The lifeless porcelain face shone through plastic under
harsh fluorescent lights. The eyes seemed to follow you.
She hadn’t even wanted to be brought here. She was more
interested in the boys’ aisle. With trucks and guns and loud banging, bleeping,
blooping noises that sounded like hours of endless fun.
But to please her mother, here they were looking at
dolls. Her mother said little girls who play with dolls turn out to be proper
ladies. She thought that was stupid.
She thought everything on this aisle was stupid, until
she saw it.
It was wondrous. Stood out on its own, as big as her it
was. Snow white walls with a brown wooden roof. Tiny glass windows looked in
upon tiny furniture, tiny tables with tinier cutlery on top. A tiny grandfather
clock and a tiny four poster bed. She had never seen anything like it! She felt
as though she should be small enough to fit inside it. The world felt too big
for her sometimes, and after all wouldn’t that make sense? Wasn’t she just like
her mother’s doll? To be taken out and played with and shown off and primped
and preened whenever there were visitors round for afternoon tea.
At least if she fitted in this house, she would have
somewhere of her own to go when her mother got bored with her. She thought it
would be only right for her to have her own little house for her own little
dolly self!
But her mother called her away. She said nothing. She
never did, children should be seen and not heard after all. A few minutes
later, she left the toy shop with the creepy porcelain doll under her arm, and
the tiny little grandfather clock, secreted away in her secret pocket of her
dress and an even more secret smile on her face.
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