The Red Ghost

T
he doll wore red velvet. Her dress was made of red velvet and her bonnet was, too. Both were trimmed in white lace, but the white lace only made the velvet seem more red.

Jenna had found the doll on a table at Miss Tate’s garage sale. Dishes, stacks of old magazines, candles, even a couple of mousetraps lay around her. All of it was junk, really. Except for the doll.

Jenna couldn’t take her eyes off the doll.

“Look,” she said to her friend Dallas. “Isn’t she pretty?” She pointed but didn’t touch.

“Wow! That thing looks really old!” Dallas grabbed the doll off the table. She held it out at arm’s length.

That was just like Dallas. The doll did look old … and fragile. Jenna hadn’t dared pick it up. What if Miss Tate objected? But Dallas didn’t worry about those things. She just did them and then seemed surprised when she got into trouble.

Jenna moved closer to inspect the doll. She had painted-on hair, round cheeks, dimples in the backs of her chubby hands. She had real eyelashes, too.

“Are you still into dolls?” Dallas asked. Anyone would know at a glance that
Dallas
wasn’t “into dolls.” She wore her usual summer outfit—ragged cutoffs and a baseball cap turned backward on her head.

Jenna made a face at Dallas’s question. Dallas knew better. Jenna had played with dolls when she was little, but she was going into the fourth grade now. “It’s Quinn’s birthday next week,” she said. “And you know how she loves dolls.”

Quinn was Jenna’s little sister, and Jenna hadn’t found a birthday present for her yet. The truth was she hadn’t saved enough of her allowance to buy much of anything.

“I wonder how much Miss Tate wants for it,” Dallas said.

Jenna shrugged. “Too much probably. She looks valuable.”

“It looks
old
,” Dallas corrected.

“Well, old things can be valuable. When they get really old, they’re called antiques,” Jenna said.

“I’m not an antique!”

Jenna jumped.

Miss Tate had come up behind them. “But you’re right,” she said. “That doll is old. It used to belong to my little sister, so it’s almost as old as I am. But that doesn’t make it an antique, either.”

Jenna didn’t know what to say. As usual, though, Dallas did. “How much do you want for it?” she asked. “Jenna wants to buy it for Quinn.”

Is that what I want
? Jenna wondered. And even if it was, what made Dallas think she could afford it?

Miss Tate was tall and very skinny, kind of like a pole with a puff of white hair on top. She crossed her arms over her flat front and frowned at the doll.

“For her birthday,” Jenna told her. “Next week she’ll be five.”

“Five years old? That little tyke?” Miss Tate’s face rumpled into a smile. “Well, in that case, you can have it for Quinn. No charge.”

“Really?” Jenna couldn’t believe her luck. She had found a birthday present for Quinn. And it wasn’t going to cost her a cent!

Miss Tate gave an emphatic nod. “I should have gotten rid of that doll a long time ago,” she said. “I never did like it.”

Jenna wondered how anyone could not like such a pretty doll. Still, she wasn’t going to argue. She said only, “Thank you, Miss Tate!” She took the doll from Dallas and gave it a squeeze. The head and arms and
legs were hard, but the body was soft and huggable.

“Don’t thank
me
,” Miss Tate said. “It was my mama who insisted on keeping the thing.” And she turned abruptly and became very busy straightening a stack of
National Geographic
s.

“Thank you so much,” Jenna repeated anyway.

And Dallas added, “Quinn is going to love—”

But Miss Tate interrupted. “Run along now, girls.” She picked up the stack of magazines and carried them to another table. She spoke without looking back. “And take that silly doll with you. It’s high time it was out of my attic.”

Jenna and Dallas looked at each other and shrugged. Who knew why their neighbor was suddenly so cross? Sometimes it was hard to figure grown-ups.

“Let’s go to my house first,” Dallas said. “We’ll gift-wrap the doll before you take it home. Then Quinn won’t see it and spoil the surprise.”

Jenna gave the red-velvet doll another squeeze and followed Dallas across the street. Wasn’t this lucky? A birthday present for her little sister. An absolutely free birthday present.

And Quinn was sure to love it!

J
enna and Dallas couldn’t find gift wrap at Dallas’s house. The best they could do were the comics from last Sunday’s paper. But the comics were colorful, and Quinn wouldn’t care. She was a package ripper, anyway. She never stopped to admire the wrapping, no matter how pretty it was.

Dallas spread the comics out on the table.

Jenna held the doll and gazed into her
eyes. “There’s something about this doll’s eyes,” she said to Dallas. “They’re so …” She searched for the word.

“Blue,” Dallas supplied.

Jenna looked closer. Yes, the doll’s eyes were blue. They were a sunburst of different shades of blue. But that wasn’t what she had meant to say. What made her study the eyes had nothing to do with their color.

She tipped the doll back. The eyes closed with a small clunk. She righted her again. They snapped open. When she tipped the doll sideways, the eyes rolled to one side. The doll peered back at Jenna as if she were saying,
What do you think you’re doing, anyway
?

“It’s not the color,” Jenna said at last.

“Her eyes look sad … or angry. Or … I’m not sure what it is.”

Dallas laughed. “Woo-o-o-o! Woo-o-o-o!” She fluttered her fingers in front of Jenna’s face. “I’ll bet Miss Tate’s old doll is haunted!”

Jenna didn’t respond. She just laid the doll down on the paper. She and Dallas had been friends as long as she could remember, but sometimes the girl could be annoying.

Jenna folded the newspaper over the doll, covering her eyes. They were closed now, anyway. “It’s just a feeling,” she said. “I know it’s silly.”

Dallas and Jenna both worked at taping the package. It took lots of tape. The doll was an odd shape. A hand or a foot or a snub nose seemed to poke back out every time they had the package closed.

When they were done, Jenna tucked the gift under her arm. They headed next door to her house. The moment they stepped through the door, Quinn appeared. “What’s
that?” she asked. She pointed at the package.

“That’s for us to know and you to find out,” Dallas tossed back.

It wasn’t the smartest answer to give Quinn. She was the kind of little kid who refused to be left out of anything. Jenna could be scooping poop out of the cat’s litter box, and Quinn would be at her elbow. A secret package was going to be too much for her to bear.

Jenna thought fast. “It’s just some garbage Dallas’s mom asked us to throw away.” She ducked down the hall toward her room.

“Then why are you taking it to your room?” Quinn yelled after her.

That was a fair enough question. Why was she taking garbage to her room?

“Because she’s got a trash can in there. Didn’t you know?” Dallas called back.

Quinn followed them to the door of Jenna’s room. “Don’t you have trash cans at your house?” she asked.

“No,” Dallas said, shutting the door firmly in Quinn’s face.

The two girls looked at one another and collapsed into giggles. Jenna couldn’t help laughing, even though she knew Quinn could hear. She also knew that nothing made Quinn madder than being laughed at.

“Jen-n-n-n-n-a!” Quinn wailed.

Jenna ignored her. She leaned the lumpy package against her pillow. Then she stepped back to study it.