Fire!

"Wake up!" Billy cried, shaking Emil, although he knew Emil couldn't hear him.

Emil couldn't hear him, even in his head, because he was sound asleep. He did feel Billy's hand on his shoulder, though, roughly shaking him, so he woke up. How could he not? He immediately thought about how Billy had told him that if the smoke alarm went off he would wake him. 

There must be a fire! Emil was awake and out of bed in an instant! He grabbed his special glasses from the charger and put them on. He could see that Billy was holding Freckles.

The boys went to the door of the bedroom. Billy felt the door to see if it was hot, just as he had been taught to do. 

It was cool, so he opened it. If it had been hot, that would have meant there was fire on the other side, and they would have had to climb out the window!

The boys went down the stairs as quickly as they could. They knew they were supposed to stay close to the floor if there was smoke, because the smoke goes up, but they are already close to the floor because they are very small.

They went out the front door and found the girls in front of the big tree, their planned meeting place in case of fire. The girls had Pierre and Marmalade with them, and Veronika was sitting and holding Cleo. Emil knew Brownie was in her stall in the backyard, because the nights were still warm. She was far from the house, so she would be safe.

The dolls all looked at the house. "I don't see any smoke," said Billy.

"I don't smell any smoke," said Charlotte.

"No," said Veronika, "and I don't see any fire, either."

"I don't hear any sirens," said Mandy. "Our people should have called the fire department." The dolls all looked toward the street and listened.

Charlotte was getting concerned. "Did our people hear the alarm?" She asked. "They are old people, and they take out their hearing aids when they sleep. Maybe they didn't hear it."

The dolls love the old couple they live with, and they didn't want them hurt or injured. They also knew that life without them would be difficult. They needed people in their lives. They began to worry.

The dolls all stared at the house. They knew one of the rules about the smoke alarm was that you didn't go back into the house if you had to leave because of the smoke alarm. What should they do?

Just then, the front door opened and The Writer came out onto the front porch. "It's OK," she said. "It was a false alarm. It's turned off now. You can all come back in, but you did just what you were supposed to do. That was good practice." She went back into the house.

The dolls just stared at the house for a moment.

Then they all went back up the front steps to the house with their pets. Mariah helped Veronika with Cleo, because it's hard to climb the stairs holding a goldfish in an aquarium.

"We just had a fire drill," Veronika said when they were all inside and seated on the stairs.

"How can a smoke alarm go off if there's no smoke," Billy wanted to know. Everyone looked at Mandy.

"What!" she exclaimed. "Why does everyone think I know the answer to every question?"

No one said a word. They just waited. Mandy gave a sigh. "Well, I do know a little about smoke alarms," she admitted.

The dolls were wide awake now and ready to listen.

"Smoke alarms," Mandy began, "have sensors that detect tiny particles in the air. I don't know which kind of smoke alarm we have, but one kind works with light and the other kind is sort of like a chemical reaction using part of atoms called electrons. If they go off with no smoke, the cause could be the same: Something gets inside that isn't smoke, like dust or an insect. It makes the smoke alarm think there's something in the air."

The dolls all looked up at the smoke alarm, which was quiet now. 

It was on the wall at the top of the stairs. It was very high, near the ceiling.

"Ew!" said Jolena. "She didn't like the idea of insects or dust in the house. That meant there could be dust and insects in the kitchen, where she did her cooking."

Mandy laughed. "Both of those things are just part of nature," she pointed out. We just have to try to clean them away as much as we can.

Veronika put Cleo down on the step next to her, so she could use her hands. "Since we've just had a fire drill," she said, "it's a good time to go over how to treat fire in general, and," she added as she looked over at the clock on the wall, "it's Friday morning. That means it's Emil's birthday, so we will be lighting candles tonight."

"Well, Billy said, "I know we are not supposed to play with fire. I know you're supposed to light candles with a match, or with another candle, the way Charlotte lights the candles on her Menorah. I know you have to be very careful."

"I know not to touch it," Mariah said, "because you can melt your vinyl."

"You have to keep your clothes and hair away from it," Charlotte added.

"All of that is true," Veronika agreed, "and we have to be especially careful with fire outdoors, so we don't start a forest fire. We know we can only have a campfire where it is allowed and where the fire can't escape, but do you know what to do if your clothes catch on fire?

The dolls all looked at each other to see if anyone knew. 

Then they looked back at Veronika.

"Don't run," Veronika told them. "Stop right where you are and get down on the ground or floor. Then roll around on the flames and it will put them out, or if you have a rug nearby, you can throw the rug over yourself. Running just makes the fire worse."

"Why is that?" Emil asked.

Veronika wasn't sure. She looked at Mandy. All the dolls looked at Mandy. Mandy would have rolled her eyes, but her eyes don't move, so she just looked back.

"Fire needs oxygen from the air to burn," she explained patiently. "If you run, it just feeds it. It's like blowing on glowing embers will get a fire started again, but if you put a candle in a jar and put the lid on, the fire will go out when the oxygen in the air is gone."

"But when Emil blows out his candles," Billy pointed out, "the fire will go out, not get bigger."

Mandy explained that blowing out candles blows the fire right off of the candles. "The simple answer is that fire needs oxygen to keep burning, but it also needs something to burn, like the candle wick. The wick is its fuel. That's like food for it. It can't last without fuel to burn. If you blow on the candle hard enough, you blow the fire away from its fuel."

The dolls all all thought about that.

Then Mariah remembered the smoke alarm and why the dolls were all awake. "I'm glad the house isn't on fire," she said.

The dolls all agreed that was a very good thing.

"Well," Jolena put in, "I'm wide awake now. Let's go into the kitchen and I'll make us all some cocoa. Then we can sit and pretend to drink it."

They all thought that was a good idea. Dolls don't really need sleep the way children do, and pretending to drink a cup of cocoa sounded nice after all the excitement, so they all went into the kitchen.

Emil stopped as the dolls entered the kitchen. He had been worried. All the pets who lived in the house were safe, but he was worried about their horse. "I'll be right back," he told them. "I just want to check on Brownie."

Emil went out through the dog door into the dark backyard and made his way to the shed where Brownie slept. Brownie was fine, but she had been aware of all the fear and excitement taking place and was very happy to see Emil. If Emil was OK, that meant that all the dolls were OK.

The dolls finished their cocoa, and then they all went back to bed, because it was too early to get up. They dreamt of adventures, but not about fire, because they knew they were safe. They knew what they would do if there were a fire, and it made them feel better.

Do you know how to stay safe from fire?

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte and Pierre: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy and Freckles: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia
Marmalade: Purrrfect Cats from KTL

Brownie: Götz Pony Brown Beauty

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 St.Jude Children's Research Hospital or another charity that supports pediatric cancer.
"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.


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Copyright © 2020 by Peggy Stuart

Color-blind

"Then she told me she was color-blind," Mariah said as the two girls walked along.

"What is color-blind?" Charlotte asked.

"That's a word," Mariah explained, "for dolls who don't see colors the same way as everyone else. I think they are made that way."

"That's interesting," Charlotte said.

"Yes," Mariah agreed. "I looked it up. Dolls who have red-green color-blindness can't tell the difference between red and green."

"That would make it difficult to pick out your favorite kind of apple," Charlotte said thoughtfully.

"Yes," Mariah agreed. "It could make it hard to pick out your clothes, too.

"Then there is the kind of color-blindness where dolls can't tell the difference between yellow and blue," Mariah explained, as the dolls climbed up the front steps to the house.

"Well," Charlotte said. "At least there are no blue apples, but you could still have a problem picking out your clothes." 

"Just imagine," Mariah said, "if Veronika couldn't tell the difference between red and green or yellow and blue when she was picking colors for a quilt!"

"The quilt could look ugly," Charlotte agreed, "at least to everyone but Veronika. It's a good thing Veronika isn't color-blind."

"Or Billy!" Mariah exclaimed. "Billy would have a terrible time getting his photos to look right."

"There is a test for each kind of color-blindness," Mariah said. "They show you a picture made up of little blobs of the different colors, and you see something in it, like a number or an animal, if you can see those colors."

"Then there are dolls who can't see any color at all," Mariah went on, remembering what she had read. 

"Life would be like a black-and-white movie," Charlotte said, closing the front door.

The girls put their books down on the stairs by the front door and took off their masks.

"It's too bad Lucy is color-blind," Charlotte said with a sigh.

"But she isn't really," Mariah said. "It turns out that that wasn't what she meant at all."

"What did she mean, then?" Charlotte asked, puzzled.

"I asked her about it," Mariah explained. "She said she meant she didn't see color when she looks at me. She meant she doesn't see me as a different color from her other friends."

"But you are!" Charlotte said. "Your vinyl is like a bar of milk chocolate. How could she not see that?"

"I think," Mariah said, "that she was trying to say it didn't matter that I'm Black."

Charlotte looked at Mariah. She thought she looked a little sad. "That bothers you, doesn't it?" she asked her friend.

"Yes," Mariah agreed. "See, if it doesn't matter to her that I am the color I am, then she must think there is something wrong with my color, but she likes me anyway."

"I see what you mean," Charlotte agreed. "You wish she thought it was wonderful that you're Black!" 

Mariah nodded.

Charlotte thought about that for a moment. "But it's wonderful that you're the color of a bar of milk-chocolate," she said. "I remember when Veronika brought you in to meet us when you first came. All I could think of was how beautiful you were!"

"And that was before I knew you," Charlotte went on. "Now that we're best friends, of course, I think you're even more beautiful! I've thought about how I almost didn't meet you! You see, the stories needed you before we knew you, because we didn't have a doll who was a different color," Charlotte explained.

"Real children come in different colors," Charlotte said, "so dolls do, too. Real children read the stories, and they like some of the stories to be about dolls who are like them in some way. If you hadn't been chocolate, you would not have come to live with us. Then I would not have had you as my best friend!"

Mariah knows this, but she was happy to remember back to when she arrived, and how everyone welcomed her. It made her feel good inside. She thought about how the dolls in her family knew all about her. They saw her for who she was and made her feel comfortable. She thought about how they needed her, not just because she was a different color, but because of who she was inside, too. "I'm so glad I got to come to live here," Mariah said. "I'm glad we're best friends."

"You know," Charlotte said thoughtfully, "I think Lucy was trying to be nice. Lucy is my color. I think she does see you the way you are, but she has also seen how some of the other dolls at school picked on you. She knows it was because someone who doesn't know any better told them that they are better than you are just because of the color of their vinyl. I think she was trying to say she doesn't feel that way." 

"Maybe you're right," Mariah agreed. "Lucy and I get along well, and we like a lot of the same things. She's a good friend."

"Yes," Charlotte agreed. "Maybe she just doesn't know how to say what she means, because her experience is different from yours."

"Yes, I can see that," Mariah agreed. "I'm glad I have you to talk things over with, Charlotte," she said. "I feel better now."

"I'm glad to have you to talk things over with, too, Mariah," Charlotte agreed. "It's good to have a best friend." Then Mariah remembered that Charlotte had told her that Rosh Hashanah, one of Charlotte's special holidays, was starting. "Shanah tovah, Charlotte," she said.

"Thank you, Mariah," Charlotte replied. "You're sweet to remember!"

Mariah was quiet for a moment. She was thinking. "I wonder if Emil is color-blind," she said finally. "He said he doesn't know if he sees things the same way we do with his special glasses."

"Let's go show him the test pictures," Charlotte said. "We can find out!"

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
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

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.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM Pacific Time.

Image of color-blind test plate from here: Ishihara's Test for Colour Deficiency.

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Copyright © 2020 by Peggy Stuart