The Very Little Princess: Zoey's Story (2 page)

“Knock,” her mother said gently when they’d stepped up onto the porch. Zoey wondered why her mother didn’t do it herself, but she lifted her hand to obey.

Before her knuckles even touched the wood, though, the door swung open.

And there stood a woman she had never seen before. Not even in a picture. But Zoey knew instantly who she was. This had to be her very own grandmother.

A Single Tear

The woman looked like Zoey’s mother and not like Zoey’s mother at the same time. She had the same dark, fiercely curled hair, though hers was touched with gray. She even had the same freckles. But while Zoey’s mother was all flat planes and sharp corners, her grandmother was round and pillowy.

“You must be Zoey.” The name came out soft, despite the buzz of the Z. Zoey’s grandmother said it as though she liked the shape of Zoey’s name in her mouth.

“Hello …” Zoey stopped. Should she call her Granny? That’s what her best friend, Molly, called her grandmother. “I guess I don’t know what to call you,” Zoey admitted.

“I don’t know, either,” her grandmother said. She looked past Zoey to her mother as she spoke, and her gaze sharpened. “Since your mother has never thought it worthwhile to bring you to see me until now, maybe you should just call me Hazel.”

“Now, Mother,” Zoey’s mom scolded in a low voice. “Don’t be like that.”

Zoey looked from her grandmother to her mother, then back to her grandmother again. Clearly there was something going on between the two that she didn’t understand.

When Hazel’s gaze returned to Zoey, her expression softened once more. “Are you hungry, Zoey?” she asked.

Zoey’s stomach had been rumbling for a couple of hours, but she answered politely, “Not really. Thanks.” Then she added, because she sensed it was important that Hazel know her mother took good care of her, “My mom made me peanut butter toast this morning.”

“Peanut butter toast! This morning!” Hazel
repeated. She clapped her hands to her plump cheeks, turned sharply, and marched away. “Please, come in,” she called back over her shoulder just before she disappeared from view. “I’ll get you some lunch.”

Zoey’s mom rolled her eyes as though this were the last thing she wanted … to be invited in for lunch. But she handed Zoey the pink suitcase she had brought from the car and, without a word, followed Hazel into the house.

Zoey didn’t move. The strange mixture of welcome and accusation in the air seemed to glue her feet to the porch floor.

She
was
hungry, though. Starved, in fact. And Hazel had mentioned lunch.

So Zoey started after them. Before she had gone more than a dozen steps, the argument that had been hanging in the air since the moment the door opened had begun.

“Why?” her grandmother was saying. And, “Do you know …?” And, “It’s been more than ten years! I’ve been so …”

Zoey’s mother answered. Zoey could tell she was answering, because Hazel went quiet while she did, but Zoey couldn’t hear what her mother was saying.

Then her grandmother would come in again, her voice high and bruised-sounding. “You never … !”

Zoey stood perfectly still. She wasn’t used to arguments. She didn’t even argue with her friends very often. And she never argued with her mother!

Her new grandmother had seemed nice when she’d first come to the door. But she didn’t seem nice when she talked this way.

Besides, Hazel was a witch’s name, wasn’t it?

In any case, Zoey wasn’t going to walk into
the middle of the argument. She could tell—without even hearing her name—that it was about her.

Zoey considered going back outside to the car, but she’d been riding too long to want to be there again. She looked around for someplace else to go, away from the voices. When she noticed stairs, that seemed as good a solution as any. She’d see where they went.

She climbed the stairs slowly, her cardboard suitcase banging against her leg. With each step, the angry voices grew farther away.

In the hallway at the top, Zoey hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she should go back downstairs. After all, she hadn’t been given permission to explore.

But then the voices rose to a pitch that she could hear again, and she started down the hall, glancing into the rooms on either side.

It should be easy to find her mother’s room. It would be pink.

Not this one. Not that one.

The hall ended in front of a closed door. Zoey turned the knob and swung the door open.

“This one!” she breathed. “This is the one!”

It had to be the room her mother had talked about. It was as pink as any she had ever seen.

And white.

And gold.

The walls were papered in pink rosebuds on a creamy white background. The bedspread and the curtains were pink. The furniture was white with gold trim. There was a white and gold dresser and a white and gold dressing table with an oval mirror. The bed had a delicate white and gold post at each corner holding up a ruffled pink canopy.

Across the room was a bay window with a
window seat. And in the middle of the window seat stood a tall object, covered by a sheet.

Zoey set down her suitcase and tiptoed to the window. She touched the sheet. Whatever was hidden under it must be precious. Nothing else in the room was covered this way.

Did she dare peek?

She stepped back, away from temptation, and stuffed her hands into her pockets. This was her grandmother’s house. She didn’t even know her grandmother. All she knew about Hazel, actually, was that she could be angry.

But, as if they had a will of their own, Zoey’s hands crept out of her pockets and reached for the sheet again. This time she let her hands give the sheet a tug. It fell away.

Before her was the most perfect dollhouse she had ever seen!

Zoey released the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Then she knelt before the little house and peered in.

Every room was perfect. The kitchen had a sink and stove. The door of the tiny stove opened and closed. The living room was furnished with a red velvet chair and a red velvet sofa with teensy purple pillows. There was even a footstool in front of the chair for resting the smallest of feet. The bathroom had a toilet, a bathtub, and a sink.

But best of all was the bedroom. It was pink and white, an exact copy of the larger bedroom Zoey was in. The same wallpaper with pink rosebuds. The same white furniture with gold trim. The same dressing table with an oval mirror, and the same canopied bed and window seat.

The only thing missing in the dollhouse bedroom was another, smaller dollhouse.

There was something here, though, that wasn’t in the big bedroom. A tiny pink and
white doll lay on the ruffled canopied bed!

Zoey picked the doll up, cupping it in the palm of her hand. It was made out of china!

She leaned close to study the perfect china “skin,” the gauzy pink gown, the golden hair. And as she did, a single tear that she hadn’t even known was there landed—
plop!
—on the doll’s face.

Zoey didn’t have any idea what had prompted the tear. Was she sad? Frightened? Or maybe it was a tear of pure joy.

Before she could wipe the wet away from the doll’s face, though, something happened. It was something so incredible that Zoey would dream this moment, again and again, for the rest of her life and wake each time with her heart pounding.

The tiny doll pushed herself upright in Zoey’s hand and sneezed!

Two Choices

Now, I want you to stop for a moment to think. What would you do if a doll, a tiny china doll lying stiff and still in your hand, sat up suddenly and sneezed?

Would you say,
Oh my! How wonderful! My doll just woke up!

Or would you toss the thing across the room?

I mean, really.

Having a doll come awake in your hands is a little like having a mouse run across your toes when you are sitting in the bathroom. It
isn’t that you are afraid of mice exactly. But the suddenness—the unexpectedness—of a live mouse would probably make you jump.

That was Zoey’s first reaction. She jumped. And she started to shake her hand to flick the doll away. But something stopped her. Maybe it was the part of her that had always dreamed such a moment as this. Still, her hand definitely wanted to get rid of this strange thing. So she dropped it instead. She let the doll fall, almost gently, onto the floor of the dollhouse.

But now let’s imagine something else. This is something that will, perhaps, take a bit more imagining.

Imagine being a doll yourself, a tiny doll, made out of fine china. You’ve been asleep for years, decades. Or not exactly asleep, since your stillness has been without dreams. But it’s been a very long time since you have known
anything or felt anything. And suddenly you find yourself …

Awake.

Aware.

Wet.

Lying on the floor in the middle of the dollhouse bedroom.

You are thoroughly jolted, fortunately not broken. (If the doll were broken, this story would end much too soon.)

But you can remember just enough to know that you aren’t supposed to be on the floor. Didn’t you lie down on the soft little bed before you went to sleep?