Ups and Downs

Billy saw that it was a nice day. He wanted to practice throwing his frisbee, but he couldn't do it alone. That would be no fun. He went looking for someone to play with him.

"Who would like to go to the trail and throw the frisbee around," he asked the other dolls.

"I will," said Mariah.
"I will," said Mandy.
Both dolls raised their hands, so Billy would know they wanted to come.

The three dolls walked to the trail and looked for a wide space where they could throw the frisbee without hitting anything.

They played for a while with the frisbee. They did a lot of throwing, running and catching.

Then Billy noticed something. "What are all these things?" he asked pointing to the trail. 

The other dolls looked where Billy was pointing. There were lots of prickly looking things lying all over the ground.

"Those are pine cones," Mandy said. "They hold the seeds for the pine trees and keep them safe until it's time for them to grow." 

"Why are they on the ground?" asked Mariah, looking at the pine cones.

"Well," Mandy began, "they need to be on the ground so the seeds can have dirt to grow in."
"But how did they get there?" Billy wanted to know. "Who put them there?"
"Let's sit down," Mandy suggested. "This will take a while to explain, and we can't talk while we're throwing the frisbee."
The dolls sat down on a bench next to the trail. Before she said anything, Mandy looked off far away, as if she might be remembering something.

"Do you remember when you left the factory in your box?" Mandy asked. She was remembering how she stood in her box in the factory.

"I remember," Mariah said. "I was wondering what my new home would be like."

"I remember, too," said Billy, "but I don't want to think about it, because they dressed me in girl's clothes."

The two girls nodded, because they remembered when Billy came.
"They didn't know I was a boy." He said.
The girls nodded again.
"Well, we got that straightened out," Mandy reminded him. "The point I was trying to make about that time is that the factory is on the other side of the earth. Your box didn't fly off into space. It stayed right where someone put it, unless it got knocked over."

"Something called gravity (GRA-veh-tee) held our boxes down," Mandy explained, "even though we were on the other side of the earth. Gravity is what holds us down, so we don't float away. It holds everything to the earth. No matter where you are, gravity will keep you from floating away."
"What does that have to do with pine cones?" Mariah asked.

"Gravity," Mandy explained, "is how the pine cones got to the ground. They started out in the trees, you see," she went on. "The tree grows pine cones to protect the seeds until the seeds are ready and it's warm enough for new trees to grow." Mandy got up and climbed down from the bench. "Let's go sit on that log," she suggested. "I think we can see the trees better from there.
The dolls went to the big log Mandy pointed to. They climbed up and sat on it.

"I thought cones were to put ice cream in," Billy said after the dolls were settled on the log.
Mandy tried to roll her eyes, but that isn't easy because her eyes don't move. "That's a different kind of cone," she said. "They don't grow on trees."
"I thought the tree made pine cones to feed the squirrels," Mariah said, who had seen squirrels taking something out of the pinecones and eating it.

"They do feed the squirrels," Mandy agreed, "and the squirrels help by planting the seeds. They put them in the ground to save them for later, but they forget some of them. Those seeds can grow into trees."
"Gravity is how the cones got to the ground," Mandy went on. "You can see some of them still in the tree." She pointed up at the branches on the tree. 

The dolls could see some pine cones still in the trees.

"The tree only holds the cones up there until it's time for the seeds to grow. Then it lets go," she explained.
"I've got it, I think!" Mariah cried. "Gravity is why the cones fall to the ground instead of just hanging around in the air or floating away, just like our boxes on the other side of the world didn't float away."

"That's right," Mandy agreed. "Unless something stops the cones, they land on the ground, like this one."

"What would stop them?" asked Billy.
"They could land on something else before they reach the ground," Mandy explained, "like the one in that bush." She showed them a pine cone that had landed on the branches of a bush.

"The cone will stay there unless the wind blows it away," Mandy said, "or something bumps into the branches. The branches are stronger than the cone is heavy, but they bend."

Mandy thought for a moment. "Gravity was discovered a long time ago by a man named Isaac Newton. There is a story that he was lying under an apple tree," she went on.

"Because it was an apple tree," Mandy continued, "it had apples instead of pine cones, and one of the apples fell and hit him on the head. Isaac Newton started thinking about what made the apple fall and figured out gravity." 

"Look," Billy said, pointing. "I think someone nailed some boards onto the tree to make a ladder, so they could climb the tree. I guess they had to use nails, so gravity wouldn't make the boards fall to the ground."

Billy ran over to the tree and started to climb up it. 

Billy's hat came loose from his head and fell off.
"Come down, Billy," Mandy called to him. "If you climb any higher, you may learn about gravity the hard way, and it's time to go home."
Billy came back down quickly. He wanted to get his hat before the wind blew it away. He picked it up and put it back onto his head.

"Too bad Jolena didn't come with us," said Billy as the dolls started walking home. "She wanted to know all about gravity, too."
"That's OK," Mariah said. "When we get home, you can explain it to her."
"Yes," agreed Mandy. "A good way to help you remember something is to explain it to someone else."

The dolls walked the rest of the way home in silence. Each doll thought about what they had seen and learned.
As they reached the house, Mariah said, "Mandy, I still don't know how gravity works. I mean, what makes gravity, and why does a balloon float?"

Mandy paused at the door. "For that," she said, "we need to talk about something called mass. It's complicated. Let's save it for another day. I need to figure out how to show you what mass is."

"I would like to know that, too," Billy said, "and there's something else I'm wondering about. How do seeds turn into trees?"

Maybe we can plant some seeds, so you can see for yourself," she told him. "Let's try some smaller plants, though, because it works the same way, and trees can take many years."

Later that evening, Mandy found herself at the computer, looking online at seeds for vegetables and flowers that grow quickly, and finding out how to explain mass to other dolls.

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"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.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook and More Classic Tales Untold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Author's page on Amazon. 

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

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Copyright © 2019, 2025 by Peggy Stuart

Brought Back with the Tide

"Hi," Mandy said, as Mariah and Charlotte came through the door to the workroom. "How was your trip."

"It was great fun," Charlotte replied. "I hope we can do it again."

"We got to see and do a lot of different things," Mariah agreed, once they had climbed up to the daybed where Mandy was working.

"We didn't get to swim in the ocean," she told her sister, "but The Writer let us put some water in the tub in the trailer, and we splashed around in it.

We had to work together to fill the tub water," Charlotte said after she had settled down next to Mariah. "You have to turn on hot water first and let it warm up a bit. Then you turn on the cold water and adjust them until you have the temperature you want."

"Once we had a few inches of water in the tub," Mariah added, "It was like our own little swimming pool. The Writer said we shouldn't swim in the ocean, because we might fill up with water and sink, but we could have fun in the tub instead."

"While we were gone," Mariah began, "we started wondering what makes tides happen. We saw that the level of the water changed a bit at different times of the day."

"Yes," Charlotte said. "Those big posts that were sticking out of the water seemed shorter than they had been, and the water was closer to us when we looked over the wall at the water's edge. Then, the next morning, the posts were longer again, and the water was much farther away when we looked down at the river."

"I'll help you unpack and put your clothes away," Mandy suggested, as she moved her glasses and knitting aside. The three dolls climbed over to the wicker trunk that was in front of the daybed, so they could reach the clothes cart.

"Oh, wait!" Charlotte corrected herself. "You said it wasn't really a regular river. You said it was an estuary (ES-chew-air-ee)."

"That's right," Mariah agreed, "and that reminds me, we wanted to ask you about the estuary and what causes the ocean water to come up into the river. You said it happens when the tide is high, and that's why it's an estuary."

"Well," Mandy said, as she placed Charlotte's folded bathing suit into the bag with all the other bathing suits, "what do you know about tides already?" The two younger dolls had to think back as they finished putting the clothes away and climbed down from the wicker trunk. They were still thinking when they rolled the clothes cart back to its place. Mandy let them think.

"I remember that the water gets higher sometimes and then it's lower," Charlotte told Mandy, after the three dolls had climbed back onto the daybed and sat down, "and that it's because the ocean is moving in and out."

"You said that the ocean water is salty," said Mariah, remembering the estuary, "and the water in the river is fresh, and that means the river water isn't salty."

"I remember you said that the water from the river moves toward the ocean and mixes with it," Charlotte said, "but the tide brings the salt water from the ocean back up into the estuary, and that's why it's an estuary and not a river."

Mandy nodded. "You both remember a lot," she told them.

"But why does the ocean move back and forth?" Mariah asked. "What makes it do that?"

Mandy thought about how to explain it to them. Understanding something doesn't mean it's easy to explain to others. She also knew they would remember better if they had to figure some of it out for themselves, building on what they already knew. "Well," she began, "why does the water in the river flow to the ocean."

"It's going downhill," Charlotte said. "It starts higher up on land, in the mountains, or up on land somewhere when it rains. Water always goes downhill...except with the tide. Then water can go uphill sometimes. That's puzzling."

"What makes the water run downhill and not uphill...usually?" Mandy asked.

"I remember!" Mariah exclaimed. "It's like when you drop something, and it hits the floor. Gravity pulls on it and makes it fall, so gravity must be making the water go downhill in the river."

"Yes," Mandy agreed, "and it's partly the pull of gravity that brings in the tide, too." Mariah and Charlotte were surprised, but they waited. They knew Mandy would get to it.

"The water that runs downhill," Mandy said, "or something you drop falls to the floor, is reacting to the earth's gravity. Things on earth always go down when they fall, unless something stops them, like this daybed we're sitting on keeps us from falling to the floor."

"The ocean is very big," Mandy pointed out. "It's connected on every part of the earth. There is a lot more of it than there is dry land. It's so big, it can be affected by other things besides the earth, and it's liquid except for the frozen parts, so it can move around easily."

The three dolls had seen photos of the earth, where you could see through the clouds to where the dry land was and how much of the earth was ocean.

"What is near the earth but not on it?" Mandy asked. "Something very big. Not flying above the earth, but outside of earth's atmosphere (AT-mus-feer)...outside the air around the earth," she added that last, in case they had forgotten what the atmosphere was.

The dolls knew there were satellites (SAT-uh-lites) out there, circling the earth, but they aren't very big, not the way they understood Mandy to mean.

The Space Station is out there, and it's bigger, but not very big when compared with the earth.

Besides, there have been tides on the earth since long before there were satellites or space travel. The two younger dolls thought about leaving earth's atmosphere. What was the next thing you would find after satellites? What has been there as long as the earth has?

"The moon!" they both exclaimed at once.

"Yes," Mandy agreed, "the moon and the sun, too, but the moon has a greater effect on earth's oceans than the sun, because the moon is so close. What do we know," Mandy asked them then, "about the moon and why it stays close to the earth?"

They thought for a moment. "Well," Mariah said, "I remember the moon has its own gravity, just not as much as the earth, because it's smaller."

"Yes," Charlotte agreed, "and the moon goes around the earth, so we see it in different places in the sky...or it disappears, the way the sun does."

"Yes," Mandy agreed. We say it revolves around the earth the way the earth revolves around the sun. That means it moves around in something we call an orbit (OR-bit), the way man-made satellites revolve around the earth in their own orbit. The moon is a satellite of the earth," Mandy pointed out. "Now, there's the moon out there, revolving around the earth, and as Mariah said, it has its own gravity. What do you suppose happens when all that gravity passes over all that water?"

"The water doesn't try to go to the moon, does it?" Mariah asked doubtfully.

"In a way," Mandy said. "It can't go to the moon because earth's gravity is stronger, but it's liquid, and so it moves toward the moon's gravity a bit without leaving the earth."

"Is that what makes the tide, then?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes," Mandy agreed. "I can't suck on a straw, because my mouth doesn't open, but both of you can. If you sucked some water up into the straw, it would be like the earth's oceans moving toward the moon. Then when you stop sucking on the straw, the water goes back down."

Charlotte and Mariah thought about how they could suck water through a straw if they pretended hard enough, and that they could only do that because their mouths were open a bit.

"So," Mandy continued, "when the moon is over the part of the ocean near us, its gravity moves the water toward us, but there's also a high tide on the opposite side of the earth at the same time, and that has a different cause." Mandy got some paper and a pencil. She drew a picture for the girls. She showed the earth with a lot of water on two sides of it and not as much on the sides.

It looked like this (although we've tidied this one up a bit).

"This isn't to scale," she told them, "I've exaggerated (eggs-AH-jer-ay-did) the size of the oceans––made them bigger than they are––so you can see what's happening. If I drew everything to scale, you wouldn't be able to tell any difference.

"What makes this bulge on the side away from the moon?" Mariah asked. (Charlotte had wanted to ask that question, too, so she nodded.)

"Well," Mandy began, "this part is more complicated. It would be better if I could show you." She thought for a moment. How could she show them what was happening? Then she heard the washing machine stop. That gave her an idea.

"I know," she said. "Come with me." She led the other two dolls into the laundry room. Mandy climbed up onto the washing machine, with the other two dolls right behind her. She got them to help her lift the lid to the washer, because it was rather heavy.

There were wet sheets in the washer.

"This was just full of water," Mandy said, although they knew that. "Where did the water go?

"Through those little holes," Charlotte replied.

"What made the water leave the place where the clothes are?" Mandy asked them. She let them think about it, as they all looked in at the wet sheets.

They could see that the holes in the tub were not just in the bottom, where gravity could take the water out; the holes went up the sides of the tub, too, and the sheets were smashed up against the sides of the tub.

"It spins," Mariah said. "This whole part of the washer spins, I think. Somehow the spinning makes the water leave the clothes––most of it, anyway––and the clothes stay behind, because they can't fit through the little holes."

"Exactly," Mandy agreed, "and that spinning is what makes the water bulge on the opposite side of the earth from the moon.

"Let me see if I understand it," Charlotte said. "So the the moon is spinning...um, rotating...around the earth, and the same thing that makes the water leave the wet clothes in the washer makes the oceans bulge out on the other side of the earth from the moon?"

"Exactly," Mandy said again. "That thing is called centrifugal (sin-TRIF-uh-gul) force. There are other things going on besides that when tides come and go, but that's most of it."

"These are the sheets from the trailer," Mariah said. "Let's help The Writer and put them in the dryer for her."

It isn't easy for three dolls to move big heavy wet sheets from the washer to the dryer, but there is a force that makes them want to be helpful. That same force sometimes makes it possible for them to do difficult things if they imagine hard enough. I wonder what that force is called.

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend

Photo of earth from space from NASA.

Photo of satellite from NASA.

Image of Space Station from NASA.

Photo of moon by Griffin Wooldridge on Unsplash (cropped)

Diagram of ocean bulges found here.

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment.

"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.

Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook and Emil: Stories from the Doll's Storybook are available from Amazon worldwide. Also available from Barnes & Noble,  BookBaby and other booksellers. Royalties go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to St. Jude.

Image on Mariah's yellow T-shirt used with permission, from Free To Be Kids, where human-size shirts with this image are available.

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Copyright © 2022 by Peggy Stuart