Last-Minute Shopping at Toy Palace No Game for Stock Clerks : Holidays: The scramble to meet the demands of trend-savvy kids can test the mettle of workers entrenched in a war zone.

The woman’s voice boomed over the toy store’s loudspeaker like some get-tough cartoon character.

“OK people, this is it, our busiest day of the year,” assistant manager Adrienne Van Houten said at 8 a.m. on this rainy Saturday morning, two days before Christmas. “Night crew, clean up that cardboard. I’m gonna open the doors. They’re out there and they want in. And remember, they’re wet and they’re cranky.”

Another voice answers from somewhere among the cluttered aisles of the Toys R Us store on Topanga Boulevard: “Tell ‘em to go away! We don’t need ‘em!”

And with that opening volley, the toy wars were on.

Call them foot soldiers in the front-line trenches of the holiday quest for the perfect children’s gift. They’re stock clerks at a mega-toy palace.

They’re cheerful. They’re knowledgeable. And they’re deft at handling the most joyless of holiday customers: the bug-eyed, grabby, angst-ridden, wait-till-the-last-minute toy buyer.

During the weeks before Christmas, store manager Darrel Lee has nearly tripled his staff forces--from 60 to more than 150. And even then he often feels that he doesn’t have enough people to locate hard-to-find toys and answer the endless questions.

“My manager tells me not to wear a uniform so I can get some of my stocking duties done,” said Betty Varela. “But uniform or not, they find you. They’ve got toy clerk radar. And they’ve got their lists.”

In these waning shopping days, the clerks actually feel a bit sorry for their customers. “It’s a hard place sometimes,” said Maria Alcaraz, a 15-year toy store veteran, price marker in hand, as she gazed out at the aisles clogged with thousands of toys. “Toys are getting more and more sophisticated. Kids are getting more and more demanding.

“Little boys want everything to move. They want it to do something,” Alcaraz said. “Girls don’t just want dolls. They want it to walk. They want it to talk.”

Indeed, this year, it cannot just be any doll. In order to solicit that expression of childhood glee Christmas morning, it must be a Goddess of the Sun Barbie.

The toy store clerks know this. They’ve seen the wild-eyed grandmother raise her voice in frustration, complaining she doesn’t know the first difference between a Nintendo and a Super Mario Brother.

They’ve overheard the man in the gray suit on the public telephone near the restrooms, gritting his teeth, informing his luckless listener: “Listen, it’s not my job to do your sister’s Christmas shopping. Tell her to get her butt over here and do it herself!”

And so, as the doors open, the toy clerks are ready.

They’re looking for squabbles between mothers scrapping over the last available Baby Newborn. They’re on the watch for the slinky cart-nappers who would plunder another shopper’s hard-earned scores. They’re prepared to shake off the aggressive toy hunters who will grab at unopened cartons and covet toys before they can even get them on the shelves.

Within seconds of the opening, the store was stampeded by moms and dads, 12-year-old boys, grandmothers, fiances and big brothers--all anxious to execute some last-minute shopping in this most complex of landscapes.

On Saturday, Gayla Wheeler was among the first customers inside. She had arrived nearly an hour before, sitting in her car, turning the radio dial, waiting for the store to open. She wanted to buy some timeless legend sports figures for her two sons. One son had been to the store around midnight the previous day and heard that a new shipment was arriving overnight.

Literally running to the right aisle, she staked her claim on a half dozen of the figures, only to be told that there was a two-toy limit.

So what’s a mother to do?

Well, for one thing, she tells clerks it’s a brutal job to compete not only with zealous parents, but professional collectors who scarf up toys the moment they hit the shelves.

“We’ve got kids competing with adults here,” said Hillary Cowart, whose 12-year-old son, Michael, learned the store was plumb out of the Star Wars doll, Boba Fett. “It’s not pretty.”

But the most despised competitor for Christmas toy shoppers is a real-life character with a nickname of unknown origin: The Zoner.

“Those are the people who take part-time jobs in toy stores just so they have the first shot at all the best merchandise,” said Hillary Cowart. “I just think that’s disgusting.”

Store clerk Betty Varela admits to such a ploy.

“I’m doing this job part-time just to get some toys,” she said.

Already, she’s scored some hard-to-find Batman figures as well as the Buzz Lightyear figure--which gained national celebrity after the movie “Toy Story” made his name a kiddie household word.

But tastes run fickle in this ever-changing world of toys. Last year’s must-have, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers--toys that had some parents sleeping outside toy stores across America to be first in line the following day--now litter the shelves.

“I don’t like ‘em,” said 12-year-old Michael Cowart. “They’re just rip-offs of the Japanese characters. Buzz Lightyear, now he’s the real thing.”

Some toys endure. Board games like Clue, Monopoly and Life are still best-sellers.

But customer Marilyn Lazzarevich learned how others are bound for the retail graveyard.

“Why can’t I find Tiddly Winks?” she demands. “My granddaughter just goes crazy over them. Why don’t you sell them?”

One clerk sympathized with her plight and suggested another store.

Whether his customers are happy, sad or downright unbearable, part-time toy store clerk Edward Schultz likes helping people find just the right toy.

It makes him feel a bit like Santa Claus.

Said Schultz: “Where else can you find a job where you get to work around toys?”