. But if the Fray storm reached the city… the Heartstitch must be failing faster than we thought.”
And somewhere deeper in the city, something metallic went snip snip snip.
The snip snip snip sound did not sound like a normal tool. It sounded like a scary movie monster clicking its teeth.
Puddles ran into the giant room, his flat feet hitting the floor like wet flip-flops. "Aha! I knew it! The world is being cut up by—holy cow, look at those giant blades!"
Hovering in the middle of the room was the Heartstitch. It was a huge, glowing ball of golden yarn pulsing like a disco light. Standing over it was a giant figure wearing an ugly, dirty canvas tarp. It was the Grand Weaver. In his hands, he held a terrifying, three-foot-long pair of old metal scissors.
"Stop right there!" Puddles yelled, holding up his tiny magnifying glass like a gun. "Drop the scissors!"
The Weaver spun around. His face was made of cracked plastic buttons and an angry unibrow made of black steel wool.
"The Maker forgot about us!" the Weaver roared. His voice sounded like a chainsaw cutting denim. "Look at this place! We are trapped in a messy teenager's drawer! Do you know what it’s like to live next to a sticky glue gun for three years? I am ripping this world apart! I will make a new, clean drawer! No messy scraps!"
"You're crazy!" the girl yelled. "Clean drawers do not exist!"
"Silence, human!" The Weaver swung the giant scissors. The blades cut the air with a loud WHOOSH, sending a shockwave of static electricity through the room. The blast hit Puddles mid-air, throwing him backward onto a wall made of Velcro. He stuck to it instantly, his tiny arms and legs wiggling. "I'm stuck! Save yourself! And don't look at my stitches!"
The Weaver turned back to the golden yarn ball, raising the heavy metal blades. One cut to the main gold thread, and the whole world would turn into pocket lint.
"No way!" the girl screamed. She ran forward, diving under a swinging blade that cut off a piece of her ponytail. She swung her glowing crochet hook upward. CLANG!
The hook hit the metal blades, making sparks fly everywhere. The Weaver was big and heavy, packed tight with polyester stuffing. He pressed down hard, forcing her to her knees.
"You can't stop me!" the Weaver hissed, his button eyes staring right into hers. "Give up!"
"I know how to craft!" she yelled.
She did not try to push him back. Instead, she used his own weight against him. She rolled across the floor, hooked the bottom of the Weaver's canvas cloak, and quickly wrapped the yarn three times around the main screw of the giant scissors.
She pulled the thread with all her strength. "Get knotted, jerk!"