The Children Didn't See Anything by Byerrum Ellen

Author:Byerrum, Ellen [Byerrum, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Ellen Byerrum
Published: 2012-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

I REMEMBERED SOMETHING I saw on TV. It was about a woman who recreated crime scenes with dolls. She put together crime dioramas in little dollhouses so detectives could see how all the pieces of the crime scene fit together and maybe solve the crime. For instance, if someone fell down the stairs, she would place a doll sprawled on its back on the steps of the dollhouse. And if the victim was murdered, the doll might have a miniature knife stuck in it.

Did I mention I have a lot of dolls?

“Come on, Bethany. Let’s go to my room,” I said.

“What are you girls going to do? Play with dolls?” Joey asked. He was totally over the rainy day and the basketball and being bored, and he was looking for something to do. Whatever that might be, I didn’t want him or Raphael hanging around us anymore.

“Yeah, that’s what we’re going to do,” I said. “Play with dolls.”

One of the great things about dolls? Dolls are a guaranteed boy repellent.

We raced up to my bedroom and went right to the back of my closet, where I have a big box of dolls, including all my Barbies and her friends and their outfits. Another box has all of Barbie’s furniture and her cars.

Lydia isn’t like some mothers who frown on Barbie dolls. She doesn’t think they’re such a bad influence. “A girl like Barbie who’s had so many careers is a triple threat,” Lydia always says.

Some of my Barbie dolls were even my mom’s dolls when she was a girl. And Grandma Gigi has given me a lot of dolls too, so it’s a pretty cool collection. I started picking out my likely suspects, to recreate the crime scene.

“Dolls?” Bethany said. “But we don’t play with dolls anymore.”

I had to explain the whole TV show with the artist and her crime scene dolls and dollhouses.

“That way I can show you how it was when Miriam Ashford died.”

“Crime scene reconstruction? Awesome.” She picked up a Ken doll and moved his arms and legs like he was dancing. “You think we’ll figure out when the earrings were stolen? And who stole them?”

“Maybe. Anyway, it’s raining and this will keep the idiot boys out of our hair.”

I marked off a space on the floor to stand in for the Verdant Forest lobby.

“We can use these cute little dolls for you and Raphael.” Bethany picked up a set of twin dolls and laughed. She made them hug. Ick, just by the way.

Not everyone has twin dolls, but I do. That’s because Barbie, in addition to having a ton of friends, has a younger plastic twin sister and brother named Tutti and Todd. Which happen to be the dopiest names ever. But in our house, the twin dolls are known as Raphael and Evangeline. Yeah, it’s hilarious. Grandma Gigi has given me about five sets of twins. She thinks they’re adorable. And even though the dolls are supposed to be really young, like five or something, I drafted them for this project.

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