Two Dollars

So the doll cost two dollars. I want to start there because two dollars is basically nothing and that is kind of the whole point of this story. If something is free or basically free you don't think about it. You just take it. That's a thing I know now. It was at a yard sale on Benner Street, the messy kind where everything is just dumped on a blanket on the grass. My friend Dev and I were walking home from school and we always look at yard sales because sometimes there's good stuff. There wasn't good stuff. There was a broken lamp and a box of forks and some VHS tapes and then there was the doll. It was sitting up at the back of the blanket like it had been put there on purpose. It was old, like really old, made of some kind of cloth with a porcelain face, and the face was cracked down one cheek. It had this dress that used to be white. And it was looking at me. I know dolls always look at you, that's just eyes, but this one was LOOKING at me, and Dev said "ew get away from it" and I don't know why but that made me want it. The lady running the sale was sitting in a lawn chair. When I picked up the doll she looked over and her face did this thing. Like relief. She said "two dollars" really fast, before I even asked, and I think if I'd said one dollar she would have said yes to that too. She would have said yes to me just taking it. There was a note taped to the doll's back. Actual paper, taped on with old yellow tape. I didn't read it until I got home. It was handwritten in pen and the pen had been pressed down really hard so it almost went through the paper. It said: FEED ME EVERY NIGHT OR ELSE. NEVER MISS A NIGHT. I AM SORRY. I showed Dev and we laughed about it. We came up with a bunch of jokes. Like what does a doll even eat, does it want a tiny salad, stuff like that. It was funny. I put the doll on my dresser facing the wall because even though it was funny I didn't want it looking at me while I slept, and that is a normal thing to do and does not mean I was scared. That was Friday. I'm going to be honest because there's no point writing this if I'm not. The first night, Friday, I didn't feed the doll because feeding a doll is not a real thing. And Saturday morning I woke up and the doll was facing me. Not the wall. Facing into the room, facing my bed. And I told myself Dev came in and turned it as a prank except Dev went home Friday night and my mom locks the door. So Saturday night I felt stupid but I put a cracker in front of the doll. A regular cracker, on a napkin, like an idiot. And Sunday morning the cracker was gone and there were crumbs on the doll's dress and the napkin had a wet patch on it. It's Sunday night now. I'm writing this on my bed and the doll is on the dresser and I already put food out, I put out way more than a cracker this time, and I'm watching it, and I'm not laughing anymore. Because here's the thing the note didn't explain. The note said feed me every night OR ELSE. It told me what to do. It told me what happens if I don't. It didn't tell me how many nights this goes on for. It didn't say when I get to stop. And the lady on Benner Street looked SO relieved when I took it, and I keep thinking about that, I keep thinking she didn't sell me a doll. She got rid of one. And now there is nobody to get rid of it to except whoever I can make take it for two dollars, and I don't think I can do that to a person, and I don't know what that leaves.