She climbed up next to Mariah, moving Mariah's notebook and pencil aside. "Is something the matter?" she asked.
"I'm feeling bad about myself," Mariah said. "I'm not sure if I did something wrong. I didn't mean to."
"Tell me about it," Veronika suggested.
"Well," Mariah began, "We were supposed to write a poem for school, so I did."
"It sounds like a good thing to do," Veronika said.
"I was happy with it," Mariah said. "I thought about your Mato and pretended he was a real bear. I wrote about Mato and me."
"I typed it on the computer," Mariah continued. "Then I printed it off, so it would look nice. I got a good grade on it, but Blair, that's a girl in my class, said I copied it from someone else. She said I cheated."
"No, I don't think so," Mariah said, "but I've been thinking that maybe I read it somewhere and it stayed in my mind."
"May I read your poem?" Veronika asked.
Mariah nodded. She took a piece of paper from her notebook.
Veronika read:
Bear
Bear peeks in my window.
I know he is my friend.
I know my big friend likes me,
And Bear knows I like him.
I don't play with this friend,
And he stays far from me.
Still we can share a moment
Every now and then.
I was made by people
Who live very far away.
My friend's a part of nature.
In nature he must stay.
Bear peeks in my window.
I give my friend a nod.
He lumbers off contented
To find food in the wood.
"It's very nice," Veronika said when she was done reading. "I like it. I can just imagine Mato as a real bear, looking in the window at you."
"Blair said it doesn't rhyme (RYM)," Mariah said. "That made me feel bad, too. Some of the ends of the lines don't sound the same as some of the others."
"Poems don't have to rhyme," Veronika pointed out.
"Of course, a nursery rhyme will rhyme," Veronika said, "or else it's a nursery poem, but some poems do and some don't. 'Away' and 'stay' rhyme, but those are the only two words that rhyme exactly in your poem, and that's OK." Veronika looked at the poem again. "Your poem has a rhythm (RIH-thum) to it," she went on. "I like to think of rhythm as the beat, like in music. Your poem has a beat to it, but a poem doesn't have to have rhythm, either."
"But what if I just remembered it from having heard it before?" Mariah asked. "I didn't mean to copy from someone else."
"I think your teacher would have known," Veronika said, "but just to be sure, let's go upstairs and get the computer. We can look up Bear poems."
Veronika brought the computer into the living room and opened it up. She typed in "Bear poem." Poems about bears came on the screen. There were lots and lots of them. Most of them mentioned honey and bees. Some of them rhymed and some had rhythm. Some had both rhyme and rhythm, and some didn't have either.
"I don't see your poem here," Veronika said after they had read all the poems.
"They are all nice poems," Mariah said. "They made me see pictures in my head."
"But yours isn't here!" Veronika said, "And poems don't have to rhyme."
Then Veronika picked up Mariah's pencil and pointed to the end she doesn't write with. "What's this?" she asked.
"That's the eraser," Mariah replied. "I use it when I want to change words I don't spell right or when I change my mind about how to say something."
"It's a well-used eraser," Veronika said. "You didn't copy your poem. I've seen you write. You write and erase, and then rewrite. If you had it in your head already, you would have just written it out."
"Then why did Blair say those things to me?" Mariah wanted to know.
"Without knowing what's going on in her life," Veronika said, "I can't say. What I wonder, though, is if she might have been trying to hurt you."
Mariah thought about that. "Why would any doll want to hurt another doll?" she asked. "That isn't how dolls behave!"
"Sometimes dolls who hurt others are suffering inside." Veronika explained. "If someone is mean to them, they think being mean to someone else will make them feel better."
Mariah thought about that. "But being mean to someone would make me feel bad," she said. "That's why I don't do it...at least not on purpose."
"That's smart," Veronika agreed, "because it doesn't work. You can't feel better about yourself by hurting others."
Mariah thought for a moment about what Veronika had said. "Blair must feel really bad if someone has been mean to her," she said finally. "Maybe I should pretend she is my friend. If I do it long enough, maybe she will be. Maybe she will feel better about herself, too."
"I think that would be nice," Veronika agreed, "but if it doesn't work and she still wants to hurt you, at least you should know that it isn't your fault, and whatever she says about you can't hurt you if you don't let it. You should feel sorry for her instead."
Mariah thought about that, too. Then she said, "I know what I'll do! I'll write a poem about that!"
"That's a great idea," Veronika agreed.
"Maybe this one will rhyme," Mariah said, "or maybe it won't."
Veronika got Mato and brought him to the windowsill where the girls had been sitting. Mariah read her poem to Mato.
Then she gave Mato a kiss, because he had been a very helpful bear.
Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Mato: "Mato" (Lakota for "bear") by Running Strong for American Indian Youth
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.
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Copyright © 2020 by Peggy Stuart
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