I’m now having breakfast with the rest of the group, waiting for Julia to leave the room.  The conversation didn’t carry on much after she thanked me for my generous compliment to her appearance.  She told me to eat a good breakfast because I still was feeling skinny (which she took the opportunity to give me that little squeeze around the torso to feel) and that she would teach me some more in the afternoon when she got back from school.  We ate breakfast, then Julia took out a hunk of bread and placed it in the dollhouse for our lunch. 

                Damn. 

                No sauce for us to save today. 

                Finally, she placed us all back inside the dollhouse after cleaning out the little paper cup tube in the “bathroom” at the end of the hall.  I suppose I haven’t mentioned how that works yet, but basically it’s one of those little cups for condiments at a fast food restaurant with the bottom cut out.  It leads down a little plastic paper tube and down to a little paper baggy.  Julia cleans it out every two days, before it starts to smell.  At least she can do that much for us, so we don’t have to be sitting in our own filth.

                With the bread in the house, she places the little thimble full of water in as well, and hands out the sheet music for the musical in little copied versions she made for us.  She clearly gets immense enjoyment out of that sort of thing, making small school supplies and things for us.  Like you would for a model, or a dollhouse. 

                And we are her little dolls.  Her little living dolls.

                I take that back.  We’re not always dolls.  Sometimes, if she feels like playing with something else, we’re hamsters that she can pet and primp us up with haircuts. 

                Sometimes we’re action figures when she sets up obstacle courses for us to run around on.

                The last time that happened, she took a bunch of her make-up things, lipstick tubes and stuff like that, and arranged it on the floor, making sure to make walls of shoe boxes in a perimeter.  Then she set us up in the place, and had us race to escape out the opening and into a little box.  The winner got “extra credit” on their homework.  Last time, it was Brian; he’s probably the most athletic of all of us.  I wonder when she’ll do that again….

                I’m shaken out of this memory by the booming sound of Julia’s voice.  I look up to find the other four all huddled into one of Julia’s hands, standing up but clustered together.  Her other hand is laying flat on the ground in front of me.  “Jack?  Did you hear me?  It’s time to go back in the house now,” she says gently.  Her pointer finger slides forward and taps me playfully in the knee.  I nod and place a foot on her finger, readjusting my sense of balance to the fleshy floor and step up, moving over to the more solid ground of her palm as she raises me up.  Another minute later and we’re all in the cup.  “I’ll see you all later.  Practice your music!” she says cheerfully, closing the top of the house and pushing it back inside the closet.  Another minute and I hear the closet door close.  Alone at last.

                “That was GREAT, man!” says Brian, slapping me on the back as Gina strides over and grabs onto my shoulder, hanging on.

                “Ugh…” I groan, rolling my eyes.  It was horribly embarrassing to have to break down like a little girl for Julia in front of them all.  “It wasn’t too over the top?”

                “It was perfect,” says Kelly reassuringly.  “You were a good student.”

                “I honestly thought she was going to catch on as soon as I started.  I mean, I’ve never acted like that before,” I say, scratching the back of my head in embarrassment.  “She usually gets on stuff like that pretty quickly…”

                “Jack…” pipes in Anna.  “When a girl as young and impressionable as Julia likes someone, she trades in her sense of logic.  I’d bet you’re her first crush.  She’s never felt like this before, it’s all new.  She’s figuring it out as she goes.  And that’s your advantage,” she finishes, leaning against the plastic wall.  I wonder if she’s starting to feel pain in her back.  It occurs to me that I don’t know how much time we’ve got.  I look over at Anna.

                “Do you know how long… I mean…” I start.  She nods, knowing.

                “I don’t really know, but I’m guessing I’m about five months along.  I’m starting to show a little already…” she says, laying a hand on her stomach.  “Just a second…” she says, and quickly moves down the hallway to the bathroom. 

                Morning sickness.  It’s lucky she didn’t have the urge while she was standing out there with Julia.  Brian quickly walks after her to help her if she needs it.

                “It’s not going to be much longer before she shows…” whispers Kelly to me.  “I mean, REALLY shows.  The bump is small enough now that I don’t think Julia would notice it unless she was purposefully feeling for it.  She holds her every day, so it’s probably harder for her to tell because it’s so gradual but as soon as it occurs to Julia that Anna is feeling bigger around, she’ll want to see her stomach, and then she’ll know.”

                “Can Jack be ready by then?” says Gina.

                Kelly looks over at me, trying to be positive.  “I hope so.  Jack.  I don’t want to have to say it, but we need you to make this work.  And you need to make it work fast.  You’re old enough to understand that.  How important this is.”

                I nod.  “I know.”

                “Good,” she says, not wanting to linger on the seriousness of the situation.  We hear Anna upchucking into the condiment cup down the hall.  A few minutes later, she returns with Brian.

                “Sorry about that,” she says, wiping her forehead.

                “We need to have a plan…” says Gina, and we all turn to look at her.

                “We do have one,” says Kelly uncertainly.

                “I mean a back-up one.  We don’t have one of those yet, and we’re going to need one just in case,” she says.  And she doesn’t need to finish.  We all know it’s just in case I can’t work fast enough before Anna’s condition is discovered. 

                Of course, she’s not referring to a back-up plan for if I’m caught.  We all know there’s no real way to get out of that one.

                “She’s right,” says Anna.  “What happens if she finds it before Jack can get her out of the room?”

                We all are silent for a minute, thinking.  I can see Brian thinking harder than any of us.

                “I’ve got it,” he says.