Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, The by Oates Joyce Carol

Author:Oates, Joyce Carol [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Modern Classics, Mystery, Short Stories, Thriller
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2016-03-31T15:24:33+00:00

Big Momma

“Damn you, Violet—you are a shameless liar.”

Her mother was disgusted with her, again. But how could her mother even guess that Violet hadn’t been telling the truth? Could her mother read her mind?

So she’d taken a few dollars out of her mother’s wallet. She hadn’t taken any large-denomination bills (twenties, fifty) but only small-denomination (ones, fives) and she’d left much more than she’d taken. Her mother used credit cards anyway, rarely cash. But there was her mother fuming and fussing like she’d stolen a thousand damn dollars.

“Were you at the mall? With who? How’d you get there? Did you take the bus? Did someone give you a ride? Who? How’d you get back? Where’ve you been? It’s after six.”

It’s after six. So what. Violet made a pinched little face, luckily her mother didn’t see or she’d have gotten a sharp slap.

In her mother’s hot-vibrating presence Violet wore her sulky face. It was an airtight mask of some material like satin or silk, which she could draw down over her actual face. Like Hallowe’en. That morning at school she’d borrowed her friend Rita Mae’s new lipstick, dark maroon, near-to-black, to apply to her mouth, that gave her a dazzling-sexy look (she thought), so after school the eyes of older guys trailed after her.

Trouble was, she’d forgotten to wipe the lipstick off when she returned home. First thing her mother said, staring at her—“You! At your age! Looking like a, a . . .” Her voice trailed off, she could not utter the word Violet flinched to hear.

Second thing, “How dare you take money from me? How much did you take?”

Inside the sulky mask Violet mumbled what sounded like Don’t know. Or, Didn’t take anything.

“Don’t you know that the mall is dangerous? Hanging out there is dangerous?”

Inside the sulky mask Violet mumbled something totally unintelligible. Could’ve been uh-huh, or OK. Or nah.

“Don’t they warn you at school? Or don’t you listen? There’ve been children ‘abducted’ here—a two-year-old toddler taken right out of a backyard, with her mother just inside a screen door on a telephone.

“Right now there’s a five-year-old girl missing for a week, her mother was buying something in JCPenney and when she turned around, the little girl was gone. And before we moved here, a three-year-old boy who disappeared allegedly from inside his own house just a few blocks from here. All of them—vanished without a trace.”

“Jeez, Mom! Those were little kids.”

“What do you mean, ‘were’? Why do you say ‘were’?”

“I mean—they’re really little kids, that somebody could pick up and walk away with, kind of easy. Not like—”

“And you’re so ‘big’—you? You’re thirteen years old, you weigh—what?—ninety pounds?”

Violet’s face flamed as if her mother had slapped her. She was short for her age and fat for her height—in fact Violet weighed ninety-five pounds. And she was only four feet eleven inches—one of the shortest girls in eighth grade.

Worse yet she was growing breasts, and hips—soft, spongy flesh she just hated—envying the skinny girls who eyed her with disdain if not pity.

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