The Friendship Doll Read Online Free Page A

find the right moment to use it.
    “Mayor Walker,” Father was saying, “allow me to present my youngest. Genevieve, this is His Honor, the mayor.”
    Bunny curtsied and Mayor Walker patted her on the head. He smelled of cigars and something like Nanny’s cough medicine. “The mirror image of your charming wife,” the mayor said, clapping Father on the back. “If I might have a word?”
    “Can you find your friends, Bunny?” Father asked as he strode with the mayor through a small door to the right of the reception room. He didn’t wait for her reply.
    Father always had to be early. “Ten minutes ahead of time is late,” he said. So Bunny had arrived well before the rest of the Welcome Committee. Including Belle Roosevelt.
    The French doors to the reception room were ajar. Bunny nudged them a bit farther apart and squirmed through. Her stomach was reminding her that she had only picked at her breakfast. Perhaps the cookies and punch were already set out and she could have some before anyone else.
    The long, linen-draped tables were empty of refreshments, but Bunny wandered into the room anyway, attracted by the lectern opposite her. Glancing around to make sure she was alone, Bunny made her way there. With great poise, she stood behind it, imagining the room positively bulging with distinguished guests. She began to say her speech.

    Well, this little one is certainly full of herself
. I watch her declaim and gesture. It seems as if she thinks the spotlight shines on her, and her alone, and as if that were the way it should be.
Such vanity is most unbecoming
. I note to my sisters.
    Her speech is pretty
, Miss Japan counters, and my other sisters agree.
    It is not bad
, I concede, after listening a bit longer.
But even a perfect pear can harbor a worm within
.
    Miss Japan makes no reply to my wise observation. Odd; she generally has something to say on every subject.

    Bunny finished her speech, and as the last syllable died away, she curtsied, almost certain she could hear applause.
    Wait. There was no
almost
. Bunny’s eyes darted around the still-semidarkened room. The sound was faint, but it was definitely applause. Where was it coming from? She listened harder. From her left, behind her.
    She whirled around, peeking behind a painted silk screen to come face to face with five Japanese dolls, each about the size of her four-year-old cousin. Bunny stared intently. Five pairs of hands rested on five silk kimonos. Of course. They were just dolls! Had she expected them to be clapping?
    She peeked under the draped table to see if someone was hiding there. It’d be so like Mary Louise Miller to play this kind of trick! She was probably waiting for the right moment to pop out and startle Bunny.
    No one was under the table. Bunny let the table skirt drop.
    She must be light-headed from lack of food, and it was making her hear things. That was the only possible explanation.
    As she straightened up, her eye fell on the doll wearing an orange kimono sprayed with pale blue flowers. Chrysanthemums. Leaning against her was a pint-sized silk parasol, adorned with a single chrysanthemum. Bunny looked down the row of dolls. Each had its own parasol,as well as numerous travel essentials: fans, tea sets, a spare pair of sandals—too many accessories to take in. Bunny moved toward the doll in orange silk, scarcely aware of the four others on the table.
    A creamy white card rested in a stand at the doll’s sandaled feet. “Miss Kana-gawa,” Bunny pronounced slowly. “That’s a tongue twister.” She smiled at her own little joke, but one look at the doll and her smile quickly faded. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt as if the doll was looking straight at her. “You’re just a doll,” she said.
    No answer came.
    Bunny felt in her pocket for the aggie. The commotion it would make on this slick floor—she smiled again to think of it. What about a quick test run? She pulled out the marble and knelt down, holding it