Daisy was up in the tree fort, playing with her dolls. She didn’t play with dolls much, but for some reason, today, she’d gathered up all four of them, carried them and the tea set up into the tree, along with a shoebox that sufficed for a table and pretty floral dishtowel that became the tablecloth, and a metal saucepan half-full of water that could be the tea, for a tea party.

There were four dolls, ranging in size from 14 inches to almost two feet tall. One was a Raggedy Ann that Daisy didn’t care for, but she brought her along because if you were going to go to the trouble of setting tea out, four settings were much better than three. The second doll, Gretel, was an odd thing that looked like it had been made in the 1940s: the front of its face was a sort of very hard plastic that sounded as if it would crack if you tapped on it too hard, but the back of its hair and all of its body were made of extremely tightly-stuffed fabric and the seams along the limbs were Frankensteinish; the doll had tight, straw-blond yarn braids and was dressed like something from a The Sound of Music or a Swiss Miss commercial, with blue gingham and suspenders and sewn-on shoes that looked more like hooves than feet. Gretel had extremely wide, bright cartoon eyes that were painted on and an out of scale, tiny, tightly-pursed mouth that didn’t even give a hint of a smile. In fact, everything about Gretel was tight.

The third doll, Veronica, was the prettiest. She had the curliest, kissiest lips, the rosiest dimpled cheeks, and the bluest glass eyes with real plastic-hair eyelashes, and her eyes closed with a neat little click whenever she got tilted backwards. Her expression, if a little vapid, was perky and bright. Veronica’s head was covered with golden curls that almost looked like real hair and spilled all the way down her back. She wore a purple and pink satin gown with lace, and bows, and real buttons down the back, ankle socks, black patent leather shoes, white underwear with lace around the legs. She even had a pink velveteen coat with a white lace collar, button, and a belt. Apparently, Veronica’s family had money. But the Veronica doll was also obviously quite young – she had baby fat behind her knees and dimples on her elbows, and Daisy didn’t like the look of that, especially because she was the largest doll, and so all of her prettiness was overshadowed by a Baby Huey-ness.

The last doll wasn’t very pretty, or the best-dressed but she was Daisy’s favorite. She had very long straight brown hair, and unusual features – far less attractive Veronica’s, but more contemplative and even-tempered looking. If you looked straight at her, she looked as if she was taking your measure, and liked what she saw, and was about to suggest you go do something fun together. Her dress was nothing fancy – a green-checked school dress with a white collar and a ribbon sash, and the requisite white ankle socks, black shoes, and a simple white pinafore and underwear. None of it was as well made as Veronica’s, and on the whole it was quite a bit dirtier. This doll’s name had gotten quite complicated. At first, her name had been Teresa. But somewhere along the line, Teresa had become Tareen (Daisy didn’t realize it, but she’d renamed Teresa right after Thanksgiving, when her mother had brought out some soup in a large tureen, and Daisy had liked the exotic sound of the word). And Daily liked this doll so much that one really special name wasn’t even enough, so she’d given it a second name, Celia. Only it wasn’t pronounced like you’d expect, it was pronounced Cee-LEE-ya, so the doll’s whole name was Ta-REEN Cee-LEE-ya. There weren’t five more beautiful syllables in the English language as far as Daisy was concerned. And she liked to say it over and over again whenever she brushed and styled Tareen Celia’s hair.

It was a lovely day up in the treehouse. Daisy set up the table and the dolls and the tea service, poured the water, added some sugar and stirred, and played. An observer wouldn’t have noticed much happening, because nearly all of the game all took place inside Daisy’s head.

The dolls talked among each other – the Raggedy Ann kind of stupidly; which the other dolls tolerated for the most part, but whenever Raggedy would laugh like the cartoon dog Goofy, one of the other dolls would reach over and slap her a bit to make her stop. The poor limp raggy thing didn’t even seem to care. The Gretel doll spoke in a German accent and was very bossy about the right way to take tea and dance a polka; so much so that the other dolls scolded and snubbed her. And Veronica was fairly nice to everyone, but there was always a saccharine edge to it. Also, she was prone to boasting and otherwise talking too much about her hair and looks, and speaking with a haughty tone in her voice. The other dolls tolerated her because she was the most beautiful and sort of deserved special treatment. And last, Tareen Celia was just gracefully enjoying her tea, and happened to mention that she was planning a trip to Mount Kilmanjaro. This horrified Veronica and Gretel, who began listing all the reasons this was a bad idea, including leprosy, avalanches, cannibals, snow leopards, cobras, and hordes of white monsters like the one at the top of the Disneyland toboggan ride…

The game was interrupted by Daisy’s sister Lynne, who was three years younger and very annoying.

“Daisy!” Lynne called up the ladder. Daisy ignored her.

“Daisy-Daisy-Daisy-Daisy-Daisy!” Lynn kept repeating in a singsong voice. “Daiseeeee, what are you doing?”

“Leave me alone! I’m busy!”

“Daiseeeeeeee, can I play? Let me play!”

“No! Go away!” Daisy didn’t want Lynne touching her porcelain tea set. The last time Lynne had played with it she’d broken one of the delicate, vine-like handles off the sugar bowl. Besides, the game was a story in her head. There wasn’t room for anyone else.

This went on for a while, till Daisy got annoyed and began calling her little sister names in Gretel’s German accented voice. Lynne, in turn, started throwing little sticks and rocks up into the tea party. This made Daisy angrier still. One of the pebbles hit a teacup and the tea water spilled, ruined the tablecloth, and the water dripped down through the boards of the tree house floor. This gave Daisy an idea. She lured her sister directly under the tree house, took a big mouthful of the tea water, and spit it down onto her.

Hair dripping, Lynn screamed and ran into the house to tell.

Their father came out into the yard. Daisy could tell by his walk, which was jerky and fast, and his face, which was very tight and bony-looking, that he was very angry. In an icy, harsh voice, he demanded that Daisy come down, and bring her dolls with her. Then he whirled and went back in the house, just as fast and jerky as he'd come out.

She did as she was told, got herself and the dolls down, and teetered into the house, carrying them in a bunch like human flowers.
Their father called Daisy into the living room and stood towering over her, fuming.

“Spitting at your sister. Jesus Christ. Spitting. Spitting! What the hell is wrong with you? Your mother lets you get away with murder. No discipline. You kids are little animals!” He stared at her for a moment, then commanded her, “Give me those dolls.”

Daisy was startled, but complied and held them out. He yanked them away from her.

When he got on his knees in front of the fireplace and stacked the dolls on the grate, Daisy got very, very worried.

She looked over at Lynne, but Lynne was secretly smirking at all the trouble Daisy was in. Daisy looked back at her dolls, stacked like kindling, as her father smashed up newspaper and shoved it under their little dresses and around their peachy, plastic legs. The Swiss-Miss Gretel doll, which ended up on top, had brushed up against the grate and now had a big black smudge across her face, but her eyes were as wide and her mouth as tiny and pinched as ever. It seemed as if her expression had been drawn with this exact situation in mind, and clearly, she disapproved. From what Daisy could see of Veronica and Tareen Celia, they didn’t seem to mind – they were still as smiley as ever.

Daisy felt strange and confused and kind of sick, like there was a great big hole growing between her stomach and her lungs. She started to hope that this was all a big joke. Any minute, Daddy would stand up and start laughing and take them into the kitchen for a two-tone popsicle or a cup of hot chocolate. But looking at him hunched over the fireplace, mashing and twisting newspaper into kindling in that furious, jerky way, and muttering to himself, she knew better. She also knew it would be better not to speak, or move, or even breathe if she could help it. Many precious things were on the verge of being set on fire, and there was no telling what else could happen. But finally she asked,

“Daddy, what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. He was too busy getting one of those extra-long wooden matches out of the special rectangular box by the fireplace. And as the two little girls watched, he leaned back, struck it on the bottom of the box, and set the newspaper under the dolls on fire.

The dresses and plastic hair caught fire straightaway, and filled the room with black, smelly smoke. Daisy knew that if she cried, it would make him happy, so she didn’t.

In minutes all the dolls’ clothes had burned off, and a lot of the hair had melted into clumps, but then the flames went out. With the exception of Raggedy Ann, which had a steady little line of orange embers burning its way up towards her button eyes, the sooty blackened doll bodies seemed quite fire retardant. Daisy looked at Tareen Celia, and although one of her legs looked pretty messed up, her head and face still looked good, so maybe she was still salvageable...

Their father left the room and went outside, slamming the screen door on the way. He came back a few minutes later with a gallon can of gasoline. The girls watched as he splashed gas around the inside of the fireplace, and all over the naked black and peach doll-bodies, and then threw another match in. There was a heavy, thumpy whoosh, and flames came all the way out into the room for a moment, then subsided back into the brick-lined enclosure. That did the trick – the dolls were melting and burning quite well now. The two girls watched and Daisy pinched her nose shut as the plastic crumpled and blackened and melted into a single, fused, messy pile. Lynne was sobbing a little now, but Daisy was still just watching. It was horrible, but the transformation was fascinating, too, the way they turned from sweet, pretty little toys into black, bubbling clumps of nothing at all.

When the flames and smoke and hissing had subsided and there wasn’t anything left to watch, Daisy looked at her father, but he wouldn’t look back at her. Finally, he sighed and asked the air between them, “How do you feel now? Do you still feel like spitting at your little sister?”

Daisy shook her head and whispered,” No.”

“Good. There. That ought to teach you a lesson,” he said. “Now go to your room.” He turned and went into the kitchen.

Daisy did as she was told, picking up the long box of matches on the way out of the room.