Pippa and Pauly walked up to the front steps of Pippa's house. Pauly turned to check on Jeffy one more time before they started up the steps to go in. "What did Jeffy get from that human person?" he asked. Pippa turned to see where Pauly was pointing.
"It's called a popsicle," Pippa told him. "It's frozen, and Jeffy will eat it. It's supposed to be nice on a hot day. We make popsicles sometimes," she added.
"Well, Jolena mostly does it," she said, "but sometimes I help."
"You mix some stuff together," she said, "then pour it into plastic cups. After they have been in the freezer for a little while, you stick a plastic spoon in each one. When it's frozen hard, you take it out of the cup. You can hold it by the spoon handle and pretend to eat it."
"My favorite," Pippa added, "is the one she makes with yoghurt and frozen orange juice."
"How did that human person know Jeffy wanted the popsicle?" Pauly asked. "Did Jeffy call him?"
"Jeffy didn't need to call," Pippa said. "That human person drives that truck around all the neighborhoods when it's warm like this and real human children are not in school. Remember the music you heard? That lets everyone know that he's there, selling ice cream and popsicles."
Pauly thought for a minute. "Selling," he said, "means you give someone something and they give you money for it, right?"
"Yes," Pippa agreed, "and Jeffy gave the money to the human man who drives the truck. He used his money to buy the popsicle."
"Where did Jeffy get the money?" Pauly asked as they began to climb the front steps. He remembered that Jeffy handed the man some money, so that meant Jeffy must have been buying the popsicle, but you can't buy things without money.
"Jeffy's mother must have given it to him," Pippa replied, as she handed Bear to Pauly so Bear wouldn't get dirty on the front steps. "I think Jeffy is too little to have a job."
The two dolls worked together to pull the front door open. The dolls had planned to go to the workroom to find a game to play. Pippa turned to watch the real children run off with their popsicles and ice cream. She wondered what it was like to eat popsicles or ice cream for real, not just pretend.
There were so many things Pauly still needed to learn. Hanging out with Pippa and the other dolls was a good opportunity for him to learn new things. "What's a job?" he asked as they began to climb the stairs.
Pippa wanted to roll her eyes, but her eyes don't move, so she rolled her head instead. Pauly was beginning to think he knew what that meant.
Sometimes Pippa thought Pauly was what she liked to call "clueless," but then she remembered he had only been out of his box for a few months. She hadn't known much in her early days, either. How could she explain what a job was, though. She only knew that it was how most human people got their money. "Let's ask Veronika," she suggested.
By then they had reached the workroom, where Pippa knew Veronika would be, because she had been working on a project.
"Hi, Veronika!" Pippa said, as the two smaller dolls entered the room. "We have a question I think you can help with."
Veronika was using a tool that looked something like a pizza cutter. She stopped working, carefully closed the tool and put it down. She looked at Pippa and Pauly expectantly.
"Can you explain to Pauly what a job is?" Pippa asked.
"Sure," Veronika said. "Human grownups do work for someone else in exchange for money. Usually they go to a place away from home to do their work, but sometimes they work at home, if they have the right kind of job. They get money for their work, something called a salary, and they use that money to pay other people for things they need or want or for things they need done."
"They get celery?" Pauly asked. "Isn't celery something to eat?"
"Not celery," Veronika said. "It's salary." She tried to pronounce it more clearly this time. "A salary is what someone is paid for their work, if they have a job where they work at the same place all the time. Human people who get a salary are paid once a week or every two weeks or once a month. They're paid in money, usually with something called a paycheck. They can take that to the bank where they keep their money."
"So Jeffy probably got the money from either his mother or his father, and that human person has a job?"
Veronika knew a thing or two about the human people who live in the neighborhood, and Jeffy and Pauly live in a house just a couple of blocks away. Veronika and the other older dolls had known Jeffy before Pauly came to live with him.
"Yes," Veronika told them. "Jeffy's mother is a teacher."
"She works at the same school where Jeffy goes," Veronika explained. "It's a mile away if you walk or bicycle, because you can take the trail, but she often takes the car, because she has things to carry. If she has to stay later at school, Jeffy walks home."
"So that's where she goes!" Pauly exclaimed. He knew Jeffy's mother sometimes took Jeffy to school and didn't come back until Jeffy did, but sometimes Jeffy walked home and his mother drove the car back. Then he thought for a moment. "Jeffy's father is gone a lot, and not just when Jeffy's in school. Why is that? Do you know?"
"Yes," Veronika replied. "Jeffy's father drives a truck. Sometimes he has to drive it a long way away, so he might be away overnight or even for several days. That's his job."
"Jeffy's mother gets paid by the school," Veronika explained. "Jeffy's father gets paid by the company he drives a truck for. He doesn't have a salary. Instead, he gets paid by how far he has to drive. Jeffy's mother and father use the money from their work to pay for the house they live in and food they eat and other things they need, like clothes, and Jeffy's books and toys. If Jeffy got you from them, they used their money to pay for you!"
"So Jeffy's mother or father must have given Jeffy money for the popsicle," Pippa suggested. She was pretty sure she knew this part.
"Yes," Veronika agreed, although she may not have known what he would do with it. I think Jeffy gets a little money each week. Many human children do. It's called an allowance. Maybe he does work for it at home, like helping make the beds or taking out the trash, but he can spend the money he gets the way he likes. Some human children who are a bit older may do things for other people besides their parents and get money for it, like mowing lawns, shoveling snow, babysitting or delivering newspapers."
"So maybe Pauly a job, too," Pauly suggested. "I've seen him help wash the dishes. He sometimes does other things, too. He helped his father wash the car his mother drives."
"In a way, yes, Pauly sort of has a job." Veronika agreed. "Most human people need to do some kind of work. They can't just stand on a shelf with a wire thing around their waists and look beautiful, the way many dolls spend their lives." (Veronika remembered when her life was like that, before she came to live with The Writer.)
Pippa had been thinking about what she had learned from Veronika. "What about The Writer and her husband?" she asked. "They stay home most of the time. Do they have jobs they can do at home?"
"No," Veronika replied. "They are retired. That means that they worked for many years, but now they get money each month to live on without going to work. The money comes from money that was taken out from their salary while they worked, and that money was put aside by the people they worked for. They also saved money when they could, so they would have it now."
"If you don't stand on a shelf and look beautiful," Pauly asked, "does that mean you have a job? Do we have jobs, too?"
Veronika suppressed a laugh. That means she stopped herself from laughing. She didn't want Pauly to think his question was silly. "In a way we do have a job to do, Pauly," she replied, "but it isn't the kind of job you get paid money to do. The way we get paid is when someone reads one of our stories, and it makes them smile or laugh, or maybe it makes them think or they learn something."
"That's better than money for a popsicle," Pippa declared.
"Especially when you can only pretend to eat it," Pauly added.
Veronika thought the two younger dolls were growing up, but in the way dolls do, not the way human children do. That would never happen.
"I have an idea," Pippa said. "Jolena and Mariah are in the kitchen. Let's go ask Jolena if she will let us help her make popsicles!"
Guess what Jolena was doing right then!
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
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