If I would have known that the dolls I got for my birhtday were going to be this much trouble, I would have never asked for them.

My flaky Aunt Eunice thought it would be cute to get me three Cabbage Patch dolls: you know what I mean --- those dolls with the soft, dumply bodies, chubby arms and legs, yarn for hair, big eyes, tiny snub noses, and dimpled smiles.  Cute and innocent, right?

The ones with the adoption papers.  The three I have are named Sarah, Billy, and Tabitha.

Well, until last week, all was normal.  I had nothing to worry about.

Then, last week, as I was about to go to sleep, I thought I heard a child's voice, whisper softly:  "We're gonna getcha.  And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it, either."

I shrugged my shoulders, then I laughed softly to myself as I laid my head back onto my pillow, closed my eyes, and prepared to go to sleep for the night.

Then I heard the same high-pitched, squeaky voice again. 

"We're gonna getcha, Piper.  And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it."

I looked around in the darkness, trying to see if anything or anybody was in my room.  Nothing that I could see that was out of the ordinary.  Weird.  I lay back down and again tried to go to sleep.

I put it out of my mind and slept the rest of that night.

The next night, it happened again.  Then the night after.  Then there was a lull until last night.  This morning, when I got up, I was shocked to find my little grey Maine Coon kitten, "Willow", lying on the bed, dead.  Her neck was twisted.  Her neck had been broken.  I started crying and yelling hysterically that Willow was dead.

I couldn't go to school, I was so upset.  Instead, we buried my little pet and all I could do was cry in my pillow the rest of the day.  My three doll companions still sat on my bed, looking at me through their glass eyes.

I wondered how Willow's neck had been broken.  I know my mom didn't like cats, but she wouldn't be that mean, to the point of killing my pet.  Dad tolerated her too, although, like mom, he wasn't crazy about cats either.  He also wouldn't have killed Willow.

I then thought of my brother, Todd.  He loved Willow as much as I did: count him out as a suspect.  He wouldn't hurt a fly.

Then I remembered my baby sister, Sarah.  She was only two.  She could have done it, but she was too little to learn of the consequences of her actions.  I figured it was her that might have broken Willow's neck, but all I could get out of her was, "I no do.  I no do.  Willow s'eepin'.  I no do."

Strange.  If my family didn't kill Willow, and if I didn't kill Willow, then who did??

*to be continued.*