1
 
The Princess of
Garden City
 
She was easily the prettiest girl in the class.
 
Who else had such beautiful hair? Long blond locks that swirled so delicately around her shoulders. Or who wore nicer clothes? Pink dresses, usually, and plenty of frills. But there was something else about her: she seemed almost majestic. Renya Hill was convinced that the six-year-old blond-haired girl sitting near her had to be a princess. Imagine that, right there in their Grade Two class at Parnell Public School in St. Catharines, someone royal. Renya was intrigued. She desperately wanted to be the Princess’s friend.
 
The Princess, if she really was one, was always drawing houses. Before school started, she was at her desk, pencil in hand, sketching out frames. She was the first one back from recess, the first to carry on with her work. Picking a topic for art class was never a problem for the Princess. And she was so fussy and precise with her coloring, making sure everything was inside the lines. Coloring for the roof never blended into the sky; green stayed on the grass and never strayed onto the walls of her homes.
 
Renya had been quietly watching the Princess ever since school started that fall of 1976. She was fascinated with the girl’s intensity as she busied herself on her houses, hardly ever taking her eyes off her drawings. One day, Renya walked over and complimented her on her work, praised her for her neatness.
 
If the Princess heard her, she never said anything. She never even turned her head to acknowledge the compliment. She just did a strange thing with her eyes, shifting them sideways to glance quickly at the girl standing beside her. Then she went back to the task of completing her house. Renya, embarrassed at being ignored, returned to her own desk.
 
Later, at recess, Renya watched the Princess on the playground swings. She was by herself, as usual, and she was staring at a group of boys who were peering at something on the ground. One of them had a stick in his hand and was poking at whatever it was that was crawling through the grass. The Princess got off the swing and approached the boys. So did Renya. The boy with the stick was toying with a large black beetle, flicking it onto its back as it tried to scurry off. And then one of the boys held up his foot, ready to stomp on the tiny creature and end its misery. But the Princess stepped in front and pushed him away.
 
“You shouldn’t kill it,” she admonished. “It’s wrong to kill anything.”
 
She was the lone girl and they were four or five boys. But the Princess held her ground, and they backed off, muttering. Renya walked up to the Princess and tried once more to praise her for her drawings. This time the Princess was more receptive. She seemed pleased with the tribute, and smiled.
 
“Would you like to be my friend?” she asked, beating Renya to the question that had been on her mind for days. “My name is Karla. Karla Homolka. What’s yours?”
 
Renya told her, and then asked her what later seemed such a dumb question. “Are you a princess?”
 
Karla giggled. “No,” she replied. And Renya never, ever mentioned that word again, at least not to Karla.
 
Karla said she wanted Renya to give her a push on the swings. When Karla was finished swinging, she wanted to play on the slide. Renya dutifully followed her, first to the slide and later to the see-saw. Finally Karla wanted to know what Renya was doing that weekend. She wanted Renya to come to her house and play.
 
Renya had previously thought the blond-haired girl was shy and withdrawn. She was now beginning to think that she might have been wrong. Karla was bossier than Renya would have liked, but she still wanted to be her friend.
 
The Homolkas lived in a townhouse near Linwell Road, in the north end of St. Catharines, not far from Lake Ontario. Karla had two sisters. Tammy was the baby in the family, just one. And Lori was four, two years younger than Karla. They had moved from Toronto to Garden City, as St. Catharines liked to call itself, in the past year. Karla’s mother Dorothy was Canadian but her father Karel was from Czechoslovakia, which was under Communist rule when he had left with his parents, small-time entrepreneurs who wanted to live in a country where free enterprise was not a crime. The family had a motto: Better to work for yourself than someone else.
 
Her dad, Karla explained to her new friend that Saturday afternoon, was an art dealer, well known in the city. He sold black-velvet paintings outside shopping malls. Portraits of Elvis Presley were a big seller, she said.
 
“My parents just love Elvis Presley,” Karla went on. “They play his music all the time. ‘Love Me Tender’ is my favorite. Do you like Elvis Presley?”
 
About the only song Renya listened to with any regularity was the national anthem that was played before hockey games. The Toronto Maple Leafs, who played in the Big City across the lake, were her team. Her favorite game was road hockey, and she wasn’t afraid of the rough stuff when she played with the boys in the parking lot of a nearby church.
 
It seemed like an unlikely friendship. Karla, with her blond locks and frilly pink dresses, was prissy. Renya, on the other hand, hated dresses and looked very much the tomboy with her blue jeans and short brown hair. Unlike most girls her age, Renya didn’t have any dolls—she didn’t want any. So when Karla asked her if she wanted to play dolls, Renya reluctantly agreed, even though she would have preferred to do something else that afternoon. But she liked Karla, and didn’t want to upset her.
 
“Good,” said Karla, taking Renya to her bedroom to show off her Barbie and Ken collection.
 
Karla had more than a dozen Barbie and Ken dolls. They and their accessories and outfits took up one wall of her room. “Here,” she said to Renya, passing her a Ken figure. “You can be Ken because you have short hair. I have long hair like Barbie. I always play Barbie.”
 
Karla liked the dolls, she explained, because everything about them was just so perfect, from Barbie’s hair to her house—even her underwear. It was a wonderful pretend family in a beautiful pretend world. Someday, she said, she would have a lovely house just like Barbie, with her own fabulous kitchen and a handsome husband just like Ken.
 
Karla could have played all day in her imaginary world, but Renya soon grew tired. There wasn’t enough action for her. And besides, Karla controlled the game: Barbie going here, doing this, playing with that. Everything was too nice in the make-believe world of Barbie, Ken, and Karla. Renya had an idea for something different. She got together some of the cars, put Barbie in one and Ken in the other, and then fashioned an intersection with the houses.
 
“Here,” she said, handing Karla the car with Barbie behind the wheel. Renya took the Ken doll and his vehicle.
 
Karla had lost control of the game and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go along with whatever her friend was planning. Even at that age she always had to be the leader, happiest when she was the one in charge. She was so strong-willed that she didn’t want anyone, neither her parents nor her school chums, to tell her what to do. But Renya was insistent. “We’re going to have a Barbie and Ken car crash,” she said, searching through Karla’s collection for an ambulance.
 
Karla’s eyes reddened, she was so upset. Quickly, she scooped up all the dolls. “You must never, ever hurt Barbie or Ken,” she said as she put them carefully away. “I don’t want to play anymore.”
 
They went into the living room and watched cartoons. Soon it was time to go: Renya’s father was there to take her home. Renya was sure the Princess would never want to see her again. She had barely spoken while they watched television.
 
But Karla was smiling as she walked Renya to the door. She handed her a small, smooth stone. “Our friendship,” she said, “will last forever. Just like this rock.”