“Alison! Have you seen my doll?” Jade screamed from down the hall.
“No!” I lied, but how was I supposed to tell her that I had stolen her favorite doll? I would secretively hide it in her room later to find, that is, if I could find the head…
I took her doll yesterday after an argument we had. Jade didn’t want to do the dishes, and was blackmailing me so that I would. The dishes for god’s sake! After the dishes were done, she was outside. So I went into her room and stole her precious doll. That’ll teach her not to blackmail me again. I thought to myself. After I had gotten my revenge, I had planned on giving back the doll, but then I kind of got into a predicament. The family dog gotten a hold of the head of the doll, and when I went to take it back, it ripped. The dog ran off with the dislocated head, and hid it somewhere. I just hoped that Jade wouldn’t find it before me.
I have looked everywhere at least twice for that damned head. I looked in the closet, but it wasn’t there. In the bathrooms, nope. Behind the couch, nada. Under the bushes in the back yard, zilch. Where on Earth could that dog have taken it? I mentally asked myself.
Just then, the dog walked right past me, and guess what he had in his mouth. He had the detached head of my twin sister’s favorite doll hanging proudly from his mouth. I was so relieved, but panicked at the same time. What if Jade saw the dog? What if she saw me taking the head from the dog? What would she think? So I cautiously looked around and approached the dog steadily, being careful not to scare him off. I grabbed hold of the skin on the back of his neck with one hand and I grabbed hold of his jaw with the other. The dog immediately released the doll’s head so I let go. He trotted off proudly, obviously satisfied with completely stressing me out.
I quickly went back to my room, and stitched the head back onto the doll as neatly as I possibly could. As soon as I knew that Jade wasn’t in her room, I took the doll, and hid it under her mattress.
“Alison?” I hear my sister say. I could hear that she was on the verge of crying, so I panicked.
“I- I was… I was just looking for your doll, and… and I- Look, Jade,” I stuttered repeatedly, trying to find the right words. “I found your doll.” I said, taking the doll out from under the mattress.
“No, you didn’t. I already looked under my mattress, twice. Alison, what are you doing in my room? Why do you have my doll!?” By the time she had finished talking, her voice had risen into a yell. There was no doubt in my mind that she was angry at me. She came up to me with a look of disgust on her face. She snatched the doll out of my hands, glancing momentarily at my sloppy stitch work around the neck, and then stormed out of her room. Just after she had slammed her door, I heard her start to cry. Her sobs faded as I assumed that she was going to our parents to tell them what I had done.
Not only had I gotten in trouble then, but my sister has had a grudge against me ever since.
Now this is just about fifteen years later, and I have found a husband, his name is Richard. Rich and I have settled down a little ways away from my parents’ house. We had a baby girl about five years ago, and in order to support her I took a job at the gym as an instructor, and Rich is a stay-home-dad. We named our daughter Jessica after my mother, and coincidentally his grandmother on his father’s side. On Jessica’s fifth birthday, only a few months ago, Rich and I got her a cat. It brought tears to my eyes when I heard my baby girl say that she was naming the cat Jade, and that she was doing it because she thinks that I should talk to my sister more. I remembered all of the arguments and fights that my sister Jade and I had. I remembered what I had done to her doll, and so I decided that I would pay her a visit and try to make amends for it. We haven’t talked since I moved out of the house, and I couldn’t help but think that I should have tried talking it out with her.
