Teddy bears are not baby dolls.
    The fact hadn’t been so obvious yesterday when Millie was watching the new girls. After sitting through dull Sunday sermons and while their moms took an hour to babble, unspoken rules always sent the kids running into the overgrown grass around the Mountain Church. With

boys in dress pants and girls in dresses, the whole gaggle would sprint out into the itchy green to hunt for snakes and lizards. It was the new girls who were doing it wrong. They just sat in a circle with their make-uped faces and their baby dolls perched on their laps.
But…they looked so pretty sitting there. So grown-up! Millie just had to try it. Surely her teddy bear worked well enough?
      Teddy bears are not baby dolls.
     The truth kept a tight grip on her throat. While the refined girls murmured too quietly to hear, Millie sat silent in the corner. How had those girls made a circle with a corner? And why did those dollies have their cold vulture eyes locked on her teddy bear? Her imagination ran wild:

the whispers would rise into guttural chants, her teddy lay in the circle’s center and the dolls would tear him into stuffing shreds.

      Millie knew the girls wouldn’t send her away; that wouldn’t be Christian, but they could sit Millie in their cursed corner. They could whisper about her teddy bear—which was not a baby doll—and they could wait until their grown-up witchcraft drained her pride away.

“Sorry Tom. She tossed Snuffles.”

     The lingering words of his coworker buzzed over the whir of the broken AC as he zoned out behind the counter of the Gas & Zip. His eyes wandered to the four gummed-up circles on the counter, where just that morning there

had been four stubby pig legs. Good old Snuffles: rain or shine, Karen or Hobo Joe, the little bank had always been there with a chubby-cheeked smile and an innocent plea for pocket change.

     The old manager loved him. What was his name again?

     Had she trashed that too?

     Dawn had only been running this place for a month, but she’d already made herself queen.

     Every day she’d harp on policies, store rankings, and the district manager–her borderline sugar daddy. Out went Anthony’s favorite soda stock (“Who else buys that crap?”) and Itzel’s crochet flowers (“Keep the counter clean!”) and the ten minutes of grace that cost Robin her job (“Fifteen minutes early or you’re late!”). Really, it had only been a matter of time before Snuffles was gone too.

     Tom ran a finger over the smudges. The residue clung to his finger. He wanted to cling back, but what did he have to cling to?

     “Job hunt’s been a bust.” He flopped down on the counter, wishing he could ring himself up an energy drink or that he could afford spending $3.25. “And I heard Dawn's bestie wants my night shift. Guess I’ll be joining you in the dumpster soon enough.”