Killer Dolls

by Tanya O'Debra

I remember what could possibly be the first time I was exposed to what adults recognize as "a bitch." I was in the third grade, and I wanted Kelly Aufiero to be my best friend. Sadly, Julie McDonald had beaten me to the punch. If Kelly held the throne as the queen of cool, Julie ruled right below her as the duchess. My imagination ran wild when I considered what it must be like to have best friends with names like Julie and Kelly. All I could do was sit idly by and hope they would someday accept me as one of their own.

Kelly Aufiero and I were in the same reading group and Julie McDonald was at a lower reading level, so that was the time that I had Kelly all to myself. Kelly and I would often finish our reading before the other kids in our group, which gave us plenty of time to discuss Kelly's problem. Kelly Aufiero was basically fucked. Her dolls came alive at night and tried to kill her. To make matters worse, they would only come alive if no one else was in the room. Countless were the times that she tried to tell her parents and her sister about her nocturnal peril, but they wouldn't believe her. Kelly had no proof, because those dolls were quiet as stillborn babies when her family was around.

Kelly Aufeiro was not about to take that kind of shit from a bunch of Chucky wannabes, so she started sleeping with a knife under her mattress. I guess dolls are stronger than they look, because they would somehow wrestle the knife away from Kelly every night. Lucky for Kelly, each night before the dolls could stab her, Kelly's mother would storm into the bedroom, shocked to find Kelly playing with knives. Those cunty little dolls would fall to the ground in frigid stillness, sending the knife clattering to the floor. Kelly's pleas for the protection that only a knife could provide fell on deaf ears. Kelly would be grounded.

Throw the dolls away, you say? That's what I said, too. But Kelly Aufiero's mother obviously didn't give a crap whether Kelly lived or died. And on top of being unable to get rid of the dolls, Kelly got a new doll every Christmas and birthday. Oh, how the dolls rejoiced when they had a new comrade! This army of bloodthirsty maniacs would immediately train the new doll so that she, too, would be a killing machine. One more plastic femme fatale added to the masses of crazy little plastic bitches determined to snuff out the flame of Kelly Aufiero's precious mortality.

Hide the dolls, you say? Fools! These were not your ordinary, run of the mill killer dolls. These dolls were killer geniuses. So, when Kelly locked her dolls in the closet, they found their way out. When she barricaded her closet with her chest of drawers, they found their way out. When she put the dolls into the chest of drawers, locked the drawers, put the chest of drawers into the closet, locked the closet, and barricaded the closet with chairs, those nasty little killer Houdinis found their way out. But the dolls always made such a clamor that, just in the nick of time, someone would peek into Kelly's room to investigate all the commotion. And then Kelly would be punished for making such a racket and such an enormous mess. It was a vicious cycle. Like I said, Kelly Aufiero was basically fucked.

And no grown-up could possibly grasp the unique danger of Kelly's situation, no matter how she pleaded her case. There were none that believed her. Except me. I believed her. I believed her with all my heart. There she was, poor Kelly Aufiero, persecuted, hanging on by a thread, and quite alone in her suffering. I was frightened for her. What if that gang of tiny psychos succeeded in taking my dear friend's life? What was I to do?

And then it happened. One day, during reading, as Kelly was describing her latest scrape with death, she slipped. Just as Kelly reached the climax of her story, her lips twitched. Kelly suppressed a smile. It was quick, yet unmistakable. And in that brief moment, a myriad of exchanges flashed between us. In her face I saw a feeling of superiority, the knowledge of having been caught, and maybe a little guilt. In my face she must have seen confusion, shame, loss, mistrust, and finally resignation. It was so complicated, but so fast. And in that tiny little scrap of time, I knew. I knew right then that everything she had ever told me was a lie. Kelly's dolls were not trying to kill her. In fact, they didn't even come alive. For all I knew, she didn't have dolls at all. I was beginning to question if she even had a mother. Kelly Aufiero lied to me. She had been lying for months. I was devastated.

But life plows on, even through humiliation such as this, and I hid my devastation under a blanket of nonchalance. I pretended that it didn't bother me that I had been duped. After all, I had my eight-year old pride. I wish I could say that her apparent safety was a relief, but that never crossed my mind. All I could think about was the fact that she had betrayed me and how much that betrayal had hurt. When I found out that my mother had been lying about Santa Claus, though that didn't come until next year, I wasn't so much hurt as disappointed. I could understand why she would want me to believe in Santa Claus. She was lying out of love. And besides, you can't get the truth out of a grown-up anyway. But Kelly Aufiero was my peer. I couldn't understand why she would lie to me. She was supposed to be on my side. It didn't take me long to figure out what her motive could be, and the answer was more than I could bear. Kelly Aufiero told me those things just so that she could laugh at me. Maybe she and Julie McDonald were laughing at me together. I didn't know. I didn't know anything anymore.

After that day, I didn't try so hard to sit next to Kelly Aufiero during reading. I didn't join Kelly and Julie McDonald during recess. We grew further and further apart. I realized that "killer dolls" was just a metaphor for all the Julies and Kellies of the world. It's sad how growing up happens. People steal your faith right from under you, and all your trust slips through fingers. No more illusions.