When Barbie Takes Over

52- Crazy

“Are you feeling better at least?” he probed.

I gave the smallest shrug possible. “I don’t feel like walking off the roof.”

“Good, good. That’s uh… good,” Dad said.

“Daddy, am I crazy?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

“What? No! No, of course not! Why would you think that?” he asked.

“I walked off a roof.”

“No you did not. If you had you would have more than just that broken leg right now. You are fine.” Dad sounded like he was trying to reassure himself of that more than he was me.

“I’m not ‘fine’. People who are fine don’t try to walk off their roofs,” I said simply.

Before Dad could respond someone else kneeled in front of me.

“Bridget? Hi, I’m Brin. I want to talk to you about what just happened, alright?” said the lady in front of me. She was about the mid-thirties and she was smiling kindly at me.

I nodded.

She began asking me a lot of questions- like why I was out on the roof, what provoked me, how I had been feeling today, et cetera- and I answered them as best as I could. I don’t know who she was, but she spoke in such a soft, kind voice, I couldn’t help but answer her every question.

It was during the time I was answering her questions that a small blonde body was hurled into my lap.

“Bridgey, Bridgey, Bridgey!” Alice chanted.

“Hey Cutie,” I said softly.

“You did it! It’s over now! They said they would go away! They left and now everything will be better,” Alice informed me happily. Too bad I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

“Uh, what?” I asked her.

“The voices! They saw that you didn’t do it, and they got mad, but then one voice got them to stop and they went away!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What didn’t I do?” I had a feeling I knew the answer to that question, but it didn’t make any sense.

“You didn’t walk off the roof! Even though they told you to, you didn’t! So the voices went away!”

I gaped at Alice and then looked around the room quickly. We had the attention of everyone in the room –Garrett, my parents, Brin, some other random guy.

“How did you know?” I asked.

Alice just blinked at me a couple of times from behind her large glasses before she responded.

“Bridgey,” she said slowly, “I made it happen.”

“No you didn’t,” I insisted.

“I know it happened because I made it happen. I made everything happen. Because the voices told me to,” Alice said simply. “They always tell me when you do something they asked me to make you do.

“The voices are gone now,” I said.

“Because you made them go away.”

“But how could I still have done something they told me to do, if they’re gone?”

Alice looked at me like I was stupid. Which, coming from my younger sister, is really bizarre.

“It was the last thing they made me do before I stopped listening to them,” Alice said.

“What do you mean ‘made you do?’” I asked.

“The voices told me what to do and then I made the Barbies do them. And then you copied the Barbies.”