"You are a toy because someone else wished for you to be." I gulped, somehow breaking my curse of immobility as May's eyes turned to me. I wanted to jump up and run to her. And so I did. I jumped onto wobbly plush feet and took a few marching steps toward the ballerina. I stopped, stunned that I could move at all.
May's eyes flew open, "Oh my gosh, David!" She ran to me on her toes, making my own steps all the more clumsy. How was she doing that? She leaped up and wrapped her arms around my neck. "Are you OK?"
"As OK as you are, I guess." I brushed one of May's cloth bangs from her face. She was warm, even as a doll. I hoped I was warm, too.
"So, what did you wish for?" She said, letting herself down and running her mitten hands along my chest.
"Well, I wished that I . . . that I had the courage to talk to you." The ballerina smiled and her eyes twinkled like they had to everyone but me.
May touched my red circled cheek, "I gotta tell you, a man in a uniform kinda does it for me."
"Even if he's a doll?" I said, my eyebrow arched.
"Especially if he's a doll." She kissed my cheek, standing on her tip toes to reach it. Then she whispered into my cotton ear, "A doll just like me."
I wanted to speak again, but my wish seemed to fail me a little. My mouth closed and my legs wobbled, my plush body starting to give out. May wrapped her mitten hand in my own and lowered herself next to me.
My head lolled to the side and I looked into May's plastic eyes. She smiled at me, and I smiled back at her. There wasn't much else a pair of rag dolls could do. A slender hand picked us up, careful not to squeeze too much, and when our hands slipped apart, she knotted them back together.
She dropped us into a gift back filled with tissue paper, not saying a word. May and I leaned on each other, one keeping the other from falling as the bag jostled and shook. As Genie took us to a new home, and to the girl who made a passing wish that a Genie happened to hear. A wish for the most amazing dolls ever made.
She got her wish. And so did we.