Chapter 13. Little Erica Arrives
He wasn't really my father, I knew it just by looking at him, but I would never admit I knew. He and momma would fight a lot, leaving me in my room scared while they argued.
I only had one friend. My doll Angel. She has red string hair and stiches that keep her in her organs (really her stuffing) without them she'd be a mess. She's been my doll since I was small.
Whenever my parents would fight, my nanny, Martha, use to tell me my doll would help me find love and that I should always keep it, like some people keep their baby blankets till they're old.
My doll and I like ghost stories and magic tricks and music. We even came up with our own music, we call it Rhymers. It's like a nursery rhyme with a beat, grown up people don't really like it, but kids at school think it is great.
Today we arrived at Coney Island, and Angel and I were almost trampled on by people with cameras and paper, who asked my mother weird questions.
"Hey kid!" One said to me. "What the first thing you want to do in America?"
"Um, get a pen pal to write." I said, and then father told me not to answer them.
A man with a long top hat and coat strung with pearls took us in a carriage to where we were staying, and I had a box left at the door step for me.
I opened it inside while my mother and father talked, and found it was a music box with a monkey on it playing symbols, I wined it up and it played the song This Old Man then I realized that the bottom could be opened, and I found that you could flip the little bumpy disk over to play another song.
I didn't know the song, but when it played, momma got real quiet and said. "Masquerade. Oh lord he's here! Raoul he's here! The Phantom of the Opera! He's alive and he's here!"
I hadn't any idea what they were talking about, but they started arguing so I went into my room with the monkey and Angel.
The next morning, Martha and I went to the house of mirrors, well I did, and she stayed outside and waited for me because of something about a girl named Mary.
When I came out the other side, I saw a dark figure walk into a building with a sign above the door.
The sign said Restricted Area so I just shrugged and walked back to Martha.
Martha and I walked around the theme park for a while, then I saw a group of kids and I ran over to them and said. "Hi I'm Erica."
"I'm Josh." A brown haired boy said then pointed to the brown haired girl behind him and said. "This is my sister, Anne."
"It's nice to meet you. Hey did you know you are never more than eight feet away from a spider?"
"No why?"
"Because there's one on your sister's head."
The girl began to panic but I just gently took it off her head and put it on the ground.
"Without spiders, we would be in a heap of trouble with other bugs,"
"Spiders are creepy." Anne said.
"You want to know something really creepy? A friend of mine once went to Tennessee, and she was going down the road in her automobile with her parents when they hit something. It had the body of a goat, the head on a man and the feet of a chicken, and my friend poked it, and got real sick, and started growing mold out of her ears, and she almost died."
"That didn't happen!" Josh said.
"You're right it didn't just trying to scare you. Hey look a clown."
They turned around and I tickled the back of their necks and they jumped, scared then said. "You're mean!"
I pouted then they ran off.
"No one likes me." I said to Angel.