Barbie Girl (Baby Doll Series) Read Online Free Page B

Apple juice? Not likely . “Ronnie you remember my baby girl Barbie.” Ronnie’s blood-shot eyes take me in; his long blond hair is slicked back in a ponytail, he grin, his mouth full of yellow ing , crooked teeth. He is younger than my mom, by a few years; his face does not wear lines in it, like my mother’s.
    He remembers me. The last time I came to get money from my momma; he cornered me in the back room where he told me I could find her. My nose still burns with the thick smell of his cheap cologne. He ran his disgusting fingers down my arm, making my stomach turn with nausea. “You’re a pretty girl, you could make me a lot of money,” his body pressing hard against mine. Thank goodness for the new waitress who stumbled in that back room, who knows what would have happened. “What’s up Barbie?” My stomach turns at the sound of his voice.
    * * *
    My stomach is in knots making me sick as I watch him touch my mother, the same hand that he used to sear my skin. I dress quickly pulling on a pair of dirty jeans and a white men’s tank top. I feel like I can’t get out of here fast enough. I dress Everett just as fast, before pulling him out the back door. I feel like I am going to lose the contents of my stomach at the sound of my mother laughing. How could she let that man into our house, can she not see him for what he really is.
    Everett squeezes my hand tight as we make our way to his elementary school. “Listen buddy; don’t go home with anyone but me. Okay?” I get down on my knees, and try to get him to look at me, but he will not. He has never made eye contact with me, always looking around me. I pull him in to a hug, relishing in the feel of his small body in my arms. He looks nothing like me; he is fragile like my mother, smaller than most boys his age. I kiss his sandy blond head before letting him go. I will kill anyone who would try to hurt him. I let out a heavy sigh that feels like it has been lingering in my chest for years. I doubt my mother will try to pick him up since she will be entertaining her guest but the thought of Everett being around that man makes me feel sick. “I will come and get you. Okay? I will always take care of you,” I promise him.
    I will have to cut school early to get him. Just in case my mother has a change of plans. I cannot risk it. Whatever . I will miss English another class I am teetering on failing, but it’s better than the alternative. I snag some chocolate doughnuts for us from the gas station next to his school before dropping him off.

Chapter 3.
Unsolvable
    I tossed and turned all night with Barbie’s scheme running threw my head; she is a loose wire, an unsolvable p roblem. She has the power to break me and I just put the fate of my reputation with the craziest person I know. Okay so I sound like a whiney girl, but that girl is a whack job.
    I stare at myself in the mirror, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, a steady stream of toothpaste drool falling to the sink. I was desperate, a moment of insanity. That plea is good in any court of law, right? She caught me at a moment of weakness. She was wearing that revealing shirt, and I couldn’t think about what was right and what was wrong. It didn’t help with all of Third’s dripping sex talk either, that he continued with long after she left.
    “That’s it, Dylan. You are going to find Barbie and tell her that the deal is off,” I say to myself in the mirror. She is just too unpredictable, she can either help me or destroy me and I am in no position to be destroyed, whatever little social life I have I need to preserve.
    I worked too hard for what I have. Determined not to get beat up through high school, I grew my hair out, started lifting weights the summer before ninth grade and got a pair of contacts. Maybe I wasn’t one of the jocks or popular but I stopped getting picked on. I am not attending any parties, but I am not getting shoved up against lockers. I go back into my room and pull a