Emil's Big Problem

Emil woke when his alarm started to shake the bed. He knew it was time to get up. He felt for his glasses, which he had left in the charger the night before. Uh-oh! The charger was empty!

"Now what?" he thought. He couldn't hear without his glasses, because his special hearing aids were in them, and he couldn't see enough to get out of bed without them, either.

Emil knew no one would have taken his glasses. There was no one in the house who would do something mean. He thought and thought about what might have happened. Something must have knocked them out of the charger and onto the floor. "Marmalade!" he thought suddenly.

Cats walk around on tables sometimes. They are careful about where they step, but maybe Marmalade shook the table jumping on or off. They must be on the floor. Emil was afraid to get out of bed when he couldn't see.
"Billy!" Emil called to Billy with his mind. "Billy, I have a problem."
Billy sleeps in the same room with Emil. "I'm here, Emil," Billy said. Emil felt a hand on his leg and the mattress move a little bit.

"My special glasses are not in the charger," Emil told Billy. "I think they might have fallen onto the floor."
"I'll look," Billy said, and Emil felt the mattress move again as Billy got down on the floor.

Billy didn't see anything right under the table, but when he looked under the bed, there were Emil's glasses. "Here they are," he said, pulling them out.

Then Billy reached up and put the glasses into Emil's hands.

Emil put his glasses on. Then his face fell. "Oh, no!" he said. "I can't hear anything. I guess the hearing aids didn't charge enough."

"What should we do?" Billy asked.
Emil thought. "Well," he said, "I could put the glasses back into the charger and leave them, but then I won't be able to hear or see. That will take several hours."

Billy nodded. That made sense. "Can you use your glasses the way they are?" he asked. "You could try charging them again tonight, but at least you would be able to see until time for bed again."

Emil thought. That sounded like a good plan. Well, not good, really, but the better choice. "Will you help me today, Billy?" He asked. "There are some things I won't be able to do without hearing," he said.
"I'll help," Billy agreed. "I'm sure the girls will help, too. You just need to tell us what you need to have help with."

"Thanks," Emil said. "I'm glad we can hear each other's voices in our heads. Mandy told me she thinks people used to be able to hear each other in their heads the way we do, but they started being able to make their lips and tongues move, and started to have voice boxes to make sound, so they started talking, and then they forgot how to listen to each other."

"Many people who can't hear have to use sign language to talk," Emil said. "They make different motions with their hands rather than to say words. I can't do that very well, because my wrists don't bend and my fingers don't move much."

"Yes, we all have that problem," Billy pointed out.

It was a long day. Billy held onto Emil when they walked to school and back, so he could move Emil to the side when a bicycle came by. He would say, "Bicycle" to Emil each time that happened. He stayed next to him on the playground, to get Emil out of the way if there was anything dangerous for someone who couldn't hear.

Emil could hear the teacher's voice in his head, because the teacher is a doll, too, but when the class watched a video, he couldn't hear it. The teacher adjusted the TV so there were words across the bottom of the screen that told what was being said. The teacher put a chair for Emil up at the front of the class, so he could see the words clearly.

After school, it was Emil's turn to help with the laundry. Charlotte offered to do it for him, because he couldn't hear the dryer buzzer go off, but he said it was his job and asked her to let him know when she heard it. "I want to be treated just like everyone else," Emil told her.

All day long, Emil couldn't hear any sounds. There was no music for Emil, no matter how close to the speakers he got. He could feel the music through the chair he was standing on, but it wasn't the same.

He didn't notice when an airplane flew over the house. He didn't hear the train whistle blow. He didn't hear Pierre and Freckles barking at people walking their dogs, although he could hear them talking about it in their heads. 
"There's that Mrs. Jones with Fritzi," Pierre said.

At the end of the day, Emil found Marmalade. He asked the cat to please not walk on the table next to the bed at night, and Marmalade agreed. 

Emil plugged in his glasses.

Then he went to sleep.

When his shaking mattress woke Emil up the next morning, he reached for his glasses.

They were in the charger! He put them on.

Then Emil waited a moment. He listened. Yes! He could hear the birds chattering outside, and not just in their heads. He heard the furnace come on in the house. He heard the microwave beep in the kitchen. He heard the toilet flush in the bathroom. He heard the shower running. Then he heard a small crash and a little scream that puzzled him.

Then he heard Veronika's voice in his head, "That's OK," she said. "I'll pick them up."

"Veronika's hairpins!" Emil thought to himself.
Then he thought about how lucky he was that his special glasses could help him see and hear, so he knew what was going on in the house. He lay back on the pillows and smiled to himself.

It was good to feel like a normal kid again.

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia
Marmalade: Purrrfect Cats from KTL

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz or Classic Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to a charity that supports pediatric cancer, such as CURE Childhood Cancer, St. Baldrick's Foundation or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM Pacific Time.

If you want to know about sign language, check this link for American Sign Language. To find out about other sign languages used throughout the world, look here.

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