Julia’s soft finger flesh closes around me in a wall, gently lifting me out of the cup elevator and into the air.  She holds me for a moment.  She does this each morning, giving each of her pet people a brief moment.  Probably to make us feel more comfortable or something.  I really can’t even begin to fathom how this girl’s mind works.

                She brings me a little closer to her face after adjusting her position to one of kneeling.  It’s not an entirely unpleasant face to look at, so I suppose that’s something.  She’s thin, but with a slightly athletic build, and as I said, she’s got long, smooth brown hair that has a nice sheen by her light, deep blue eyes, and a pretty big mouth containing perfectly straight white teeth and a long red tongue.  Her hands are very large: mammoth things of power to us at about three inches tall (I’m really not quite sure how big we are, but that’s my guess, if not a few millimeters shorter).  If this were another life and I had not been essentially enslaved by this girl for almost an eighth of my life, I’d probably even be attracted to her.  She’s not exactly what you’d call hot or gorgeous, but she has what appears to be a certain charm to her that makes her almost magnetic, and is probably part of what made it so easy for her to catch all of us.  Of course, us five know better than anyone how this sunny spirit of hers is a pretty cover up for a deep-seated madness she’ll probably never even realize in herself.

                “Did you sleep well?” she says sweetly to me, giving me a light squeeze that doesn’t hurt; it feels more like a strong hug from her fingers.  For a second, my legs swing freely inside her hand.  It’s sort of a scary feeling, so her pinky quickly slides into her softly closed fist so I can have something to half-stand on.

                “Yes,” I say quietly.  I don’t particularly enjoy talking much to her.  It’s really not so much out of hatred or even dislike (I learned to block those feelings a long time ago in favor of my personal wellbeing), but more out of an acceptance for the situation I’ve reached.  Just like my life “before,” I just sort of go with the flow, so that must be one of the things that helps me stay ahead here.  It’s never said, but I think because I’ve been here the longest and I tend to cooperate best with her, I’m Julia’s favorite; she tends to take a little longer with me in our immediate morning “chats.”

                “Good,” she says, sighing a bit at the end of the word.  Her other hand moves toward my face, and she gently touches the top of my head with her pointer finger, lightly bopping me.  “We’re going to have to give you a haircut soon, okay?” she says. 

It’s not really a question, she means she’s going to give me a haircut soon.

                “Ok,” I say calmly.  She tilts her head and purses her lips off to the side a bit, as if thinking.  She breathes out slowly, and the warm air hits my face hard again as she adjusts the position of her fingers ever so slightly, curling them in a ripple.

                “You feel thin,” she says finally, doing the light squeeze again.  Then the squeeze goes through each finger from my shoulders to my feet as if she’s feeling me over.  Her hand tilts back and then opens so that I can be at sort of a diagonal leaning position on her palm.  “Lift your shirt up a little,” she says finally, bringing me up a bit so I’m at eye level.  Without a word I do this, revealing my stomach.  She runs her pinky over it, trying to feel for my ribs.  “Have you been eating all your food?” she says.

                “Yes.”

                “Are you sure?”

                “I’m positive,” I answer again, the same monotone way.  She looks disbelievingly at me.

                “Well, okay.  We’re giving you a little extra today, though.  I want you to be healthy,” she says, closing her fingers back around me and realigning me in my upright position.  With this done, she gets up off her kneeling position and stands straight up, rocketing me into the air, but holding firmly enough so that I know I won’t go flying.  The one thing I can say is that in these two years, she’s never dropped one of us on accident.  Ever.  I suppose in her own twisted way she loves each of us. 

Maybe a little too much. 

She does it pretty often too; she’s got some sort of crazy fascination with being able to hold each of our helpless lives in one of her hands.  Since she’s safe, though, being picked up and carried around is as natural (and as often occurring) for us as walking.  I used to be uncomfortable with this, having those huge fingers being able to feel practically every square inch of my body, the claustrophobic sensation of being surrounded by a wall of flesh, but not anymore.  I just sort of ignore it now.

                Now in a standing position, she places me on her small desk, which she has set up as a sort of mess hall, with a little round table and chairs, where the other four are already sitting and eating.  Basically what happens is that she makes up a plop of hot cereal or a little tear of toast with jelly on it, then sets it in the center of the table.  There’s plenty for all of us to just grab it up and chow down.  Lately though, as she noticed, I haven’t really cared as much.  I still eat enough so that I’m not starving or anything, but I am pretty sure I’m losing weight.  I take my seat and grab up a few of the mushy grain chunks. 

Oatmeal this morning.

                We finish breakfast a bit later.  While we eat, Julia tends to leave the room and leave us to our own devices.  The desk is honestly way too far away from anything to leap to for escape.  Jumping off would be a guaranteed suicide.  All we have are the table and chairs, so there’re really no options.  We’ve figured that out.  Brian used to whisper about a way we could get off the table and try to get away but he doesn’t any more.  Now, we just sort of tell each other about our lives before.  We honestly have each other’s bios pretty much ingrained in each other’s minds, but we enjoy hearing the same stories over again. 

What else have we got to do with ourselves, anyway?

                It’s a Saturday: this means a full day of school.  Since Julia has to actually go to real school during the week, on regular days she leaves us in the dollhouse with enough food for breakfast and lunch, then returns in the evening after school to “teach” us.

                This is one of the most central things about our lives here: we go to “school.”  I suppose Julia also has a deep desire to be a teacher one day, because she has taken it upon herself to continue our educations.  On her larger desk in the room, she has set up a series of desks and tables with a mini chalkboard and everything.  Sometimes when I’m not paying attention I almost feel like I’m back in my school, until I lift my head and remember that my teacher is a twisted titan girl large enough to swallow me whole, and worse still would do it if I stepped out of line far enough. 

Somehow, that image of reality tends to kill the illusion of beautiful sanity a bit.

                Julia returns soon, dressed for the day in skinny jeans, a tight purple shirt, and yellow slip-ons, her freshly showered hair tied up in a ponytail.  She walks in, smiling at us, and picks up the school bus from the ground, setting it on the small kitchen desk for us.  She really is serious about the whole school thing.  We clamber on to the bus and take our sets.  Then, slipping her fingers through the glassless windows of the toy bus, she lifts it into the air, her huge palm acting as a roof over part of it, carrying us the roughly twenty foot distance across her spacious room to her larger desk, where the classroom is.  The bus is laid to rest on the desk, and we all hop out before she drives the bus away and deposits it on the ground.

                We all trudge into the classroom, and take our seats at our assigned desks.  Julia pulls her swivel chair over and takes a seat, resting her arms gently on top of themselves at the front of the “classroom” where she can get a bird’s eye view of us all.  Even sitting, we all have to look up a little to see her directly in the face since she’s so close to us.

                “Good morning, class,” she says with a huge grin.  We all mumble good morning.  “Let’s try that again.  GOOD MORNING, CLASS,” she says a little louder and cheerier.  We say it a little louder.  “That’s better.  Now, where did we leave off… ahh, yes, I remember, we were talking about advanced algebra.  Now, let’s see… if we take this problem…” she begins, typing out a problem on her laptop and setting it in front of the class so we can all see the gigantic problem laid out.  “Oh, I’m sorry, we didn’t get the supplies.  Kelly?  Would you get them please?” she says sweetly, nodding her head.  Kelly quickly stands up and goes to a side table where she picks up enough paper and pencil tips for everyone before placing one on each of our desks.  We mumble a few quick thanks at her.

                “Class?  Kelly did something nice.  Let’s thank her a little better.  What do we say?” she says with the slightest air of disapproval, as if we were all elementary school kids.  We repeat the thank you a little louder.  Brian just sort of mumbles it again, though.

                “Brian?  What do we say?” she says, tilting her head over at him.  He looks at his lap. 

Idiot.  What does he think he’s doing?

                “I asked you a question, Brian,” she says, her hand rising from under the desk and moving threateningly toward Brian, her fingers outstretched.