Sitting atop Mr. Grammel's desk with the dummy in my lap, I watch the leaves on the trees outside flutter like flames. There are no curtains on the window in his office, so autumn light pours in and plays upon the glassy eyes of my new friend. Mr. Grammel is quite impressed by him as well.
"It looks like you two are going to be great friends. What's his name?"
I hadn't thought of it. I was sure he had a name of his own, but how would I learn it? He surely couldn't tell me, and I didn't want to call him something he would find offensive. His eyes shined greedily as the clouds passed over the afternoon sun, and I began to look through his little pockets.
"Are you going to learn ventriloquism?" Mr. Grammel offered.
As I searched the dummy's suit, my cheeks flared hotly. I had come in here to thank Mr. Grammel for finding the dummy, but now I felt foolish in his presence and had barely spoken to him. My attention had been drawn by the fiery leaves outside and the fiery eyes of the mysterious dummy.
"Oh! Look at this," Mr. Grammel stooped down to pick up a piece of paper that had slipped from Slappy's pocket, where the carnation bloomed. "It says 'Slappy' at the top, and then some strange words..."
"Let me see!" I snatched away the paper, making Mr. Grammel laugh. "Karru Marri, Odonna Loma, Molonu Karrano," I read, frowning at such nonsense.
"Ooh! It must be a spell to bring him to life," Mr. Grammel teased. "So his name must be Slappy then,"
"Hi Slappy," I said brightly. I held him before me, burrowing my hand into his back, looking for the lever that would make his mouth bobble as if he were talking. I wanted to make him say something funny to impress Mr. Grammel. But the grandfather clock in the hall just outside the office rang dreadfully, spoiling the moment, and I realized I was going to be late for Madame Louisa's history lesson.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Grammel, I have to go! Thanks again for Slappy, thanks a lot!" I jumped from his desk, holding Slappy tight, and ran from the room without looking back. I knew my face was as red as the tiny flower in Slappy's pocket. Mr. Grammel was the only one who had shown me any kindness here, why couldn't I tell him how much it meant that he had found Slappy?
I ran desperately for the classroom, my patent shoes pounding over the scratched hardwood floors, making it inside just as the grandfather clock chimed twelve. Madame Louisa looked me over nastily, her gaze freezing upon Slappy cradled in my arms.
"Carrie, you're not allowed toys during school hours," she said, and Julia, Peter, and Harold giggled into their hands, delighted to see me scolded.
"I'm sorry, Madame Louisa. I didn't have time to take him back up to my room. I will put him in the last row,"
"You will sit in the last row with him, then. You were late to class," Madame Louisa glared down at me, knowing I wouldn't tell her she was wrong.
The other children watched me until I sat down, Slappy at the desk next to mine. I could hear their stifled laughter as Madame Louisa returned to the blackboard, but I wouldn't look up from my desk. I took out my books and placed them neatly in front of me, wondering if I should give Slappy one of my pencils, smiling at the thought.
At the blackboard, Madame Louisa snapped the chalk back and forth, scribbling names and dates as she read aloud from a pamphlet in her left hand. She gave us all of our lessons, history, literature, math, science, and art; one for everyday of the week, spending the remaining hours of the day shut up in her room with chocolates watching the only television in the house. I couldn't stand to listen to her regurgitate information, how was I supposed to learn when she was more of a sedative than a teacher?
"Hey lady! Are we supposed to be writing this down? Or are you simply up there to put us to sleep?"
A harsh voice swept through the room, I saw Julia jump and drop her book, it clattered to the floor as she turned around and glared at me. Why was she looking at me like that? I hadn't said it, it must have been Peter, or Harold.
"Boys, how dare you disrupt the lesson," Madame Louisa, clearly stunned one of them could make their voice sound so wicked, looked from one to the other. "Which one of you was it?"
"It wasn't them! I heard it from the back of the room, it was Carrie!" Julia, still giving me such a look of loathing, bent down to pick up her book.
"Practicing to be a ventriloquist, I suppose," Madame Louisa said primly. "This is why we do not allow toys in the classroom. If you disrupt the lesson again, you will be punished,"
I burned at the unfairness of it. How could they think that was my voice? And if it hadn't been Peter or Harold, then who? My heart tightened, remembering that Mr. Grammel had said the words on Slappy's namecard were a spell to bring him to life. But he had just been teasing! I looked at the desk next to mine, where Slappy sat placidly, staring at the front of the classroom waiting for the lesson to resume. It must have been Mr. Grammel, I told myself, he's out in the hall somewhere, having fun with us all.
Before Madame Louisa could press the chalk to the blackboard, a high-pitched cackle shattered the uneasy silence of the room. In terror I looked again at Slappy, still relaxed at his desk, his mouth unmoving. But I knew it had to be coming from him!
"Carrie!" Madame Louisa stormed to my desk, slapping her palms down on my open book. "Enough of this disrespect! You will have no dinner, you will instead be in this classroom writing lines on the blackboard!"
"But I didn't!" the tears were already spilling over. I went pale, the room beginning to swim darkly around me. Julia called 'What a freak!' and laughed with pleasure. She elbowed Peter, who laughed along with her, Harold joining in noisily. No one else had noticed that Slappy had turned in his chair and was now grinning at me.
I propped Slappy against my bed and sat on the floor before him, staring deeply into his eyes. I felt so small, held there in his gaze, waiting for him to speak, for a flicker of life to shine in just one of those consuming green eyes. Mr. Grammel hadn't been in the hallway when I left class, and as I passed through the parlor I saw him out in the garden. He couldn't have been playing a trick on us. So who had that chilling voice belonged to?
"Are you playing patty-cake with the dummy now?" Julia giggled in my doorway, Harold pinned to her side. Peter was downstairs with Madame Louisa and a couple who had visited him before, a potential new family having tea in the parlor. So I knew Julia and Harold were feeling bitterly jealous, and instead of spying on Peter they'd come to take their resentment out on me.
Julia plopped down on her knees beside me, shoving me aside so she sat in front of Slappy. Harold remained in the doorway looking at Slappy fearfully. "How did you throw your voice like that?" Julia murmured, poking her fingers in Slappy's mouth, ears, tapping him on the crown of his head, ruffling the carnation in his pocket.
"It wasn't me!" I said desperately, but I couldn't tell her I was afraid Slappy had really spoken.
"I don't think it was Carrie's voice, either," Harold looked down at the dusty carpet, ashamed when Julia shrieked with laughter.
"Don't tell me you both think this dummy is the one who talked!"
Harold and I kept silent, I was grateful at least one person believed I hadn't been the one to disrupt the lesson. Julia seized Slappy up roughly in her arms and turned him over, looking for the lever in his back. She rolled him around to face her and drummed against his painted skull with her knuckles. "Maybe we should operate on him,"
"No, Julia, please don't break him!" I cried pathetically.
"I'm sorry, Carrie. This dummy needs to have brain surgery. It's an emergency!" she was on her feet before I could grab Slappy away, Harold at her heels as the two of them raced towards the back of the house, not caring how loud they were for they knew Madame Louisa was too busy to come upstairs and see what they were up to.
The hallway beyond our bedrooms, which had once been private hospital rooms, spiraled and opened up to a cavernous operating theatre. Discarded masks and gloves were strewn across the floor, gray and stiff with age. A silver table in the middle of the room that must have once glimmered like water was now nearly black with rot. We had found an ice pick in here, months ago, and Julia claimed it had been inserted into a person's brain through their eye in the old days. That was how they dealt with crazy people, she said, it was how my parents would have been dealt with for joining up with other lunatics.
I ran breathlessly into the operating room, finding Slappy supine on the decaying table, Harold blocking me and pinching my arms when I tried to push him away. Julia was looking around for the ice pick, she had played with it like a magic wand the last time we had crept to this part of the house. I wanted to pick Slappy up and run but Harold twisted my wrist so that it burned, kicking my knees next when I tried to get past him.
"A-ha!" Julia plucked the ice pick from the windowsill, holding it high for me to see. It gleamed in the dim sunlight and I felt my heart drop. "I promise, it won't hurt him a bit! Just a peek inside that hard head!"
She positioned herself over Slappy, a mad doctor wielding a weapon of torture. Slowly she tapped at each eye with the pick, giggling as she pretended to stick it up his nose next. She pried open his mouth with one finger, preparing to jam the ice pick there, and suddenly screamed so hideously I was sure Madame Louisa would finally come to see what trouble we had gotten into.
"How could you do that!" Julia wailed, turning to show me a bright drop of blood at the tip of her finger. "You made him bite me!"
"I... I was standing right here! I didn't do it!" I said miserably, what would I be blamed for next? Surely she had stupidly cut it herself on the ice pick!
Julia swept out of the room in a haze of tears, Harold giving me one more good kick before trailing after her. Stunned, I approached the operating table where Slappy waited for me in glassy stillness. Had he really defended himself? The ice pick had rattled to the floor, I held my breath as I bent down for a closer look. No blood. Slappy had to have bitten Julia's finger! And it had to have been Slappy who disrupted the history lesson! Could the words on the card truly have brought him to life?