The Pillow Friend Read Free Page B

there are a couple of other, cheaper talking dolls, this is the very best one.”
    “It's not, it's not, it's not!” Still her mother would not look at her, move, or reply, and she burst into howling tears. “I want the real one! I don't want that thing!”
    And so her seventh birthday ended with Agnes in disgrace, banished to her bedroom without her dinner, without even a chance to taste her cake. She fell across her bed and wept until she fell asleep.
    When she woke up it was dark outside, the lamp was on, and her mother was standing beside the bed with a tray. “Here, you'd better have something to eat and then get undressed and go to bed.”
    She sat up, feeling dazed and uncomfortable. She rubbed her arms where the elastic on the puffed sleeves had cut into the flesh, then pulled up her skirt to scratch her legs.
    “Stop that.”
    “Huh? It itches.”
    “It's not meant to be slept in. You've probably ruined it, like you ruined your own party.”
    Tears sprang to her eyes but she kept her gaze down and went on stubbornly scratching at her thighs.
    Her mother set the tray down on the little table with a jarring clatter and seized her wrist. “I said, stop it. Get your clothes off, go on.”
    “I can't help it if I itch.”
    “No, but you can help scratching. Now get that dress off before you completely destroy it, and get your pajamas on.”
    “Can't I have a bath first?”
    “No you may not. Do you know what time it is? You just get into your pj's and eat your dinner and then go straight to bed. And if you don't hurry up you can forget about eating.”
    Sullenly, she did as she was told, and then sat down at the table and looked at the tray her mother had prepared. There was a ham sandwich surrounded by small mounds of coleslaw, potato salad and beans, a glass of milk and a slice of birthday cake, but what caught her attention was a package about the size of her new pencil box, wrapped in shiny green paper with a purple ribbon. “What's that?”
    “That's your present from Marjorie.”
    “Oh! Is she here?”
    “No. You missed her.” Her mother sounded grimly pleased. “You were having a temper tantrum, and she didn't have time to stick around until you decided to behave. But she left you that present. If it'd been me, I'd've taken it back.”
    “Can I open it now?”
    “You can do what you like. It's yours.”
    She could hardly breathe, she was so excited. Her earlier disappointment and fury were forgotten as she opened the last present.
    Inside the paper, inside the box, something was swathed like a tiny mummy in strips of soft white tissue paper. Gently, patiently, she peeled away each layer until the doll was revealed.
    Her first, instinctive response, quickly suppressed, was disappointment. It wasn't anything like the doll in her dream. But because it came from Marjorie, because this must be the pillow friend, the answer to her wish, she could not be disappointed, only surprised by how far reality diverged from her fantasy.
    It was neither a baby nor a girl like her other dolls, but a small, old-fashioned gentleman in a painted black suit. He was about five inches tall, bigger than the dolls in the dollhouse but much smaller than Barbie. He was made of something hard and breakable—porcelain, she thought, or china, like some of the ornaments on her grandparents' what-not shelves which she knew to handle with care. But this was different from an ornament, because the arms and legs moved. His face and hair, like his clothes, were painted on.
    “I can't believe she gave you that.”
    Something in her mother's voice made her shoulders hunch and her hand close protectively around the doll.
    “That's not a toy, it's an antique. It's valuable, too valuable for you to play with. Give it to me and—”
    “No.”
    “What did I hear you say?”
    “It's mine. She gave it to me.”
    “Of course it's yours. I know that. I want to put it somewhere safe for you, and look after it until you're old enough to