by Lois Ruby
“Let’s get this clear,” Mom says calmly. “Brian, we both know that you have a way of following your sister wherever she leads you.”
“Gimme a break, Mom!”
“You have to admit all this is a little hard to swallow.” Turning to me, she says, “Shelby, we also know that you tend to be a bit of a drama queen, exaggerating things, embellishing now and then. You’ve always had an active fantasy life. All those castles and princesses and fairies and goblins you used to read about.”
And leprechauns. “This is different. This is real.”
Mom closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Could it be possible, honey, that you need to talk to someone?”
“I’m talking to you, and you don’t believe me!”
“I mean, talk to someone professionally.”
“What profession?” I ask.
“A psychologist. A good child psychologist. There must be someone in Trinidad.”
“You think I’m crazy?”
“No! Just a little carried away. I know it’s been difficult with your father gone and all. Oh, I thought moving out of Denver would be the new start we all needed.”
I’m still hearing “Angry girl, tsk tsk, such an angry girl, isn’t she, Dotty?” “Oh, indeed, look how red her face is. Why, Betsy Anne, I do believe she might burst like a bag of confetti.”
They’re discussing me, like I’m not even in the room. Maybe I am crazy, same as Emily. Or maybe Emily wasn’t crazy at all.
The pizza arrives, but Brian and Chester are the only ones who eat it.
WHEN THE PHONE RINGS, THAT OLD KIND OF wailing ring, we all jump. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a landline like this house has. I pick up the clunky black receiver upstairs just as Mom gets the kitchen phone. It’s Dad.
“Why didn’t you call on my cell, Sam?”
“That’s a real warm greeting.”
Already they’re off and running.
“Doesn’t matter,” Mom says. “I was going to call you later today anyway. I’m worried about Shelby.”
Oh no! Why does she have to drag him into this?
“What’s going on with her that isn’t going on with every other preteen girl?”
Dad’s trying to joke around, but Mom’s having none of it. I can tell by the irritation in her voice. “She’s obsessed with some dolls previous occupants left here. She claims they’re talking to her.”
“Like her teddy bear Trombone and that four-foot giraffe did when she was little?”
“As usual, Sam, you’re missing the point. With the animals, she knew it was imaginary. Now she believes they really are talking to her, and moving around on their own, and she’s got Brian believing it, too. Shelby has buried these dolls in a little graveyard on the property, which is bizarre in itself, but she says they’re getting out of the graves and going where they please. You see? It sounds insane.”
“What’s Brian say about all this?” Dad asks.
“He says the same thing, but you know how he’s always followed her lead, and besides, there’s that bout of lying we went through right after.”
There’s no need to say “After what?”
Back and forth they go, she asking why he hasn’t come to see us, as the court ordered, and he accusing her of making it impossible by taking us nearly two hundred miles away from him. I tune out, until she says, “Shelby needs new clothes. School starts next week.”
“Tomorrow, Terri and I will drive down and take her shopping.”
Not with Terri!
Mom saves me: “No, Sam. Alone.”
“All right. What’s the nearest shopping mall to you?”
“Google it,” Mom snaps.
I press the phone against my shoulder. My head’s throbbing with anger at both of them, and I’ve had enough. I don’t want to hear what he barks back at her. What I hear instead is, “Calm your rage, angry girl. Take a deep breath.”
Is it my conscience talking to me? With the phone pressed to me, Dad’s voice vibrates through my body. Yes, I must have imagined it because I’m still flustered over the thought of shopping with Terri.
When it seems safe to listen again, I raise the phone back to my ear.
“All right, Serena, you win. I’ll pick her up about noon Saturday. We’ll have a few hours, and then I’ll come get Brian. I’ll get a hotel room somewhere. He can spend the night with me.”
“That’ll work,” Mom says.
Well, it won’t work for me. But before I can tell them that, I hear a distinct voice unlike the ones I’ve heard before. It’s an elegant, princesslike voice, a little bit British. Could it be Lady?
“Why, oh, why is it only the angriest, nastiest-tempered girls who abide within our walls? I, for one, am weary of it. The time has come for us to do something, would you all agree?”
There’s a resounding, echoey chorus: “Indeed. Revenge!”
Now more than ever, I need to know what’s in Sadie’s notebook, because I’m scared of what the dolls have in mind. Holding pages up under a lightbulb is slow and painful, and I keep burning my fingers on the lightbulb and sucking them to cool them. The penlight hasn’t landed in our mailbox yet.
I’ve let Brian in on the whole notebook thing, but I made him promise not to say a word to Mom yet. “And that goes for Dad, too,” I warn. “You’re spending Saturday night with him at a hotel. Don’t say one single word about this diary.”
“Saturday night, really? Will the hotel have a pool? Should I take my Spidey trunks? My mitt and bat?”
“I don’t know,” I answer impatiently. I’ve got my own worries about what I’m going to say to Dad all those hours on Saturday afternoon. “Stop jiggling the flashlight. Hold it steady, right there.” We’re on the floor in my room, trying to decipher Sadie’s words, but the flashlight isn’t hot enough.
The desk lamp! It takes a while for the paper to heat enough to give up a few words.
Brian’s very impressed. “It’s like spies. Like a secret code, only you don’t have to say every A equals Z and stuff like that.” He’s going on and on about variations of secret codes when the words start to appear:
… brought them from his last business trip to Germany, or maybe some other European …
… if only my head didn’t hurt so much, I could …
… picked the ugliest one to be Amelia ’cause I hate …
… said he’d bring me a chartreuse parrot from the Amazon rain forest next …
… Mother loves Daisy lots more. She’s always hugging …
… Amelia’s mother gave her three …
“This doesn’t make any sense, Shelby.”
“I think it might.” I try piecing all this together to come up with a reasonable story. “Sadie was a real unhappy girl.”
“Mean, Mr. Caliberti said.”
“Yes, but why? People aren’t born mean. Things happen to turn them that way. Here’s what I’m thinking: Sadie was a little spoiled because her father gave her everything she wanted. I mean, a parrot from the Amazon rain forest? Come on. He even built that dollhouse for her that’s a perfect model of our house, down to the smallest details. But look, it says he took lots of business trips. Maybe she felt neglected. Maybe he gave her stuff to make up for not being around.”
“Dad’s not around,” Brian says quietly, “and he’s not sending us stuff.”
Brian’s words break my heart, so I quickly say, “Yes, but Dad knows that Mom’s looking after us. Sadie says right here that her mother loves Daisy, her little sister, and not Sadie. So who’s taking care of Sadie Thornewood?”
“A maid or something?” Brian asks.
“She’s called a nanny, or a governess. Remember, Mr. Caliberti said that Dotty Woman, the dandelion lady, was the governess for those two sisters. The housekeeper was Amelia’s mother. That’s our Aunt Amelia when she was a little girl. She and Gram and their mother the housekeeper lived here in this house.”
“Aunt Amelia was never a little girl,” Brian says.
“Sure she was! Gram was a little girl once. Even Mom and Dad were kids a long time ago. We don’t know much about Dotty Woman, only that Mr. Caliberti said she laughed a lot, and Sadie thought she was nuts.” There seems to be a lot of that going around in this house. “But let’s say Amelia’s mother loved Daisy more than she loved Sadie, and of course she loved her own daughter even more. Sadie had to be feeling totally unloved.”
Brian’s lost interest in the conversation and is much more fascinated by the hole that’s burning in the paper, which I snatch away from him. Returning to Sadie’s handwriting, I zero in on a line:
… picked the ugliest one to be Amelia ’cause I hate …
What if Sadie took those dolls her father brought her from Europe, and she pretended that each one was a person who lived in the house? And then she treated them awful, even tried to smash one with garden shears, like Mr. Caliberti said.
Because she was an angry, angry girl. Like me.
I slam the notebook shut and flick off the lamp. “Get lost,” I growl at my poor, sweet brother.
IT’S SO COLD. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT I GOT up and put on a sweatshirt hoodie and some long PJ pants that I hardly ever wear, and now that the sun’s coming up, it’s even worse. It’s only September second. It shouldn’t be this cold already.
Downstairs, Mom’s wearing a hoodie and a coat and already has three pots of soup simmering on the stove.
“Why’s it so cold in here, Mom?”
“Furnace went out. I have to call a heating guy this morning. It better be something he can fix easily, because we can’t afford a new one.” Warming her hands over one of the steamy pots, she says in a fake-cheerful voice, “There’s nothing like a nice, thick split-pea soup to warm the belly. Or tomato bisque or mushroom barley, whichever you prefer.”
“Just some toast,” I mutter, opening a giant jar of chunky peanut butter.
“When the soup’s ready, why don’t you take a quart to that nice neighbor, Mariah? It’s bound to be tastier than that muscle-bound beefsteak-and-kidney pie.”
I can see my breath. “How soon can we get the heat repairman here?”
“Probably not today, but I’ll call. Come warm your hands over here.”
The three soup smells don’t blend into anything you’d really want to sink a spoon into, but the heat rising off a simmering pot feels good. Then suddenly, all three come to a rolling boil, with giant bubbles rising to the top like hot sea foam. We have to jump aside to keep from being scalded as all three pots spill over at once, spewing green, red, and brown soup everywhere.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Mom says, along with a dirty word. “Oh no, and now all that spilled soup has drowned out the pilot light.” She gives me a roll of paper towels and a pail of soapy water for cleanup, muttering, “What a rotten way to start the day.”
It’s got to get better fast, because Dad will be here by lunchtime, and that’s plenty of drama for one day.
I’m sticky with soup to my elbows, so once I’m done mopping up, I dash upstairs for a hot shower to take the chill out of my bones, and that’s when I discover my favorite red sweater crumpled in a wet mess on the floor, cradling a batch of Brian’s Star Wars figures. Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber has snagged the knit, and it’s got an ugly loopy hole in it. I was going to wear it on the first day of school, and now it’s totally ruined.
“BRIAN!” I scream, whirling into his bedroom like a tornado. “I hate you!”
He’s not in his room. I hear footsteps overhead. There’s nothing up there but the attic and the dollhouse. What’s Brian doing up there, unless he’s hiding from me because he knows I’m fuming with steam coming out of both ears.
I scuttle up the pull-down ladder to the attic, ready to wring his skinny chicken neck like in that Jerry Spinelli book Wringer. “How could you do that to my red sweater?”
His voice echoes inside the dollhouse. “I never touched your sweater. You’d eat me alive if I came into your room.”
“You used my sweater as a bath mat for your Star Wars figures.”
Brian pulls his head out of the dollhouse. “You found my Stormtrooper and Jango Fett?”
“Found ’em, all right, along with Luke Skywalker, whose lightsaber has totally ruined my sweater.” I can feel my nose flaring, and I’m ready to spit dragon fire. My brother does not bring out the best in me.
“I was scared I left them in Denver and I’d never see them again,” Brian says. “Dad gave ’em to me for my birthday. Anyway, I never touched your stupid sweater.”
“You’re lying.”
“Don’t say that ever again!”
“I know you did it. It’s going to take every penny of your allowance for ten years to buy me a new sweater. Starting today. Turn it over,” I command, palm out.
A familiar voice hisses, sharper than ever, “Such an angry girl.”
I spin around. “Stop it! Where are you?”
“Right here, can’t you see?” Brian yells.
“Angry, angry girl.” It’s another voice, reedy and high-pitched.
“I AM NOT ANGRY!” I shout, then hear “Tsk, tsk.”
Brian asks, “Who you talking to?”
“No one.” Them! Could the day get any worse? These voices are making me crazy, even if I’m not. All at once, everything becomes clear, the same way sun burns off fog. Last night I heard — or I think I heard — the dolls threatening revenge. Did they cause all these things to happen? The furnace, the boiling pots, the ruined sweater? Is it all somehow connected to my afternoon with Dad? No, it can’t possibly be. Why would it? I brush the idea off like it’s just a crumb on a place mat.
Then my heart skips a beat and seems to stand still as a terrifying thought grips me by the throat:
It’s going to get a lot worse.
When Dad pulls into our driveway, I’m dying to run right out and hop on the hood of the car and lie on my stomach, staring into the windshield at him, which will make him honk the horn until I roll off. That’s what I used to do. I don’t now. As soon as I see his car, I dart into the kitchen. In fact, if I didn’t think I’d look stupid, I’d hide under the table. Brian is at his new Cub Scout den meeting, so that leaves Mom to open the door when Dad actually rings the bell. The man who lived with us all my life is ringing the doorbell at our house like company.
Peeking out through the swinging door, I see that Chester’s nipping at Dad’s shoes, and his tail is wagging like crazy. I guess dogs miss people, too. Dad kneels down and scratches Chester behind the ears. Mom doesn’t invite him in, and after a couple of awkward minutes, Dad says, “Mind if I take Chester out for a walk while Shelby’s getting ready?”
Mom hands him the leash that hangs by the door, and Chester’s tail is already wagging so hard that it’s slamming against the wall.
Dad says, “I’ll bring him back in fifteen minutes or so, then Shelby and I can go have some lunch.”
“Fine,” Mom says. It’s all so stiff and proper, like they just met at a funeral.
I hate this. I’m not going. I’d run up the road to Mariah’s house, if I knew which one it was. Mr. Caliberti. I dash out the back door and run across the yard to his cottage. It’ll be warmer than our house. I’ll tell him Mom made soup for him, but it spilled all over the kitchen. I’ll tell him about Sadie’s notebook.
The ghost light’s still shining when I bang on his door. Terpsichore glares at me from the window. There’s no answer. Where would he go? He can’t walk very far. He doesn’t have a car, and I never saw a taxi come for him. Then I remember he told Brian and me that he keeps an actor’s schedule, goes to bed at five in the morning and sleeps until after noon.
I could hide in one of the empty houses up the hill, but they’re probably locked up tight, and besides, even in the daylight they’re creepy. Maybe I should hang out in the doll graveyard. Dad would never find me there. Like that’s not creepy? I throw up my hands and slap my sides in resignation. There’s nothing else to do o
ut here in the middle of nowhere. Might as well go with Dad.
CHESTER AND DAD ARE BOTH PANTING WHEN they come back. They must have had a good run. I’m standing in the front hall with my jacket zipped up over my mouth. Dad puts one arm around me lightly, and I shrink away, but what I really want to do is pull his other arm around me so I can nuzzle into his chest.
“Ready to go, Shel?”
“I guess.”
Watching all this, Mom says, “Brian will be waiting for you at about four.” Then she sighs and returns to the kitchen. Chester looks from Dad to me and back. He must be totally confused. Can you divorce a dog?
In the car, Dad asks me, “Seat belt buckled?”
The best I can do is nod.
“The closest shopping mall is in Pueblo, about eighty miles away. But that’s okay. It’ll give us time to talk. Anything new with you?”
I shrug. We’re not even out of the driveway yet and we’ve run out of things to say.
He keeps quiet, and I stare out my window until we get to I-25, and then words burst out of him, startling me so much that my head nearly hits the roof of the car.
“Shelby, let’s get this straight. I’m your dad, you’re my daughter, and we have to talk. Forget the shopping for a while. We’re going to find a picnic table and sit down across from each other, and look at each other’s faces.”
“I don’t …”
“Don’t argue.”
He swings off the road at a sign that says LUDLOW NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK, and we drive in a half-mile over bumpy dirt. It’s not a big fancy museum or anything, just a deserted spot out in an open field, with a few panels of dusty exhibit info — and a dugout where thirteen people suffocated during a coal miners’ strike a hundred years ago. Great place to have a heart-to-heart talk, right?
He must have scoped it out on his way to Cinder Creek, because he leads me right to a picnic table under a big rickety tent, and he doesn’t waste any time getting to the bone he has to pick.
“Mom tells me you’ve found a bunch of dolls at Aunt Amelia’s house.”
