Dollhouse Caper, The by Jean S. O'Connell

Author:Jean S. O'Connell [O'Connell, Jean S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dl

7. A Blank Wall!

“What a flop!” Todd said that night. “Little old Harry has a persecution complex.”

“What’s that?” Ruth asked. She was practicing a tap dance on top of the piano.

“He’s afraid the others are going to blame things on him,” Todd said. “You really ought to look at the television set, Ruth, when it’s on in the evening. The things you’d learn!”

“I always have to watch it upside down,” Ruth snapped.

“Well. the hearing part’s not upside down,” Todd said. “You could listen.”

“And learn all those scary things you’ve learned?”

“You want to be a dummy forever?”

“You’re mean, Todd. Leave me alone.”

Mrs. Dollhouse came into the living room. “Come and eat your breakfast now,” she said, “and stop bickering. I’ve cleaned up that giant blood spot that Harry left.”

So they forgot their quarrel and came into the clean shining kitchen and tried to be cheery during breakfast because they were cheery children at heart. But none of their attempts did any good. Mr. and Mrs. Dollhouse were feeling very gloomy.

“If Harry didn’t get the message, who will?” Mr. Dollhouse said mournfully, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“I wish we could talk to them. Or even write them something.”

“Or draw something,” Mr. Dollhouse said.

“Draw — that’s it!” Ruth said. “We can try warning the middle one, Peter, with a drawing.”

“Silly, we can’t draw anything the humans see,” Todd said.

“Silly yourself, we don’t have to. Peter loves that painting, the one over the fireplace. He looks at it every single day. Sometimes he even takes it out of the house and just stares at it.”

“So?”

“So, we hide it!”

“So big deal,” Todd said. “That’s a dumb idea.”

“Let her finish, please,” Mr. Dollhouse said sharply to Todd. “Many ideas seem dumb until they’re explained. I should think you would have learned that on television, son.”

And Todd blushed and was still.

“Well.” Ruth said, “we hide the painting very very well. So Peter can’t find it. And then he thinks, ‘Stolen!’ and he will poke around and find the empty window place, and he’ll remember the broken street light and he’ll go to his father and say, ‘That’s funny, the painting in the dollhouse has been stolen, really stolen, and I think something funny’s going on,’ and then his father will investigate and call the police or something...”

There was silence after she spoke.

“I guess it is pretty dumb,” Ruth said at last.

“Nope.” Todd said. “It’s just that we have to think some more. We could drop it down Great Gap.”

“He’d never look there,” Mrs. Dollhouse said, shuddering.

“Yes he would.” Todd said. “The way Peter feels about that painting, he’d look under the floorboards.”

“And if he finds it, how would he ever know it had been stolen?” Mr. Dollhouse asked. “Stolen things have to look that way. As if they’d been hidden.”

“Let’s wrap it up,” Ruth said, “in a quilt or something, and tie it all up and heave it over into the gap. THEN when Peter finally finds it, he’ll surely understand.”

They set to work at once, using the little patchwork quilt from the master bedroom.

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