Marbles from the Sky

"Mariah!" Pippa exclaimed from the window. "Come look! Marbles are falling from the sky!"

Mariah came to the window to look. Pippa was right! White balls the size of marbles were falling from the sky.

Whenever one of them hit the house, the dolls could hear a 'plunk' sound. It was raining at the same time. Water was running down the street.

"Does God think we've lost our marbles?" Pippa wanted to know, looking up at Mariah. 

"I don't think so, Pippa," Mariah said. "I've seen this before, although not such big ones. It's called hail (HAYL). The little balls are made of ice."

Just then, there was a flash of light. 

Both dolls jumped. "Lightning!" Pippa cried. "It can melt your vinyl if it hits you."

Then Pippa and Mariah heard a loud boom. "Thunder," Pippa said, a little more calmly. 

Pippa turned to Mariah and said, "Mandy said thunder is the voice of the lightning. It has been a few seconds since the lightning, so it must not be very close."

"Mandy told me all about how light travels faster than sound," Pippa told Mariah solemnly. "That's why we see the lightning before we hear the thunder."

"We're safe in the house," Pippa reassured Mariah then. She was happy she knew something about what was happening, even if she had never heard of hail before.

Mariah knew about thunder and lightning, of course, and wasn't worried, but she was happy to let Pippa reassure her. It was good practice for Pippa.

"What makes the hail, I wonder," Pippa said.

Mariah wondered that, too. "I think," she said, "it has something to do with the wind up in the clouds, but I don't know enough about it to explain it. Let's go ask Mandy."

Pippa thought that was a good idea. She was really interested. By the time the dolls had climbed up the stairs and reached the workroom, the storm was over and the sun was out again. Mandy was on the daybed with the boys, looking out the window.

"We saw a hailstorm!" Pippa gushed her excitement, as she and Mariah came into the room. 

"We watched from here," Billy said. "I took some photos with my camera!"

"We heard the hail hitting the window and the roof," Emil added, "so we came to look. We were just asking Mandy what makes hail," he added.

Mandy climbed down from the daybed. She beckoned to the other dolls to follow her. Then she climbed up to the workroom table and opened up the laptop. "Come up here, and I'll show you a photo," she suggested to the other dolls. "It will help me explain it."

As the other dolls gathered around, Mandy typed in something and a picture appeared on the screen. "When there is a thunderstorm," she explained, "you sometimes can have wind that goes upward through the cloud. That wind is called an updraft. Drops of water are carried upward instead of falling as rain. If the temperature in the cloud is below freezing, the drops reach colder air and then freeze."

"They're heavier than the air," Mandy explained, "so they fall if the wind lets up a bit, but there's more to it." (Of course there's more! There's always more if Mandy is involved.) "This is what I wanted to show you," she said, pointing to the screen on the laptop. The dolls all looked at the screen. The image looked like a glass dish.

"This," Mandy explained, "is a cross section of a hailstone. A scientist cut through the middle of it, cutting it in two and then cut through it again, so it was a slice, like a slice of radish or tomato. Now you can see the layers, like the layers of an onion, from the middle to the outer edges. That shows that the piece of ice froze and then went through a place where it was damp or even wet, and that water froze all around the surface."

"Scientists are very curious people," Mandy continued. "They wondered about how these layers were made,They used to think that the ball of ice fell and then was lifted again, several times. They thought that falling through a damp part of the cloud and then getting blown upwards where it was freezing was what made the layers."

"Research has given them a new theory, though," Mandy said. Then she noticed a puzzled look on Pippa's face. "A theory," she explained, "is a possible explanation for how something happens when you know a lot about something but not everything."

Pippa nodded. She had lots of theories about things, she realized.

Some dolls like to think about something for a while, like Pippa. Billy is the kind of doll who just wants to get on with things. "So what's the new theory?" he asked. 

"Well," Mandy began, "you know that clouds are made of water, but they're not the same all through. There are parts where the water in them is more liquid and there are parts where the water is more like steam, only cool. It's called vapor (VAY-per)."

"According to the new theory," Mandy continued, "the ball of ice goes through areas in the cloud where the water is more liquid and parts of the cloud where the water is more like vapor. When it goes through the wetter part of the cloud, it makes this layer you can see through." Mandy pointed to the part of the photo that looked like clear glass.

"What do you suppose happens," Mandy asked, "when the ball of ice moves through the part of the cloud where the moisture is more like vapor?"

"Is that what makes the cloudy part?" Emil asked, pointing to the part of the photo where the cross section was white.

Mandy nodded, "That's the theory now," she agreed. Scientists are doing experiments to find out.

"The cross section isn't a perfect circle," Billy pointed out. "The hail we saw seemed to be perfectly round.

"They can be perfect balls or not," Mandy told them. "Sometimes they have little rounded spikes all over, and some are in between, with an uneven surface like this one."

"The ones we got were like marbles," Pippa said. "White marbles. That's what I thought they were at first."

"Speaking of marbles," Emil said, "the storm is over now. We can go outside to play!"

"Yes," Mandy agreed, "but first I have to tell you the most important thing to know about hail."

The other dolls all looked at Mandy expectantly.

"If you're outside when hail starts to fall," Mandy said, "run and find shelter as fast as you can. It doesn't happen often, but hailstones can be as big as your head sometimes!"

"My head?" Pippa wanted to know.

"Billy's head," Mandy said, "or mine, or even bigger. Those hailstones can do a lot of damage. They can break windows or put a dent in a car roof. They can squash you flat!"

All the dolls except Mandy tried very hard to make their eyes very large to show how shocking this new information was. (They couldn't do it, of course, because their eyes are what they are, but it made them feel better to try.)

Just then, Charlotte came into the room. "The Writer is going out in the car," she said. She's going to the store to buy a new barbecue cover. She sent me to ask if there's anything we need at the store."

"What's wrong with the old barbecue cover," Mandy asked her.

"Go and look at it out the window," was all Charlotte would say.

The dolls all rushed down the stairs, which is faster than going up. Then they climbed up on the windowsills where they could see the barbecue. It was shocking!

This is what they saw.

"I wonder what hailstones the size of your head would do!" Pippa exclaimed in amazement.

Mariah was speechless.

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
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

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Hail size chart: https://mrcc.purdue.edu/living_wx/hail/index.html

This hail size chart outlines the types of objects that the National Weather Service prefers to be used when reporting hail.  Using marbles as size indicator isn’t advised.

Hail cross-section photo from Wikipedia.

Cloud Photo by Wolf Zimmermann on Unsplash, cropped.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment.

"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.

Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook and Emil: Stories from the Doll's Storybook are available from Amazon worldwide. Also available from Barnes & Noble,  BookBaby and other booksellers. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to St. Jude.

Image on Mariah's yellow T-shirt used with permission, from Free To Be Kids, where human-size shirts with this image are available.

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Copyright © 2022 by Peggy Stuart

To Flap or Not To Flap....

Jolena, Emil and Billy stood on the bench for a while after the plane had gone, wondering about how planes could fly without flapping their wings.

"Let's ask Mandy!" they all said at once.

When they got home, they took off their jackets and put them away. They were ready to look for Mandy. 

Mandy knows a lot of things about how the world works, and if there's something she doesn't know, she knows how to find out. The dolls found Mandy in the living room, knitting. She looked up when they came in.

"Mandy," Emil said as the dolls had climbed up on the couch, "We were wondering how airplanes can fly without flapping their wings."

"Yes," Jolena agreed. "We were just at the airstrip watching a plane take off. We started to wonder about it."

Mandy moved her knitting to the couch and put her glasses on the top of her head. "Sure," she said. "It will be easier, though, if we see what a plane looks like while we talk about it. Let's go over to the table," she suggested. "I think there's some paper and a pencil there."

The dolls slid down off the couch, walked into the dining room and climbed up on two of the chairs. Mandy picked up a piece of paper and a pencil from the supplies that had been set out for the dolls' homework and, after putting her glasses back on her face, quickly drew a picture of an airplane. It was an amazingly good drawing for a doll who was not an artist, but Mandy has a great imagination!

"Let's start with the four forces," she suggested, as the other three dolls made sure their listening ears were in place. (Listening ears are inside your head. They are what help you pay attention, so Emil's listening ears work just as well as Billy's and Jolena's.)

"The Four Forces," Billy said. "That sounds like a team of superheroes!"

"They sort of are superheroes," Mandy agreed, "and they have to work together. Without working together, they could never get planes off the ground! Let's take these superheroes one at a time," she continued. "First, do you know why we don't just float off into space? What holds us to the earth?"

"I know that," Jolena said, raising her hand. "It's gravity. I learned about it in ski school, and then at regular school. It's what makes us heavy. It's why we can ski downhill but have to ride the lift back up."

"Very good," Mandy agreed. "Now, do you know what that heaviness is called?" she asked.

"Um," Billy said, "is that what you call weight?" 

"Yes," Mandy agreed. "Weight is the force that causes gravity to pull us down, and that's one of the four forces I was talking about." Mandy drew an arrow going down under the airplane to show that it was affected by weight. Then she waited, while the other three dolls thought about that.

"There's another force that can lift us up," she said, drawing an arrow pointing upward above the airplane. "Now," she asked, "what do you think that force is called?"

"Happy thoughts" Jolena asked? "Happy thoughts lift us up."

"Well," Mandy said, "happy thoughts lift us up on the inside, and a pilot who has happy thoughts will probably find it easier to fly the plane, but happy thoughts won't make the plane fly if we can't use the four forces correctly."

"I don't suppose the force that lifts could be called lift," Emil conjectured. "That would be too simple."

"That is the word for it, actually," Mandy agreed, "and it is simple. Lift is the force that makes something go up. It's what helps hold an airplane in the air." Mandy used the pencil to point to the arrow she had just drawn.

"Weight and lift can work against each other," Mandy explained, "but when the plane is built right, the way the body and the wings are shaped make weight and lift work together." She paused and thought for a moment. "How can I demonstrate this?" she asked herself.

Suddenly Mandy said, "Come, I just thought of a way I can show you!" She slid down from the chair and walked to the kitchen. She turned at the door to the kitchen and beckoned the other dolls to follow, because they were still at the table.

When they had pulled some stools over to the sink, Mandy took off her shoes, so they wouldn't get wet. Then she got into the sink and filled a pan with water while the other dolls gathered around.

Next, Mandy went over to the tools pitcher next to the stove and pulled out the rice paddle. "This is sort of like an airplane wing," Mandy said to herself. Then she came back to the sink.

Mandy put the paddle into the water and moved it gently back and forth. "This will work," she said, clearly pleased. "When you move the paddle through the water, back and forth like this, then tip the paddle up slightly as you move it through the water in that direction, you can feel it try to go up."

Then she let the other dolls try. Each one had a try, one after another, so they could feel feel the pressure of the water making the paddle go up.

The dolls left the water for The Writer to use to water the plants, so it wouldn't be wasted. Mandy's feet were wet, so Jolena handed her a towel to dry off her feet before she put her shoes back on.

"My ski teacher told us the air is just like water, only thinner," Jolena said while Mandy was drying off.

"The water is a liquid," Emil put in, remembering what he learned in school, "and the air is a gas. A gas is thinner, I think."

The dolls went back to the dining room. "Yes," Mandy agreed. "It works almost the same way in both water and air," she said as the they climbed back up on the dining room chairs, "only it takes more to stay up in the air than it does to stay up in water. Planes have propellers or jet engines to make them move, and it's the only way they can fly because they are heavier than the air. Planes have to keep moving, and so do birds, to stay up in the air."

"What about hummingbirds?" Jolena asked. "They can float in one place in the air while they eat from a flower."

"And what about helicopters?" Billy asked. "They can stay in one place, too."

"Hummingbirds are able to hover (HUH-ver), or stay in one place," Mandy replied, "but their wings have to keep moving. Hummingbird wings can move so fast you almost can't see them."

"Helicopters have wings that spin around over the body," Mandy continued. "It looks like a propeller, but the blades are really specially built wings. You can hardly see them when the helicopter is flying, because they move so fast."

"Both hummingbirds and helicopters are still moving when they appear to float in the air," Mandy explained. "They won't stay in the air if they don't keep moving, and regular airplanes have to keep moving, too, but they have to always move forward to fly."

"You also have to move forward to take off and land," Billy added thoughtfully. "We just saw how the plane had to drive along the landing strip like a car, going faster and faster, still on the ground until it was going fast enough to take off."

"You're right!" Mandy exclaimed, "and that's where the other two forces come in." She pulled the picture of the airplane toward herself and picked up the pencil again.

"That forward movement" Mandy explained, "is created by the engines, and it's called thrust." She drew an arrow pointing away from the front of the plane. "That's the third of the four forces needed for an airplane to fly."

"And the third member of our team of superheroes," Billy said, nodding.

All the dolls agreed with that.

"Finally," Mandy went on, "you need a long runway for an airplane to take off, because, as you saw, it has to have enough speed to overcome the fourth force, which is drag." She drew an arrow pointing away from the back of the airplane.

"What's drag, then?" Billy asked.

"That's the force that holds the airplane back when it's trying to get up in the air and stay here," Mandy replied. "It's made by the air the plane has to get through. It's like what you felt with the paddle in the water."

"I've heard of that!" Jolena exclaimed excitedly. "It's like you're dragging something! My ski teacher said that's why we have to crouch down low and make ourselves as small as possible when we're skiing downhill or down the ski jump. She says it reduces drag."

"That's right," Mandy agreed. "You want to go faster, and drag slows you down. Drag is what makes a parachute work. It slows down the force of weight, so someone can land safely."

"Planes have to be shaped so drag is reduced when they take off and fly." Mandy explained. "Just as weight and lift can work against each other," she continued, "thrust and drag can work against each other. The airplane has to be designed right to get them to work together." Mandy emphasized her point by getting the other dolls to look at the picture of the plane she had drawn.

"For the plane to get off the ground," she said, "thrust has to overcome drag, but the plane is designed to use the four forces to take off, fly and land safely." Mandy put the pencil down, as if to say she was finished with her explanation.

"Our question," Emil pointed out, "was really how planes can fly without flapping their wings. Now that I have an idea of how planes can fly, I'm wondering why birds have to flap their wings. Why don't they just fly the way planes fly."

"Oh, yes," Mandy said. "Thanks for reminding me we weren't done. You see, birds don't often just go up into the air, fly somewhere and then land. They need to take off and land over and over with little space. They don't have engines to give them the thrust they need to get off the ground. They use their wings to go over and under the air over and over, sort of how a swimmer moves through the water." She made motions with her arms that mimicked a swimmer moving through the water.

"Birds," Mandy went on, "use the same techniques as an airplane or a ski jumper when they are already up in the sky or take off from the top of a tree, but they have to be able to take off from the ground, too."

"There's another good reason," Mandy continued, "and a very important one, why airplanes don't flap their wings, even if they could be built to do that."

The other three dolls looked at Mandy.

"Human people are not used to being joggled around," Mandy said, looking around at the others. "They can get used to having the floor move while they're standing or sitting on it, but flapping wings would make the plane bounce up and down much more. It would make all the passengers sick, and not pretend sick, either."

All four dolls wondered what it would be like for being tossed around or shaken up to make you sick. What if it made you sick to fall on the floor or to bounce up and down in the back of a wagon or if someone got upset and threw you across the room?

It was beyond their imaginations, which are very, very good.

"So airplanes don't flap their wings because it would make the passengers sick," Billy said.

"Yes," Mandy agreed. "If I had just answered your question that way, I would have gotten more knitting done."

"But we wouldn't have learned about the four superheroes!" Emil pointed out.

"The Four Forces!" Billy agreed.

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Marmalade: Purrrfect Cats from KTL

Want to find out more? The Kidz do, too. Mandy's explanation is just an introduction to what enables airplanes to fly. You can learn more, and it's very interesting.

Want to find out more about how the shape of a plane's wings helps lift and drag work together? Check out this NASA link!

Other Resources: 

ConneCT Kids

The Engineer's Pulse

Hummingbird photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash (cropped)

Helicopter photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

Parachute photo by Ernesto Velázquez on Unsplash

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"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.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Author's page on Amazon. 

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

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Copyright © 2021, 2024 by Peggy Stuart