Once upon a time, on the edge of a big juniper forest there lived two dolls.
One doll was a boy.
The other doll was a girl.
(We won't tell you their names, because this story is very scary, and you might become attached to these dolls if you knew their names. Now, you may be frightened when you read this story, but don't close your eyes! After all, the dolls can't close their eyes, so it wouldn't be fair, would it?)
Now, back to the story:
The two dolls liked to go into the juniper forest to play whenever the weather was nice enough.
One day, while the boy and the girl were playing in the forest, they saw a rabbit running by. "Oh, look!" the girl doll exclaimed. It's a bunny!"
Excitedly, the boy suggested, "Let's follow the rabbit and see where it goes!"
The two dolls followed the rabbit, running to try to keep up, but the rabbit ran very fast. It got smaller and further away as it ran. Sometimes it disappeared behind rocks or trees, and then would appear again, even further away. Eventually the dolls could not see the rabbit anymore. It was gone.
"That's too bad," said the boy doll sadly. "I really wanted to see what kind of house the rabbit lives in." The girl doll nodded. It would have been interesting.
Then the girl doll looked around. "You know," she said, "I don't think we've played in this part of the forest before. Do you know where we are?"
The boy looked around, too. "There are the same kind of trees as usual," he pointed out, "but everything looks sort of different."
"Which way is home?" the girl doll asked in distress. "Which way did we come when we were chasing the rabbit. I'm all turned around! Are we lost?"
The boy doll said nothing. He could only think about how chasing that rabbit had been a dumb idea.
The two dolls walked around, looking for something they knew. Eventually they saw a street with some houses right on the edge of the juniper forest.
They didn't recognize these houses, but they knew that human people live in houses. The human people they knew had always treated them kindly, so maybe there would be someone who could help them. They walked up to the front door of the first house they came to and knocked on it.
The dolls heard noises from inside the house, as if someone were walking slowly toward the door. Then the door opened very slowly, wider and wider, making a creaking sound as it did so. The two dolls looked up into the face of a very old human woman, who looked down at them through thick, smudged glasses.
"Well, hello, my sweets!" the old woman croaked as she peered at them through her glasses. She ran her tongue around the edges of her lips as she looked at the boy. "Yum," she said then. Then she sort of...cackled, like a chicken!
She made a smacking sound with her mouth as she looked at the girl doll. "Sweet," she said.
"Tasty," the old woman added, as she opened the door even wider to let them in. "You two must be hungry," she added with a warm smile. "I'll make you some tea and some bread-and-butter sandwiches."
The dolls looked around as they entered the house.
The mention of food made the boy doll and the girl doll realize that they were starting to pretend to get very hungry, so they followed the old person into what she told them was her "sitting room." To the dolls, it looked like a living room.
The old human woman invited the two dolls to make themselves comfortable on the sofa while she made their tea.
"Maybe," the girl doll said, taking off her bonnet, "after we have pretended to eat, we can ask this human person to take us home."
Eventually, the old human person brought the dolls some pretend tea and some bread-and-butter sandwiches. While the dolls pretended to eat, she sat at the table nearby, looking at a sheet of paper and writing things down on a smaller piece of paper.
When the dolls were almost done pretending to eat, the old woman got up. "I need to go out for a bit," she told them. "You stay right here until I get back. Please clean the oven for me, and mop the floor. It's the least you can do for me after I fed you." With that, she was out the door and gone. The dolls watched from the window as she left. They heard a car door close, then an engine starting. Then they heard the sound of the car driving off and sounding further and further away. She was gone!
The girl doll cleaned the oven.
The boy doll found a doll-size mop, and mopped the floor.
Then they sat down to wait.
"I wonder what the old woman was writing," the girl doll said eventually.
"Whatever it was," the boy replied, "she took it with her."
"She left something on the table, though," the girl said. "Let's go look."
"Isn't that nosy?" the boy wanted to know.
"Maybe it is, but who is going to know?" the girl suggested.
"The children reading this story will know," the boy replied solemnly.
"Maybe so," the girl doll agreed, "but I'm sure they will understand and forgive us by the time they have finished this story and know what becomes of us, don't you think? Come on, let's go look!"
The boy nodded, and the two dolls climbed down from the sofa. They went to the table where the old lady had been writing. There was a big piece of printed paper on the table. They looked at the paper. It was sort of mussed, as if someone had used it before many times. It had spots of stuff spilled on it. They read what was on the paper.
"It's a recipe!" the boy exclaimed, "and one of the ingredients is dolls!"
"Yes," agreed the girl. "She plans to eat us for dinner! The old woman must have been making a shopping list to get these other things!"
The two dolls looked at each other and at the paper again. "We need to get out of here," the boy doll said, and the girl doll agreed.
"We're still lost, though," she said. "We don't know where to go."
"Let's see if the old woman has a phone," the boy suggested. "We can call home. Maybe our people can come and get us, but we'd better hurry!"
The two dolls looked quickly around the house. Eventually, they found a cell phone on the table next to the bed.
They were very lucky the old woman hadn't taken the phone with her and that it was charged up! They placed the call as quickly as they could and put it on speaker, so they both could talk and listen at the same time.
"Where are you?" asked the voice on the phone after the dolls had explained their predicament.
The girl doll remembered the name on the street sign. "It's a funny name," she said into the phone. "It was something like 'Sinister Way,' I think," she said. "We're in the last house on the left at the end of the street, right next to the juniper forest!"
"I know right where that is," the voice said. "It's just around the corner from here. Leave the house and go out to the street. I'll be there in about five minutes."
"What if the old woman comes back?" the boy doll asked the phone.
"She will have to catch you before she can cook you," the voice replied. "Find a place to hide where you can see the street. I'll be right there!"
The dolls turned off the phone and the girl doll carefully put it back on the table.
The girl doll got her bonnet and put it back on, because she didn't want to lose it. Also, it was a sunny day, and she didn't want her vinyl to get sunburned. Then they quickly made their way to the front door and opened it.
The two dolls hurried down the front step to the street and looked around for a place to wait for their ride. They noticed the trash and recycling cans outside the house. That would be a perfect place to hide while they waited. They had a good view of the street.
"Maybe we should have left a note," the boy doll said after they felt they were well-hidden from view.
"We are not going back in there," the girl doll replied firmly.
The boy doll was quiet as he thought about that. "You're right." he replied eventually. "The tea was cold, the bread-and-butter sandwiches were very dry, and she made us work!"
The girl doll had been thinking. "You know," she told the boy, "that recipe has been used before!"
Girl doll: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Boy doll: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia
"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 © 2022 by Peggy Stuart
