“I think that’s Pauly coming up the walk, Pippa,” Mariah said, looking out the window.
Pippa got up and peeked out the workroom window, which was above the driveway and front walk, where the dolls could see people, dogs, dolls and an occasional cat or squirrel come and go.
“He looks sad,” Pippa said. “No, not sad,” she corrected.“Upset.”
Pauly is Pippa’s best friend, so she can tell when he’s unhappy or upset. Pauly hadn’t been to The Writer’s home since Pippa’s birthday party, a few days ago.
Mariah looked down and studied the way Pauly was walking. She watched as he stopped walking and suddenly kicked at a mushroom that had sprung up through the grass in the front lawn.
“Not just upset,” Mariah said. “Angry. Pauly is angry about something.”
The two dolls sat together on the daybed, listening. They could hear Pauly coming up the front steps of the house, although he is very small and doesn’t make much noise.
They heard Pauly’s rap on the front door. (The dolls have to use the tips of their fingers or the back of one hand to knock on the door, unless they want to climb up on the porch furniture to press the doorbell.)
The two dolls sat and listened. They heard the front door open. They heard a voice––Billy’s voice––talking in the front hall, but they couldn’t tell what he was saying.
The dolls knew Billy would bring Pauly up to the workroom. Billy knew they were there, and Pauly always wanted to see his friend, Pippa. Billy would help Pauly up the stairs, unless Pauly insisted on managing for himself, which he often did, unless he was in a hurry.
After just a few minutes, the door to the workroom opened, and Billy and Pauly came in and stood in the doorway.
Pippa decided that Mariah was right. Pauly was angry. How did she know these things?
“Hi, Pauly,” Mariah said, as they helped Pauly climb up onto the daybed.
“Is everything OK?” Pippa asked her friend anxiously, then realized it clearly wasn’t. “What’s wrong?” she asked then.
The three dolls waited patiently for Pauly to speak. They wanted him to know they cared about him and would listen carefully to what he had to say.
After what seemed like a long time, even to a doll, Pauly heaved a big sigh.
“What’s wrong?” he exclaimed. “Everything is wrong! I hate Edward! He’s the worst doll in the world! I want to smack him, but he would smack me back, and he’s a lot bigger than I am. He might knock my head off, and that would be embarrassing!”
The other three dolls looked at Pauly in astonishment. Pauly had never talked like this, ever, and the thought of Pauly’s body, standing there without a head, and his head perhaps rolling away on the floor! Yes, that would be embarrassing! Then they looked at each other. Each waited for one of the others to say something, but they didn’t know what to say.
“I wish Edward had never been made!” Pauly exclaimed. “I hate Edward!”
After a couple more seconds of silence, Mariah decided to speak. “I take it,” she said, “that Edward did something you didn’t like.”
“You bet!” cried Pauly. “He tore up my sailboat picture! He tore it into little tiny pieces and threw the pieces on the floor.”
“That wasn’t nice,” Pippa agreed. The other two dolls nodded. They all agreed it wasn’t nice to destroy something that belonged to someone else.
Mariah was thinking, though. She had been around for a while. Some dolls had been mean to her, and Veronika had helped her deal with her hurt and anger. She knew before you make up your mind about what happened, you should get all the information you can. Veronika had taught her that. It was what she always did.
“Tell us what happened, Pauly,” she said. “Tell us about the picture. What happened before Edward tore up your picture? What were the two of you doing?”
Pauly seemed to feel a bit better knowing the other dolls would listen to him and try to understand. After another big sigh, Pauly began.
“We having our art lesson,” he said. “Edward and I sit next to each other at the same table. I’ve been trying to draw a sailboat for days, but every time I tried, I’d get to where you have to draw the sails, and it would go all wrong. It ended up not looking like a sailboat at all. I used up my eraser and threw a lot of paper into the recycling bin!”
“Today, though,” Pauly continued, “the sails finally looked like real sails. Well, they looked almost like real sails. I was so excited and happy, I clapped my hands and slapped them down on the table.”
“One of my hands,” Pauly went on, “it bumped into the little jar of water Edward was using for his watercolors. It knocked it over. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it! The water went all over his paper and ruined his painting. I felt terrible!”
“I tried to tell Edward I was sorry,” Pauly explained, “but he just got mad and grabbed my picture and tore it up! I had worked so hard to get it right, and I was so happy…but now I’m miserable, and I hate Edward.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“You know,” Pauly went on, “one reason I think I’m so miserable is that I know dolls aren’t supposed to hate. Now I feel bad about myself as well as about Edward, but I can’t stop. The teacher told Edward to say he was sorry, and he did, but I could tell he wasn’t really. He only said he was because he had to, so I still hate him.”
“Well, you know,” said Mariah thoughtfully, “we can’t really help how we feel about things. Our feelings belong to us. They’re natural. Veronika says we shouldn’t feel bad about ourselves because of what we feel, only if we do something unkind about how we feel. It was OK for you and Edward to be angry with each other. It wasn’t OK for him to tear up your picture.”
“What Edward did was wrong,” Billy told the younger boy. “We should never destroy something that belongs to someone else, at least not on purpose. He meant to tear up your picture. You didn’t mean to mess up his painting.”
“Maybe,” Pippa said, “just maybe Edward thought Pauly did it on purpose. Maybe he misunderstood.” (Pippa always wants to believe the best of everyone.)
“That might make Edward’s behavior more understandable,” Mariah said, “but it still isn’t OK. Pauly is entitled to feeling angry, and so is Edward.” Then she turned to Pauly, “You didn’t do anything wrong, but your anger is making you feel bad. There’s a way to fix that.”
The other dolls all looked at Mariah.
“It’s something called forgiveness,” Mariah told them. “If Pauly forgives Edward––really forgives him––for what he did, he––Pauly––will feel better.”
“Well,” Billy said, “maybe if Edward apologizes for real for tearing up the picture, then Pauly can forgive him. It will be easy then.”
“I think Edward should apologize for real to Pauly before Pauly forgives him,” Pippa agreed. “Maybe he’s just looking for the right time to apologize.”
“I think it would be nice if Edward apologizes,” Mariah said, “but Veronika says forgiveness is something you do for yourself, whether the doll you forgive deserves it or not. You don’t do it for the doll you’re angry with. Forgiveness is how you let go of the hate and anger. It makes you feel better. You don’t even have to tell the other doll you forgive them. In fact, it’s really better if you don’t. Sometimes telling someone you forgive them makes them angry. It’s like saying I’m right, and you’re wrong.”
The other dolls listened carefully to Mariah. Some of the things she said surprised them.
“We can’t help it when we feel angry,” Mariah said. “We can only help what we do about it. Veronika told me some good things come from anger sometimes. Feeling angry has made human people work to end injustice and to write laws that are needed to make things better, and that’s good.”
“What Edward did was unjust,” Billy pointed out.
“It was,” Mariah agreed, “but maybe he didn’t know that. He isn’t here to ask, so we don’t know. Maybe he's unhappy about something else, or no one ever taught him to find other ways to deal with his feelings. Pauly is here, though. We need to help him, and we can.”
“How do you do that?” Pauly asked. He really wanted to feel better. “Tell me what to do!”
“Well,” Mariah said, thoughtfully, “Besides forgiving Edward, you can do something that uses a lot of energy. Anger gives us a lot of energy, and we need to do something with it, something that fixes what’s wrong, if we can, but if we can’t, then we can do something that at least doesn’t hurt anyone, to to use that energy and make us feel better.”
“Running takes energy,” Billy said.
Pauly thought about running. It would feel good to run, he thought.
“Throwing a toy for The Writer’s dogs takes energy,” Pippa said.
Pauly thought about making one of the dogs’ toys squeak and then throwing it as far as he could. That would feel good, too.
“Or kicking a ball around the yard,” Pauly suggested, because now he had the idea. Kicking a ball around the yard would feel very good! He would kick it as hard as he could!
“That sounds like fun!” Pippa exclaimed. “Let’s go do that! I saw the soccer ball in the backyard. I know right where it is!”
The two smaller dolls scrambled down to the floor and ran to the door of the workroom. At the door, Pauly turned around. “Thanks, Mariah,” he said. “I feel better already. After we kick the ball around the yard a bit, I’m going to forgive Edward. Then I’ll forgive myself, too, because it’s OK to be angry as long as I know what to do about it! After that, I’ll go home and tell Jeffy all about it. Maybe he has something he’s angry about.”
With that, Pauly was gone.
Billy looked at Mariah. “Have you ever noticed,” he asked, “how the smaller dolls’ moods seem to change quickly?”
“Not until you mentioned it,” Mariah replied, “but I think you’re right.”
Cast--
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
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Copyright © 2023, 2025 by Peggy Stuart
