Ship of Dolls (4 page)

Jack whistled softly.

Lexie pushed away resentment to say, “Louise, do you know if it’s true about the letter contest winner getting to go to San Francisco?”

“I might know, but I won’t tell!”

Lexie looked at the smug smile on Louise’s face. If Louise thought she was going to beg for an answer, Louise was wrong.

In the same moment, a girl in the school yard called, “Louise!”

“See you later, Jack.” Louise took a step away, then turned and for the first time looked directly at Lexie. “What do you care about the rumor? You’re wasting your time. I’m writing the best letter. Mama said so!” She ran to join her friend.

Lexie thought of several things to say about Louise and swallowed them all. Grandma said the Wilkinses acted as if their money gave them special privileges. Maybe it did. And Mr. Wilkins was on the school board. Could that mean the judges would choose Louise’s letter even if it wasn’t the best?

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.

L
exie 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.”