The Doll People

Bored, Annabelle asks her younger brother, Bobby, if he wants to play tag. Bobby says that it does not seem like a safe time because the Palmers’ cat, The Captain, is right outside the open dollhouse, watching them. Mama confirms this. Mama is standing on her head next to the piano, downstairs, because this is where Kate left her before heading off to school that morning. Frustrated, Annabelle sighs and flops onto her bed. She knows that Kate will be home soon, but she cannot remember where she is supposed to be inside the dollhouse. She complains that her life is boring. She asks her mother whether Auntie Sarah is her mother’s sister or her father’s—or if she is, perhaps, a sister-in-law, married to Uncle Doll, who might then be either her mother’s or father’s brother. They hear Kate come home from school. Annabelle suddenly remembers where she is supposed to be, and she hurries into position. She stays perfectly still for hours while Kate is doing homework and talking on the phone with her friend Rachel. Annabelle entertains herself by thinking about her secret.

One night, when Kate had closed the dollhouse before going to bed and the Doll family had more freedom to move around and make noise than they usually did, Mama suggested a sing-along and then some free time. Recently, Annabelle had heard Kate talking to Rachel about the Nancy Drew books they were both reading. Annabelle had liked the idea of being a detective, and she decided to investigate the library. Most of the books were pretend, but a few were real. When Annabelle searched the very top shelf of the library, she found a real book written by hand. It was Auntie Sarah’s secret journal. Annabelle took the journal back to her bedroom and hid it. Ever since, she has been reading the diary in short bursts, whenever she can find a private moment. She realizes that since finding the journal, she has begun to feel restless, as if something is missing from her life.

One morning, while the Palmer house is empty, Annabelle draws pictures of spiders like the pictures she has seen in Auntie Sarah’s journal. She hears the clock chime noon and realizes that time has gotten away from her. Grandma Katherine Palmer is bringing Nora, Kate’s little sister, home from preschool. Annabelle hurries back to her place just in time: Nora climbs up onto a stool and peers inside the dollhouse. Nora puts Bobby and Uncle Doll in the dollhouse’s icebox. She bounces Annabelle down the stairs and then declares that the family needs pets. Annabelle feels dread. Nora fetches some of her own farm animal toys and declares that they will play “Rancher Family.” Annabelle is disgusted to find herself astride one of Nora’s dirty, sticky toy cows. She wants to get down when Grandma Katherine calls Nora downstairs for lunch, but her mother reminds her that Nora might notice. “Do you want to end up in Doll State?” her mother asks (23). Annabelle recalls vividly what it is like to be turned into an ordinary, non-moving doll for 24 hours after being seen moving by a human, and she does not want to suffer this fate again. She stays on the cow. Her mother reminds her that if she does anything to “truly [jeopardize] dollkind,” she will enter “Permanent Doll State” and become an ordinary doll forever (24).

Annabelle asks her mother to entertain her by retelling their origin story. Her mother recalls how they were made by an English dollmaker in 1898 and sent across the ocean to the Cox family, who had bought them for their daughter, Gertrude. Gertrude’s daughter, who eventually grew up to be Grandma Katherine, was their next owner. Her daughter, Annie, inherited the Doll family next, and now they belong to Annie’s daughter, Kate. Annabelle asks why the Doll family never talks about Auntie Sarah’s disappearance. The adults are all clearly uncomfortable. When Kate finally arrives home, she is angry to find that Nora has been playing with the dolls and says that she is looking forward to Nora’s birthday. That night, Annabelle tells Mama that she appreciates how well Kate looks after the Doll family. When she says that Kate is her best friend, Mama tells her that human girls do not make good best friends for doll girls. Annabelle realizes that this is because Kate, like all the girls in the family before her, will eventually grow up—but Annabelle never will.

Annabelle sits perfectly still in the dollhouse kitchen, watching an approaching spider with terror. If it crawls on her, she will have to let it because Kate and Rachel are both nearby, in Kate’s room. Fortunately, the spider turns and crawls away. Annabelle thinks about how seldom spiders enter the dollhouse and wonders how Sarah was able to make such detailed drawings of different spiders in her journal. That night, she reads more of the journal. She learns that Sarah left the dollhouse to explore the Palmer house many times. She is shocked because the Dolls never leave the dollhouse unless they are being carried by a human. She wonders if this kind of behavior is what might cause Permanent Doll State. Then, she realizes that the answer to the mystery of where Sarah has been for 45 years might actually be very simple: Perhaps Sarah is simply lost or stuck somewhere in the Palmer house.

The next morning, she asks Mama why they never leave the dollhouse. Mama says it is not safe, and Nanny asks how a doll would get down from the high shelf that the dollhouse sits on. Annabelle studies the stool that Kate uses to access the highest floors of the dollhouse and decides that it could be used to climb down to the floor of Kate’s room. She boldly asks how Auntie Sarah used to leave the house. Mama and Papa try to deflect the question, and Annabelle notices that Uncle Doll looks angry at Mama and Papa. Annabelle asks why they never went to look for Sarah and whether, if Annabelle were missing, they would look for her. They do not answer. Instead, they remind her of the risk of Permanent Doll State. Annabelle goes to her room and reads more of the journal. She learns that Sarah was engaged in a nature study, investigating the various creatures living in the Palmer house. She marches back downstairs and announces to her family that she intends to go looking for Auntie Sarah. Uncle Doll surprises her by saying that he will come with her.