My beginning and a lost friendship part 1 - a story by Rosemary

"Every story is like the other"

From the prologue of the musical version of Romeo and Juliet (french) by Gérard Presgurvic

Rosemary Rapunzel:

So some thoghts I started my diary with:

This is how the whole blog started for me. Meritre read Belles Bulletins and I read it with her. The first thing that captured me about it was that the doll that had written it started it to help her with her struggles. And she advised me to do the same. It helps to let the stress out. So I decided to write down  the story of a friendship using paper and ink. I hoped to see my best friend again someday. Where should I start? At the very beginning.

Rosemary Rapunzel

Let’s get to the actual story:

The very first memory I have is not very pleasant. I was hot. Very hot. And I was feeling sick as well. I couldn’t see I only could hear distant noises. Slowly, very slowely I cooled down and I started to feel better. I felt something cool on my head and on my face. So nice, I thought, it would have been great if it had come sooner. A vague picture started to appear before my eyes – yes, I just got my eyes painted with that nice cold liquid. After a while my sight became clearer. But nothing else happened for a while. As I got to know later, at night the factory is comletely quiet and those frightening big machines do nothing to us. The next morning started quite painful for me. Actually it wasn’t only me so I should say we. Well, we were transported and I felt like a wasp was sitting on my head and sticking holes into it. ”What on earth is going on?” I asked myself. I was scared. Very scared. But I didn’t expect an answer. Nevertheless one of my neighbours must have heard me. ”You are getting your hair” she said in a friendly voice. She had to know, she already had some pretty brown locks. A friendly word can mean sometimes so much. I wasn’t afraid of those machines anymore. At the end of the day we all had longer or shorter hair but they had yet to be styled. I wished to become a brunette just like my neighbour back there but I got blond locks. At least, the girls around me told me so. Such is life. To me, it seemed to have an indeterminable color, with some blondish and some shiny, rainbow-colored parts. As we were worked on some more, we were moved again. We were put in nice rows.

I was overjoyed when I found out that the friendly brunette was not very far, exectly three rows behind the doll sitting on the other side of my neighbour. Maybe we could become friends? It is a great piece of luck to spot her in this army of princess dolls! And behind me! Well, she couldn’t sit before me, since I was in the first row. There were lots of nice girls there but she was special for me since she was so kind and calmed me down back then.

That night was different from the ones before it. We heard some strange noises and suddenly a giant plush horse stood before us, with a fairly big doll sitting on its back. She looked as a doll who was loved and had been made a long time ago. She introduced herself as Ms Parker, our teacher. She belonged to the director of the factory and had her place in his own private office. That special doll was the very first collectible the director had and treasured her very much. She announced that she and her team will give us lessons every night when the factory was closed. We were there to get to know the movies of the characters we were made after. And so we will get to know out movie names and character. The first night we watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Cinderella and talked about them. I had fun spotting all the Cinderella and Snow White dolls in this ocean of dolls. It was not too easy since there were lots of black haired princesses and quite a few blonde ones but it kapt me occupied. I wondered what their names where. There were many different faces and even more that looked the same. I’ll never learn to tell them apart! I didn’t have the chance to see myself in a mirror but thanks to my tenthousand twins I had a fairly good notion how I looked like. Next day was exciting too, since we all got our bodies fixed. Now we could move around freely! But Ms Parker had already forbidden us to run around and we were only allowed to leave the room with a good reason and asking her first. I wasn’t bothered by this I just wanted to go and sit next to that friendly doll and talk to her and get to know her better. It was lonely and boring to sit alone. I slowly made my way to her spot but to my surprise, she wasn’t there. I wondered around the room trying to find her. But I couldn’t. How could a small little doll find another when there were so many of us? Than the next movie was about to start and I had to head back to my place. And guess what, my place was already taken! She was standing there waiting for me to return.

‘I was sure you would come back sooner or later started.’ she smiled. ‘I’m Belle. Well a Belle doll, actually. Pleased to meet you.’ I smiled uncertainly back.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, too and I have no idea, who I am, nor do I know how you know your own name.’ I blurted out.

‘It’s easy, I asked Ms Parker, that’s why I wasn’t at my place a moment ago. Judging by your hair, you’re Rapunzel.’ She saw that it didn’t help, the name and the tale of Rapunzel was unknown to me.

‘We’ll get a second name anyway to tell us apart and we’ll watch your movie soon. After the movie, the heroines of the movie get a private lesson. The Snow Whites and the Cinderellas had the pleasure.’ But then we heard Ms Parker telling everybody to get back to their original places, the next movie, Sleeping Beauty was about to start. But after the movie there was a break and I went to her to talk it over and to complain that I won’t be able to tell those princesses apart. So many with yellow or black hair! She was really patient and gave me some tips.

‘You see, Snow White is the only short haired girl with black hair. Cinderella and Aurora may both have long golden hair but Cinderella has blue eyes while the other lady has unique violet ones.’

‘Aurora?’

‘Sleeping Beauty also known as Briar Rose. But Aurora was the name her parents gave her.’

‘I thought she is Rose…’

‘Yes, the fairies called her Briar Rose but that was a disguise so she was safe from the bad fairy.’

’Who is that with the bright red hair?’I asked curiously. She seemed to know everything! She had a piece of paper in her hand with notes but she didn’t even glance at it before answering.

‘That is Ariel, the little Mermaid. The one next to her, who has a bit darker skin, long black hair and big brown eyes is Jasmine, an arabian princess.’

‘But there are two dark skinned black haired girls!’

‘Yes but look at the form of their faces, the other girl has a more angular face. She is Pocahontas, the only pricess loosely based on a historical person. She didn’t get a happy end in her movie.’ I looked at the serious face Belle pointed at. She was right, nothing like that Jasmine princess.

‘Which lands princess is she?’

‘She is the chieftain’s daughter in her tribe, she is a native American lady.’ I thought this over and looked at the last two black haired girls. One type had such funny eyes...

‘She comes from China that’s why she has eyes like that’ Belle said, as if she could read my thoughts. ‘She is a very brave girl.’

‘And who is that, whit that funny frizzy hair? She is the last girl with black hair, isn’t she?’

‘The characters name is Tiana, Tia for short. She works very hard to reach her goals in her movie and is an excellent cook.’

‘Does this mean that the dolls made to look like her are all great cooks? It must be great to have her around!’

‘No’ she replied ‘I don’t think we are completely like our movie conterparts.’

‘But surely we are similar’ I insisted ‘What is Rapunzel like?’

‘Your original has 70 feet long golden hair that has magic powers. That is the reason why you were kidnapped and locked up in a tower.’

‘There is another Ariel! But how come she has freckles now?’ I exclaimed pointing at another doll.

’Because that is not Ariel. She is called Merida and she doesn’t want to be princess and has a conflict with her mother because of that.’ I looked around again.

‘I suppose the redhead over there with a white steak isn’t Ariel, either. She has freckles, just like Merida.’

‘No but I don’t know who she is, only that she is the sister of the other girl with very light blond hair.’

‘What about your story? You tell everything about the other but what about you?’

‘Uh, well now, my story isn’t that interesting. Belle befriends a beast and objects that are alive but actually are all bespelled humans. At the end, they turn back of course.’

‘What a pretty story! I can’t wait to see it! But I would like to know more about Ariel and Jasmine and… well, everybody!’

‘Then just watch and listen carefully for now it is The Little Mermaids turn.’ she said pointing at the screen. She was right, Mrs. Parker already asked for silence but it was overheared since all the princesses were chatting and singing and made such a noise!

‘They are quite lively today’ Mrs. Parker said to herself. ‘Be quiet please, my ladies. Silence, please. I said SILENCE!’ That worked, so we could watch another film. And since a so called “weekend” came, we got to watch even more films, more than usually the dolls get to see. We exchanged opinions and views and talked everything over. Oh yes and we got out second names as well, given names to tell us apart. It was like a huge lottery, and everybody won a name. My friend Belle is called from now on Elisabeth Belle and I got the name Rosemary. To avoid that two girls representing the same character get he same given name Mrs. Parker did this lottery in batches. First all the Snow Whites got a name, then all the paperpieces were put back and it started again for the Cinderellas and so on. Mrs. Parker stated that those names only accompany us till the stores.

‘Once you get to your owners, you’ll never know, what may happen. Collectors will most likely call you the characters name while children tend to give you a completely new name. It’s for them to decide, it can be the other way around as well, you never know. Children can be sometimes rough but they spend more time with us than collectors. Some dolls owned by collectors are just displayed and never removed from their boxes. That’s a piy but sometimes the price of freedom is high: the dolls belonging to children can easily end up with tangled ugly hair, bitten feet and ugly stains and marks on their dresses and bodies. Children usually also get more easily bored.’ My heart sunk. Neither of these fates seemed desirable to me.

‘There are always advantages and disadvantages. And Mrs. Parker knows, since she has had 15 different owners already.’ Elisabeth Belle murmured to herself. ‘She has travelled around the Earth and is kind of the lucky charm of the factory owner, to whom she belongs now. She is allowed to wander around as much as she pleases. He gave her the name Mrs. Parker, he named her after his own old nurse. She was not made to look like someone.’

‘With her strict eyes and self confident manners she was just like how I imagine a teacher’ Belle smiled.

‘Well, she is kind of a teacher to us all.’

‘She isn’t that pretty, either.’

‘Appearance is not that important’ my friend said wisely. ‘It’s her wisdom that makes her so very suitable for this job. She taught thousands of dolls, knows all the movies by heart and has a lot of experience with both adults and children.’ I didn’t listen anymore, I thought about my future home. I hoped for lots of freedom and adventures but also for someone who would take good care of us. But such humans were quite rare and I’ll likely end up with a child who cuts my hair or tears out one of my legs. Belle was just as scared as I was but it helped us both to talk about it. There was a lot to discuss that weekend anyway.