Pippa and Pam were walking in the woods, talking about this and that, when suddenly, something hit Pippa on the head. “Ouch!” she cried.
Pam looked on in alarm and then looked at the thing that fell. “What happened?” she asked.
Pippa picked up the object and showed it to Pam. “This fell from the sky and hit me!” she exclaimed.
Both dolls looked up. They saw nothing but the sky above.
Then they looked at each other. “The sky is falling!” they both yelled at once.
“We have to take this to someone and tell them,” Pippa said, and Pam agreed.
Pam took the kerchief off of her head and they put the piece of sky in it. They found a twig and put it through the kerchief, so they could carry the package between them.
Then the two dolls walked as quickly as they could to the trail, carrying their burden with them. They walked down the trail as quickly as they could.
When they reached the paved part of the trail, they came upon Pauly, who was playing with a ball. He looked at the bundle they were carrying. “What have you got there?” he asked.
“It’s a piece of the the sky,” Pam told him. “The sky is falling!”
“We’ve got to tell someone,” Pippa added. “It could be bad!”
“Maybe we should go and tell The Writer,” Pauly suggested.
The three dolls agreed that The Writer should know about this. She would know what to do. The sky must be saved!
The three dolls walked on, taking turns carrying the big bundle and Pauly's ball.
A little farther along the trail, they noticed two dolls coming toward them. As those dolls got closer, they recognized Charlotte and Billy, who were out walking Pierre and Freckles.
“It’s Charlotte and Billy,” Pam said. “Maybe they’ll help us carry this piece of the sky.”
“Hi, kids,” Charlotte called out. “What’s up! What’s that you have in that bundle?”
“It’s a piece of the sky,” Pauly told them. “It fell and hit Pippa on the head. We’re taking it to The Writer.”
“We think she’ll know what to do,” Pam explained.”
Charlotte and Billy looked at each other.
“The Writer will definitely know what to do,” Billy said.
“Maybe you could carry the piece of sky for us,” Pippa suggested. “We’ve been taking turns, but it’s getting heavy.”
Charlotte handed Pierre’s leash to Pam and took one end of the twig.
Pauly took Freckles’ leash from Billy, as Billy took the other end of the twig.
When they were all set, off they marched to big house where The Writer lived with her husband, her dogs and her family of dolls.
The dolls carried the bundle with the piece of the sky all the way to the house. They climbed up the front steps. They had to work together, because it was even getting heavy for the bigger dolls.
The door opened as if by magic to let them in. Right away, they saw Mandy in the doorway.
“I saw you coming up the walk,” Mandy said. “What do you have in the bundle? she asked.
“It’s a piece of the sky,” Billy explained. “Part of the sky fell and hit Pippa on the head.’
“We’re bringing it to show The Writer,” said Pauly, who had been struggling with Freckles’ leach, which had wrapped around one of his legs.
Mandy thought for a moment. “Let’s have a look,” she suggested. “The Writer and Mariah are working on a story, and they didn’t want to be disturbed, but maybe I can be of help.”
The dolls carried the bundle with the piece of sky over to the stairs. They put it down on the bottom step.
Then they unwrapped their package, so that Mandy would see it.
Mandy looked at what was in the kerchief. Then she looked at the other dolls. “I don’t think we need to bother The Writer with this,” she told them.
“The sky isn’t falling,” she explained. “This is a fir cone,” she said, gesturing toward the thing in the kerchief.
“You see,” she said, “it only seemed to fall from the sky. You must have been close to a fir tree when it happened. Fir cones fall to the ground on their own, or the wind blows and they fall, or a squirrel scampers over the branch and knocks them off. It has the seeds that cause new fir trees to grow.”
“Well,” Charlotte said then, “I feel pretty dumb.”
“We never looked in the bundle,” said Billy, who knew a fir cone when he saw one.
Mandy noticed the three smaller dolls looking rather embarrassed. “It’s an easy mistake to make, though,” she told them, “if you’ve never seen a fir cone before.”
“It was very smart of you to realize the danger, too,” Mandy added. “The sky was really in danger once,” she explained, “but human scientists worked together with countries around the world to fix it.”
All the dolls were interested now. “Tell us about it, please,” Pam begged.
“Well,” Mandy began, “long before any of us were made, there was a hole in the sky, in a part called the ozone layer. The ozone layer filters the sunlight that falls on the earth. Because of the hole, people had trouble with their skin burning easily. (Their skin doesn’t actually catch on fire when it burns; it just gets red and sometimes makes blisters.) That can cause skin diseases if it happens often.”
“Another problem with the hole,” Mandy continued, “was that it damaged food crops. Scientists figured out what was happening, though. They found out that it was because human people were using a certain kind of chemical for making things like insulation, (the stuff they put between the walls of a house to keep the temperature right). They also used it in refrigerators so they could get cold enough to keep food from spoiling quickly. Some of it was leaking out and going up to where the ozone layer is. It made the hole, and the hole was getting bigger all the time.”
“Is it still there?” Billy asked.
“Yes,” Mandy replied, “but it’s much smaller now. When human scientists found out what was causing the hole, they worked together and with other human people around the world to find other chemicals they could use instead of the ones causing the damage. They made everyone stop using those chemicals. The hole is closing up again now.”
“So the sky can’t fall, exactly,” Charlotte suggested.
“No, it can’t,” Mandy agreed, “but things can fall from the sky, like hail.”
“Little balls of ice,” Billy explained to the younger dolls.
“I remember that!” Pippa said. “I know what hail is. This didn’t look like hail, though.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Mandy agreed. “Now you’ve learned that these things fall from the trees, not the sky, so you don’t need to worry.”
“I learned something, too,” Charlotte said.
Everyone looked at Charlotte.
“I learned that when someone says something terrible is happening,” she explained, “you should check it out before you get all excited.”
“Yeah,” agreed Billy. “You should look inside the bundle to see if it really is a piece of the sky or not.
Children who want to know more about the ozone layer and what happened to it can read here.
Image of ozone hole from NASA.
Readers may recognize the old folk tale known as Chicken Little, Chicken Licken or Henny Penny. The mistakes made by the characters in the old folk tale may also be made by dolls, or even human people.
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
"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 1:00 PM Pacific Time.
Copyright © 2024 by Peggy Stuart
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