Goosebumps and its characters (c) R.L. Stine and Scholastic.

"No! Please!" Katie and Amanda jumped in front of Jillian, blocking her path. "Please, don't put her in there!" Their identical green eyes were wide with fear and misery. "She won't like it in there!"

Good, Jillian thought as she easily sidestepped them. "Mom said," she replied. She heaved Mary-Ellen, the huge, horrid doll with ugly red cheeks, over her head and used the advantage of her towering frame to shove the plastic figure onto the top shelf of the bedroom closet where the six-year-old twins would not be able to reach her. "If you want her back, just tell the truth."

Without another word, the black-haired girl turned on her heel and hurried back to her own bedroom.

Revenge!

That was the one thought that crossed Jillian Zinman's mind as she closed her door and surveyed the little lizard in his tank - and the wooden dummy sprawled on the floor beneath it. Payback was due at long last, and it had to be big. Super big. It had to go beyond tying Katie's and Amanda's shoelaces together before school or just locking Mary-Ellen in the closet. They had to suffer.

Her heart was still pounding with anger as she approached the lizard tank - and why wouldn't it? She had almost lost Petey, thanks to those two brats. Jillian touched the smooth glass as the small animal waddled around. Just to look at him, one would never guess that the little lizard had gone through the great ordeal of being stuffed into an ugly dummy's broken mouth and into its cramped, musty belly for who knows how long. And why? Because Katie and Amanda were trying to convince her that creepy, little Slappy was really alive. She could imagine Katie and Amanda, with their infuriating giggles, grabbing the reptile without a regard to his fragile body, shoving him roughly through Slappy's lifeless jaws while Petey struggled in their grubby hands, heart racing, not understanding what was happening to him - "They are gonna pay," she growled. Even if it took her a lifetime, she would get even.

Then another image flashed through her mind: once again, she was in the Little Theater's backstage area, standing outside the dressing room of the ventriloquist, Jimmy O'James. She could see the young man rehearsing an argument, giving his dummy a raspy voice filled with bile and cruelty. Yet… though it was just an act, Jimmy looked genuinely angry and hurt in her mind's eye, scared even, as he yelled at the sneering dummy in his arms. Then, in a flash, a wooden arm swung and slammed, hard, into Jimmy's nose, causing it to bleed.

"...That's impossible," Jillian told herself, giving her thin shoulders a shake as she looked down at the grinning figure on her carpeted floor. Jimmy had said he had lost his hold on Slappy. Jillian was too old to believe in talking toys. If she thought Slappy was really alive, she might as well start believing that Mary-Ellen really had come up with the brilliant plan to give Jillian a haircut at midnight. The little dummy just had a convincing face. A very, very convincing face.

A chill passed through her. "I'm putting you away too," she said aloud to the puppet - not that he could hear her, of course. Blank eyes stared back at her green ones, but something about his face, maybe the way his brown eyebrows were shaped or how wide his red mouth stretched, always made him look like he was leering. Ignoring her crawling skin, Jillian reached down, grabbing his head - and wooden teeth instantly snapped down on her hand.

He isn't biting me, she told herself even as she bit down on a scream. The jaws are just stuck. Just stuck… The pain was searing, shooting up her whole arm and sending tears to her eyes, but finally, slo-o-owly, she managed to pry her trapped hand out of his mouth.

She rubbed the raw skin, sucking air through her teeth as she studied the limp figure. Wasn't this just her luck? Slappy did not even belong to her, but she was stuck dummy-sitting the creepy little doll until Dad fixed him for her best friend, Harrison Cohen - and Dad was not even going to look at Slappy until after he finished the coffee table which he had been working on for six months. Truth be told, Slappy definitely needed her father's help. His once smooth forehead had several small cracks, and his painted brown hair was chipped. A piece of wood was missing from his lower lip, making his eternal smile look even more crooked. His red-and-white checked sports jacket was damaged with buttons missing. Within the past two days alone, she had managed to get her hand caught twice in his pressurized jaws. No wonder Jimmy had dumped him.

Jillian hesitated before sticking her uninjured hand into the hole in his back, searching around for the control for his mouth. At the very least she could probably put a piece of tape over it. She used her other hand to steady him, and it was then that her fingers brushed against a thin bulge in his front pocket. She paused in her task and fished into the jacket, withdrawing a familiar scrap of paper yellowed with age. Oh, yeah. She had forgotten it was in there.

She turned it over in her hands, contemplating the strange language on it.

Karru marri odonna loma molonu karrano.

She studied it for a few moments. She knew from her friend Donna that donna meant lady, but it all looked like gibberish. She tried sounding the words out, rolling the R's the way her Spanish teacher did, though she was sure it was not any language they taught to the average sixth grader. She shook her head. "Mele kalikimaka," she cracked, tucking the paper back into his pocket.

"You just get weirder and weirder, don't you?" she said, turning the dummy to face her. "This is the second time you bit me, you know," she told him, holding up her purpled hand in front of his blue eyes - not that he could actually see it, she reminded herself. Her teeth gritted behind her scowl. "The girls are lucky that you didn't snap down on Petey when he crawled out of your mouth. If they'd killed him - " Her throat suddenly became tight.

The thirst for revenge returned to her. She often went to sleep plotting ways to get back at those two, from hiding bugs in their beds to using Mary-Ellen for a campfire in the backyard, but none of them felt big enough, mean enough. This time, though, she was not going to let them get away with it. "They're gonna suffer," she declared. "I mean, really suffer. You can't do that to a living being, even if they do hate lizards." She exhaled. "I don't suppose you have any ideas, Slappy?"

He did not say anything - of course, he did not - but his round eyes flashed, and his crooked smile seemed to grow sneakier - no, no, that was just a trick of the light. "Okay, into the closet, Slappy."

She grabbed his arms, careful to avoid his head this time. She had intended just to toss him into the tiny closet, but another look at his disheveled appearance made her set him gently on the floor by her dress shoes, careful to lean him into the corner with his right ear against the wall. Even if he did creep her out, he was still Harrison's property. Besides, if Slappy was further damaged, that would just take Dad even longer to fix him.

Jillian quickly slid the door shut and let out of a long breath. She made an immediate beeline to the lizard tank on the table and pulled Petey into her arms, holding the leathery, little creature close. She gave his tiny head a kiss. "They're not gonna hurt you ever again," she promised him, scratching his chin. Petey leaned into her fingertips with drooping eyelids, his trimmed claws gripping a chunk of her straight black hair.

She walked around the room with him, jiggling him on her shoulder as if he were an infant, and it was then that she spotted the abandoned shopping bags from The Magic Place still on the floor. She and Harrison had gone to the magic store after school to stock up on tricks for the birthday party that weekend. Ever since the field trip to the circus back in the first grade, Jillian had dreamed of becoming a clown when she grew up, and this party would be her first real job. Mom and Dad had already been working on her and Harrison's costumes for days, and the trick playing cards and squirting pie pans from the magic shop were perfect, and she had brought them home full of excitement - and the bags had fallen from her hands the moment she had walked into her room and saw Slappy standing over Petey's tank...

...Though it had been silly for her to think that Slappy could do anything to the lizard. It had been Katie and Amanda who messed with Petey. She had just let herself be spooked by Jimmy O'James, who was really, really talented and could do two parts of a rehearsed argument and chose to act like he was scared of his dummy. For comedy. Or something.

Then an image flashed across her mind: Jimmy O'James coming out of the magic store with bags in his hands. Jillian had run after him, telling him that they had found his dummy, and his young face had become terrified. "Get rid of him!" he had begged her. "Please! Get rid of him - before it's too late!"

Why would he say that?

She glanced again at her closet and held Petey a little closer. Maybe when Harrison came over the next day to practice their clown routine for the birthday party that weekend, she could then tell him to take Slappy home with him.

After dinner Mom told Jillian to supervise the twins while they cleaned their room as part of their punishment.

"We didn't even mess with that dumb lizard," Katie griped, stomping up the stairs.

"You can't prove we did either," Amanda added, but both of them grew silent under their mother's icy gaze.

For half an hour the girls grumbled and shuffled their feet as they sorted through identical pairs of toys and clothes; every birthday and Christmas a bunch of their relatives thought it was cute to get them two of everything, but that meant their bedroom was overflowing with junk. Of course, they had to pick everything up, turn it over, argue over which one of them owned what because the initials Mom had put on the bottom were now smudged, and then debate on where it ought to go, and no, Amanda couldn't put her stuff with Katie's, and Amanda retaliated with saying that Katie needed to get her dirty socks away from her bed, or she'd put gum in her hair, and then Katie pointed out that she didn't have gum in the first place, and then they would move onto the next toy, and the whole process started again. On and on it went until Jillian could not take it anymore.

"Let's hurry this up," she ordered, grabbing two identical pink teapots and opening the closet to toss them in. She started to turn to grab the sugar bowls next, but then she caught sight of a little shoe dangling in the air. There was Mary-Ellen sitting against the wooden wall on the shelf above her head, her violet glass eyes staring off into the distance. Jillian frowned. She distinctly remembered putting Mary-Ellen face-down. "Mom said you can't have her back yet," Jillian scolded, spinning around to face her sisters.

"We didn't move her," Katie insisted, sticking out her tongue. "She just doesn't like being in the closet."

Jillian glared. She should have known. It was easy for one of them to stand on the other's shoulder to reach the doll. "You guys touch her again, and I'm telling Mom. Maybe she'll lock her up in Dad's workshop next. Or put her through the buzz saw."

"She would not!" Katie squawked.

"We didn't touch her!" Amanda insisted. "You just hate Mary-Ellen."

"She hates you too!" Katie chorused. "She says you'll be sorry for the way you treat her!"

"Well, good," Jillian replied dryly. "Then we understand each other."

It took another fifteen minutes, but they were finally done, and then Mom sent the girls to take their bath before bed. Jillian strode back to her room and dropped a few dead flies in Petey's tank as treat before she grabbed her backpack, pulling out her math homework with a grimace. She hated three-digit multiplication, and she always saved it for last, but as she stared at the worksheet, she found it harder to concentrate than usual.

After all that had happened, she could not believe they would try to retrieve Mary-Ellen so soon. They could not even wait a night? Did they really hate Petey so much that they were going to keep acting like an inanimate object had sprung to life and tried to eat him? If they had not wanted her to notice that they had touched their doll, they would have put her back the way they found her instead of sitting her up straight, so were they going to try to convince Jillian that Mary-Ellen was alive now too? Maybe they would try to claim Mr. Beanie the stuffed dog ate her homework next.

Jillian rapped her pencil, rereading the same problem for the third time, but another ugly thought presented itself.

...Slappy was still there, right?

She stood and - thinking quickly - grabbed her heavy backpack tightly, holding it in her hand like a club. She crept to the other side of the room, careful not to make a sound, and - with bated breath - threw open the sliding door.

The dummy grinned back at her, his eyes askance, his head rolled to his left. She let out a sigh. This was getting ridiculous. "Don't let them get to you, Jillian," she told herself, giving the dummy a rap on his painted hair, causing his head to slide forward, touching his left shoulder. Jillian started to straighten, but then she stopped. ...Didn't she lean him the other way?

Suddenly, her bedroom telephone exploded into a ring, causing her to start. She slammed the sliding door shut and quickly picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Did your dad finish his table yet?" a boy's voice replied eagerly.

"Fine, Harrison. How are you?" she cracked.

Harrison did not seem to notice her sarcasm. "I've been thinking. Do you think he has to finish table first?" he pressed. "Or do you think he might stop long enough to fix Slappy before the party this weekend?"

Jillian frowned. "No way. We're gonna be clowns, Harrison, not ventriloquists."

"I thought Jimmy O'James was pretty funny," he returned, undeterred. Harrison loved puppetry and had collected films from The Muppet Movie to Return of the Jedi. Of course, he would think that ugly dummy was awesome. "I liked the one joke where Slappy said he was going to give him a compliment and then told him he stunk. 'That's not a compliment, Slappy.' 'I know. I lied!'" He spoke in a hoarse voice, trying to imitate Jimmy's portrayal of the dummy, but it was not quite shrill enough. "Do you like that?" he asked eagerly. "I've been practicing not moving my lips all weekend."

"You're the master," Jillian drawled, "but we're still clowns, Zappy. My parents are almost done with our costumes, and you're getting fifteen bucks for this," she reminded him - yet again.

"But maybe if we do a really, really good job, we'll get paid double at the party," he suggested, and from the sound of his voice, she could picture his big, serious face grimacing. As easygoing as Harrison was, he never really liked the idea of being a clown: maybe it was because he had gotten sick on the bus ride to the circus during that first-grade field trip and had had to go home early.

"I don't think that's how it works, Harrison," she laughed with a shake of her head, though he could not see it.

"But if we do a really good job, other people will want to hire us, right?" he pressed. "We should come prepared."

Jillian sighed. "I don't really want to use Slappy," she muttered. "Especially not after what the twin terrors pulled today."

"What do you mean?" he asked. She then told him what happened with Petey, and she heard him draw in a long breath. "Man, I knew your sisters were evil, but that's just wrong!"

"I'm really going to get back at them this time," she declared, starting to pace with the telephone cord in her hand.

"Maybe we can fill a bucket with water and put it on their door?" he offered helpfully.

"No way. Mom would flip out, and then we'd have to clean the mess up."

"Maybe we can get some more tricks from the magic shop," he suggested. "Maybe they have those eyepieces that leave black marks."

"Sounds kinda babyish. Besides, I spent most of my money on the squirting cards and the pie surprise," she admitted. "We won't be able to get a really good trick until after we get paid." This was always her problem. Either none of her revenge plots ever seemed good enough, or they were pipe dreams, just out of her reach.

"We'll plan a battle strategy tomorrow," he promised. "We could probably come up with a gazillion ideas if we put our heads together."

"After we work on our clown act," she interjected.

"Yeah. After."

"Good night, Zappy," she said sweetly. He made a sound of disgust and hung up.

The math problems were still waiting for her, so she sat down at her desk and tried to force herself to focus, but the bruise on her writing hand ached every time she flexed her fingers, and she found her gaze drifting toward the closet door.

A chill passed through her. "Tomorrow, you're outta here, Slappy," she said aloud - not that he could hear her.

A cold hand clutched her mouth, jerking her out of sleep. Her eyes flew open to the darkness, and her hands lashed out and struck a rigid object atop her chest, but her body immediately tensed as a hard thumb pressed against her throat.

"Don't scream," a shrill, raspy voice hissed in her ear - a very familiar voice. "I'm going to take my hand away now, Jillian. If you make so much as a peep that I don't like, this is going to end very, very badly. Do you understand me?"

Every instinct in her cried for her to swing her arms and hurl the intruder off her, but the pressure on her throat tightened. With a racing heart, she nodded slowly. She felt the weight shift from her chest and onto her pillow, and she scrambled to her knees - but not before that hard, tiny hand grabbed hold of her wrist.

"Don't scream," the raspy voice warned again.

Her free hand flew to the bed-table lamp and, fumbling, found the switch. The small burst of yellow light turned the darkness into a sea of strange of shadows, and she was met by a pair of icy blue eyes. Chipped chiseled lips that always seemed to be curled into a cruel sneer were now frowning at her.

Finally, she found her voice. "You're alive."

"I was hoping for something a little more original," Slappy cracked, shaking his brown head. Under other circumstances Jillian might have laughed to see a little guy like him trying to look so intimidating when his checkered sports jacket was disheveled and missing two buttons, but any humor was sucked away by that hard glare and the tight hold on her wrist. Instantly, the words of Jimmy O'James came flooding back to her. Get rid of him! Please! Get rid of him - before it's too late!

"You're alive," she breathed again.

"I see we have a quick wit," he said dryly. His eyes zipped up and down her tall, thin frame as if he were sizing her up before his gaze came to rest on her face. "Maybe I was wrong about you," he mused, rubbing his chin. "How unfortunate."

Her entire body began to tremble as her mind reeled. Slappy was alive. Slappy was in her room. Alive. Slappy was on her bed, holding her prisoner in her own room. And he was alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. The room began to spin around her. She had to do something. She had to break free and run into her parents' room, to warn them. She had to - had to -

Then, through the whirlwind of turbulent emotions - horror, disbelief, fascination, doubt - one glaring truth stood out, sweeping the mental fog away. Jillian glowered at him, gritting her teeth. "You did bite me, you little creep!" she cried, giving her arm a firm yank, but it was fruitless. Despite his size, Slappy proved to be a lot stronger than he looked, and her struggle only seemed to amuse him.

"Did I?" he asked innocently.

"Well, I didn't get this from Mary-Ellen," she shot back, turning her captive arm over to show him the bruised palm.

Slappy glanced down, and to her surprise, he actually looked disgusted. "As fun as that sounds, trust me, doll face. I'm just as in the dark as you - or I would be, if my I.Q. were room temperature," he sneered. "All I know is one moment I'm talking with that double-crossing partner of mine, then you come snooping into the dressing room; Jimmy knocks me out, and I wake up in your bedroom while you go on about some lizard being in my mouth. Care to clue me in on that one, sweetheart?" A smirk suddenly appeared. "Or were you unable to resist my good looks and just had to take me home?"

"Gross!" Jillian gagged, tugging again, but then she stopped as what he said sank in. "...Wait, you've been out for two whole days?"

"Am I speaking Japanese?" he replied impatiently. "Frankly, I don't like the idea of reptiles being shoved into my face while I'm asleep, so don't spare the details, sister," he demanded, jerking her arm.

Jillian pulled back. "Let go of me," she ordered.

"Why? So, you can wake the whole house up?" he growled, tugging her closer to him until their faces were inches apart. "We both know that nobody's gonna believe you, so why don't we do this the easy way, dreamy eyes? Start talking."

She tried to pull again, but his grip remained firm, and his other hand came up and grabbed her shoulder. He had strange strength, and being on her knees meant she was stuck in this curled position. Jillian's mind raced. Maybe if she swung her arm hard enough, she could hurl him into the bedroom wall. Then she could scream for her parents, and they would come running, and -

His wooden hand tightened on her flesh. "Do I need to repeat myself?"

She glared at him, heart pounding with adrenaline as she stared into his sharp eyes, but her options were sadly limited at that moment, so she took a deep breath and began the story. She started with how her best friend, Harrison, had found him in the trash after Jimmy and Slappy's performance on the previous Saturday and how Harrison had dropped the dummy off at the Zinman house for her father to fix him. Then, of course, she had to explain the situation with Petey from earlier that afternoon, which meant she had to tell him how her six-year-old twin sisters were always pulling pranks on her, even blaming some of them on Mary-Ellen, and how they had propped Slappy up and put the poor lizard inside him, just to be mean. Fortunately, Mom had actually punished them, for once, and Jillian got to lock Mary-Ellen in the closet. Slappy listened intently the entire time, his blue eyes narrowed in thought as his crossed leg tapped steadily against her mattress.

He was silent long after she finished, obviously lost in his own little world even as he kept a tight hold on her wrist. Fortunately, he had released her shoulder, allowing her to sit back on her heels, and she took the moment to look him over. He was already an ugly little thing with his abnormal little-boy face, exaggerated cheekbones, and crooked red lips, but now… he was downright unsettling. The long shadows which her bedroom lamp could not chase away only served to make the elongated curves of his sculpted visage seem even more unnatural, more uncanny. The carved smile was now a grimace, as if his face were as malleable as clay. Even when he was deep in thought, his face seemed angry, cruel even - though, she thought with reluctant charity, she would probably have been less than thrilled to find out what the twins had done if she were in his place. And she thought the girls sneaking into her room at midnight to give her a haircut was bad.

"So, you've been asleep?" she asked, finally breaking the silence.

He blinked, slowly turning his head. "Yep."

"How?"

He hesitated and leaned forward. "Can you keep a secret?" he whispered, his wide eyes suddenly intense.

She nodded, sliding herself closer.

"So can I." A grin split his face, and he threw his head back and broke into a shrill laugh. That would replace the spider monster in her nightmares.

Jillian gave a great tug, and he finally released his hold. She rubbed her wrist, trying to look stern despite the knots in her stomach. If she did this right, she could jump off the bed and be down the hall and in her parents' room in five seconds - ten, if she could grab Petey on the way out.

Slappy shifted on her pillow, and his glittering eyes grew serious. "So, your sisters, they were those two squirts that came onstage with that hideous doll during my act?" Jimmy O'James had called for volunteers during the show, and Katie and Amanda had already started to run up the aisle, dragging their doll along, before the ventriloquist could look cross-eyed at the sea of raised hands.

Jillian nodded, sliding her feet slowly out from under her, careful to keep the hem of her nightshirt by her knees. Make it look natural. "You called them the Gruesome Twosome," she remembered.

"One of my best lines," he bragged, dusting his ligneous fingertips against his chest.

"Actually, I thought it was mean," she replied, inching a little closer to the edge of the bed. Her knees felt funny from sitting on them too long, but maybe it would go away in a few seconds. Despite the urgency, she could not resist adding, "You made Amanda cry." She remembered the way her heart had beat hard as she watched both of her little sisters be humiliated in front of a theater full of kids by the rude dummy. Amanda teared up at any negativity, and Katie became downright vengeful, and the two had run off to find Jimmy O'James to make him apologize - which was how Jillian had walked in on the ventriloquist's argument with Slappy. "Can't you tell any nice jokes?"

Slappy rolled his eyes. "You sound like Jimmy," he drawled. "Are you really gonna get upset that your sister couldn't take a joke when she almost killed your little friend today?" He nodded to the tank across the room where Petey was sprawled in his favorite corner, his belly rising and falling with the steady rhythm of sleep. "Frankly, I say she had it coming."

Jillian frowned. "I can handle her." Her knees were starting to feel better bit by bit. Her long legs could probably reach Petey in five steps. Just a little closer to the edge...

"And you're doing such a great job at it," he said dryly. He crossed his arms over his skinny chest. "Aren't you even a little tired of them walking all over you, Jillian? I've only met them once, and even I'm already mad at how they treat a sweet girl like you. They should respect their big sister." He shook his head. "Believe me, darlin', I know what it's like. I had a brother, back in the day. Mr. Wood, they called him - Woody for short." A shudder suddenly rippled through his body, causing his wooden joints to rattle. "That guy was evil incarnate. Made me scared to even blink. I had to play dead all day because he'd come after me if he knew I was awake."

That made Jillian stop. A shadow had crossed the dummy's face, and his hard eyes became troubled. He gave his brown head another shake as if that would erase away whatever memories that rampaged his mind. "Slappy, that's awful," she breathed.

"So, you can see I understand what you're going through, doll face," he said with meaningful look. "They ought to treat you better. So, you can either run out that door, like you're so obviously planning to do, and make your parents think you're crazy by telling them a dummy is alive in your bedroom, or you can do something about your problem."

Jillian went still. Run for it! her mind screamed. He'll never catch you on those skinny, little legs! Even so, another part of her brain told her that that would end very badly.

"Well? Are you gonna sit there catching flies?" he demanded. "Or are there some brains in that pretty head of yours?"

Her eyes narrowed. "How could you even help me? You have to stand up to tie your shoelaces," she snapped.

His scowl deepened. "Fine! Maybe I won't help you then. Maybe I'll just leave you and your lizard to your sisters' mercies. But this was all your idea, you know. I don't offer my services to just anyone."

"What are you talking about?" she demanded.

"Don't you remember earlier? You said you wanted to get back at your sisters, and you asked if I had any ideas." He settled back against the headboard with a genial grin - which still managed to look creepy on his ugly face. "Lucky for you, Jillian, you are in the presence of the world's best prankster, and I'm in a very generous mood. You should ask my old friend, Amy Kramer. She had trouble with her older sister until I came along and helped. We sure made ol' Sara SEE RED by the time I was done," he added with a chuckle. "Just give me a few weeks, and your sisters will never look at you cross-eyed again."

She shook her head. "Forget it."

The sweet smile twitched into a frown. "Why not?"

"Because I don't trust you," she replied. "You were rude to my sisters, and you hit Jimmy, and you hurt me." She pointed to her throat.

"It was part of my act," he began to list back with a scowl. "Jimmy told you it was an accident, and I had to make sure I could trust you. You know what it's like to be a living dummy in a world full of scared, stupid humans?" he demanded. "What if your parents called some scientists to take me away? I'd be in some basement lab for the rest of eternity, so forgive me if I take some precautions first."

Jillian hesitated. That did make sense. ...But even so, she could still see Jimmy O'James terrified face onstage - and his horror in the parking lot.

At her silence, Slappy threw up his hands. "Fine! You hear that, Petey?" he asked, turning towards the sleeping lizard. "Jillian doesn't care enough about you. If you die, she'll just get another pet and forget all about you. That's loyalty for ya!"

"Hey!" she barked. "I love Petey." Despite her nerves, she wanted to slap that condescending look off his face. How dare he sit there and put words in her mouth like he knew her. She had raised Petey since he was a baby - he was her baby! Just because she did not want to strike a deal with a creepy mannequin did not mean she loved her lizard any less.

His cold eyes met her flaring glare. "Then do something about it, Jillian. Or do your sisters have to set the house on fire next?"

"They would never -"

"Like they 'would never hurt a living thing'?" he shot back. "One trick goes wrong, and you're left with nothing. Stand up for yourself, girl."

Jillian shook her head, but even as she turned away, she found herself considering his words. How many nights had she put herself to sleep dreaming of ways to get back at her sisters and their hideous doll? The twins had always had a mischievous streak, but ever since Dad had brought Mary-Ellen home, they had become downright cruel. When they did not ignore Jillian in favor of their new "sister," they pulled pranks and claimed it was their doll's idea, and Mom and Dad never stopped them because it was so-o-o-o cute - and they never took her side when she tried to fight back. "Don't retaliate, Jillian," they would tell her. "You're the big sister. You have to set the example." Sure, they had finally punished the girls when they went after a defenseless animal, but what about the day-to-day trouble she had to deal with, thanks to those two? When was that going to stop?

Jillian sat back on her heels and turned to face the dummy. "What did you have in mind?" She was not going to commit, she told herself. She was just asking.

His grin returned. "We-e-ell, that's where it gets interesting, kid," he said, leaning against her headboard. "You can't get something for nothing, you know. I help you out; you help me out. Even steven."

Of course, there would be a catch. "What do you want?" she asked slowly.

His round eyes glittered. "Something precious."

Of course. "I don't have anything," she protested.

"Don't you?" he returned sweetly.

"Everything I own is in this room," she said, sweeping her hands toward the bookshelf over her desk, the lizard tank by the far wall, the posters of mountain landscapes and of circus performers on her cream-colored walls, her dresser and vanity mirror, her private telephone, and the bin where she kept her cassette tapes. She tried to rack her brain for anything she owned that a dummy could possibly want, but unless he was interested in her collection of Bugs Bunny videos, she could think of nothing. Then, suddenly, one horrible thought crossed her mind, and though it pained her, it was the only thing she could possibly offer. She drew herself up and said, "I can give you the money I'm getting this weekend for working a birthday party. I have to split it with Harrison, but that's fifteen all for you."

Slappy scoffed. "Oh, sure. I think I'll head down to the movies this weekend. Maybe swing by McDonald's on the way home. I'm sure I'll blend in with the rest of middle-class America."

She threw up her hands. "Well, this isn't exactly Buckingham Palace, you know," she retorted. "What could you possibly want?"

A sweet smile appeared. "A favor."

She quirked an eyebrow. That was too easy. "That's all?"

"That's all," he promised. "When you decide you're done with the pranks, however long that takes, then I'll collect. Even you can understand that, right?"

There was no way it could be that easy. She looked him up and down. What could he possibly need help with? "You're not gonna ask me to help you rob a bank, are you?" she asked suspiciously.

He gave her a look. "Cute."

Yeah, that was a silly idea, she admitted to herself. "Then what?"

"I'll decide when it's time," he said with a noncommittal shrug. "You don't have to worry, doll face. My needs are simple, and my desires few. I will never ask you to do something I know you're not physically capable of performing."

She still did not like the sound of that, but, then, what could a talking dummy want in life? Wood polish? Anti-termite spray? Like he said, he could not just walk into a store to get it, and a human's help would probably be useful. "And you won't hurt the girls, will you?"

His mouth twitched. "Not unless you ask."

"I won't," she returned. Not that she was agreeing to anything. "And you're really good at pranks? Like, better than tying shoelaces together?"

He drew an X over his chest. "Satisfaction guaranteed. When we're done, you'll be able to say, 'Jump!' and the twins will ask, 'Into which lake?' - if you want them to." He held out his small wooden hand. "Partners?"

Jillian hesitated. Once again, she saw Slappy's ligneous fist slamming into his partner's face, and she saw Jimmy, clutching a tissue to his bleeding nose, laughing it off as an accident - and yet he could not get away from the dummy fast enough. Get rid of him! Please! Get rid of him - before it's too late!

But then she saw another image, this time of poor Petey wiggling his way out of Slappy's mouth, and she imagined the blinding pain she had personally experienced from those snapping jaws cutting into his little body, and her blood began to boil. If Katie and Amanda had made Slappy crush him...

She grabbed the proffered hand and gave it a firm shake. "Deal."

His blue eyes glittered as he gave her hand a small squeeze, his touch lingering a little longer than necessary. "You should get some sleep, doll face."

That brought her crashing back to reality, and she stared helplessly at the dummy, who seemed very comfortable on her pillow. What was she going to do with him now?

She cast a quick glance around her room. She could tell it would be a bad idea to suggest he sleep in the closet, but there was no way he was going to share the bed with her, even if he was just a doll - a living, talking, leering doll. "Let me make you a bed," she suggested quickly, jumping to her feet.

His ugly grin widened. "You're very nice, Jillian. Maybe you'll get extra lucky this week."

It took her a little time, but she got the big suitcase from the top shelf of her closet. She slid it against her dresser, grabbed the extra pillow from her bed and stuffed it inside, angling it so that one end came up onto the lip, forming a head support for him. A clean blue towel from the bathroom closet made an easy blanket.

She turned her head to see him watching, one arm resting against her bed frame, cracked head propped up by the heel of his hand, but his eyes were not on his new bed.

She cleared her throat. "How's that?"

He slowly slid off her comforter onto the floor and bent down to inspect her creation. One hand tested the pillow while his other fingers felt the fluffy towel. He snorted. "Eat your heart out, Motel Six."

"Well, you can always sleep down in Dad's workshop with the table saw," Jillian retorted. ...Actually, that was not a bad idea.

Slappy shot her an ugly look. "It'll do, sweetheart," he grumbled, lifting the edge of the bath towel. "For now."

It was a little funny to see him, fully dressed with his red-and-white bowtie and shiny black shoes on, climb into the little bed, wiggling his slender body to get comfortable. He closed his eyes as if that would help him find the right spot, and Jillian bit back a laugh at his scrunched-up face. When he was not smirking, leering, or glaring, he actually had an ugly kind of cuteness to him, sort of like a pug dog - but that charitable thought vanished in a puff of smoke as soon as those blue eyes opened again.

He winked at her. "Can't take your eyes off me?"

She shuddered. "Here," she said, thinking quickly. "Let's make it a canopy bed." She reached into her closet and grabbed the first piece of clothing her hand touched, which turned out to be the red dress her mother had bought her for school-picture day. She used her hairbrush as a weight to keep the top half on the dresser and draped the fabric over the bed, blocking the dummy from sight.

Wasting no time, she climbed back into bed. She glanced at her clock. It was well past midnight. "Comfy?" she called.

"It's a start," he replied, and she heard the pillow rustle as if he were snuggling down. "We'll talk about upgrading to cozier accommodations later, slav- Jillian."

From this angle, she couldn't even see the suitcase, just the slope of the red fabric. That was when the absurdity of the situation hit her. She had a walking, talking dummy sleeping in a suitcase in her bedroom with her best dress as a curtain because her little sisters shoved a lizard into his mouth. A walking, talking, scowling, insult-spewing dummy would be in her room all night. In the dark. With her.

It took all her strength to turn off the light. She threw the covers over her head, squeezing her eyes tight - as if she was going to get any sleep now.

"Jillian?" His hoarse voice came out of the darkness, causing her to jerk.

She sucked in a quick breath and raised her head. "Yes, Slappy?"

"There's something I should probably tell you."

"What's that?"

"That dumb doll with your sisters. Where did they get it?"

"Dad brought her home from a yard sale." Despite her apprehension, she could not resist adding, "Why? You think she's cute?"

"Oh, gag me with a spoon!"

Jillian pressed her hand to her lips, giggling silently into her fingertips. "So, what about dumb Mary-Ellen?" she asked when she could trust herself.

His raspy answer came back brisk and businesslike. "You should know that she's probably alive."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Advice is appreciated.