Best Friends Forever

by P. J. Night

  And still Katie heard: Katie, Katie, Katie. She plugged her ears with her index fingers—the index fingers that had once featured pretty little ladybugs. One of those ladybugs was the one she’d chipped on her locker, when Whitney had first talked to her. It felt like forever ago.

  But the crazy thing was, it didn’t matter that her ears were plugged. She could still hear the chanting perfectly. She unplugged her ears. Whitney was whispering harshly over the chanting. “Don’t I always treat you well?” She seemed to be directing her anger toward three dolls, ones that were sitting together in a row.

  And still: Katie, Katie, Katie.

  “You know you’re my best friends,” Whitney continued in her angry hiss. Katie had never heard a voice so quiet and so furious at the same time. When her parents were mad, they tended to raise their voices, not get quieter. She figured Whitney must not have wanted to wake her.

  “Now we’ll have a new friend. Stop this. Just stop it. Don’t you want a new friend?”

  Katie, Katie, Katie. But the chanting was getting softer and softer, until it stopped altogether.

  Katie lay perfectly still so Whitney wouldn’t know she was awake. Instinctively, she curled up her hands and rubbed her fingernails against her thumbs to stroke her fingertips. She was used to doing that to feel Amy’s manicures, feeling the glossy polish and remembering the happiness she’d felt when it was applied. In the terror of the moment, she’d forgotten that the memories of the manicures no longer brought her any comfort. But it didn’t matter that she had already picked the manicure off, because she couldn’t feel her fingertips. Or her whole hands, actually.

  Okay, she thought. Now I know for sure it’s a dream! She'd never been unable to feel both her hands. Sometimes one arm fell asleep, but not both at the same time. Also, she could still hear the chanting even when she was plugging her ears. That is something that would only happen in a dream.

  Yay, she thought. I’m dreaming. She was actually kind of pleased. She knew that what she was having was a lucid dream. Her parents had explained that in a lucid dream, the dreamer knows he or she is dreaming. Katie remembered the conversation clearly. She had come downstairs in the morning, just a few months ago, and her parents were having coffee, already having finished breakfast.

  “I was reassuring myself that it was only a dream,” her mom was saying. “And I was so relieved. I would be so upset if giant butterflies really ate our beautiful rosebush!” Her parents both laughed.

  “What on earth are you guys talking about?” Katie had said, yawning and sitting down.

  “Your mom dreamed that evil monster butterflies were eating our garden,” her dad explained. “But your mom is a lucid dreamer. In her dreams, she often knows she’s dreaming. So even in a nightmare, she can reassure herself it’s only a dream.”

  Katie poured cereal into her bowl. She thought for a minute. “That’s pretty cool,” she admitted. “So you can never really have actual nightmares.”

  “Right, kind of,” her mom said. “Though my dreams aren’t always lucid. But I like it when they are. It’s like being in the audience in a really imaginative movie. Or a really scary movie, depending.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had a lucid dream,” Katie said.

  “You might sometime,” her dad said.

  Well, it seemed that her night of lucid dreaming had arrived. Because now Katie couldn’t feel her feet, either. It’s only a dream, Katie thought. Because I can’t feel my hands or feet.

  “Our minds are amazing,” her mom would explain when Katie had bad dreams. “They can make up things that seem realer than real.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing!” Katie would say, and roll her eyes. But in this case it totally made her feel better. Even if I have this crazy dream all night, it’s okay because it will all disappear in the morning, she thought. I probably won’t even remember it.

  Sunlight flooded the room and woke Katie up, eyeballs first. As she opened her eyes, she noticed they felt really strange, like her eyelashes were coated in dried glue.

  She went to rub the weird feeling from her eyes, but her arm wasn’t moving. It was the strangest thing. Just like last night, she couldn’t feel her hands or her feet.

  Actually, she couldn’t feel her arms, either. Or her legs.

  Katie couldn’t feel any part of her body.

  She couldn’t move at all. It was like when your arm or leg falls asleep and you have that weird dead-weight feeling on your body. But this time it was her entire body that was dead weight.

  Okay, she thought. This dream has gone on long enough. Seriously. I need to wake up NOW!

  The only thing she could feel was her eyes, which she now used to look around. The only parts of her body that seemed to work were her eyes and her brain.

  “Your brain is the boss of your body,” her kindergarten teacher had explained to the class when they were learning about the five senses. They learned about how you can make your brain tell your body what to do, like jump or sit down. Then your brain tells your muscles to do those things.

  But if her brain was the boss of her body, it had just been fired from its job. Because no matter what Katie wanted to do—move an arm, wiggle her toes, stand up and run away—her body was not cooperating. It was like her brain was a telephone that had dialed a phone number, and there was just no answer on the other end. Nothing was working.

  She saw that she was sitting among the dolls, right next to Penelope, the doll in the sailor suit that Whitney had told her was Dutch. Penelope was staring straight ahead with her crazy light-blue eyes and stiff plastic eyelashes.

  Then Katie used her eyes to look down at her body. And what she saw made absolutely no sense to her or to her brain or to anything. She was sitting in exactly the same position as Penelope, with little arms at her side, her back against the wall, and little legs sticking out.

  Katie was miniature!

  Whitney sat “crisscross applesauce” a few dolls away, holding a red lollipop to Irene’s mouth.

  “Oh, Irene, I know,” she said soothingly, as if Irene was a two-year-old about to have a full-blown tantrum. “You hate to go into the boxes. But look. Here’s your lollipop!” She touched the lollipop to Irene’s porcelain mouth.

  “Soon we’ll be in a new home, and you’ll like it even more than this one, I promise.” Then she picked up Irene, put her in a small plastic doll box, closed the lid, and put it in a giant cardboard box full of Styrofoam peanuts.

  Whitney moved to the next doll, Veronica. Leaning over in the same comforting yet authoritative way, she held a lemon drop to Veronica’s doll lips. “Here’s your special treat, Veronica,” she said in a singsongy voice, pretending to let Veronica eat the sugared yellow hard candy.

  Then Whitney picked up Veronica, put her in a clear plastic box, closed the lid, and added it to the big cardboard box.

  She continued on to Penelope. “Who loves her licorice?” Whitney cooed as she held Penelope close. She held up a black licorice stick to Penelope’s mouth. “All sailors love licorice, right? We’re going back across the Atlantic Ocean, Penelope!” she said excitedly. “Not too far from where your ancestors came from. Remember when I told you all about Amsterdam?” Whitney put her in another plastic doll box, closed the lid, and added it to the big cardboard box.

  Then Whitney’s face filled Katie’s entire field of vision. It was huge.

  Whitney’s hand came into the edge of the picture, and so did the thing it was holding: a blue M&M, headed straight for Katie’s mouth.

  Katie tried to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t move.

  “Katie! You look so pretty!” Whitney exclaimed. She sounded like a mom backstage at a children’s beauty pageant. “Oh my gosh. I knew you’d be such a pretty doll. Look! It’s your forever candy. See, I got you exactly what you wanted.”

  Katie wanted to close her eyes and reassure herself that she was dreaming, but she couldn’t blink. Her eyes were stuck open.

  “I know
it was hard to choose, but now you have a lifetime supply,” Whitney continued as she tapped the M&M on Katie’s lips, which she couldn’t feel at all.

  “Oh no, Katie! You didn’t tell me you didn’t like blue M&M’s!” Whitney exclaimed with real panic in her voice. “I guess it wasn’t part of the game to get that specific. Oh, wait, no problem. I have them in every color. Here, do you like yellow?” Again she tapped an M&M onto Katie’s lips.

  Katie tried to signal with her eyes: What have you done to me, you crazy monster? You insane lunatic!

  Finally Whitney put the M&M on the floor and picked Katie up. As she moved through the air, Katie felt like she was on a horrible ride at an amusement park. Except that this was the total opposite of amusing.

  “See, I told you, Katie!” Whitney crowed. “We are going to be best friends forever! Together forever!”

  Whitney reached for a small clear plastic doll box like the ones she had put the other dolls in. “And look at how many other best friends you have now. So silly to worry about Amy when you have so many other BFFs, right?”

  Then Whitney put Katie in the clear box and closed the lid.

  The door opened, and Whitney walked into the room with a girl clutching an overnight bag. “This is my room, Shelly,” Whitney said, proudly indicating the space with a wave of her arm.

  Katie watched from her position across the room. Exactly two weeks earlier, she had been in the black pit of the box, where Whitney had placed her that day on Alabaster Way, when she heard a sharp tearing sound.

  “Oh, my Best Friends Forever!” she heard Whitney shriek. “I’ve missed you all so much. And here you finally are! Who’s ready for teatime in London?” Even though Whitney’s voice was muffled, Katie thought she sounded happier than ever before.

  Some smudgy light had filtered through the darkness. It hurt Katie’s eyes, having been in the pitch dark so long. She felt her box shift slightly from side to side. It must have been Whitney brushing away the Styrofoam peanuts. Then she felt some movement from above, which she figured was Whitney removing dolls from the box. More light came in as more dolls were removed, more movement.

  From within her box, Katie listened as Whitney methodically unpacked the dolls. She would open each box and cheerfully greet the doll by name.

  “Irene! How was your trip? Here’s your lollipop. Oh, Veronica, I missed you so much! You were very well behaved on the trip, weren’t you? I can tell,” she chattered away.

  “Here’s your lemon drop,” she told Veronica. “And here’s Penelope! Oh, Penelope. That trip must have been easy on you, being a sailor girl and all. Here’s your licorice. And here’s Rosa! ¡Hola!”

  Finally it was Katie’s turn. Her box was plucked from its Styrofoam nest, and she suddenly saw Whitney’s gigantic face before her.

  “Katie, I missed you the most,” Whitney said in a conspiratorial whisper. “You’ve never been overseas, have you? Well, welcome to the other side of the pond! This is where the first New Englanders came from! Now you’re an Old Englander!” She laughed at her own little joke.

  Katie had tried desperately to express herself—her terror, horror, rage, and trauma. But with only eyeballs to work with, she failed miserably. You need eyelids, at the very least, to signal any facial expression, but everything remained frozen.

  “Are you hungry? Here’s your M&M,” Whitney went on as she removed Katie from her small box and again placed an M&M—this time an orange one—to Katie’s useless lips. She adjusted Katie’s arms and legs so she was in a sitting position, and placed her right next to Penelope. Katie saw that the dolls were arranged along the perimeter of the room, in the same formation as in Westbrook.

  Penelope, the “friend” Katie had chosen as the doll to play with at the first sleepover, was now fated to be her neighbor. Forever, it seemed.

  Katie moved her eyeballs to glance around. There was Whitney’s bed, there was the unicorn painting. She could see out the window a little bit, though it was raining outside.

  Whitney was still unpacking. “Mommy!” she squealed.

  What did she mean, “Mommy”? Katie wondered. Did Whitney’s mom live in London?

  Maybe she can help me escape from her crazy daughter, Katie thought wildly.

  Then Katie realized that Whitney must be talking to the “mommy” doll she had pointed out at their final sleepover. “Welcome to London, Mommy! We’ll have so many good tea parties here, but you have to help me serve tea and cookies like you used to, okay? That’s your job now, remember? Not that stupid office job that kept you away from home so much!”

  Whitney paused to adjust the mommy doll’s clothing. “What’s that?” she asked the doll, leaning in as if to hear her better. “Oh, of course. Daddy’s downstairs unpacking. What? You’d like to join us for dinner? That’s fine. I’m sure Daddy would like that.”

  Then Whitney had turned and addressed all the dolls. “Oh, Best Friends Forever, I know it’s been a long trip, and I know you must be tired of moving. But listen up. Have you all noticed that we have a new friend? It’s Katie! You all remember Katie, right? She’s a wonderful friend, and before we met, she thought a person could have only one best friend. Well, we’re all going to show her that’s not true, aren’t we? And you know what else? I’m going to see to it that we have another friend very soon. A British friend. I bet she’ll like to have tea parties. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a friend who knows how to have a proper tea party?” She gave the mommy doll an apologetic smile. “Not that Mommy hasn’t been doing her best … but there’s always room for improvement, right?”

  She leaned close to Katie. “What, Katie?” she asked as if Katie had actually said something. As if Katie could actually speak. “That’s right, we’re in our new apartment. But remember, they don’t say apartment here, they say ‘flat.’ And instead of bathroom, they say ‘loo’! It’s quite a lot to get used to, but we’ll all manage. We always do.”

  “What a lot of dolls you have,” Shelly said now, looking down along the perimeter of the room.

  Whitney nodded, pleased. “Thanks. They’re all my best friends. Forever.”

  “I see,” said Shelly. Rather primly, Katie thought.

  “Well, it’s teatime here, right?” Whitney asked Shelly.

  “I suppose so,” Shelly said.

  “Well, let’s get started, shall we?” Whitney gestured to the dolls as Shelly stared at her blankly.

  “Find a friend,” Whitney said. She grabbed the mommy doll and sat cross-legged on the floor.

  “Crisscross applesauce!” she said to Shelly. “Once you find a friend, sit crisscross applesauce.”

  Shelly hesitated. Katie knew what she was thinking: The doll thing was weird, and Whitney was weird too. Run, Shelly, Katie thought. Get out of here!

  Would Shelly be able to hear Katie’s thoughts? Katie now realized that when she was hearing the dolls chant, Katie, get out, they hadn’t been moving their lips. They had been communicating telepathically. That was why she could still hear them even when she plugged her ears. Everything made sense now … horrible, horrible sense.

  But Shelly simply smiled, reached right for Katie, and obediently sat crisscross applesauce.

  “That’s Katie,” Whitney said. “She’s from Connecticut.”

  “Where’s that?” Shelly asked politely.

  “It’s a state in the northeastern United States, where I just moved from,” Whitney explained. “Katie loves M&M’s. They’re very popular candies there.”

  Shelly held Katie on her lap and admired her. Katie knew just how she felt. She must have been trying to think of something polite to say.

  “She’s lovely,” said Shelly. And then she looked at Katie’s eyes.

  Katie used all her concentration to stare right back.

  Run, Shelly! she thought over and over again.

  A figure walked through the fog onto the sand. It was dark and visibility was poor, except for the thin beam of light shining on the ocean from the full moon abov
e.

  He crossed the beach, his fine leather shoes covered in sand up to the silver buckles, but he paid that no mind.

  The man wore a thick woolen cloak. He stood in the dark in front of the roaring waves and spoke softly.

  “I am sorry for all the days I spent at sea, My Lady. I am sorry for every day that I did not spend with you.”

  His voice grew louder and he dug his hand into the pocket of his waistcoat to clutch the ring.

  “I have burned all your things, My Lady, having kept only this ring to remember you by. This ring that I slipped on your finger because I loved you so. But you were never the same after that.”

  He paused, now overtaken by sobs.

  Please believe me, he thought.

  After a moment, he gathered himself and held the ring above his head.

  “This ring … this ring is to blame … I curse this ring!”

  He hurled it into the sea.

  Nate Carlson was psyched to take his metal detector to the beach. The walk to the beach was a short one, because the beach was right behind his house. “The beach is my backyard!” Nate used to tell his friends when he was little. He supposed he got that line from his parents, who said it all the time. It was true, anyway, and pretty awesome. There was a small lawn between his house and the beach, but that was it. Nate felt that wonderful familiar feeling of anticipation as he approached the sand. It was a cloudy, windy day, so he had the beach to himself.

  Slipping off his shoes, Nate stepped onto the cool sand. He switched on the metal detector and started walking, scanning the sand back and forth.

  A large black bird swooped near his head. As he ducked, he thought of his twin sister, Lissa. That bird would have sent her running home. Birds totally creeped her out, especially when they flapped too close to her head. He looked up to see a few of them circling above. The others were dive-bombing the water, catching food. They would drop straight down out of the sky, beak forward, disappear into the water, then come up with a crab wiggling in their beaks. It was cool to watch. He had never noticed this type of bird before, but then again he never paid much attention to birds.