Doll Shop Magic

By Joanna Calogero, 13
Illustrated by Lee Bee Pierce, 12

The mail I got was usually no more than a few coupon booklets, but today there was a business-like white envelope mixed in. Hmmmm, how odd, I thought. I waited until I was in my small doll shop before looking more closely at the envelope.

“Alan J. Murphy,” read the first line of the return address. Alan J. Murphy was the man who I leased my small doll shop and upstairs apartment from, and Alan J. Murphy was not a nice man.

This letter could only mean one thing, Alan J. Murphy caught up with my bills, or better put, he found out my bills weren’t caught up with him.

I opened the letter. “Dear Sam Donalds, I am afraid your lease has not been paid ….” A nice man would not toss an old man into the streets. But, as I said, Alan J. Murphy was not a nice man.

What was I going to do? Where would I go? I would have had enough to pay the lease if my shop was located in a better part of town. Twenty years ago, when I bought my shop, the whole town was a nice town, all over. But a lot can happen in twenty years, and a lot did, including a new owner of the building, too, that owner being Alan J. Murphy. I’ve held on to the shop, hoping that someday the town would return to how it was before. But that hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, people didn’t come to this side of town looking for a doll.

“…if your lease is not paid within twelve days, I'm afraid you cannot remain on the premises.”

Twelve days! That was all I had? Could I sell enough dolls in twelve days to pay the lease? Not likely.

I went to my workroom and finished sewing the eyes on a small doll. But my heart was not in it.

How could I get little girls to come and buy my dolls in this part of town? I couldn’t afford any advertising, so what could I do?

I finished the doll’s face and started working on a small dress for her. I studied her face. She seemed like she was happy, so I looked around and found some pink material to make her a light, bouncy dress. Wait a second, I didn’t remember buying any pink material lately, where did that come from? Oh, well. I decided to use it anyway. “You could make a little girl very happy,” I said to either the doll or the air.

I worked into the night, thinking all the time about my unpaid lease. Twenty years ago, if I had an unpaid lease, the owner would say, “Pay it as soon as you get it, and don’t worry about it.” Now, it’s “Pay it now, or get tossed in the street.” Many times in the night, I got so deep into my thoughts I didn’t even realize that I was making a doll. When the small dress was nearly done, I still had no solutions. I decided to sleep on it and turned in for the night.

I awoke the next morning to the soft singing of a child’s voice. At first I thought it was a bird, but then I heard the sweet words, clear and simple.

The singer was definitely young, which puzzled me. What was such a young child doing in this part of town this early in the morning? I decided to find out. I put on my warm bathrobe and went down the stairs to my shop. From the back of the shop I saw a small girl outside the window, completely alone. She had brown hair which curled at the end around her shoulders. She had huge brown eyes, which were too big for her face. She wore a thin, tattered jacket, which was buttoned around her face tightly because she was obviously very cold.

She was looking slowly and longingly at each doll in my shop window. And she seemed to like what she saw.

I continued from the bottom step and went to the door, picking up the keys on my way. I opened up the door softly so I wouldn’t frighten the little girl. She looked at me with her huge brown eyes.

“Hi, would you like to come inside?” I asked her. She nodded in reply. “I’m Sam,” I told her. “What’s your name?”

“Heidi,” she said in a voice as sweet as the singing which woke me up.

“Were you singing earlier? It sounded beautiful!” I said cheerfully. I got another nod.

By now, we were in the shop, and Heidi was looking around at all the dolls.

“Do you like dolls?” I asked her.

“Yes, they’re my friends,” Heidi said, a little more interested.

“Do you know them well?” I asked her curiously.

“I come and look at them every day. They like me, and I like them,” she said.

“I can see that. They’re my friends, too. I make them,” I said. “Would you like something to eat?” Heidi nodded her head.

“O.K., sit down at the table and I'll fix something. How does French toast sound?”

“Yummy!” Heidi replied.

“Where do you live?” I asked nicely.

Heidi hesitated a little. “We lived in an apartment until last year. My daddy lost his job, though, and we got kicked out. We live in an abandoned car, near 52nd Street, now. My mommy, and my daddy, and I all live there,” Heidi said sadly.

“I’m sorry, Heidi. How old are you?” I asked.

“Six years old. But my birthday is in two weeks.”

I served Heidi her French toast and we ate breakfast together. Heidi ate a lot, and she ate it quickly.

“This is soooooooooo good. We haven’t eaten in a while,” Heidi said solemnly.

I didn’t know what to say again. “I’m terribly sorry.”And to change the subject, I said, “Would you like to watch me finish a dress for a new doll?”

Heidi nodded her head with excitement.

I went to my workroom, with Heidi at my heels. She watched intently as I finished the pink lacy dress.

As I worked I still wondered what I would do about my lease, but I also thought about Heidi’s family, living in an abandoned car, going without food every so often. They were worse off than I would be, yet I still worried about my lease. Was I being selfish?

“Well, it’s done!” I said, holding up the small dress. “Would you like to put the dress on the doll, carefully, while I go look for some tags?” I asked Heidi.

Again, she nodded her head.

I left her to dress the doll and went to search my room. I knew the price tags were up there somewhere. I was excited to get this doll out because I thought I could get a good price for her. Aha! I found them. I returned to the workroom.

She was gone. The beautiful doll was gone. Heidi… was gone. The scraps from the dress… were gone. The extra material… was gone. The dress… was gone.

I went in the kitchen. There was one plate next to the sink. Not two, only one. All was as it had been the morning before.

All, except one thing. On the kitchen table was a small piece of paper. I picked it up. It was a lottery ticket. I had never even bought a lottery ticket. There was a note attached.

“Sam, I found this on the step. Is it yours?”

This was written in neat, careful print. That's all it said. There was no signature or clue of any sort. “Heidi?”I asked myself. I looked at the ticket once more.

“Oh, my gosh!!!!” I shouted, after I read the four numbers.

For a week, the numbers 4, 9, 11, 27 were being said over and over. They were the numbers for the last unclaimed ten-million-dollar prize.

And those numbers were on the ticket that Heidi found for me, at least I think it was Heidi.

Ten million dollars was definitely enough to buy a new doll shop in a better part of town. And enough to get Heidi’s family a new apartment.

I whistled the tune I heard Heidi singing that morning as I walked to the drugstore to claim my money. And I wondered, would I find an abandoned car near 52nd Street? Is there a Heidi?