“Hey, give it back!”
A young girl’s shrill cry suddenly pierced the Garvan home.
“That’s mine!”
LittleTammy Lou Garvan stood defiantly in the upstairs hallway,
blocking the path of her dancing and teasing devilish imp of a brother.
Her little hands,
curled into tight fists,
were pressed firmly against her hips and her feet were spread apart and locked straight.
Her head was flung back and her blond curly hair bunched against the crisp lace of her pretty,
pink party dress as she looked up into the face that hovered tauntingly about a foot or so higher than her own.
“Teddie Benjamin Garvan,
You give Sally back right this instant”
Each word of Tammy Lou’s firm command was accompanied by an equally firm stomp of her little buckle party shoe.
This made her lace-trimmed ankle socks and starched petticoats shiver and shake,
accentuating her bowlegs and knobby knees which were annoying encased in shiny white tights,
causing her older brother Teddie to burst into renewed fits of laughter.
He dangled a large, porcelain doll above his little sister’s head and made a mocking face
by sticking out his tongue and screwing up his cheeks and mouth.
The sight of her precious Sally Dress-Up doll
hanging precariously by her silken golden hair
from her stinky brother’s dirty fingers
made Tammy Lou grasp and clutch uselessly at the air.
This made her frilly, short party dress
and the matching pink satin ribbons in her hair bounce about even harder.
Teddie reveled in the act of having his little sister at his mercy.
He enjoyed making her look completely ridiculous in her disgustingly sweet fancy clothes.
And the fact that she was dressed almost identical to her precious Sally Stupid doll made him cringe in rage.
Why did his parents let her act so dumb all the time?
It was just so damn irritating!
That was probably one of the main reasons that he couldn’t leave Tammy Lou alone for more than a few seconds of the day.
She was his best target for unbridled teasing.
For Teddie, it was the most wonderful thing in the world.
“Tedddiiee!” Tammy Lou’s voice was beginning to tremble and whine, and Teddie could tell that she was on the verge of tears.
A final, weak stomp told him that he had almost won again.
A few more seconds and she would go running off crying to her room.
“Theodore?”
A distant voice called inquisitively up the stairs from out near the kitchen.
“What are you kids doing up there?”
Teddie silently cursed to himself as his fun was quickly squashed by the return of his mother from the store.
If she found out he was teasing Tammy with her dolls again she would really let him have it.
She had even threatened last time that if she caught him again,
she would give all his action figures and toys to some needy family and buy him girl’s dolls instead.
To his mom, this only seemed fitting since he was always insisting on bothering Tammy Lou over her dolls
. Of course, the very thought of this had made him shiver.
She really wouldn’t do that.
She wouldn’t take all his cool toys and leave him with a bunch of old sissy baby dolls.
Would she?
Teddie decided it would be better not to find out.
He quickly called back down the stairs.
“It’s nothing Mom
Tammy and I are just playing a game”.
Being a typical boy,
Teddie had to scream this at the top of his lungs thinking that his mom was 100 miles away instead of just a few dozen feet down the stairs.
“Naw awn!”
Tammy Lou started to yell down to her mother,
but Teddie’s hand quickly clamped over her mouth as he thrust the porcelain doll into her stomach.
“Shusg!” He hissed loudly into her ear,
hoping that his mom hadn’t heard her beginning protest.
“You better be quiet,”
he warned his little sister in a hushed whisper,
“if you don’t want Sally to disappear forever!”
Tammy Lou’s eyes grew wide with worry and she clenched her teeth together.
She had her Sally back and that was all she really cared about for the time being.
In an instant, she stuck her tongue out at her big brother and then went clomping down the hall and into her room,
her hard sole shoes clacking loudly on the hardwood floors of the old house.
Teddie just stood there and watched her beat a hasty retreat.
He knew he had to make sure that his mom wasn’t too suspicious.