At first, Joanna snorted then she ended up laughing.

"I'm serious Jo!" her mother snapped. "My cousin..."

"Mom, it's a dummy." Joanna laughed. "Seriously."

Joanna laughed as she left the room, thinking her mother to be hilarious. She went back to her room and shut the door to laugh some more.

"Mom thinks you're evil Slappy." she told the dummy, still seated on the window box seat. "And she said something about words, dunno what she was talking about though."

Then she remembered the card that contained the foreign words on it, and took it out of her pocket. She looked back at Slappy. She showed the dummy the card.

"Know what this means?" she taunted. "Well I'm not saying it out loud for you. You can read the words and haunt me or whatever it is you do if you have eyes and a mouth can't you?"

She snickered.

"And Mom said you were evil." she said, lightly chuckling. Then she actually took a good look at the words. She played them over in her head several times, just to figure out how it was said, then she raised an eyebrow. Then, by a will not her own, she said the words she said she wouldn't have,

"Karru Marri... Odonna Loma... Molonu Karrano."

When she realized what she had said she dropped the card and held her hands over her mouth. She took a quick look at Slappy to see any signs of something wrong. Nothing.

She put her hands down at her side and laughed at herself in a paranoid and unsettled way. She shook her head to think that she had done something really, really, REALLY dumb like thinking that whatever she did 'woke' the dummy up. But then again...

"Jo! Dinner's ready!" Joanna's mom called out.

"Coming Mom!" Joanna shouted back. Joanna took one last look at the dummy, then left the room for dinner.

After Joanna shut the door, the dummy (though not operated by any living being) turned his head toward the door and tilted his head, smiling in a menacing way he only knew how to.

Dinner went over pretty well for Joanna, and Slappy was the furthest thing from her mind. Her mother, however, was studying Joanna like a disgusting bug or like a ticking time bomb. Vinny was the life of the party, some how sensing that each girl was trying to cover something up. Or, at least, try to preserve something dear to her.

"How do you like your ring Jo?" Vinny asked. Joanna gave him a thumbs up, showing that she was still wearing the ring around her thumb.

"Lovin' it." she told him.

"Good." Vinny nodded. "I expect it back soon since its going to be your mother's wedding ring."

Joanna's mother shot Vinny a very unhappy look. Vinny threw his hands into the air in protest.

"I'm kidding!" he said. "I'm kidding! The ring's all yours Jo. Honest."

Joanna smiled and chuckled a little, while her mother didn't appreciate the joke at all.

"I BETTER get a good ring for my wedding." Joanna's mother said, "You're the one with the money." She smiled a bit to show she was joking as well.

"Would I be dumpster diving if I had money sweetie?" Vinny asked in a joking tone.

"If you were crazy enough." Joanna casually said into her cup before she took a long sip from it. Vinny chuckled and Joanna ended up having water coming out of her nose from laughing. Even Joanna's mother laughed a little before returning back to her dinner.

After dinner was done and she had cleared the table, Joanna went back up to her room. She felt lightheaded from the happy evening and had forgotten all about Slappy. She opened her bedroom door and shut it securely behind her.

"Hello." someone said from behind. Joanna froze in fear, what her mother had said about those words (words Joanna now understood her mother was warning her about were the words she found in Slappy's pocket) came back to her in an instant.