Pic on the side is Bridget, just with slightly darker, blonder hair. Sorry ThaliaGrace3214, I changed it.
Chapter Two:
Pretend Dates:
In the morning I rolled over and looked at my alarm clock. The numbers glowed ‘8:12’ in their little robotic box shape.
Seriously? I’m allowed to sleep in and I wake up just an hour later than I normally do. That sucks. I closed my eyes in attempts to fall back asleep, but I knew it was pointless. Sleep was long gone.
I rolled out of bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Then I grabbed some clean clothes to take a shower.
When I got downstairs Alice was bouncing away in her seat, with Barbie and Ken laid out in front of her. She alternated stuffing cereal in her mouth, and picking up the dolls to make them move. She was talking to herself quietly as she made her dolls talk.
“Morning cutie,” I said patting the top of Alice’s head. She was always awake early. I don’t know how she did it, but she rose with the sun and stayed up much later than it ever did. Yet she was always filled with energy. Little kids are just gifted that way I guess.
“Hi Bridget!” she chirped.
I shuffled past her to the fridge, muffling a yawn as I went.
“What are you doing today?” I asked Alice as I attempted to locate the orange juice. Sometimes she would tell me what she wanted to do and I would do it with her or take her somewhere else. My really only good friend was Quinn, and she worked on the weekends to pay for her shopping addiction. I didn’t mind, it was fun to hang out with Alice.
“I’m playing with Barbie and Ken all day!” she announced. “They are going to live happily ever after.”
“What about Sam?” I asked I finally located the orange juice at the back of the fridge to find it empty. I turned around and held it up to Alice and she smiled innocently before taking a sip of her full glass or orange juice. I rolled my eyes and turned to the sink to rinse out the jug. Who could stay mad at a six year old? Especially one as cute as my sister.
“Sam doesn’t know yet. Barbie and her couldn’t talk before Sam left.” That made sense, Sam had gone home with Maddy and Garrett.
“Then blame Garrett, he made her leave,” I said. I tossed the jug across the room and it hit the wall before landing in the recycling bin. If Mom saw she would kill me. She was paranoid about excess what bursting out and splattering on the walls. But I did it at least once a week without missing the bin.
“That’s why I’m mad at him,” Alice said with a huge smile on her face. She was about as mad as any kid could get.
I took a cereal bar from the drawer and sat across from Alice.
“Are you mad at Garrett too?” Alice asked seriously. “He took your socks.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes I am very mad at him!” I joked. But it was lost on Alice as she didn’t know the difference from when I was joking and when I was serious.
“Why don’t you go get them back?”
“Apparently his crazy grandmother is visiting. That’s why Maddy had to leave early yesterday,” I told her.
“Do you think she can come over today?” Alice asked excitedly.
“You could ask, but I don’t think so,” I said nicely. It was tough being the bearer of bad news to a little kid.
Alice’s face fell and her hand stilled from where she was braiding Barbie’s hair.
“Aw,” she said like it was the end of the world. I instantly wanted to make things up to her, I hated seeing my little sister sad.
“How ‘bout I play with you instead? I could be Ken and you can be Barbie,” I suggested.
“Okay!” Alice said rather loudly. A huge smile stretched out across her face and she started bouncing in her seat again.
“But you have to get changed first, and finish your breakfast,” I said sternly.
“Can’t I play like this?” she whined. I looked down at her Tweety Bird pyjamas. She gave me the cutest face ever and I was tempted to say yes.
“Go get changed cutie.” She went to stand up so I stopped her again. “Finish your cereal first before it goes soggy!”
“You’re bossy,” she said.
“Do you like soggy cereal?” I asked.
Alice shook her head. I smiled. “Then eat before its mush.”
Alice sighed, but she ate up quickly. When she went upstairs to get changed, I started the coffee for my parents because I knew they would be cranky when they wake up.
“Bridget! Bridget, Bridget!” Alice called quickly as she came back into the kitchen. Since she was wearing socks she slid across the tile landing perfectly in front of me. Whenever I attempted that I fell.
“Ready to play?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said like I was stupid. “Come on!” She grabbed my hand and started tugging me towards the stairs. I allowed her to pull me up to her room.
Garrett once said Alice’s room looked like unicorns had exploded in there. At the time I thought it was a stupid analogy, but then I realized how right he was.
Alice’s walls were a pale pink. But there were pillows of all colours all around the room. She didn’t like ruling out just one colour. Her Barbie dollhouse was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. It was came up to about my waist and was twice that long.
The little rooms in the house were tall enough for a Barbie to stand in and hold a bunch of the pink Barbie furniture.
There were some bedrooms and a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a bathroom. There was also a garage attached to the side of the house with a garden going around the whole thing.
This dollhouse was Alice’s life. That’s why Mom and Dad had long since given up trying to get her to clean it up. Whenever she did, it just came out again for Maddy and Alice to play with.
Barbie’s of all types and more clothing than I even owned was laid scattered around the room. Most of the Barbie’s were full sized, but there were several kids and even about half a dozen guys and a couple little boys.
I couldn’t tell any of the Barbie’s apart even though some of them were blonde, some were redheads, some were brunettes and some had black hair. A lot of them were even Asian or black or looked like they were a mix of something.
But Alice knew their names. Alice knew all of their names. And there were about forty different ones. And not all of them were Alice’s. Some were Maddy’s that she had forgotten to take home whenever she had brought them over.
Barbie and Ken were Alice’s two favourites though. If she was going over to Maddy’s those were the two she brought. The others were played with too, but not as much.
Maddy’s favourites were Sam and Alex. Those were the two she brought over every day. Those were the only two she never left here.
“How about I be this one?” I asked picking up one that I thought vaguely resembled some actor. I just couldn’t place which one while looking at the manufactured perfect plastic face.
Alice’s nose wrinkled up in disgust.
“No!” Her eyes quickly scanned the dolls before she picked up Ken and thrust him into my arms. I only knew which one he was because he was constantly with Alice. “Be Ken please!”
“Um, okay,” I said. Normally Alice didn’t like me being her favourite, but I went along with it.
“Barbie and Ken are dating now!” Alice declared. “Sam doesn’t know yet.”
Where is she getting these ideas? TV? “Wouldn’t it be a good thing to tell Sam?”
Alice nodded. “But Sam went home with Maddy, Barbie cant talk to her.” Of course.
“They’re going to go swimming!” Alice declared. She scampered across the room and picked up the blue Barbie pool. She came back and set it on the floor in front of me.
“What do you do when you go on dates with boys?” Alice asked.
I laughed. “I don’t go on dates, so I cant tell you,” I told her. It was the truth. No one had really ever interested me. I was in high school, was that so weird to not have had any serious relationships? Even relationships period?
“Okay, so they’re going swimming,” I agreed. I put Ken in the ‘water’. Alice gasped.
“Bridgey! You have to change him into his swim trunks first,” she chastised. She searched through the clothes on the floor before passing me a pair of miniature swim trunks.
I changed Ken into his swim trunks and then put him in the ‘water’ again. “Is he good now?” I asked hesitantly. Knowing Alice, she probably already had a whole story planned out for them. Nothing just happened when she played with her dolls. Everything had a purpose. She was one smart kid.
“No!” Alice glanced around before picking up a couple more male Barbie’s. Her glasses slipped down her nose a little and she didn’t seem to notice. She quickly changed them all into their swim trunks with much more skill than I possessed. Then she plopped them all in the pool along with the girls she had changed.
“There’s more than just them at the pool you know,” she said like I was the kid here.
“Oh of course,” I said with a nod. After making conversation with the dolls in the pool (Alice mostly told me what to say and who to make say it), she said that they needed to do something alone.
While she was setting up for them to have a movie date, I went to go say good morning to my parents. Well I didn’t really decide. More like Alice told me to stop helping because I kept knocking things over.
I found my parents in the kitchen, it was a little after eleven now so they were awake and happy.
“Good morning,” I said swiping an apple slice from my dad’s plate. He didn’t complain. He didn’t even notice. His eyes were glued to the cartoon he was watching on the TV.
“Morning Bridge, where’s Alice?” Mom asked ripping her eyes away from the TV to look at me. She liked to say she didn’t like cartoons, but come on, who could resist SpongeBob? Spongie was amazing no matter how old you were.
“We’re playing up in her room,” I said.
“Is Maddy not here?” See Ashley, Maddy’s and Garrett’s Mom, didn’t care if Maddy showed up here at some point during the day, and my parents didn’t care if Alice showed up there. We were close enough to each other that we could scream across the street if either of them went missing. And it wasn’t like they were missing for long anyways.
“No their grandma’s in town,” I said with a shrug. I stole another apple slice and chuckled to myself as Dad’s hand came down robotically for another one, but caught air instead of apple.
“It’s going to be quiet around here,” Mom said. Not really. Neither Alice nor Maddy made any noise, but I knew what she meant.
“Yeah. Do you guys have any plans for today?” I always made sure to ask them so I knew when I needed to be home to watch Alice or whatever. I didn’t go out often, but it was still nice to stay informed.
“I’ve got a dentist appointment later and your dad is going into work for a little bit,” Mom said. That was to be expected, the Dad working part. He wasn’t supposed to work on weekends, but something always went wrong at work so he would always need to go in. He co-owned a couple of car dealerships with a buddy of his, and little things were always going wrong. Plus Dad loved all the different dealerships and cars to stay away long.
“Pretty exciting stuff then,” I joked. I heard Alice call me from upstairs so I went back up to join her.
“All set up?” I asked.
“Yup!” she replied happily. She had found pink reclining chairs for the two dolls and even little tiny bags of plastic popcorn and drinks. They dolls were now wearing casual clothes again. She had set up a pillow on the floor was had one of those story book projector things set up so it the image appeared on the surface of the pillow.
Alice handed me the book that went along with the projector and told me what story to read. She could read, but she always liked it when I read to her. Plus she liked being in charge of changing the slides in the projector anyways.
It was a little old fashioned because I had gotten the small projector when I was little from an older cousin of mine, it had been hers; but it was fun nevertheless. I read the story out, Alice switched the slides and did the dialogue between the dolls, even managing to move them slightly so they were as alive as they could be. And by some miracle, she managed to not knock over any of the tiny pieces once.
Once the story was finished I closed up the book and Alice told me to clean up the movie theatre set and to put Ken and Barbie back in their homes. She was going to set up their next date.
I did as she asked, getting the slide out of the projector was tricky because my fingers weren’t as tiny as Alice’s but I finally managed.
I got confused when it came to putting them back, there was only one house, where did they go?
Alice took the dolls from me and but Barbie in the pink frilly room, and Ken in the blue and white room. So apparently in six year old speak, house means room. Got it.
I got orders to change the dolls into more fancy clothes. So I had to search Alice’s bedroom floor for what fit the description. Finally I found a simple dress for Barbie, and a suit type thing for Ken.
Alice had set up a table with only two chairs complete with romantic candle center piece and the table set correctly. There were even small napkins that if they had been mine, I would have lost in like eight seconds.
Alice had placed a sparkly pink limo in front of the house for Ken to ‘pick up’ Barbie. Their date was almost ready to begin when Alice got mad at me because I had forgotten to put shoes onto the dolls. She fixed the problem immediately. If I had gone to find the shoes, it would have taken me ages to find matching sets and she did it in like a second.
Their dinner date went smoothly. Alice supplied all the dialogue and I just had to repeat back what she said. I felt silly for placing the little fork into Ken’s hand and then making him eat the fake spaghetti the waiter delivered, but it made Alice happy so I didn’t mind it.
After the dinner date, we went downstairs to have lunch ourselves. Over lunch Alice thought up a couple of other dates she wanted the dolls to go on. And since I had no plans for the day, I agreed to continue playing with her.
Ken bought Barbie pretty things because Alice told me that’s what all good boyfriends do. They also went on a picnic and watched the sunset. In the time it took for the stars to come out, Ken sang to Barbie and serenaded her with his words. Alice thought of all of that herself, just not in those words. She really does think of everything.
After the sunset date, Alice informed me that she was hungry. I made her popcorn and we watched a movie. It was a Barbie movie that I know she had watched a million times, but I didn’t mind. I just liked watching Alice as she mouthed all the words to the movie and commentated it because she had long since memorized it.
Overall it was a pretty good Saturday. It did feel a little lonely because no Connors kids showed up, but it was still a good day.
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I really hoped you paid attention to all of that. Believe it or not, that small pointless chapter is the base for like the next ten. So please remember all of that.
Thank you so much for reading!!
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