A Friend

I remember the day the little girl opened the box. The smile on her face.

“Be careful, dear,” says the old woman who bought me from the second-hand store. “She’s fragile.”

“I will, Grandma.”

The girl gently lifts my crossbar and my strings go taut for the first time in years. She wiggled her hand, but she became frustrated that I wasn’t moving the way she wanted. The old woman puts her hand over the girl’s, helping her control my movements.

She moved my face up and frowned. “Oh, she’s cracked.”

“That’s alright, dear. She’s still pretty, right?”

The girl thought for a moment, a frown on her young face. Then a nod. “Yeah, she’s still pretty.”

“Good. I’m glad you like her.” I could see how happy it made the old woman that the little girl was happy.

I was danced around, my soft limbs and porcelain hands pulled this way and that as the child learned to control me. I was introduced to Bunny, and Puppy, and Birdie, the only other toys the girl had.

Every day we had dance recitals and tea parties. Every night, the old woman would put me up on the shelf while the stuffed animals slept in the bed with the little girl.

“So she doesn’t get crushed, or get knocked to the floor and break” she would say. At first the little girl frowned, but only for a moment before her grandmother would tickle her. Eventually though, she stopped putting up a fight.

The grandmother would occasionally come and patch me up. A lost lock of hair here. A new string there. Replacing one of my purple pom poms with a random button she found in her sewing bag. She’d dust me off, wiping my face and hands clean before handing me off to the little girl.

For a couple years, it was just that. Play during the day. Put up at night.

Then the little girl started school. She often stayed up studying with her grandmother. Sometimes we’d still play, but less and less often.

The little girl grew. Over time, Bunny, then Puppy, then Birdie, joined me on the shelf, looking worn and patched. Bunny was missing an ear. Puppy, his tail. Birdie’s bright red frill now faded to a dull brown. The silver glitter around my eyes and on my suit was gone, but I still had my red face paint and one purple pom pom.

Then one day, the grandmother didn’t come, and the girl was sad.

She was sad for a long time.

She scooped us off the shelf, hugging us tight. But my slick fabric slipped between Puppy and her sleeve, and I fell to the floor, landing on my head.

The girl froze for a moment, looking at me. I could see her from the floor.

She started crying again, dropping the animals and falling to her knees.

She lifted my crossbar. As she pulled me up, one of my arms went limp. The string had snapped at some point without her noticing. There was a clinking in my head and a feeling of cold inside.

A piece had broken off.

The girl picked it up off the floor and wiped the tears from her face.

She gently placed me back on the shelf, sitting up, my crossbar behind me and the broken piece of my head in my lap. I could see the cracks in the porcelain. It had only been a matter of time. I was old, especially for a toy.

More years went by and books replaced the animals. Still, I sat there with the piece in my lap. The girl would pick me up every now and again.

Then she stopped picking me up and just looked at me.

Then she stopped looking at me.

Then she left, and I remained on the shelf.

I don’t know why she left. She didn’t take anything. Not the books. Not the animals. Not even her dress hanging on the wall.

But I sat there, waiting. Dust covered my shiny, silver suit. My pompom faded in color. Moths ate my strings and rats climbed up to steal my crossbar, bit by bit.

Still I sat there.

Suns rose and fell. Snows buried the small window, eventually breaking it, and then melted away. The wallpaper peeled. The birds moved in. One of them stole my broken piece.

The animals were chewed up until the only things that remained were a few pieces of fluff on the bed. The birds took those too, in time.

I felt spiders crawl around in my empty head, but there weren’t any flies for them to eat, so they left.

The wind blew. The ice in the winter filled my cracks, slowly making them bigger until another piece fell off. Then another.

It was a long time before anybody came. One morning I woke up to the feeling of being lifted. Above me I saw the face of the grandmother, but the eye color was different.

The old hand shook and there were tears in her eyes. They looked around the room for I don’t know what, but they didn’t seem to find what they were looking for, so they came back to me.

“Sweetie, come here,” said the grandmother.

A little girl walked in. “Yeah?”

“Look at this little doll. Isn’t she pretty?”

The little girl scrunched her face at me. “I guess so, but she’s broken.”

“Yes, she is, but we can fix that.” She put a hand on the little girl’s head. “Then she’ll be pretty, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay then.”

And, after a brief trip outside, I was taken into a new room. It was clean, and there were shelves and dolls and buttons and thread everywhere. Drawers of labels, and a desk with a lamp and a magnifying glass.

The grandmother laid me down under the glass, grabbed a needle and thread, and smiled at me. A familiar smile.