Ship of Dolls (12 page)

Lexie shifted in her seat. Others were becoming restless, too. Miss Tompkins’s expression warned them to be patient.

Mr. Wilkins placed his box on the teacher’s desk. “We are planning a farewell ceremony near the wharf here. No doubt it will pale before the grand celebration to be held in San Francisco.”

He looked around the room again. “
If only I could be there.
Isn’t that what each of you is thinking?” A faint smile made his thin mustache rise. “But perhaps you have heard an exciting rumor. I am pleased to confirm that rumor. One of you
will
take part in the dolls’ farewell from that California city.”

Mr. Wilkins went on to say that the winner would be named during the send-off party for the dolls planned for the Portland wharf in January. Lexie’s heart pounded so hard she could hear it. Jack could probably hear it from his desk across the aisle.

The girls who had written letters were called to the front of the room, one row at a time, to put their entries into Mr. Wilkins’s box.

Lexie’s turn was coming up. She reached into her desk for her letter, then frowned. Where was the sheet of paper that should have been on top of her books? She slid her hand over, then under the books. Nothing.

She slipped from her desk and knelt on the floor to peer into the opening. Books. Her pencil. An eraser.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked in a whisper.

“My letter. It’s not here.”

“Look again.”

She yanked the books onto the seat.

“Electra,” Miss Tompkins warned, “bring your letter to Mr. Wilkins or sit down.”

“I can’t find my letter! It isn’t here!”

Lexie opened one book after another, shaking them. Nothing fell out. “It’s gone! My letter! It’s gone!”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Miss Tompkins said, sounding as if she really was sorry. “You may have forgotten to bring it with you this morning.”

“No!” Lexie felt inside the desk as if her fingers could find the paper her eyes couldn’t see. Inside, she felt as if she had swallowed an ice-​cream sundae all at once. “It was here! Now it’s gone!”

“You probably dropped it on your way to school.” Disapproval made Mr. Wilkins’s voice hard. She didn’t care what he thought. Where was her letter? It
had
to be here.

She was sure she had put it in her desk before class. She took it out and put it back every day. She took it home with her every night to work on it over and over. What if Miss Tompkins was right? What if the letter was still in her bedroom?

The sick feeling spread up her throat as girls from across the room finished placing their entries in the box. Mr. Wilkins closed the lid.

“Wait!” Lexie grabbed her pencil. “I remember every word. I’ll write it again.”

Mr. Wilkins glanced at the clock on the back wall. “The contest is over, young lady.” He picked up the box. “Good luck to all of you.” He might as well have said
all the rest of you!
After a nod to Miss Tompkins, he strode to the door.

“But I can write it again. It will just take a minute!” In her mind, Lexie saw Mama on the dock, her brown hair bobbed short and shifting against her cheeks as she turned her head, looking for her daughter.

“Please wait,” she called after Mr. Wilkins. “Please!”

A
s Mr. Wilkins carried the box of letters into the hall and closed the door behind him, Lexie lurched to her feet. She clamped one hand over her mouth. “Miss Tompkins, I think I’m going to throw up!” She turned and ran for the door.

Behind her, she heard Miss Tompkins say in a worried voice, “Jack, go after her. If she feels up to walking home, please see that she reaches her grandparents safely.”

Once in the hallway, Lexie gulped for air. Her stomach began to settle. She braced one hand on the wall.

Mr. Wilkins stood in the doorway of the principal’s office at the front of the school. Lexie watched him, sickness forgotten. He still had the box of letters.

Where would he take them? Would he leave them in the office until it was time for the judges to read them? Could she write her letter again and slip it into the box when no one was looking?

Jack came up beside her. “You look like puke.”

Maybe Jack would help her get a new entry into the box. She turned to ask him, but down the hall, Mr. Wilkins called good day to the office staff. She spun around as he walked out the front door, still carrying the box.

“Oh, no!” She ran to the door. When she pushed it open, she saw Mr. Wilkins place the box on the backseat of his Packard, then climb behind the wheel.

She ran down the stairs, but she was far too late. Mr. Wilkins drove away. His automobile backfired. She felt the blast all through her body. Her feet kept running, carrying the rest of her with them. When she reached the gatepost outside her grandparents’ house, she stopped and gasped for breath.

“You want me to get your grandma?” Jack asked, coming up beside her.

“No. Go back to school. I’ll be all right.” She leaned her cheek against the flat top of the gatepost. Jack hesitated, but after a moment, she heard him turn and walk away. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks and onto the gatepost.

Much later, she heard the front door. Grandma hurried to her. “Good heavens, child. What has happened to you?”

She felt Grandma’s arm around her, warm and caring, as she led her into the house.

It was a long time before she could tell Grandma about the missing letter. She sat at the kitchen table with a glass of milk Grandma had warmed on the stove. “I don’t care who wins! It doesn’t matter now. And I won’t go to that good-​bye party.”

“Of course you will go.” Grandma sat across from her. Her eyes were kind, but her mouth took on the stubborn look Lexie knew all too well. “You are a Lewis, with steel in your spine. You will go to that party, and you will congratulate the girl who wins.”

“I can’t.” But even as she said the words, she felt strength coming back, and with it a mind-​set as hard as Grandma’s. If she stayed away, everyone would know why. She didn’t want them laughing or, worse, pitying her. Grandma was right. “I’ll go.”

“Of course you will.” Grandma patted her shoulder before getting to her feet. “Wash your hands and face, then come help me fix dinner. The best medicine for disappointment is hard work.”

Lexie didn’t know if that was true, but she felt a little better until she ran upstairs and searched all through her room for the letter that wasn’t there.

On the day of the good-​bye party for the dolls, Grandpa had to work. Jack’s mother couldn’t leave the boardinghouse, so Jack, Lexie, and Grandma climbed aboard a crowded trolley to ride through a light rain to the Portland wharf.

Jack held on to an overhead strap near Lexie and looked at her as if afraid she might break down. “You okay?”

“Of course.” She made herself smile. “This is going to be the bee’s knees. I can’t wait to congratulate the winner!”

Even though she had used one of Mama’s flapper expressions, she felt Grandma’s approval. A glance at Jack said he didn’t believe her, flapper expression or not.

The Oregon Journal
had published a story about the dolls and the farewell celebration. The public was invited, so the school had arranged to use a large warehouse along the dock.

Folding chairs filled the room. Already parents and children were finding seats. Occasional shafts of sunlight broke through the high windows, glimmering over clothing and striping the wood floor. A Christmas tree stood below the stage at one end, but the rest of the room decorations were meant to make the audience think of Japan.

Several dolls sent from other towns and nearby states stood in their upright boxes along a table at the head of the room. Each one had a small suitcase at her feet. The dolls’ tickets and passports lay nearby. They would all leave from here for San Francisco.

The children and their families and friends filed by the tables for a closer look at the dolls. Grandma opened the passport beside Emily Grace. Inside, it gave her name and said she was a good citizen, promising, “She will obey all the laws and customs of your country.”

Grandma marveled. “It’s as though she were going traveling.”

“She is,” Lexie reminded her.

“You’re right. She’s going farther than either of us is likely to go.”

Lexie looked sadly at Emily Grace. She stood near the center of the line of dolls, smiling out at the audience as if she knew adventure lay just ahead and couldn’t wait to begin. “I’ll miss you,” Lexie whispered.

A ship’s horn blasted outside on the river, briefly overwhelming conversation in the warehouse as everyone settled into seats.

“You okay?” Jack asked again, dropping into a folding chair beside Lexie. She nodded, giving him the big smile she had practiced. No one was going to watch her heart break.

“You look like the Cheshire Cat,” he said. When she made her smile even bigger, he laughed and turned to talk to a friend in the row behind. At least he was sitting beside her. She had half expected him to find a seat across the room.

The high-​school band tuned their instruments at one side of the dolls’ table. Excitement crackled as everyone waited to hear who, of all the girls in the class, would be going to San Francisco with Emily Grace.

Lexie looked at the other dolls. Many were from schools or towns in Oregon. Others were from the nearby states of Washington and Idaho. She knew that many groups from churches to parent-​teacher organizations and Girl Scouts had helped buy and dress the dolls.

“Look there,” Grandma said. “That one’s dressed up like one of Florence Nightingale’s nurses. Weren’t they supposed to look like average American girls?”

“That’s what the instructions said.” Lexie was surprised by the clothing choices, too. Another was a boy doll dressed in a police uniform. What would the people at the girls’ festival in Japan think of that?

Jack elbowed her in the side. She glanced at him, then to the head of the room. Mr. Wilkins had just walked to the front. He stood beside the dolls and waited for the audience to grow silent.

Jack leaned closer to whisper, “He’ll have a lot to say and all of it boring.”

Lexie giggled, then put a hand over her mouth when Grandma gave her a warning look.

Jack was right. Mr. Wilkins did talk too long before the band played and again when they finished. She stopped listening and instead mentally listed things she could have been doing instead of sitting here pretending to be happy for someone else.

She forced a smile to her lips. She was going to congratulate the winner, whoever it was.

Jack leaned closer, his thoughts apparently following hers. “Did you find that letter?”

“No.” Since she’d met him, Jack had played a lot of tricks. Could Jack have taken the letter? Could that be his idea of a joke?

She pushed the thought away. Even Jack wouldn’t make a joke of a letter he knew meant everything to her.

At the front of the room, Mr. Wilkins was finally running out of words, or at least turning to new ones. “The dolls will not leave until January fourth,” he said. “We are celebrating today, before the Christmas break, so our winner will not be left in suspense.” When he introduced Mrs. Phipps, a parent volunteer who was in charge of the letter-​writing contest, Lexie felt her heart leap. Despite herself, she leaned forward to hear who had won.

Mrs. Phipps smiled at Louise’s father. “Mr. Wilkins’s generosity has made it possible for our sixth-​grade class to send a doll to Japan for the girls’ festival of Hinamatsuri. We are grateful to him.”

After applause, she turned to the audience. “All those who entered the contest put their thoughts and hearts into their letters,” she said. “However, the exceptional work of one stood apart from all the others. It was a clear winner from the beginning.”

Fresh pain gripped Lexie.
No one put their heart into their letter more than I did.
But no one would hear the letter she had lost.

To her surprise, Grandma clasped one hand over hers. The warm touch helped her relax a little.

“Since none of the boys were interested,” Mrs. Phipps continued, “it gives me great pleasure to announce the name of the young lady who will receive a paid trip for herself and her chaperone. The two of them will accompany all these fine dolls to San Francisco, California.”

Despite Grandma’s comforting touch, Lexie sank lower in her chair. Excitement swept through the crowd. It made her feel the loss of her letter even more. The paper must have slipped from her book while she walked to school, but she had looked and looked for it. Her eyes blurred, but she would not cry. She would smile and congratulate the winner. Somehow.

Mrs. Phipps unfolded a paper. “The young lady who impressed us with her letter and will be traveling with the dolls to San Francisco is” — ​she paused, glancing over the crowd with a smile while an expectant hush hung over everyone — “Miss Louise Wilkins.”

Lexie’s breath caught sharply.
Louise.
Of course it was Louise. Hadn’t she always known it would be?