"That’s everything, I think," Jolena said as she and Billy put down the bag with her skis and poles with the things she would be taking with her.
"Why do you have to go away to practice?" Pippa asked. "You usually go to the local dolls' ski place when it’s winter here unless you have a competition somewhere else."
It was true. Jolena usually stayed home for ski practice all winter and only went away for a couple of weeks in the summer to places where it was winter then. She had gone to Argentina and Chile in South America, and last summer she went to Australia, which is on the other side of the world and is its own continent. Jolena enjoyed sharing her photos with the others when she came back from each trip.
"We don’t have enough snow where we usually practice here," Jolena replied. "Coach decided to take us all to a ski resort in Idaho."
"It’s easy enough for us to travel," she added. "We just get into shipping boxes with our equipment and suitcases, and then get out with all our stuff when we land."
"We’re flying in to a city in Idaho called Boise (BOY-zee)," she added.
"I’ll watch for your ride," Billy suggested and left to stand in the front window, where he could see the driveway and still hear what was going on in the front hall.
"Why don’t we have snow here?" Pippa asked.
"You forgot your goggles," Mandy called from the stairs, holding out the forgotten item.
"Oh, my goodness, thanks!" Jolena exclaimed. "I thought I had those in my helmet!"
Then she turned to Pippa. "Here at the house, you mean? Sometimes we get a lot of snow here," Jolena replied, "but more falls on the mountains, because they’re higher up, where it’s colder. We’ve just been getting rain this year, except for the lovely snow we got around Christmas."
"It’s all melted now," called Billy from the window sill, where he could see the grass on the front lawn."
"This year," Jolena continued, as she added the goggles to her helmet, "there isn’t enough snow where we usually practice. Each year, we keep having to go higher up on the mountain, but now there’s so little we would have to use the ski resort for human people. That would be awkward, so we’re going on a trip."
"It’s because of something called climate (KLY-met) change," Mandy explained. "Our climate is the weather pattern normal for each part of the earth. Farmers count on rain for their crops. The earth's poles need cold to keep the ice from melting and making the oceans rise. But burning oil and coal to make energy, instead of saving them just for things like to make vinyl for dolls is causing the earth's climate to change, not just here, but other places, too."
"That causes floods and droughts," Mandy added. "Other things human people do also are causing the climate to change."
Pippa looked at Mandy. "How can you have floods and droughts," she asked. "I know that a flood is when you get so much rain it fills even the streets, and a drought is when you don’t get enough rain, so everything dries up, but how can you have both?"
"That’s because we don’t get just the right amount of rain we need at the right time," Mandy said, "so we have to store it."
"What happens to the extra water, do you think," Mandy asked, "the water we don’t have room to store?"
Pippa shook her head. "I should know this," she said, "but I don’t."
"I know," Billy called, raising his hand. "All the rain we don’t use goes down to the sea. It uses the rivers and streams."
Then he thought for a moment. "We can’t use it to pretend to drink.
"We can’t use it to water the lawn after that," Billy continued, "because we would have to take all the salt and stuff out." (He was remembering how the dolls played in the sprinkler in the summer. Salt water would not be good for grass.)
Mandy agreed. "That’s right," she said, "but some of the water is stored in lakes, and there are special lakes human people have made just to store water. That kind of lake is called a reservoir (Reh-ser-vwar). It can look just like a natural lake, and human people can use it for swimming or fishing."
"Water also is stored in kind of above-ground reservoir, sort of a tank, if that works better," Mandy told them. "Sometimes there isn’t a good place for a lake reservoir where they need it."
"The easiest place to store water, though," Mandy continued, "is in the form of snow, up in the mountains. Snow mostly stays where it falls until it melts. If a big chunk of it moves, it doesn’t go far. It doesn’t take all that water down to the sea all at once. People don’t have to build anything to store water as snow. It’s stored for free! In the spring, the snow melts, a little at a time. It runs into the streams, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, all while human people are using water to drink, wash and water the plants that make their food."
"Now," she went on, "what if more of that water falls to the earth as rain instead of snow?"
The other three dolls thought about that. Jolena knew, of course. Jolena knows a lot about snow.
Billy knew. He paid attention when the dolls had talked with Mandy about the water cycle.
Jolena and Billy waited, though, to give Pippa a chance, and Pippa was thinking.
"I’m guessing the water goes down," Pippa said. Then she remembered something Billy had said. "It uses the rivers and streams we have to go all the way to the sea, but all right away, instead of sitting on top of the mountain for Jolena and her friends to ski on!"
"It mixes with the salt water in the ocean," she said, "and it’s hard to use it for much then, except to look at."
"Human people like to swim in it, or go fishing," Billy said, "and they use it for travel in all kinds of boats."
"We can take the salt out," Jolena pointed out, "but that’s a lot more trouble." She remembered when the dolls learned about how salt is removed from water when the water turns into a gas.
"So if we get rain instead of snow," Billy suggested, "we get too much water at once there’s too much for the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, and the streets sometimes fill up?"
"Yes, and then it eventually runs to the sea," Mandy agreed, "where it’s difficult to use for most things. So without the snow on the mountaintops to store the water for a while…." Mandy left the sentence unfinished. She wanted someone to finish it for her.
"We would have a flood," Jolena told them.
"Then we could have a drought," she continued, "because all the water would be gone, except what was left in the lakes and reservoirs. Food crops would dry up. People wouldn’t be able to water their lawns and there would be no place to ski!"
"And the fish in the reservoir would have no place to live!" Pippa exclaimed.
"Here’s your ride, Jolena," Billy called from the front window.
Billy and Pippa helped Jolena with her things.
After they returned to the house and Billy closed the door, the dolls who were staying home waved goodbye.
Pippa said, "Floods and droughts are bad things!"
Then Pippa turned to Mandy. "Why is our climate changing?"
"Let’s go find out," Mandy suggested. The Writer's laptop was open on the dining room table.
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
"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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