“They’re here!” Pippa exclaimed from the windowsill, where she and Pam had been watching.
By the time the two dolls had climbed down from the windowsill, Mariah and Charlotte were already coming in through the front door.
Charlotte put down her violin case, and Mandy offered to take the girls’ coats.
“How did it go?” Billy asked.
“Did everyone like your performance?” Jolena wanted to know, not waiting for them to answer, because she was basically asking the same thing as Billy.
“We got through it with no mistakes,” Mariah replied. “They applauded for us.”
“It was a very easy piece,” said Charlotte, who often plays much more complicated music on her violin, “but it’s fun, and they seemed to enjoy it.”
“I think,” Mariah added, “the students really liked the discussion that went along with our song.”
“I wish I could have been there,” Emil said wistfully.
“Yeah,” Billy agreed. “They should have had it in the auditorium instead of in Ms. Smith’s classroom. Then we all could have been there and watched.”
“And taken part in the discussion,” Emil said.
The dolls knew that it had been a special event. Ms. Smith had wanted to teach her class how to look for the meaning in poems and songs, and talking about the song afterwards would have been more difficult with a large audience. Some students might feel shy about speaking out with so many dolls listening, and everyone should have a chance to take part.
Charlotte and Mariah looked at each other. They both had the same thought. (That happens sometimes with close friends.)
“We can do it again,” Charlotte offered, “right here.”
“Yes!” Mariah agreed. “We can do it at the bottom of the stairs. We’ve done that before, I mean, we can use it as a theater. That way, everyone can sit on the stairs, just like the seats in the auditorium. Everyone can see and hear,.”
Charlotte nodded. She said, “I remember how the teacher got the discussion started.”
“How about right now,” Mandy suggested.
“I’ll go get the others,” Billy said. “Everyone is here.” By that, he meant that all the dolls in the family were home, and Nico, Pauly and Olivia were all visiting. The others were up in the workroom with Veronika, drawing and coloring. They would have almost as many in the audience as Ms. Smith had in her class!
When they were all settled on the stairs, and Charlotte had her violin out of its case and checked the tuning, they began. Charlotte had asked Mariah to do the singing, because her mouth is open just enough for her to sing. Charlotte’s mouth is closed, so she can only sing in her head or hum. Mariah would sing as Charlotte played the tune. She looked at Charlotte, who nodded that she was ready to play.
Mariah made motions with her hands for each line of the song. “The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout.” As she sang the first line, Mariah touched the forefinger of one hand to the thumb of the other and then twisted her hands so she could touch the forefinger of the other hand to the other thumb.
“Down came the rain and washed the spider out.” Mariah held out her hands in front of her and wiggled her fingers to mimic the rain.
“Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.” Mariah waved her arms in the air like a rainbow.
“So the itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.” Mariah repeated the forefinger-thumb motion.
Charlotte put her violin away safely in its case. “Now for the discussion,” she said. “What do you think the song means to you?”
“The teacher said there are no wrong answers,” Mariah assured them, so they wouldn't be afraid to answer. “Each doll might see something different in a poem or song, but it should make you think or feel something,” she explained.
Pippa raised her hand, just as she would in school. When Charlotte nodded to her to speak, she said, “I think the song tells us that spiders like to live in water spouts.”
“Maybe bugs crawl into water spouts,” Pauly said, not bothering to hold his hand up and not waiting to be called on. “I learned that spiders like to eat bugs.”
“Yes,” Nico agreed. “Spiders spin a web, and the bugs get caught in it. Then the spider pounces on the bug and wraps it up in its web thread to save for later. Yum!”
“Ew!” exclaimed Olivia. “Bugs are disgusting! I think the spider should have just knocked on the door and asked us for something to eat.”
“I think the spider should have found a better place to live, a nice, protected space, like under the porch,” Pam said. “A water spout is where all the rainwater from the gutters around the roof comes out. It will just happen again! The spider didn’t learn anything from getting washed out by the rain.”
“I feel sorry for the spider,” Emil said sadly. “It must have a hard life, just waiting for a bug to come and get caught, only to have its web destroyed by all that water.”
“That must be one tough spider,” Billy put in. “It didn’t give up. It just climbed back up inside the spout. Maybe the song means not to give up, but to keep trying...to have hope.”
“I’ve noticed,” Veronika observed, “that everyone seems to care about the spider’s well-being. The song makes us identify (ay-DENT-ih-fy) with the spider. That means we see ourselves in the spider. We imagine what it must be like to be the spider.” “Everyone sees something different,” Veronika went on, “because we're all different. Like the spider, we have things we like to do because of who we are,” she pointed to Pippa.
“We do things to get what we want or need,” she went on, pointing to Pauly.
“We imagine the spider taking care of its needs, like getting food, and that the spider things bugs are tasty,” she went on, gesturing to Nico.
“We don’t all like the same things to pretend to eat,” Veronika pointed to Olivia, “so we might disagree with the spider about eating bugs.”
“We know we need to learn from our mistakes,” she continued, gesturing to Pam, “but we don’t always.”
“Life can be hard,” Veronika said, looking at Emil, “especially if we don’t make the right choices.”
“Some things are a struggle,” she pointed out, waving a hand at Billy, “but if we keep at it, maybe things will get better if we have hope and don't give up.”
“Some dolls don’t like spiders,” Mandy said. “Some spiders are poisonous and use something called venom (VEH-num) to protect themselves or to kill their prey. Because of that, some dolls are frightened of spiders, although we don’t have to worry about spiders biting us. Only human people need to worry about what kind of spider it is and whether it has venom or not.”
“Well,” Veronika said then, “The Writer says spiders don’t belong in the house. She catches them safely, using a jar and a postcard. She puts the jar over the spider, trapping it inside. Then she slides the card gently under the spider, so the spider has to stay inside the jar. Then she carries the jar, still holding the card in place. She takes it outside where she finds a nice place for them to set up housekeeping, maybe not in a water spout.”
“That’s because she knows spiders are good to have around,” Mandy agreed, “because they capture and eat bugs that bite human people or eat plants. Spiders are an important part of nature.”
“I like spiders,” Jolena said, remembering the very first story in The Doll’s Storybook, the one in which she met a spider and had a conversation with it. “A spider was in the very first story with me. He was my costar (KOH-star),” she said.
At the top of the stairs, that same spider was listening in and feeling very important. This spider is allowed to stay in the house, because, like the dolls, he is a toy.
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
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: 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.
