What a Doll! by P.J. Night Page A

the birds floating on the water seemed dirty. “Oscar the Grouch’s Riviera,” her parents liked to call it jokingly. It was lined with dumps and junkyards and old abandoned warehouses. Emmy walked onto the bridge that crossed it and looked down.
    She took the doll out of her pocket and looked at it one last time. Then she took a deep breath and hurled it as hard as she could into the murky water below. It fell with a satisfying plop . She felt immediate relief as she watched it sink deeper and deeper until she couldn’t see it anymore. The water was so dark that it quickly obscured the doll. She stayed for a minute, still a little afraid to turn her back on the thing, until she finally made herself turn around and start walking.
    Emmy felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. Her life was going to be normal again! Lizzy was her best friend and the doll with the crazy powers was gone, gone, gone. She felt so proud of herself, like she’d accomplished something remarkable. Lizzy was none the wiser, and she’d solved the problem all by herself. All’s well that ends well, she thought.
    She was actually going to have a regular day, her first in awhile. She reminded herself to look for flowers on the way home so her story would hold up. She felt like skipping straight home, but turned around for one last look to be sure the doll was really gone. Better to be safe than sorry, she told herself.
    And what she saw made her heart stop.
    It was the old woman from the shop, sitting on the dock below.
    She was holding the dripping doll in one hand and a lit candle in the other. A net sat beside her. The candle flickered but stayed lit against the wind. The woman’s long, straggly white hair blew in the wind, and she looked like she was talking to the doll. Emmy couldn’t hear her, but she was close enough that she could see the woman moving her lips. And she could definitely see her mole.
    What she was saying was “Emmy, Emmy, Emmy.”
    Her name. The spell that activated the curse. Emmy remembered saying Lizzy’s name when she first got this evil little doll.
    Emmy stood frozen in place, unable to take her eyes off the woman. What should she do? Approach the woman and explain that she needed to get rid of the doll? Run away as fast as she could? She had no idea, and remained as still as a statue as she stared down at the woman, who was now looking up and smiling strangely.
    Her smile in the shop had been friendly, but now it seemed like a mean kind of smile. Emmy gave her a halfhearted wave.
    â€œOh, Emmy?” the woman called up.
    Emmy’s heart skipped a beat. What could this woman have to say to her now?
    Nothing, it turned out. Instead, the woman snapped a strand of the doll’s hair in two. She had to tug hard since the yarn was thick.
    And as the woman did so, Emmy felt a small but sharp pain on her head, the way it feels when a single piece of hair is tugged.
    Because that’s exactly what was happening.
    â€œOw!” Emmy cried. Her hand went instinctively to her head. The woman laughed and went back to pulling on the doll’s hair.
    Emmy started to run toward the woman, but the woman was too quick. She got up and started running at a pace far too fast for an ordinary elderly woman. But Emmy knew by now that she was anything but ordinary. She was evil and she was also too fast for Emmy. Emmy soon lost her in the crowd on the bustling avenue. As she walked home, Emmy could feel the same small, sharp pains on her head, over and over again.
    And by the time she walked in her front door, her hair was already shorter on one side of her head, and she was holding a clump of broken ends of hair in her hands.

EPILOGUE
    The next morning Emmy’s face was swollen from crying as she and Sam sat at the breakfast table with their parents. Since last night, Emmy’s hair had gotten shorter and shorter. Her scalp felt sore from the constant tugging at her hair. She