Holly and Sam Get New Wheels

"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 they could see the teacher, although that’s important. Some human people think other people don’t want to see a child in a wheelchair, because they think it will make them sad."

"Maybe," Emil said, "that’s why 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.

"When you know a doll who needs to do some things differently," Veronika pointed out, "and you see them all the time, you start to see the person inside, and it doesn’t make you sad."

"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 reminds me," Pauly said. "I have a question for Holly. When you write back, ask her how she gets up the stairs at home."

That’s a good question, Pauly!

Cast--

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

Pauly: Götz Little Kidz Paul

Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris

Holly: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni

Regular school bus photo: https://blog.ptvgroup.com/en/city-and-mobility/optimize-school-bus-routes/

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.

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 and soon Classic Tales Retold: Stories from the Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 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 St. Jude. Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author for $20 including shipping. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

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

The Interview—In Print

When Emil came home from school, he had the latest edition of the school paper, the one with Mariah's latest interview in it. He had read it on the way home.

Mariah and Pippa had been expecting Emil, so they met him at the front door. Emil handed the school paper to Mariah. He knew she was excited to read her article.

Pippa and Mariah sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and began to read the article.

It was fun to see what she had written in print.

I've always wanted to interview a real human person, Mariah told them, as the dolls finished reading the article.

"What made you think to interview The Writer?" Emil asked.

"Well, for one thing," Mariah replied, "it was convenient, since The Writer lives here with us, but also, I really wanted to ask her how she learned to do all the things she needs to know to write the stories."

"It says," Emil read, "that she wanted to be an artist when she was a child, but that the only thing she was good at doing was knowing what didn’t look real, which was most of what she drew, so she was discouraged.”

"Yes," Mariah agreed. "Then when she was in seventh grade, she decided she wanted to write stories."

"So that was when she started to write stories! That was a long time ago!" Pippa exclaimed.

"It’s said in the article, though" Emil said, "that she couldn't think of anything to write."

"Oh, that's right," Pippa remembered. "In the article, it says that even when she was in high school she couldn’t think of what to write, so she gave up writing, except when she had an assignment. It was easy to write when someone else gave her a topic."

"She did like to read, though," Mariah explained, "and I’ve always thought that if you want to learn how to write, you need to do a lot of reading."

"She said she was always interested in learning new things," Emil said. "That may have something to do with why she liked reading. She liked science and math and music and dance." Pippa opened the paper back up to find where it said that.

"Foreign languages, too," Mariah pointed out. "She told me that learning another language is a little like going to live in another country. It isn’t just about the words and how they’re put together; you get to learn about what life is like in the country where that language is spoken."

"You also get to read their stories," she added.

"But this is where it gets interesting," Mariah pointed out. "After she got married and had a family, they moved around a lot because of her husband’s work."

"Each time they moved to a new place," she explained, "no one was hiring for the job she had in the last place, so she had to do something new."

"I see she taught school for a while," Pippa said, opening the paper up again, so she could show them where it said that. 

"I think the most interesting job she had," Emil suggested, "was when she became a journalist. She says the magazine gave her something to investigate and then write about. Writing became easy, because she didn’t have to think up the subject. Maybe," he continued, "that’s why writing is so much easier for me when I’m answering a question on a test or the teacher asks us to pick a planet and write about it."

"But see?" Pippa said, as she brought his attention back to the article. "She said when she worked for the magazine, she had to work closely with the art person."

"The art director (dih-REK-ter)," she corrected herself. "She learned how to select artwork and photos, and how to do something called..." she found the place in the article, "a layout, whatever that is."

Mariah knew what a layout was from working on the school paper. "That’s how you put the text…the writing…on the page with the photos or drawings." She took the paper from Pippa and showed the other dolls the front page. "You arrange everything so it looks good and makes someone want to read it."

"They use a computer program," Mariah explained, "they to put all the parts together. She had to use the computer to edit the words if they didn't fit the layout."

"All that explains how The Writer can write, select the photos for the stories and do the layouts for the books," Pippa said, "but how did she start writing about us?"

"That’s the best part!" Mariah told her. "You see, The Writer's grandchildren needed clothes for their dolls, but they lived a long way away, so she bought the same kind of dolls her grandchildren were getting. That way, she would have a doll she could use as a model, so the clothes would fit. Later she bought Veronika from someone who needed to find her a new home."

"She was very surprised," Mariah explained, "to find out that she could hear Veronika talk to her. She was very surprised to see Veronika move around the house and do things."

"Also," she said, "and Billy could tell you more about this, about that time, The Writer got a phone with a really good camera. That meant that she didn’t have to run and get her camera when she saw Veronika at the sewing machine. She just took out her phone and got pretty good photos."

"She took a lot of photos," Mariah explained, "and now she didn’t have to pay for film and developing, so it didn’t matter if she took 50 shots to pick from. She could take lots of photos and pick the ones that looked right."

"Maybe that," Emil observed, "goes back to when she was a little girl, I think, when she looked at her drawings and realized they didn’t look real."

Mariah and Pippa thought about that and decided there could be a connection.

"So then," Emil told them, "Veronika realized The Writer could hear her talk and see when she did things, so she asked her to get her a friend who was like her, like the friends she had lived with in her first home. Mandy came to live with them. The Writer learned that Mandy was good at science."

"I saw the photos Billy took for the paper," Emil said, "but where did the one of the little girl come from?"

Mariah knew which photo Emil meant. "That’s The Writer," she said. "It’s her photo from kindergarten."

"It looks very old," Emil said, as the dolls opened up the paper again and looked at the photo.

"She looks a little like Veronika," Pippa said.

The other dolls thought it did, sort of.

"Will Veronika look the way The Writer looks now when she gets old?" Pippa asked.

Mariah laughed. "No," she said. "Dolls don’t change in that way. We can get damaged, but we don’t grow up and grow old the way real human people do. Veronika will always look like Veronika.”

“And Pippa will always look like Pippa,” Emil added.

Pippa decided that wasn’t a bad thing.

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

Photo of child drawing by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash (cropped)

Photo of person writing by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash (cropped)

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 © 2023, 2024 by Peggy Stuart