What a Doll! (10 page)

Lizzy looked grateful. “I'd like that,” she said, and wiped away her tears with a napkin. She smiled.

And just like that, they were back in the friendship nest. Just the two of them. Just two best friends planning a sleepover.

CHAPTER 10

After school Emmy raced straight to Zim Zam. She had to get rid of that doll right away. She didn't want to do any more damage. She had already done more than enough. And what would be the point, anyway? After all, she had her best friend back.

Emmy knew just what she was going to say when she returned the doll. She wouldn't ask for a refund, especially given the condition of the doll, with its butchered hair and the mess of makeup all over its face. And the money didn't matter. What mattered was getting that doll out of her house and out of her life. The doll clearly had supernatural powers and had to go directly back to where it came from. It also had to be reset. What happened to the doll could no longer also happen to Lizzy. Emmy didn't care what happened after that.

She would just tell the woman with the long white hair that she needed to return the doll to the place it had come from, and thank you very much, but she wouldn't be needing it anymore. She had a feeling the woman would understand exactly what she meant. She rehearsed what she was going to say as she entered Zim Zam to the familiar jingle of the bells on the door.

As usual, Zoom was there, as was Christine, who was busy ringing up some customers. Emmy knelt down to pet Zoom for a minute, but Zoom ran away hissing, so Emmy got up and headed over to the puppet display, looking for the door to the back room.

There it was, behind the puppets. But as she went to turn the knob, she saw a giant metal bolt on the door.

Emmy stood still for a moment, puzzled. Why was the room bolted closed? She approached Christine at the register. Christine was saying good-bye to the customers and thanking them, and Emmy patiently waited until Christine turned her attention to her.

“Hi, Emmy, what's the matter?” Christine asked her. Was it that obvious how weirded out Emmy was? She supposed so.

“Um, I was just trying to get into that special back room,” Emmy said. She suddenly felt very self-conscious.

“What do you mean?” Christine asked.

“The little back room I went into last time I was here,” Emmy explained, trying to sound normal. “It's bolted shut today. But it had been open. I went in there.”

Christine raised her eyebrows. “There's no back room here, sweetie,” she said. “There's just this little closet behind the cash register. That's where I store all my things, like keys and office supplies.” Christine stepped aside and opened a small closet filled with stuff. It was nothing like the little back room with the woman and the incense and the dolls. Emmy stared at the closet, then stared back at Christine, not having any idea what to say next.

“I was there last week,” she finally said. “A woman with long white hair sold me a doll and gave me a candle. A lavender candle,” she added, as if that would be of some help in solving this mystery.

“Maybe it was a dream,” Christine said, trying to be helpful. “It sounds kind of like a dream.”

Emmy's heart skipped a beat. It was as if Christine was telling her that maybe black was white and up was down. Emmy knew it hadn't been a dream. She had the doll to prove it.

What else could Emmy do? She swung her backpack around, unzipped the front pocket, and pulled out the little doll. She put it on the counter in front of Christine as hard evidence.

“This is what I bought,” Emmy said, gesturing to the doll.

“What's this?” Christine said, picking it up. “We don't sell anything like this.”

“It's what I bought,” Emmy said again. “It cost four dollars and thirty-two cents. I remember because it's exactly how much money I had in my wallet that day. And the room was in the back, near the puppets.”

“Oh, why didn't you say so!” Christine exclaimed, her face lighting up with sudden understanding.

Thank goodness I'm not going crazy,
Emmy thought.
Christine does know what I'm talking about. She'll make everything make sense.

“I know what you mean now,” Christine continued. “Yes, there
is
a door back there. Of course. It's been there for as long as I've owned the store. I think it used to connect Zim Zam to the store next door. But that store's been closed forever, and anyway, the landlord told me to never open that door, so I don't. Even if I wanted to, I don't have the key.”

Emmy's heart sank. Christine didn't know what Emmy was talking about after all. “No, I-I was in there,” she stammered. “It's a whole separate store, with a woman selling things.”

Christine was nodding kindly, as if Emmy were a small child telling a tall tale. “It really sounds like a dream, sweetie,” she said again. “And the doll came from somewhere else, somewhere you don't remember. You have lots of toys and dolls and stuffed animals at home, right? And you don't remember exactly where each one came from, right?”

Emmy felt her face get hot. “Yeah,” she said, pretending to go along with Christine's dream theory, because what else could she say or do now? She stuffed the doll back in the front pocket of her backpack and left Zim Zam as fast as she could.

Once outside, she gasped for breath. She walked around the building, and then the block, to see if there was another way to get into the little shop. Nothing.

Emmy felt crazy. She had to go back into Zim Zam and look again. Christine was busy with another customer, and once more Zoom arched his back and hissed at Emmy as she entered.

Like she had the first time, Emmy slid behind the rack of puppets and got close to the door. Close enough to see something that chilled her to the bone.

It was something etched into the wood above the bolt. Words.

And the words were, “I'm watching you, Emmy.”

Emmy stood stiffly and stared at the words. A million thoughts rushed through her head at once.
Who had written these words? The old woman?
She'd seemed nice, but then Emmy remembered how the woman had gotten Emmy to admit that she
hated
Lizzy, which she never would have done if the woman hadn't pushed her in that direction. Emmy's mind began to race.

What did the woman know about the doll? What was her purpose in selling me the doll? Was it to test if I was a good person or not?

And what about that lavender candle? Why was it so important that
I
light the candle? Did the candle activate a spell that, besides controlling Lizzy's behavior, also controlled mine? Have I been controlled by the doll too? Was that why I suddenly turned into such a mean, spiteful person who hurt my best friend and spied on her, and took such pleasure in seeing her suffer?

She had to get out of there. Christine was still busy with a customer and had probably never even seen her walk in again in the first place. Emmy walked slowly home, reminding herself to breathe.

She had so many questions, but she knew one thing: It wasn't going to be so easy to get rid of this doll. And now she knew for sure that no good could come from keeping it.

CHAPTER 11

Emmy walked home feeling superaware of the doll's presence in her backpack. The doll may as well have been on fire in there; that's how aware Emmy was of it. What was she going to do with it now?

Well, tomorrow was garbage day. Emmy knew this because it was her job to take out the garbage to the sidewalk every week. She also knew that the biggest, deepest garbage can in the house was in the kitchen. It was also the grossest—full of eggshells, coffee grounds, and apple cores. If she stuffed the doll deep in there, no one would find it and it would be out of the house before she went to bed that night. And it would be totally gone early tomorrow morning when the trash was picked up.

Emmy felt a little bit better as she imagined herself asleep that night, slightly awakened by the noisy rumble of the garbage truck. She thought about how she would feel hearing it drive away, knowing what it was carrying inside. She usually found that sound annoying because it woke her up, but this time it would be a welcome annoyance. She imagined the doll ending up at a big dump where no one would ever possess it again.

Okay, step one,
she thought. Following through with her plan, Emmy went into the kitchen and looked around. Was anyone around? Sam was upstairs, her dad was in his office, and her mom was still at work. Okay. The coast was clear. Emmy fished the doll out of her backpack. Then she held it in front of her. “You are not Lizzy,” she said to the doll, hoping that would break the curse. Finally, she shoved the doll down as far as she could into the garbage can. Her stomach turned as she reached through all the gross garbage. She couldn't wait to wash her hands, which she did immediately.

Suddenly Sam was behind her. Emmy jumped. “What were you doing digging in the garbage?” he asked. She hadn't heard him come in.

“Why are you so nosy?” she snapped at him. She hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but the thought of anyone knowing anything about that doll sort of sent her over the edge.

“I'm not,” Sam said defensively. “I'm just asking.”

“I thought I dropped my bracelet in there by accident, so I was digging around for it,” Emmy lied quickly.

“Oh,” Sam said. “Did you find it?”

“Um, no,” Emmy said.

“Well, the garbage doesn't gross me out,” Sam said. “Do you want me to keep digging in there for it?”

Emmy felt bad for speaking to him so sharply. She tried to soften her voice.

“It's okay, I think I lost it somewhere else,” she said. “But thanks.”

There were still a couple more days of school before the weekend, and Emmy and Lizzy ate lunch together both days. Lizzy was looking a little better. She'd gotten a stylish black hat to replace her big clumsy winter hat. And the other kids seemed to have lost interest in making fun of her hair, or lack thereof. Lizzy looked like she'd finally gotten some sleep, and though she seemed a little sad about not sitting with Sophie and Cadence—Emmy caught her glancing over at their table a few times—she was acting a lot more like her old self. Both days, when it came time to exit the lunchroom, the two girls walked the long way around the room so they wouldn't have to walk directly by Sophie and Cadence. Emmy still felt guilty for what she'd done, but reminded herself that Sophie and Cadence hadn't been good friends to Lizzy anyway.

Friday night finally rolled around and Lizzy came over before dinner. As Emmy opened the front door, a warm feeling came over her. She had missed Lizzy so much. She was so happy to be having this sleepover—and so glad she hadn't done any permanent damage with the doll. Lizzy was still on crutches, of course, but her leg was going to heal completely, and her hair would grow back, Emmy told herself. Just as Emmy's would.

And normal is exactly how things felt as Emmy and Lizzy sat at the dinner table with Emmy's family, eating lasagna and sharing highs and lows of their days as usual.