DOLLS

“Dolls” -- (A Peggy Scribble)
By Michael Kroetch

In between our house and the house next door ran a wire fence barbed along the top. Plastic dolls hung off it. Lots of them. More than we could count. There was something about each one that disfigured it. We never knew who put them there or how they stayed on the fence in the wind. It was always pretty windy in winter and not uncommon for us to wake with tree limbs all over the yard scattered about like the horns of elk. Despite this, the dolls never seemed disturbed.

My sister Peggy said it must be because the fence was electric. I was older so I told her this was stupid. How could it be electric and not ignite the dolls? Ignite was a word I knew she didn’t know and I smiled in triumph. She said I was stupid. Of course it was electric--and if it wasn’t, why didn’t I touch it? I told her I didn’t need to just to prove she wrong. I knew it and that was plenty for me. She said that was fine. I said okay.

We didn’t talk for an hour. We sat playing our jigsaw puzzles in private until my father came in and gave us our pickles for the night. At that point Peggy said she wasn’t hungry and would give me her pickle if I would go play with her on the swingset. I agreed. While I pushed her, we talked about the dolls. Neither of us like them. We never had. I asked my father about them later and he said it was probably nothing. I didn’t know what he meant by this, but his TV western had come on and he already had his cigarette lit so there could be no more discussion. I had to forget the dolls.