The two dolls stood in the doorway of the workroom and watched The Writer trying to straighten out the the disarray.
"How did it get to be such a mess?" Veronika asked.
"They haven't had time to clean," Mandy replied, "but they've been working on their taxes, and The Writer had to go through all the receipts she had to find what they needed. She's still missing some, so she was trying to clean up, in hopes of finding them."
"It has been very difficult to clean for the last month," Mandy added. "She's had too many other things to deal with. For instance, she found out that the washing machine was broken. There was water all over the floor!"
"They had to order a part to fix it," she continued, "and that took a while, so all that laundry piled up."
"That's right," Veronika agreed. "Then the space bar on The Writer's laptop stopped working, and she had to send it away to be repaired. While the laptop was gone we had to make all the stories on the iPad."
"Writing it is easy enough," she pointed out, "but making the photos bigger on the tablet takes more time, and The Writer kept making mistakes. Sometimes whole paragraphs would disappear."
"Now we have the Yarn Crawl coming up," Mandy reminded Veronika. "She had that project she was working on. I helped some, but my fingers don't bend, so I can't knit as fast as she can. She had to do most of it. Knitting is fun, but she wanted to have it done in time to wear during the Yarn Crawl. When we go from one shop to another, everyone wears their project. We get to see it in lots of different colors. She was under pressure to finish it."
Veronika remembered that Mandy always goes along with The Writer when she goes to the Yarn Crawl. The Writer's husband goes, too, to visit their grandchildren. "That starts next week, doesn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," Mandy confirmed. "It's just a short trip, but then they're going on a long trip in the trailer the following week. There will be a lot of work to do to get ready for that, and the house is a mess. It would be sad to come home from a trip and find the house a mess. As soon as they're done unloading and cleaning the trailer, they would have a house to clean, too."
The two dolls were worried about their human people. They know that stress isn't good for real people.
Just then, Billy came up behind the two girls. He had heard them talking. He looked to see what they were talking about.
"I think it's time to help again," he told them. "It will be fun! It always is."
Veronika and Mandy agreed. They called the other dolls from other parts of the house, so they could have a meeting. They sat on the stairs, because the workroom was such a mess, and they didn't want to get in the way while The Writer tried to tidy up.
Pauly was visiting Pippa. He had offered to stay and help, so he joined in the meeting. They discussed what needed to be done.
The dolls all volunteered for what they would like to do to help. Then they got to work.
It was good that Jolena was home from her ski trip, because she is the best cook. She looked to see what there was in the pantry and the refrigerator. She would fix supper and make up some meals for their trip with the trailer.
She started some bread, so The Writer and her Husband would be able to slice it for sandwiches while they were gone on their trip. When the bread was done, she would put it into the freezer for them to take with them.
Then Jolena made some TV dinners to freeze for the camping trip. It's so nice to have easy meals when you're camping, and each metal tray had enough food for one person to eat. They have a stove in the trailer, so they can heat up their dinners.
While Jolena was cooking, Emil and Pauly dusted.
Then they ran the robot vacuum cleaner. (It was Pauly's first time to ride on the vacuum.) They decided to wait until Jolena was finished cooking before they vacuumed the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Veronika watered the plants.
Then she arranged for the mail to be held while her human people were gone. She used the computer to reach the post office website. She told them the dates they did not want to have any mail, so their mailbox wouldn't get stuffed too full. The lady who brought the mail would bring it the day they got back. Then she did the same thing for the newspaper.
While all that was happening, Mariah and Pippa started the laundry. They wanted to be sure The Writer and her husband had the clothes they would need for both trips, because there wouldn't be much time between the first trip and the second one.
While the washer was running, they emptied the wastebaskets from each room into the trash.
Charlotte and Mandy were busy cleaning the bathrooms.
Mariah and Pippa took the laundry out of the dryer when it was dry.
They worked together to pull the big laundry basket down the hall to the bedroom, where they would fold everything and put it away.
Then Veronika helped them make the beds with clean sheets. Pippa slid under the covers to smooth out the sheets. It made Veronika and Mariah laugh to see Pippa's feet kicking as she smoothed out the wrinkles.
While the other dolls were busy working, Billy took photos of what they were doing. He took all the photos for this story except when he had to be in one.
As dolls finished their work, they came and helped The Writer tidy up the workroom. While they were doing that, Emil looked through the receipts to find the ones The Writer had been looking for. He put them all in a pile separate from the others.
When the dolls had done everything they could, they sat down again on the stairs again, because The Writer was still busy in the workroom. Each doll told Mariah what they had done for this story, and Mariah wrote it all down. She asked them questions, so she would know what to write. Billy listened carefully, because knowing what the other dolls had to say would help him select the photos.
Billy used the laptop to pick out the photos to use. He put the ones he liked into a folder. Then he went through the folder and fixed a few things that needed fixing, like if a photo was too dark.
When he was done with the computer, Mariah used her notes to write this story.
When Mariah thought she had the story almost ready, she called Billy, and they worked together put the photos in the right places in the story. There's more than one way you can do that with each story, so they talked it over and decided together. Sometimes Mariah changed what she had written. She says that's called editing (ED-it-ing).
The Writer's husband finished the taxes. He put the forms into an envelope, attached a stamp and walked to the mailbox with it. The Writer, very much relieved, sat down, while Jolena fixed her some tea.
It's amazing what little dolls can get done when they work together.
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.
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Copyright ©2023, 2024 by Peggy Stuart
