Ship of Dolls

by Shirley Parenteau

  Lexie had to believe that the judges would be fair and choose the best one, no matter who wrote it. And she was going to write the best letter. Not Louise.

  As they reached the school, morning sunlight broke briefly through the clouds, brightening the white paint on the two-​story building. From the green-​wooded hillside beyond, the rat-​tat-​tat of a woodpecker sounded sharp in the early morning.

  Lexie felt every tap in her heart. Whatever was to happen, it was time to face Miss Tompkins. Pulling her shoulders straight, she headed up the walk to the small covered porch.

  “Lexie, listen,” Jack began. “I’ve been thinking . . . .”

  Lexie ran up the steps, shouting over her shoulder, “I can’t be late.”

  The hall stretched ahead of her with classrooms to either side, looking strange without students laughing and jostling one another. Her steps sounded hollow on the wood floor as she walked alone to the sixth-​grade classroom at the back. As she reached for the door handle, her heart pounded.

  Since students weren’t allowed inside yet, no one was crowded around the fat wood-​burning stove at the back of the room. As much as Lexie would have liked to warm herself, she turned away. Miss Tompkins waited behind her desk near the blackboard at the head of the room. The distance from the door had never looked so great before. As Lexie walked toward her, she felt as if the aisle stretched longer and longer.

  And then, as if time had snapped back, she was standing beside the teacher. Miss Tompkins looked up from the paper she had been reading. “Good morning, Electra. I am pleased to see you are on time.”

  “Yes, Miss Tompkins.” Lexie’s voice sounded faint when she wanted to sound strong. She swallowed, ready to try again.

  The teacher placed a leaflet on the desk. “Do you know what this is, Electra?”

  Lexie read the heading. “It’s about the kind of dolls to send to Japan.”

  “Correct. The Committee on World Friendship Among Children has listed several requirements for the dolls. I find we have failed to meet those requirements for Emily Grace.”

  “We have?” Lexie frowned at the leaflet. “How?”

  Miss Tompkins flipped open a page. “Please read aloud, beginning with this paragraph.”

  Lexie drew in a breath. She didn’t read as well as some of her classmates. Skipping around from school to school so Mama could find work singing with bands had made her slower.

  Again, she straightened her shoulders. “It says, ‘The dolls should be thirteen to sixteen inches tall and should look like attract . . . tive, typ . . . typical American girls.’”

  “Good. Continue.”

  Lexie thought of Emily Grace and decided she was probably the right size and she was pretty. Even prettier than Louise. But Miss Tompkins hadn’t said the doll looked wrong.

  Lexie glanced at Miss Tompkins and began again. “It says, ‘The dolls should be new and not cost more than three dollars.’” That sounded like a lot of money. She had heard Grandpa say the bank paid him twenty-​five cents an hour. Still, the class had collected enough to buy the doll by selling cupcakes and holding a cakewalk at the school carnival.

  She looked at the list again. “The face, arms, and legs should be of un . . . unbreak . . . able material. The . . . joints . . . and wigs should be hand sewn.” She paused. “Emily Grace is right, isn’t she, Miss Tompkins? She is those things.”

  “She is. You have not yet reached the problem.”

  Lexie glanced down the list. The dolls should be able to open and close their eyes and say “Mama.” They should each have a letter. Her heart beat faster. Emily Grace’s letter was going to be from her. It had to be.

  “Electra? Are you having difficulty reading the list?”

  “No, but I don’t see a problem, Miss Tompkins. It says each doll must have a railway and steamer ticket for travel and a passport and visa. We’re raising money for those.”

  She thought of the shiny fifty-​cent piece in Louise’s hand. “Is it about the money? Because —”

  Miss Tompkins cut her off. “I do not expect difficulty with the money. You are skipping about, Electra. You have missed the one item I wished to hear you read.”

  Lexie glanced swiftly over the paper. This time, her gaze stopped at a paragraph in the middle of the page. Aloud, she read, “They should be . . . simply . . . and care . . . carefully dressed. Extra dresses are desire . . . desirable.”

  Heart sinking, she raised her eyes to the teacher. “Emily Grace has a pretty satin dress with ruffles, not a simple one.”

  “Nor does she have an extra dress,” Miss Tompkins said. She clasped her hands together on her desk and gazed at Lexie.

  The expectant look in the teacher’s eyes made Lexie’s thoughts race. “I could make a second dress for her!” And hold her and measure her and fit the dress to her. She held her breath, hardly daring to hope that Miss Tompkins would agree.

  Punishment, she reminded herself. It has to sound like punishment! Aloud she added, “I wouldn’t have time to play. I’d have to stay in after school every day to work on the dress.”

  It looked like a smile teased the corners of Miss Tompkins’s lips, but Lexie couldn’t imagine why. “And I hope you will remember that your own reckless behavior brought the punishment upon you.”

  “I will!” Lexie said with all the promise she could load into her voice.

  “Your assignment, then,” the teacher said in a firm voice, “is to design and sew a simple second dress to place in the trunk to travel with Emily Grace to Japan.”

  Lexie suddenly remembered that she had never so much as hemmed a handkerchief! She didn’t like to admit that she couldn’t do something. But to sew a dress nice enough to travel with the doll to Japan might not be possible.

  Heat rose to her cheeks. Everyone would laugh at whatever she managed to stitch together. Where would she even find material?

  “You may ask your grandmother to help you.” Miss Tompkins placed the leaflet in her desk drawer. “You have three weeks, Electra. Perhaps the next time you are tempted to go into a place where you do not belong, you will remember that actions have consequences.”

  “Yes, I will,” Lexie said, but wondered if she’d made another mistake when she offered to do something important without knowing how. To ask for Grandma’s help, she would have to admit that she had gone into the teacher’s room to see the doll! Her thoughts spun so fast, she felt dizzy.

  “You are dismissed,” Miss Tompkins told her. “Please wait outside with the others for the class bell.”

  Feeling dazed, Lexie turned away and forced her steps toward the door.

  “Electra.”

  She stopped at the teacher’s call, then turned slowly, wondering if a second punishment was to be added to the first.

  “You will need to take measurements and fit the dress to the doll. You may visit her in the boardinghouse when necessary, at any time when I am there.”

  She was to have all the time she needed to hold the doll, to get to know her. She would understand Emily Grace better than anyone in the class. She would learn exactly what to say in Emily Grace’s letter.

  “I will,” she said. “I will, Miss Tompkins!” She felt as if she could do anything, even sew a dress worth traveling with Emily Grace to Japan. Even tell Grandma. Even ask for her help. She would find a way. Somehow. Feeling a smile light her up inside, she ran onto the school porch.

  She ran right into Jack. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, talking fast. “It isn’t right. What happened was my fault, and I’m going to own up to it.”

  “No.” She saw her chance with the doll slipping away. Making the dress was something she needed and wanted to do. What a time for Jack to decide to be a hero. She wished she hadn’t said she was afraid of being sent away from school. He must have been thinking about that. “It was my idea. I made you take me to that room. I wanted to hold the doll.”

  Eyes bright, Jack reached for the doorknob. “I shouldn’t have sneaked
you in there. I’m not going to let you take the punishment. It was my fault, and that’s what I’m going to tell Miss Tompkins.”

  “But Jack . . .”

  He stepped inside as the bell rang, calling everyone to class.

  “Jack, wait! It’s not a punishment . . . .” As she started after him, others crowded through the doorway, shoving her aside.

  “Jack!” she called over their heads. “I want to do it!”

  He didn’t turn around.

  Lexie wriggled into the classroom past two girls in the doorway comparing buckles on their shoes. She looked for Jack and saw him in the midst of a group of laughing boys.

  In Lexie’s mind, the doll slipped farther and farther from reach. If she interrupted while Jack talked with his friends, he was sure to make her the joke of his story. She felt cold inside just thinking how everyone in class would act if they learned she had sneaked into Miss Tompkins’s room in the boardinghouse to see the doll. So she kept watching Jack, hoping he would feel her eyes on him and come over.

  Miss Tompkins rang her handbell. As everyone settled into their seats, Jack eased into his desk across the aisle. Lexie leaned toward him, whispering, “Jack!”

  He whispered back, “Don’t worry!” and opened his desk to take out his math book. A warning glance from the teacher burned across Lexie, drying another whisper on her tongue.

  As the morning dragged on, she wasn’t able to concentrate on fractions. Instead, she tore a corner from her paper. In small letters, she wrote, I don’t want you to do it.

  She waited until the teacher turned to the blackboard before leaning across to put the folded paper on Jack’s desk.

  As he began to unfold it, Miss Tompkins turned. “Jack. Please stand and read your note aloud.”

  Lexie wanted to melt into the floor. She clenched her pencil so tightly in her fingers, she thought it might break. Jack was good at making up stories. Silently, she urged him to think fast.

  He stood slowly, unfolded the note, and read aloud, “‘I don’t want you to do it.’”

  Someone giggled. Two others snickered. One boy laughed. Miss Tompkins asked, “Do what?”

  Lexie stared at her hands, wishing herself anywhere but here. Miss Tompkins must think they were planning something else.

  “Kiss her,” Jack answered the teacher. “She doesn’t want me to.”

  Lexie’s head shot up. She stared at him while her face began to burn. Several of the boys whooped, and all the girls began to whisper and giggle.

  Louise called, “You can kiss me, Jack . . . in your dreams!”

  “In my nightmares,” Jack answered back.

  The whooping and giggling got louder. Miss Tompkins rang her bell. “Class! That will be enough. Jack, you may move to this empty desk in front for the remainder of the day.”

  Her secret was still safe. Lexie knew she was going to face a lot of teasing. She didn’t care. She was more worried that Jack might talk to Miss Tompkins and take the blame about Emily Grace. Looking hard at him, she tried to warn him in silence while he gathered his books and moved to the desk in front.

  The rest of the morning blurred past. It wasn’t possible to whisper to Jack. And from the front of the room, he could easily confess when Miss Tompkins dismissed them all for recess.

  She hoped he understood her note. The dread inside her said it wouldn’t make a difference if he did.

  At recess, she waited impatiently while Jack joked with friends at the front of the room. The girl who sat ahead of her turned around. “I didn’t know you were sweet on Jack.”

  “I’m not!” The words burst from Lexie. They sounded too loud, as if she was trying to hide that she did care.

  Someone else spoke to her. She had to turn to answer, which meant no longer keeping an eye on Jack or Miss Tompkins.

  Finally, she saw him leaving the room with some of his friends. She hurried toward the door, but Louise stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Jack’s my boyfriend, Dog Breath. Remember that!”

  When you moved as often as Lexie had with Mama, you heard a lot of inventive name-​calling. Before she could use one of those names to pay Louise back for “Dog Breath,” her grandparents’ faces, looking sad, came to mind.

  So she answered with an amused voice she had heard Mama use. “Maybe you should ask Jack if he remembers.”

  Brushing past Louise, she left the classroom and looked for Jack in the yard. He was with a group of boys watching another do tricks with a yo-​yo. Lexie walked over. “Did you tell?”

  “Who?” He glanced at her as if he’d forgotten the doll.

  “Miss Tompkins!”

  “Tell her what?” He turned back to the yo-​yo.

  Lexie almost smacked his shoulder. “You know what!”

  “Oh, that.”

  Worry had been burning holes inside her all morning. “Jack! Did you tell?”

  He gave an appreciative whistle. “That guy’s good.”

  Lexie jerked his sleeve. “Jack?”

  Finally, he turned his attention to her. “No, your note said not to. Why not?”

  Relief washed through Lexie. “Because it’s not like a punishment. All I have to do is sew another dress for Emily Grace.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows. “Do you know how?”

  She might have felt insulted that he thought she couldn’t do it, except that she wasn’t sure she could. “I’ll learn. And I’ll get to measure Emily Grace and fit the dress on her while I’m making it. I’ll get to know her, Jack. I need that chance!”

  She took a big breath, then added, “If you take the blame, I won’t get to know her.”

  Looking as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, Jack turned back to the yo-​yo. “Wow! Look at that!”

  “Did you hear me?” Lexie demanded. Talking to Jack was like talking to a fence post.

  He didn’t take his attention from the yo-​yo, but at last he agreed. “I won’t say anything, if that’s what you want.”

  Lexie felt eyes boring into her. It was the way she felt when she frowned over a sentence diagram and suddenly Miss Tompkins asked if she needed help. She glanced around and saw Louise glaring from a corner of the schoolhouse. Laughter bubbled up through Lexie, along with some of Mama’s flapper breeze. Making sure Louise was still watching, she said, “You’re a prince, Jack,” and soundly kissed his cheek.

  He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

  Ignoring whoops and whistles from the other boys, Lexie said, “See you around.”

  Then she walked directly past Louise to a group of girls playing hopscotch and took her place at the end of the line. As she waited her turn to hop, she glanced at the other girls, studying the dresses they wore. Could she really design and sew a dress for Emily Grace?

  I can, she told herself. Sewing the dress would be easy. The hard part was going to be asking Grandma for help.

  When class started again, Lexie considered one girl’s dress after another. Was a bow too fancy for the plain dress the doll needed? Should the material be flowered, or striped, or all one color? How were sleeves put on?

  Miss Tompkins’s voice broke in, dismissing class. With relief, Lexie gathered her books. But the teacher spoke over the shuffling sound of the others. “Electra, please remain in your seat.”

  Those were the first words from Miss Tompkins that Lexie had heard clearly all afternoon. That might have been the problem. She might have missed hearing the teacher call on her. Maybe she would have to stay after class and write a hundred times that she would pay attention.

  It might be even worse. Maybe Miss Tompkins wanted to tell her she wouldn’t be making a dress for Emily Grace after all.

  As Jack followed the others from the room, he glanced at her with a look she couldn’t decipher. Then Louise paused beside her. “Bet you’re in trouble!” With a satisfied smile, she joined her friends in the doorway.

  Lexie’s fingers curled into fists in her lap. She looked straight ahead at the blackboard, wait
ing for whatever was about to happen while the last of her classmates left the room.

  Miss Tompkins motioned her forward. Feeling as if she pulled each step through clinging mud, Lexie walked slowly to the front of the room.

  Miss Tompkins opened a drawer and lifted out the box holding the doll. “You will need to get started with your project. Three weeks is not a very long time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Was she to measure the doll now? Here?

  She looked for a measuring tape on the desk, but the teacher said, “Since I will be away this evening attending a meeting, you may keep Emily Grace over the weekend. Do I have your promise to keep her safe and return her on Monday morning?”

  “Yes! Of course! I will.” Lexie cradled the box in her arms, half fearing that Miss Tompkins would change her mind and snatch it back.

  “I will,” Lexie said again, clutching the box and doll close as she backed toward the door. She paused to glance again at the teacher. “I won’t let her get in the rain or anything. I promise!”

  Wait until Jack saw that she had Emily Grace for the entire weekend! She hoped he would meet her outside, but instead Louise caught up with her. “What’s that?” she demanded, poking the box. “Is that our doll? Are you stealing her?”

  Lexie ignored her and kept walking.

  Louise stayed beside her, looking at the box with suspicion. Suddenly she reached over and pried open one end. “That is our doll! Miss Tompkins!”

  Lexie jerked the box away, nearly spilling the doll. “I’m doing a special project.”

  “Does Miss Tompkins know about that? Does she know you have the doll?”

  Her tone said that Miss Tompkins could not know because she would never let Lexie remove the doll from the school. Lexie put as much scorn as she could manage into her voice. “It’s her project. Of course she knows.”

  The look on Louise’s face was almost worth all the worry Lexie had been through during the day.

  “I don’t believe you,” Louise said. “What did you do to deserve a special project?”

  Again Lexie thought of Mama and the way she faced down anyone who doubted her. “Maybe Miss Tompkins likes my work better than yours.” Head high, she walked down the street toward Grandma and Grandpa’s house.