"I’m glad you’re here, Pauly," Pippa told her friend as she closed the front door. "I heard Charlotte tell Emil he has a new letter from his friend Holly. Maybe he will tell us what she says."
"Isn’t Holly the friend he was in the doll hospital with?" Pauly asked. "I think you said she uses a wheelchair to get around."
"Yes," Pippa agreed, "and her letters are always interesting."
"I wonder how she makes it up the stairs," Pauly muttered, as they finally reached the top of the stairs.
"We should have Emil ask her," Pippa suggested.
The two little dolls walked into the workroom to find Emil had already opened his letter.
"Why don’t you read Holly's letter out loud," Charlotte told him. "Otherwise everyone will want to read it, and this way it will be faster."
"Yes, please!" Pippa begged him. "I don’t want to wait!"
"Sure," Emil agreed. "We can enjoy it together."
He looked at the letter again and began to read from the beginning.
Dear Emil,
I enjoyed reading about your adventures over the holidays. I decided it was a good time to bring you up to date on what Sam and I have been up to.
(Pauly remembered that Sam was the human girl Holly lives with, and that she uses a wheelchair, too.)
Wheelchair basketball started up again when school began, and Sam and I are both playing it, Sam in the one in the county that is just for real children who use wheelchairs, and I'm in the special program for dolls. It’s a lot of fun.
Sam started singing in the school choir this year. She really enjoys it, and she has made some new friends.
I would sing, too, if I could open my mouth. When she practices her part at home, though, I can hum along. She lets me look at the music with her, so I’m starting to learn how to read the notes. I think Sam has a lovely voice, but I’m sort of a fan, I guess.
Just before school let out for the holidays, the school choir had a concert. Sam's mother brought me to the school auditorium, so I could watch. The next week, the choir went to something called a district-wide concert. All the kids in the choir got to travel in a big school bus.
I should tell you that Sam only lives two blocks from the school, so she can get there on her own using her wheelchair when the weather is nice. They have a special little bus they use to pick up all the children who use wheelchairs, but Sam likes to do it on her own as much as she can, so she only takes the bus when the weather is bad.
For this concert, though, the whole choir rode to the big theater where they were supposed to perform, and Sam got to ride with her friends in the bus! Usually, if she has to go in a regular bus, someone has to lift her out of the wheelchair and carry her into the bus.
Then they have to find a place to store her wheelchair. It’s a really big deal. Sam doesn’t like making other kids wait. The school district just got new a bus with a special door that has a kind of elevator in it, so Sam and other kids who use wheelchairs can ride the bus with their friends. There is another little girl at the school, Sara, who also plays wheelchair basketball. The school needs the bus for her, too, so she can go on field trips with her classmates.
Sam was so excited to get to ride in the big bus with her friends. She took me along, and I was able to watch from backstage. (That’s what they call the area behind curtains at the back of the stage.) From the edges of the curtain, what they call the wings, I could see and hear. I watched them get the stage ready for all the choirs to come on to sing. It was interesting.
When the choir came out on stage, they gave Sam a place in front, so she could see the choir teacher, who was directing them, and so the audience could see her. The other kids who were in front with Sam stood on the floor. The rest of the choir stood on something called risers, sort of like bleachers at the ball field, but without seats, so people just stand on them.
After all the groups sang, we rode home again on the bus. It was so exciting to ride on the bus and watch from backstage. I have to admit that I was so happy and excited, I hummed along, but very quietly. (Many people don’t hear dolls, but some do.)
Well, that’s all the news I have for now. Tell everyone hi from me, and happy New Year, too.
Your friend, Holly
"Wow! Pippa said. "Holly sure gets to do a lot of interesting things."
The dolls all thought about all the things Holly and Sam had done together. They thought about basketball and summer camp and how Holly helped Sam teach other children how to use a wheelchair, so they could see what it was like and got to go to the library and a real restaurant. Holly is a busy doll!
"It’s great when you find something you enjoy," Charlotte told Pauly, because for Charlotte, that was the best part. "Music is wonderful, especially when you can make it yourself. I love to play the violin, but your voice is an instrument you always have with you!"
"It’s really nice to listen to, as well," Emil pointed out. He remembered when he couldn’t hear music at all. That was back when he first met Holly at the doll hospital, when he got his special glasses that let him see and hear almost as well as other dolls.
Holly would probably never be able to get around as well as other dolls, but Emil was really glad she was getting to go places and do so many interesting things.
The dolls noticed Veronika standing in the doorway. She had been listening to Emil read the letter. "You know what I like best?" she asked the others. They waited for her to tell them.
"What I really like best," she said, when she had climbed up onto the daybed with the others, "is that Sam got to be in the front, not just so she could see the teacher, although that’s important, but because everyone can see her, and watch her sing. Some human people think other people don’t want to see a child in a wheelchair. They think it will make them sad that she has to be in a wheelchair. I think it's helps people to see a child in a wheelchair doing normal kid things."
"Maybe," Emil said, "that’s like how I was afraid you wouldn’t want me if you knew I needed special glasses to see and hear, and I need help if something happens at night while my special glasses are charging, but it’s great living here!"
"Having you in our family doesn’t make me sad," Pippa told him.
"We’re all different in some way," Charlotte pointed out. "If someone uses a wheelchair, it’s just another way to be different."
"Wouldn’t it be boring," Veronika said, "if we were all the same kind of doll."
"What I like best," Pippa told them, "is that Sam has a friend who uses a wheelchair, too. It’s great that we’re all different, but it’s nice when you have a friend who is different the same way you are, the way Pauly is little, like me."
That’s a good question, Pauly!
School bus: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/fifth-grader-lives-her-dream-of-riding-the-bus-to-school
Backstage photo: Orange County Register
Photo of choir: Peace Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls, SD. (Note: Child using wheelchair is only using it temporarily.) Link to page with photo.
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
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