by P. J. Night
“Whatever,” Katie had mumbled, staring into her cereal. She hadn’t meant for her response to sound as rude as it did.
But her mom had continued in the same kind tone. “Well, I think you and Whitney are brave to push forward and have a sleepover, even though you don’t know each other very well yet.”
“Thanks,” Katie said as her eyes welled up. Luckily, she stopped herself from crying before her tears started dripping into her bowl, which would’ve made her sweet cereal taste salty.
Okay, maybe Mom was right, she thought now. Maybe this sleepover’s going to be worth it.
Katie’s dad walked her up the door, and when she went to kiss him good-bye, she realized he would want to meet Whitney’s parents. “Um, are your parents around?” she asked Whitney.
“It’s just my dad. Dad!” Whitney called, not taking her eyes off Katie or her dad. Soon Whitney’s dad came into the hallway. He reached out to shake Katie’s dad’s hand.
“Clay Van Lowe,” he said. Katie’s dad smiled and shook Mr. Van Lowe’s hand.
“Bernard Walsh,” Katie’s dad said. “Welcome to Westbrook. And thanks for having Katie tonight.”
Katie felt giggly. Dads introduced themselves in a funny way. She imagined shaking hands with Amy and saying in deep voices, “Katie Walsh” and “Amy Fitzgerald.”
“Okay, then, Kooka,” her dad said a few moments later. “See you tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at noon.”
“Bye, Dad,” Katie said. She gave him a quick hug and found herself wanting to keep hugging him, but made herself stop. Then he waved good-bye to everyone and left.
Judging by the way Whitney’s living room looked, there wasn’t a whole lot of living going on there, just open boxes, piles of books, an unplugged television on the floor, and a couch standing on its side. Katie noticed a worried look on Whitney’s face.
“My room is all fixed up,” Whitney said quickly, sliding between Katie and the rest of the living room. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Katie turned to follow Whitney upstairs. Whitney opened the door to her room with a flourish.
“Ta-da!” she sang proudly. Katie took in the room: a pale pink frilly bed with a few lacy throw pillows, a little wooden desk with nothing on it at all, and a small framed oil painting of a unicorn drinking from a pond turned silver by moonlight.
“Pretty room,” Katie said diplomatically.
“Thanks. I decorated it myself.”
Whitney looked at her expectantly, and Katie tried to think of something else to say. “I used to collect unicorns,” she offered.
The sentence hung awkwardly in the air as another wave of sadness washed over Katie. How she wished she would be sleeping in Amy’s trundle bed tonight instead of on the floor in her sleeping bag in this strange room.
Amy’s walls had been covered with some of the same movie and music posters Katie had in her room at home, pulled carefully out of the same magazines. There was also a desk with a computer where they would spend hours playing games. Sometimes Amy’s mom would bring in a giant bowl of her famous peanut-butter popcorn and the girls would be so happy they’d jump up and give her a standing ovation. There were also two big beanbags perfect for eating popcorn in.
By comparison, Whitney’s room looked like a room Katie’s grandmother might have lived in as a little girl.
Then Katie noticed she had an audience.
All around the room, on the bed and on the floor, sat about twenty porcelain dolls. Each doll was a little different—different dresses and hair colors—but they all were sitting up straight and wearing fancy clothes that made them seem old-fashioned.
“Wow, that’s a lot of dolls,” Katie said.
“Twenty, to be exact.” Whitney beamed. “I’ve been collecting them for a long time.”
All these dolls seem really babyish for a seventh grader, Katie thought. But then she remembered how not so long ago, toward the end of sixth grade, she had put her favorite dolls into a box destined for the attic. She had decided that middle school girls were too old to play with dolls, which felt a little sad. To comfort herself, she vowed to keep Seymour, the stuffed monkey with the oversize head that she’d had since she was a baby. By now Katie hardly ever thought about her dolls, but she still slept with Seymour every night. And she had to admit, she had no plans to stop.
In fact, the strange porcelain dolls made her wish she had brought Seymour. Seymour was soft and fuzzy and well-worn, the opposite of these clean, stiff, perfect dolls. Holding him would make it so much easier to relax and fall asleep.
“I like unicorns,” Whitney said. “But dolls are what I collect.”
“Cool,” Katie replied, not knowing what else to say.
“I know, right?” Whitney said brightly. “Anyway, you can put your stuff over there.” She indicated the one doll-free corner of the room.
Katie put her overnight bag in the designated spot, but still clutched her sleeping bag. She squeezed it to her chest as hard as she could and imagined her parents at home eating Chinese take-out. It would be nice to be there with them. She and Amy had taught themselves to use chopsticks right before Amy moved away, the two of them practicing for hours on Amy’s bedroom floor, using wooden take-out chopsticks and marshmallows. They quickly became pros, and Katie was eager to show off for her parents.
“Do you want to make art?” Whitney asked, pulling out a box full of art supplies. Katie had never heard that expression before, “make art.” It sounded weird. Then Whitney started to draw without waiting for an answer. But when Katie saw what she was drawing with—these pens that looked like Magic Markers, but came out like glittery paint—she was immediately into it. The two lay on the floor on their stomachs and drew and talked. Katie drew fireworks. The glitter markers made them look so real.
“I love that,” Whitney said, noticing Katie’s drawing. “I really love that.”
Katie smiled shyly. “Thanks. These are cool pens,” she said as she continued making her luminous fireworks burst on the page. “You know what? There are fireworks on the beach here on the Fourth of July. It’s fun.”
Whitney seemed enthusiastic about the possibility of fireworks on the beach. “I’ve never lived this close to the beach,” she said.
“I think you’ll like it,” Katie said. “This summer there were more hermit crabs in the water than ever before,” she added. She thought, It’s going to be fine. Whitney’s nice. She just hasn’t put her dolls away yet.
Whitney stared at Katie and smiled widely. “Let’s play dolls now,” she said.
Katie couldn’t believe that Whitney was actually suggesting that they play dolls, but she reminded herself that moving to a new town was probably even lonelier than having your best friend move away. Whitney probably liked having company, even if it was pretend company. She took a deep breath to relax herself. But all she got was a noseful of mothball smell.
Whitney didn’t seem to notice Katie’s apprehension. She’d already sat down against the wall like one of the dolls and crisscrossed her legs.
“Crisscross applesauce!” Whitney said happily to Katie as she patted her own thighs, indicating that Katie should sit in the same position. Katie couldn’t help but remember that her kindergarten teacher used to say the same thing at circle time.
Whitney picked up a doll with shiny black hair in ringlet curls. “Now you choose a friend,” she instructed Katie, gesturing to the rows of dolls as if she were inviting Katie to do the most normal thing in the world.
Katie remembered how she used to think her dolls were really her friends. But dolls aren’t my friends, she thought now. Amy was my friend. My real friend. She smiled weakly and looked around at all the dolls as if she were really choosing one, so Whitney wouldn’t know how silly and strange she thought this whole doll thing was.
“Okay, thanks. I will,” Katie said, carefully keeping the judgmental tone out of her voice.
She picked up a doll with ash-colored blond braids and bangs. This unfortunate dol
l wore a sailor suit with anchors embroidered on it. Holding the doll, Katie sat down on the floor across from Whitney. I can’t believe we’re playing with dollies like two little girls, she thought. I hope Whitney doesn’t want to have a tea party. I wonder how long before dinner. I wonder what we’re having.
Whitney had another wide, odd grin on her face. She seemed thrilled that Katie had chosen a doll.
“That’s Penelope,” she told Katie as if she were a mother introducing her toddler to another child. “She’s new!” Katie guessed that this must be the doll Whitney had mentioned in homeroom, the new doll she got this summer. I guess it’s sweet that Whitney’s such an attentive doll mom, Katie thought. She’s named each one and obviously takes good care of them. Maybe that means she’ll be a good friend.
Katie politely examined Penelope, trying to show appreciation for the doll’s beauty.
“Penelope’s a sailor, “Whitney explained. “And she’s really good at checkers.”
“She’s pretty,” Katie said. And it was true, the doll was pretty. She even had dimples. She also had the kind of doll eyes that open and close, and Katie fingered one of the eyelids so it would look like she was winking. The eyelid was lined with shiny plastic black lashes, stiff as the bristles on a toothbrush.
“Well, say hello to her,” Whitney told Katie. She sounded slightly impatient.
Katie couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she played along without missing a beat. She looked at Penelope’s face and made eye contact with her as if she were a real person. “Hi, Penelope. How are you? You have such pretty eyes.”
Then she noticed that the doll’s eyeballs didn’t look as fake as most dolls’ eyes.
They were plastic, but somehow … different. They made Katie think of a dog food commercial she had seen in which real dogs were smiling with human lips and teeth. But that commercial was made with special effects from a computer, and this was real life.
“Penelope is from Wisconsin, but her family heritage is Dutch!” Whitney said with obvious pride. “I lived in Amsterdam for a little while a few years ago, so I know all about the Dutch.”
“Oh, really?” Katie looked closer at the eyes. It seemed like Penelope’s irises were the same pale, bright blue as Whitney’s. They were as light as blue could get without being called white. The black pupils looked like they went deep into her eyes, like they were letting in light, and the whites of her eyes were shiny and moist, like a person’s. Katie could even see faint red squiggles in them—veins.
And then Penelope’s eyes looked right at Katie. Right into her eyes.
The nervous feeling Katie had felt in her stomach in Whitney’s driveway now moved through her whole body.
She felt it on the soles of her feet and on her scalp. Every cell of her body froze as she looked back into Penelope’s eyes, somehow unable to look away.
Penelope’s face and body remained perfectly still and doll-like, but her eyes stared at Katie.
Katie started talking herself down the way she did when she was babysitting and heard the house creaking.
You’ve just had too much candy today, she said to herself, as if she was her mother talking to her. Too much sugar makes you a little cuckoo, remember, Kookaburra?
She tried to focus on something else. Whitney was now combing another doll’s hair with a tiny comb. Katie tried to listen to her quick, cheerful chatter.
“My dolls really don’t like to get packed up in boxes and go into the moving van,” Whitney was saying. “So here’s what I do. I feed them candy first. Veronica here likes lemon drops, but this one, Irene? She only eats lollipops. And Rosa is from Mexico. Do you know what she likes? Candied rose petals. Seriously.”
What on earth was she talking about?
Whitney continued, “Oh, Irene, no.” She sighed. “You already had your lollipop today.”
Focus, focus, Katie told herself. Whitney was still yapping away. “And some of them will wear only velvet and others insist on satin….”
Katie was still locked into Penelope’s eyes and just trying to keep breathing—it felt like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs by a vacuum—when she felt herself being watched.
Watched not just by Penelope, but by every doll in the room.
Forty eyes were all staring directly, silently, insistently, at her.
A figment of your imagination, a figment of your imagination, Katie said over and over to herself as if it were a spell that could erase what she had just experienced. This had to be something she was imagining.
“It’s great to have such a good imagination, Kooka,” her mom would say gently when Katie was little and telling fibs. “But maybe sometimes you get a little confused between what’s real and what’s pretend?”
Remembering this made Katie feel better. Then she remembered how she and Amy used to scare themselves during sleepovers, telling ghost stories or imagining noises in the house in the middle of the night. Everything was always okay in the end. There was never any ghost or burglar. In the morning, it all seemed so silly. Katie’s heartbeat was starting to slow down, and she could breathe normally again.
Just as Katie realized she was getting pretty hungry, Whitney’s dad appeared at the door with a big tray of food.
Katie was thrilled. One, that she didn’t have to sit down at a table with him and Whitney, because sometimes she got shy in front of other people’s parents. And two, it was such a treat to eat in Whitney’s room off a tray. Katie only got to eat in her room off a tray when she was sick.
“Thank you,” Katie said to Whitney’s dad. Whitney said nothing. She actually didn’t even look up and acknowledge that her dad had come in.
“You’re welcome,” Whitney’s dad said.
“Do you girls have everything you need?” he asked, reminding Katie of a waiter.
Whitney looked carefully at the tray. “Is this bagel plain or whole wheat? It looks like whole wheat,” she said.
“It’s plain. The kind you like. They’re from a different bakery, so they look a little different,” her dad said, sounding nervous. “But it’s plain.”
“Oh,” Whitney said. “Then yes, we have everything we need.”
“Great,” her dad said, and closed the door. But then he opened it again. Whitney seemed really annoyed.
“I was going to hang your shelves in the morning,” her dad said. “Do you want them to go all around the room, or just on two walls? Your collection is getting so big, you may need more space.”
“Oh, I don’t need shelves this time,” Whitney said, not looking at her father. “My dolls have told me that they don’t want to be on shelves.”
“Really?” her dad said.
“As I said, no shelves this time,” Whitney said flatly.
Her dad seemed surprised. “You’ll have a lot of clutter if you keep them on the bed and the floor. Where will you put your—”
But Whitney interrupted. “Can you let it go?” she snapped rudely. “Actually, you know what? You’re really starting to upset me. Exactly the way Mommy used to.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” her dad said quickly. “No shelves, then. No problem.” He left quietly, closing the door softly behind him.
Katie had absorbed the tension of this exchange between Whitney and her dad. Her shoulders were practically up to her ears. She took a deep breath.
Whitney’s dad made Katie feel uneasy, though she couldn’t figure out why. It was true she was shy at first around other people’s parents, but she got a very strange vibe from Mr. Van Lowe. Then she realized what it was: He had not looked at her. Not at all, from the moment she walked in. That’s really strange, to not even look at a person who comes into your house, she thought.
But it turned out to be easy to forget the weirdness, because what was before them on the tray was like a dream dinner. There was a bowl of french fries. A few mini cinnamon croissants spread with peanut butter, honey, and banana and cut into bite-size pieces. And a tuna melt on a cut-up bagel. A plain bag
el, Katie now knew.
The tray included every single one of Whitney’s favorite foods. Katie knew this because in homeroom the day before, everyone was asked to tell their favorite foods, and these were the three on Whitney’s list. Each girl took a plate and napkin and dug in.
Whitney cut her french fries up with a knife and fork, which Katie thought was strange, but she didn’t say anything.
For dessert, there was a bowl of grapes and a bowl of purple and green jellybeans. As Katie took a grape, she noticed it felt different from other grapes. Slimier, somehow. She looked at the grape in her hand and realized it didn’t have any skin on it.
“The grapes are all peeled?” she asked Whitney incredulously.
“Oh, yeah,” Whitney replied casually. “I don’t like the peels, so my dad takes them off.”
“Wow,” said Katie. “That must take a really long time.”
“Whatever,” Whitney said. “Well, I’m going to get into my nightgown. I’ll use the bathroom first, then you can change in there too.”
Katie nodded but couldn’t help thinking of the nighttime routine at Amy’s. They never worried about changing into pajamas privately, first of all. That had never even occurred to them. Second of all, a nightgown? Katie had been sleeping in big T-shirts since fifth grade. For tonight, she’d packed a T-shirt and a pair of her dad’s boxer shorts that she’d made her own. But there was Whitney, emerging from the bathroom in a long, frilly nightgown with flowers all over it.
Katie went into the bathroom to change, then came out and unrolled her sleeping bag next to Whitney’s bed. She dug in her bag for her cell phone and placed it by her head, noticing that her mom had sent her a text message.
HOPE YOU’RE HAVING FUN, KOOKABURRA. SWEET DREAMS!
Katie quickly responded:
