"Paula! Lesley!" Mrs. Beetle called out. "You're father sent you a package from Jutras Island up in new England. "He missed you, working up there in that lonely Maine lighthouse. He wanted you to know he was thinking of you."
"What is it??" The two of them called at once. They tore into the box's wrapping and opened it up. There was a rag doll with pigtail hairs and a pink dress. Paula held it up by one arm and tossed it to Lesley.
"What am I suppose to do with this?" Paula muttered as she headed up to her room. Her tomboyish room was covered with Star Wars merchandise from bedspread and curtains, to large action figures and collector cases. She even had space models hanging from the ceiling. She had pulled out her Star Wars character picture pajamas to go to sleep in and thought nothing strange about that.
Getting out one of the Spells R Us book series, Paula laid on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed and read until he couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. It wasn't until then that she fell asleep. As the book hit the floor the book fell shut. She didn't even notice the cover showing a teenage girl; who looked like her, being chased to a dead end by the shadow of a doll.
The sound of a child crying soon woke Paula up. "What was that?" Paula muttered as she opened her eyes and climbed off the bed. Rubbing the sleepy seeds from her eyes, she lumbered out of the bedroom to find the source of the sound.
"Lesley?" Paula whispered in her bedroom doorway. She laid asleep with a pink comforter over head in a lace covered canopied bed. Her whole room and a pink and white color scheme to it. "Not here. Wonder if her new doll is made to cry?"
"Mom?" Paula whispered into the bedroom. She looked in to see his mother sound asleep in their king size bed. The crying had stopped once more. When it started again, it sounded like it was coming from downstairs.
"Someone down here?" Paula asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs and check the closet out. She pulled out her baseball bat and started to slink about the place. She went through the living room and then into the kitchen.
"Have you come to play with your dolly dearest?" A voice got Paula's attention. He turned her head and saw the doll standing by the kitchen door. Before she could wonder how it got there, she began to wonder how it could be moving towards her.
"Who... Who are you?" Paula stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"I've come to play." The doll said as Paula turned and ran out of the kitchen and up the staircase. When she reached the top; however, the doll was standing at the top. Her foot slipped on a step and Paula went tumbling down the carpeted steps until her back smashed into the closet floor at the bottom.
"Ow!" Paula muttered as he looked up and saw the doll climbing down the staircase toward her.
"I want to play with you." The doll repeated itself as Paula scrambled to her feet. She knew she couldn't get to mother. Not knowing what else to do, she went back to the kitchen and picked up the phone. To her surprise, the receiver cord came off in her hand and dangled uselessly.
"If you won't play with me...." Dolly Dearest said as she scratched her leg through the pajamas. "...You'll learn to play by being just like me!"
"What do you mean...?" Paula began as she felt dizzy. She collapsed to the floor and blacked out at the sight of Dolly Dearest approaching her. Fear built up inside of her, but she couldn't do anything about that. She didn't seem to be able to move anymore...
Feeling herself being squeezed around the midsection, Paula's eyes opened. She stared up at a giant Lesley, who seemed to be cradling her in her arms. When she repositioned herself, Paula saw that she was nothing more that a frozen plastic female doll in his sister's arms. Their mother was putting her Spells R Us book away after reading her a goodnight story and tucking her in bed to put her asleep. Little did she know what odd magic her story had summoned. Paula would be Lesley's own little Dolly Dearest from now on.
THE END