"My name's Gloria," the girl told her. She clasped her small hands in front of her politely, as if introducing herself to a dignitary, and for a bit Dolly half-expected the girl to do a formal curtsy. "You're not supposed to be here, you know that," the girl said, still managing to be polite.
Dolly felt as if she'd been caught changing her clothes in a public place. She was exposed. Caught in the act of creeping around in someone's home.
"I'm sorry, but--"
"You already told me, it's raining. You're sopping wet. You don't look too comfortable right now."
"I'm not," Dolly told her.
They stared at each other in the thick silence. Dolly couldn't maintain eye contact, she had to look away. "This is a very beautiful house you have here. Is your mommy and daddy home?"
The small girl, Gloria, moved in small, polite steps in order to come into eye contact with Dolly again. "I'm the only one here," she said.
"All alone?" Dolly whispered.
"I've always been here, always alone." Gloria said. "Are you hungry?"
Suddenly, just at the mention of the word, Dolly felt her stomach do a slow roll in her gut. Yes, of course she was hungry. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten anything, and it seemed like she'd been running a marathon for the past week. Her blood was thin with nutrients, and just to replenish them right now would be heaven.
Dolly cleared her throat innocently enough. "I am," she said with a patient smile.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, they were eating turkey breast sandwiches on whole wheat on the kitchen counter. Dolly was trying her best not to show how hungry she was...but she couldn't help it. She felt like she was stuffing her face in the presence of a proper young lady.
Gloria ate quietly, moving with the grace of a young TV actress who'd also won a few pigmy beauty pageants. She could have been eating little appetizers, Dolly thought, in the kitchen of some mansion on a hillside of some uknown large city.
"How long have your parents been gone?" Dolly managed to ask between mouthfuls.
Gloria, chewing her small bites and swallowing all with finishing school accuracy, cocked her head, puzzled.
"Your mommy and daddy," Dolly clarified. "Where'd they go?"
Gloria's eyes went dreamy then, suddenly. "Mommy and daddy?"
Dolly pushed the remainder of the first half of the sandwich into her mouth and picked up the second-half while still chewing. "You got folks, right?"
"I can't remember," Gloria said, as if she just realized that startling fact. "I think I used to have a brother some time. I remember he was a boy, and I think he was my brother. It just hadn't crossed my mind that I couldn't remember a mommy or a daddy."
Dolly's chewing slowed as she pondered this. It was alarming, yeah, to find a small princess in a huge house (yet a small house at the same time) who lived alone and was a little expert on manners. And with no parents in the house, not even remember them, how had this little girl gotten the food that was in her kitchen?
Still chewing slowly, she looked over the room. Green. Putrid green. You could lay out paint cards in front of Dolly, every shade of green imaginable (from insane-asylum green right down to dusted-moss-green) and she'd be able to point right to this exact green. Flip the card over, she thought, and on the back - in bold - would be: Putrid Green.
The doorknobs to the coffee cupboards were green. The countertops. The tiles. The flooring. The refrigerator.
Beyond the kitchen was the red room. Red bookshelves, the shade of calf's blood, with matching carpeting. The thick, flowing drapes were red. The walls.
In a bit, she thought, I'm going to have to use the bathroom. I'm going to walk in there and find everything brown. She laughed a little inward at that one. Brown toilet, brown shower curtain, brown towels the color of bread crust.
"You said you lived here alone? Always alone?" Dolly asked her.
The girl nodded her head and said "Yes."
"Surely, there must be some grown-ups around. You have to have other family, maybe ones who come and visit you sometimes."
The girl shook her head, still dissecting her sandwich, and said, "No. Don't you get it, Dolly?"
With the last bit of sandwich in her mouth, Dolly frowned. With her mouth full, she said, "Get what?"
The little girl looked up then. "I'm not really here. I'm not really eating this sandwich, although it looks like I am. I've been sent here to help you, because you've been missing the clues all along. Bill got the clues right away, you see. It was in his nature. The dots all connected for him, and so he's where he should be right now, as I speak to you.
"But you, on the other hand," she said, and took a step closer to Dolly, "you need a little assistance."
(Your turn
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