The mannequin looked so real, but was not. Apparently. At least that's what Mr Saunders always said, and he had to be right. He was a teacher, wasn't he? He was my teacher and, at nine years old, I believed every word he said.

And yet, every morning as I passed it on my walk to school, the mannequin - whom I had named Joyce - in the window of J. T. Kingsley's department store seemed to watch me as I went. Seemed to call to me, to invite me in. That was, after all, her job. But she did it differently to all the others I had seen. She actually did it. The others were just placed in the windows and left there, and if you saw them you saw them and if not... well, you didn't. But Joyce spoke, silently.

So far I had ignored her. I didn't want to enter the big old shop; I had no money other than lunch money, and nothing I needed to buy, and besides, I didn't want to be late for Mr Saunders. But on that morning, the day after I had told Mr Saunders of my worries about Joyce and had received sensible words in return, I did go in. I could no longer help myself, and My Saunders had said it was all right...

I sneaked in the double doors and made my way to her window. She was beautiful, quite, quite lovely, and I wanted to be her. Desperately. So much so that I stepped up to her, trampling over the window display, needing to touch the plastic being in front of me.

And when I did, I froze. Just like that, she stopped me dead - although living, to a point - and smiled at me. "Your turn," she said sweetly, stepping down from the window and stretching.

But no one has heard me so far.