Vicky was running up the stairs. Behind her she could hear the shouting and confusion caused by her sudden departure from the dining room. Fortunately, none of the dolls could move as quickly as she, for they were all quite stiff except for Ganglia, who kept tripping over her own feet.
Made them what they are? Vicky wondered as she hurried through the shadows, barking her shins continually on the steep steps. What did that mean?
She was panting by the time she dashed into the playroom. She had entered the dollhouse through this room, and without thinking about it she had assumed that it might be the way to escape. But how? she wondered frantically. It was far too high to jump; and there was no way to climb down. She could hear the dolls on the stairs below her, arguing in high-pitched voices. And then the gigantic door
in the distance swung open, and her mother stepped into the room.
“Mother!” Vicky screamed, “Mother, help me! I’m here, in the dollhouse.”
“Vicky?” her mother said crossly, looking around the room, and for a moment Vicky thought she had heard her. But her mother’s eyes swept past the dollhouse as if it weren’t there.
“Mother!” she screamed again. “Here! Over here! Oh, help me! In the dollhouse, I’m in the dollhouse!”
Casually, her mother bent down to pick up a shoe lying in the middle of the floor. She tossed it in the direction of the closet, then moved toward the dollhouse.
“Mother, I’m here!” Vicky kept screaming, jumping up and down and waving her arms. She could hear the dolls getting closer, Ganglia’s squeals rising above the other voices. But her mother, staring abstractedly down at the house from her great height, noticed nothing. In a moment, she walked briskly out of the room.
Vicky dropped her arms to her sides, tears streaming down her cheeks. The dolls were just outside the door now. There was nowhere to go, so she simply sank to her knees in the middle of the floor,
helpless, as the dolls clattered into the room. They seemed relieved to see her there.
“Look!” Ganglia shrieked, her arms flailing as she staggered to a stop. “She’s crying!”
“Why, so she is,” said the father, with a nervous titter. His voice was muffled and thick, as though his mouth were full of cotton, which it was.
“Well …” said the mother, nodding. They stood in a group, watching her.
Vicky wiped her eyes. “I … I want to get out,” she said. “And my mother came into the room, but … but she couldn’t even see me, or hear me.” Her eyes filled with tears again.
“No, of course she couldn’t,” said the mother doll. “You’re in our world now. You probably just looked like another doll to her.”
“And it is no use trying to get out,” said the aunt. “It is no use. There is a barrier.”
“Barrier?” said Vicky. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, when you were out there you could take us in and out, of course,” said the mother. “But no one inside the house can get out on his own.”
“You mean I have to stay here forever?” Vicky gasped.
“Does she?” said Ganglia.
Suddenly the dolls were clustered together, muttering
secretively to one another. “How long … Did it ever … Your fault … No! No! I tell you it … Have to … only thing … But why … Yes! I insist … Will she … Small and helpless … Big surprise … .”
At last they stepped apart. “I don’t have to stay here forever, do I?” Vicky asked again, terrified.
“Perhaps you do and perhaps you don’t,” said the mother, with a toss of her head that sent several pink hairs fluttering to the floor.
“But …,” said Vicky, beginning to cry again, “But … .”
“Oh, stop it!” said Ganglia, stamping her foot so hard that her leg bent double and she almost tipped over. Righting herself, she put her hands on her hips and glared at Vicky. “It won’t do you any good to keep blubbering like that. It’s getting sickening. You’ll find out sooner or later. And what’s wrong with being here, anyway?” She stretched out her neck toward Vicky.
“Quimbee. Dandaroo,” the mother said, turning to the father and brother and nodding at them meaningfully. “Remember what we decided. It’s time now.”
“Hmmm, yes, yes I suppose it is,” mumbled the father. “Come, Dandaroo.” The brother followed him reluctantly out of the room.
“Time for what?” Vicky asked, wondering if it had anything to do with her.
“It’s not time for anything,” snapped the mother.
“None of your business,” Ganglia said quickly.
“One does not ask one’s hostess such questions,” said the aunt.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Vicky said, now even more curious, but afraid to ask them anything else.
“Well, don’t you want to see the rest of the house?” Ganglia said suddenly.
“I … I guess so.”
“Well, come on, then.”
She followed Ganglia out of the room, to the stairway. And there, at the very top of the stairs, was a narrow doorway that, since the landing was very small and dark, she had never noticed before.
Though still rather numb with fear and confusion, Vicky was nevertheless surprised. “Hey,” she said, stopping. “I never knew that doorway was there. Where does it go?”
The aunt and the mother were rustling behind her. “It goes nowhere,” said the mother, suddenly pushing her across the landing to the room beyond. “It’s just an artifice. There’s nothing behind it. Ganglia, show her the bedrooms. We have to go talk to Quimbee and Dandaroo, downstairs.” She said this
last word with great significance, and then started downstairs with the aunt, as Ganglia pulled Vicky into the room.
The bedrooms were across the stairs from the playroom. There were only two of them, and they were small, having been made by dividing a room the size of the playroom in half.
“This is where me and Dandaroo go to bed,” Ganglia said, still walking, as though in a hurry to get Vicky into the further bedroom. “As if you didn’t know it. Why did you put that oaf in here with me anyway? I wish I had my own room.”
“But there were only two bedrooms,” Vicky explained, trying to think clearly. “And so one had to be yours and the other one your parents’.”
“Well, you could have put one of these beds in the playroom, couldn’t you, and made that my room?” Ganglia paused to think. “Then I’d have the biggest bedroom of all, and all the toys too.”
“Uh, maybe I’ll do that, when I … I mean, if I ever do get out. In fact,” Vicky went on, growing suddenly hopeful as a brilliant idea occurred to her, “in fact, I promise I will. If you help me get out, I promise I’ll make it your room, and put more toys there too.”
“Hmmm,” Ganglia said, folding her arms across
her chest and letting her one eye rove thoughtfully across the ceiling. “I’ll think about it … .”
“And if there’s anything else you want, I’ll do that too,” Vicky continued frantically. “Just tell me what it is. If you help me get out, I’ll do it, I promise I will.”
“I said I’d think about it!” Ganglia shouted, stamping her foot again.
Vicky shrank away from her. “Okay,” she stammered. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, you should be! And come on in here,” Ganglia went on impatiently. “Don’t you want to see their room too?”
The bed in the parents’ room was made of wood with tall, carved posts. There wasn’t room for much else, and though of course she was interested in seeing all of the house, it did seem strange that Ganglia should seem so eager to get her into this room. There was really nothing to do there, but Ganglia slumped down on the bed as if she wanted to stay for awhile, saying, “Why don’t you sit down?”
Vicky sat as far away from Ganglia as possible. The bed was extremely hard and uncomfortable, she noted with surprise; and then remembered that of course it would be, for there was nothing under the blanket but a block of wood.
“Not too comfy, is it?” Ganglia said, seeing the look on Vicky’s face.
“No, I guess it isn’t.”
“And my bed’s just the same. I’ll bet you never wondered what it felt like to sleep on one of these things, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” Vicky admitted. “But … do you really sleep?”
“No, but we have to lie here for hours, because you make us.”
“I’m sorry,” Vicky said. “I know I’ve done a lot of things you didn’t like. But how could I know you were alive, that you felt things, that you cared what I did to you? If I’d known, I’m sure I wouldn’t have treated you the same way.”
“Hmph!” Ganglia snorted. “I’m not so sure.”
At that moment there was a faint noise from the stairway, as though a door were being opened very carefully. Vicky stood up. “Who’s on the stairs out there?” she said, moving toward the door. “I thought everyone else was downstairs.”
“They are! They are!” Ganglia cried, leaping from the bed and running to stand in front of the doorway, so that Vicky could not get out of the room.
“But I heard a noise—”
“What noise? I didn’t hear any noise. There was no noise.”
But just then Vicky thought she heard the sound of descending footsteps: one pair like heavy feet trying to be quiet, the other only a soft patter. It was difficult to tell if they were really there, however, for suddenly Ganglia was talking incessantly in her loud, high-pitched voice.
“Everyone’s downstairs, there’s nobody else up here; you were imagining it. Isn’t that an ugly picture over the bed? Don’t you just hate the wallpaper in here? You’re wearing such a pretty dress; I wish I had a dress like that; I always have to wear the same dress all the time; why don’t you ever change my clothes?”
And on she babbled, while Vicky stood there, trying, but unable, to hear more. Someone, she was almost sure, had come out of that little doorway at the top of the stairs.