Broken Dolls

by Tyrolin Puxty

  My grin widens. Finally, the perfect chance to teach someone something! I’m sure it’s more fun than learning. “Yes! Palm trees, oak trees, jacaranda trees, cotton trees, pine trees… I love trees. Trees are great! Do you like trees?”

  “The word is beginning to lose all meaning.” Lisa stands robotically. “I’m going to look around. Are you coming?”

  I pull a displeased face, but stand and follow Lisa. We shimmy down the table leg and make our way across the room.

  “It’s funny.” Lisa stares at her boots and scrapes them across the wooden floor. “It’s not until you’re this close to the ground that you realize how dirty everything is.” She kicks up dust and walks through it. “Now I know why my cats were always snooty. They were disgusted by how dirty the carpets were.”

  I let Lisa walk the length of a human foot ahead of me to give her space. “You had cats?”

  “Yep.” She pauses to examine one of the abstract paintings the professor created. He never liked it, so he didn’t hang it on the wall, just left it leaning against his sister’s old couch. “Lovely things. Cats, I mean.”

  “They don’t look like it on TV. In cartoons, they’re always sly and evil.”

  Lisa walks towards the couch and picks at the stuffing coming from one of the many holes. I’ve always hated that couch. The hideous green isn’t one of those healthy looking greens that trees have–it’s sickly and covered in dust.

  “Cats are anything but,” Lisa’s voice drops to a whisper. “They’re full of personality. They’re loving and caring. Things are never what they appear to be; especially humans. Sometimes you get flashes of the ‘real’ person, and we’re stupid enough to mistake the ‘real them’ for being ‘out of character’. The person we never see is who they really are.”

  “So who are you, then?” I join Lisa in picking at the stuffing. “Are you the grumpy goth or are you the chatty explorative?”

  She looks at me in silence for a while, her face neutral. “Neither.” She turns on her heel and walks beneath the coffee table, piled high with old newspapers. I’ve never bothered to read them. What’s done is done, if you want my opinion.

  “Who knows who I am, anymore.” She jumps over the vacuum cord, landing a bit wobbly. The vacuum is always out, ready to clean, but the professor never gets around to it. I was a perfectionist years ago. I used to yell at him for not vacuuming or cleaning well enough, so he just stopped doing it. After a while, I just got used to the mess. “We’ve been conditioned to forget, for some reason. Yet we’re made up of memories–so what are we without them?”

  “But you remember your human life, don’t you?” I leap over the cord and jog to catch up to Lisa. She walks deceptively fast, despite her unsteadiness.

  “Some of it.” She sighs, her upturned eyes making me feel sorry for her. “The things I remember, I wish were forgotten. It makes me wonder about the things I have forgotten. Are they good or are they even worse than the memories I’ve kept?”

  She stops in her tracks and points at the locked door. I never noticed the peeled paint around the edges. Maybe it’s because Lisa has been so judgmental about her surroundings. To be honest, all of a sudden, I’m more than a little embarrassed by the state of the attic.

  “That. Is that the lab?”

  “Yeah.” I tent my fingers together. “But we can’t go in.”

  “Of course, we can.”

  “No, I mean we physically can’t. The professor has the key. Plus, look how high the doorknob is. We’d never reach.”

  Lisa’s gaze drops to the floor. She looks sad, or disappointed, but I struggle distinguishing. Squeaking up, she places her hands against the door as if to test its strength. She lightly kicks at it before taking a step back to observe its reaction. Suddenly, she shrugs and flashes a smile. “There’s a way in. I’ll work it out. When I do, I’m going to turn us back into humans. Then, we’ll lock up that professor. He can rot in a cell for what he did to us!”

  I make a strange sound somewhere in between a gasp and a scoff. “Why would we lock him up? He didn’t do anything wrong. He saved us.”

  Lisa narrows her eyes. “That’s what he’s brainwashed you into believing. Look around, Ella. You’re in a prison.”

  I don’t break eye contact with her. I don’t want her thinking I’m easily manipulated, so I remain still, fighting the urge to check out my alleged prison. When I refuse to blink, she smiles–looking almost proud–then flicks her hair, frowning when it doesn’t flow smoothly over her shoulder. That’s one of the bad things about our wigs–they’re wiry.

  “Oh well,” she says calmly. Too calmly. I’m admittedly not bright, but I know she’s masking whatever resentment that’s boiling up now. “I’m sure there are other things you can show me.”

  For some bizarre reason, I panic. I’ve never had to entertain anyone before. There’s pressure on me to amuse her now. I don’t feel pressured when I watch TV or dance on my own. Man, I never would’ve guessed company would be so stressful.

  “Well,” I elongate the word to buy time. “We could discuss trees?”

  Lisa’s arms squeak when she crosses them. “Ella, are you honestly telling me you don’t do anything up here?”

  “I do things,” I say defensively. “They’re just things you wouldn’t be interested in. You can look around some more, but there’s nothing here. Just junk. Empty boxes, half-painted canvases, old skis…”

  “Did you used to ski?”

  Seriously? I raise my hands and speak apologetically. “Lisa, I don’t remember. You know that.”

  She sweeps her fringe from her eyes. “Oh.” There’s no tone in her voice. She merely turns away and walks into the attic’s darkest corner.

  “Lisa, wait!” I follow her into the darkness. I don’t like the dark. What if we never come out?

  “Darkness calls when the sunlight falls, hi-ho, hi-ho,” she chants eerily until we hit a dead-end.

  “There’s nothing here,” I say in the direction of her outline. “Let’s go back to the chest. Maybe we could watch TV together?”

  “That’s boring. We’re leaving the attic.”

  I shake my head, even though she can’t see me in the darkness. “No, Lisa. I don’t want to leave.”

  “Oh come on,” she says, her tone facetious. “Think of it as an adventure.”

  I hesitate. I do enjoy the concept of adventures. I mean, a few times a week I play Ella’s Rescue Squad on my tape recorder, but that’s just acting. “Can I come with you and, you know, come back afterwards?”

  Lisa’s silhouette shrugs. “I don’t care what you do. You can either follow me through this crevasse or you can stand here like a loser.”

  “I’m not a loser…” I say softly, but Lisa has already ducked her head and walked through the crooked gap.

  I tent my fingers nervously, ignoring the screams in my head that urge me not to follow. Slowly, I bend over and squeeze through the hole. I didn’t think it was possible for it to get any darker, but somehow, the black overlays the black.

  “Lisa?” I whisper, jolting when I run into a roadblock. I wave my hands to the side and find myself at a crossroad. “Lisa, are you still here? Which way did you turn?”

  No response.

  “Lisa?” I blindly bounce off the walls when I turn to the left.

  There’s a giggle in the distance. It’s ominous and unsettling, but I stumble towards it. I see light up ahead and frantically run towards it, the hysteria bubbling inside of me.

  I emerge to find Lisa standing underneath a desk with her arms folded. She smirks and shakes her head. “You’re one paranoid dolly.”

  I don’t respond. I’m too distracted by my foot sinking into the white floor. I wave my hands above my head. “Lisa, help! The floor is eating me! It’s up to my ankle!”

  “Ella.” Lisa rolls her eyes. She turns on her heel and wraps her limbs around the table leg like a koala, inching up until she stands proudly on the surface. “It’s just carpet, stupi
d.”

  Carpet? I lift my foot from the floor and lower it again, watching my ballet slipper disappear into the fluff. I’ve never walked in proper carpet before. I study the rest of the room and am surprised by how bright it is. The attic is so dirty and dingy–it’s the polar opposite of what I’m guessing is the professor’s bedroom. The walls are mauve and match the bedspread. A portrait of an older woman, in her fifties maybe, hangs above the professor’s desk. She’s smiling, but her eyes are heavy and full of sorrow.

  “Huh…” Lisa’s grunt startles me. “Hey, Ella? This looks like lab notes or a diary, or something. Get up here, I can’t make out his scribble.”

  “Then maybe we shouldn’t read it?” I carefully make my way up the table leg. When I reach the top, the neatness takes me aback. The surface is white, like the carpet, and only an empty mug and pen are on the table. Why doesn’t he keep the attic this tidy?

  Lisa sits on the diary cross-legged, her eyes scanning the contents. “How many dolls have come before me?”

  I shrug. “The professor said there have been several before me. They come and go, but I’ve never met them.”

  “Where do you think they go?”

  I let loose another shrug. I’ve never really thought about it before.

  “He’s talking about me in his diary.” Lisa points out her name. “See? I think it says: I’m activating Lisa today. It’s hard to read. What do you see?”

  I tilt my head to the side to try and make out his writing. It doesn’t help that Lisa stares at me as if I’m about to decipher all the mysteries in the world. “Lisa, I lost the ability to read when my memories were wiped.”

  She digs her nails into the page and glares at me. “What use are you then?” Her head jerks when she looks at the diary again. “Pathetic doll.”

  I’m glad the professor walks in before I can respond, because I have no idea what to say. He does most of the speaking–well, more spluttering really–anyway.

  “How did you girls get in here?”

  “Through the mouse hole.” I point at the tiny gap in the wall.

  “Shut up, Ella!” Lisa barks, tripping on her own hair when she tries to stand. “Professor, it’s none of your business. Tell me why I’m a doll! Turn me back!”

  “I can’t do that.” He scoops us both into his lab coat pockets, then walks out so fast, I feel like I’m on a plane. Or rather, what I imagine being on a plane would feel like. We go through two doors to reach the attic, and he places us back in the treasure chest. “Thank you very much, Lisa. I have a busy day today, and now I have to spend it plastering over the holes to keep you from getting out.”

  “You speak as if I’m a rodent,” Lisa hisses, folding her arms and turning away. “Plaster the whole room. I dare you. I’ll still find a way out of here.”

  I glance at her, stunned by her rudeness, then at the professor, unsurprised by the tightness in his face. I feel like reminding him to breathe. He goes to say something, but thinks better of it and turns on his heel. I grimace when he slams the door, certain that it’s close to coming off its hinges.

  “That was awkward,” I say to Lisa who doesn’t smile even when I nudge her playfully. “We’ll never do that again, okay?”

  Lisa doesn’t reply.

  “Do you want to come and watch TV with me?”

  She stares at me and twists her face. “No.”

  She climbs out of the chest and walks towards the dark corner of the attic, her hands tucked between her underarms.

  Well, fine. She can stay there. If she’s going to be a black hole of misery that absorbs my happiness, then she belongs in the shadows!

  I feel bad for thinking that once I climb out of the chest. As I turn on the TV and dive into my tissue-box bed, a strong feeling overwhelms me: this will be the first of many nights that will be spent alone.

  I don’t know how long Lisa has been standing there. I only just woke up. She’s gripping a pair of scissors in one hand, the handle resting on the floor, the scissors standing almost as tall as her. She lets go of the scissors, and they clatter to the floor.

  “Lisa?” My voice goes pathetically meek. “You’re creeping me out. What are you doing?”

  The moonlight glints off the scissors, contrasting Lisa’s body, which looks more like a shadow in the inky night.

  She slips her boot through one of the holes in the scissors and bends over so that her enviably long hair dangles against the tip.

  “Lisa! Lisa, don’t be stupid. Your hair won’t grow back!”

  “Good.” Her voice is husky again; it’s like a demon is wedged inside her throat. She snips the right side of her hair and in an instant, it detaches and falls to the ground. That’s so disappointing–her hair was lovely. She snips it again, evening the other side out so that she has a short bob. “He made me how he wanted me to be. I’m not his doll!”

  Lisa stands, flicking her new hair. She smiles, as though a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

  She walks purposefully to the other side of the table where there’s a tub of pens and brushes and old pots of paint. She heaves a brush from the tub and awkwardly maneuvers it into one of the colors, but I can’t make out which one in the dark. She shifts the paintbrush so that it’s pointed at her face. Before I have time to object, she presses her eye into the tip. “I don’t have blue eyes!” She shrieks, blinding herself further when she pushes her other eye into the brush. “He made me have blue eyes! They’re not mine! THEY’RE NOT MINE!”

  I pull the tissue over my head and curl into a ball, covering my ears, desperate to block her out. I don’t understand why her moods leap from happy to crazy in an instant–it’s, well yeah, it’s crazy. Maybe if I get lost in my own thoughts, she’ll disappear. I’ll think of birds… and butterflies… and the calming ocean tides.

  “MY BRAIN IS SCATTERED, MY HEART IS BATTERED!” Lisa cries, popping open the lid to a pot of paint.

  Birds…

  Butterflies…

  Calming ocean tides…

  hat do you mean you’ve lost her?” The professor has never raised his voice before. Not to me, anyway.

  “Well, I’ve been sleeping in the tissue box all week, haven’t I? Haven’t been in my room for days! She’s around somewhere, I’m sure. She can’t go far…”

  The professor rubs his cheeks and mouth. He hasn’t shaved in days, and it only makes him look disheveled. “True. She would only be in this room. When was the last time you saw her?”

  I shrug. It’s Wednesday, and I’m due for a new leotard. I’m sick of orange. “Five days ago, maybe. She cut her hair.”

  “What!”

  “Yeah. To about here.” I raise my hand to my chin. “And she found one of your old paintbrushes and tattooed her arms. She looked ridiculous trying to use that thing; it was as big as her. The tattoos are just squiggly and messy. Like all tattoos, I suppose.”

  The professor picks me up from the table and tightens his grip, which makes me feel like I could break at any minute. “Show me where she was.”

  “Professor, please, your hand. I don’t like it.”

  “Show me where you last saw her!”

  “Professor,” I squeak, trying to wriggle from his grip, but I’m stuck. A burning pulse wraps around my waist the more he squeezes. “Please let go!”

  “Ella!”

  Salty tears don’t run down my cheeks like in the movies, but I let out pained moans and howl. I think… I think this is what crying is.

  The professor is shocked. He lowers me to the table, kisses my head, and tickles my chin, but it doesn’t stop me from crying. I wrap my arms around my waist, the pain from his grip throbbing.

  “Why are you crying?” His tone is softer now.

  “It hurts,” I say between sobs. “It hurts so much!”

  “What hurts? You’re a doll! You’re not supposed to hurt!”

  I point at my sides, certain that this is what bruising must be. “I know!” Wait a minute. It hurts. I’m actually
feeling something! I smile through the pain. “Wow. I can feel! Ouch.”

  “Not for years…” The professor’s voice is almost a whisper. He sighs. “Everything’s gone wrong since I activated Lisa. Sianne warned me about the experiment. I’m just an obsessed, old man.”

  “Who’s Sianne?”

  “No one.” He clears his throat. “Are you still hurting?”

  “Yes, but it’s bearable now.”

  The professor scratches at his stubble. “Good, good.” He begins to say something, but changes his mind. “Well, um, I should get ready for Gabby. You’ll keep an eye out for Lisa?”

  I nod. “I will. Gabby’s your granddaughter, right?”

  “Yes, and she will be here soon. You know, I introduced you to Lisa in the hopes that you could finally have a friend other than me,” the professor trails off, staring at me like a crazed animal. “Maybe Gabby will be your friend.”

  I must’ve misheard him. “Sorry?”

  “Gabby. She’s your age, you know. I mean, a year younger, but I think you’ll really like one another.”

  I struggle to form words. “But, she’s human, right?”

  The professor picks me up, cradling me gently in his hands. He walks towards the chest and opens it, lowering me onto my bed. “Yes. Just like you were.”

  “But you always said humans wouldn’t understand talking dolls! That’s why you keep me up here!”

  “I think Gabby might be an exception. She’s good at keeping secrets. It’s time you had someone else to talk to besides me.”

  “But…” I don’t get a chance to respond before he kisses my head, switches my lamp on, and closes the chest.

  I don’t know how I feel about meeting another human. It’s one thing to watch them on TV, but to interact with them is kinda daunting. I’m more worried about how she will feel about me–the professor said it’s not exactly common for dolls to be alive. The TV seems to support this notion.

  Gah, I’m overthinking. My mind feels jumbled after crying, like it’s not working right or something. I must be tired.