My beginning and a lost friendship part 2 - 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

It's a long time since I last posted so I'll put the link for the first part: http://worldofdollsandotherthings.blogspot.com/2017/09/my-beginning-and-lost-friendship-part-1.html

other than that, I'll jus pick up where I left off back then.

On the following Monday, the workers got back and we got our haires styled. Some got ribbons, some got their hair pinned up in a bun others got their hair curled. I critically looked over Lizzy when she returned. Her hair was only partly worked into a bun.

 

Best friends

‘Isn’t that the hairstyle you had during that dance scene?’ She nodded. ‘And if I remember correctly, a yellow gown goes with it.’ She nodded again.

‘I knew from the start that I was to have that yellow dress, I have yellow underpants after all.’ she explained. ‘I would have chosen the pink one with the red cape but there are more important things than our dresses. But you didn’t have a choice anyway, blonde Rapunzel only wore one dress during the whole film.’ Soon after we got our outfits as well so it was quite easy, even at a little distance to tell if that one there is Jasmine or Elsa. (Yes, we got to know that the girl with the very light blonde hair is called Elsa and her sister is Anna) Well that’s no surprise since one of them is dark while the other is pale and has a light haircolor as well. But anyway, it was a lot easier to tell them apart at least for me. We all got dresses, except the Jasmine dolls, (they got pants and tops) even the Mulans, althought in the movie Mulan spends far more time wearing her fathers armor and man’s clothes. And what she wore in the movie wasn’t actually a dress but a traditional chineese outfit for a bride. Some dolls got shoes as well but I, together with the Pocahontas dolls stayed barefoot. It was a great relief not to be the only sort of doll with long straight hair, wearing no shoes. Belle on the other hand got not only a beautiful ballgown but operagloves as well. Only the Belle and Cinderella dolls got to wear them. Elisabeth Belle, who was practical, thought that I was better off since the gloves were annoying and the dancing shoes unconfortable.

“They are held in place with elastics, you know.” she explained and showed her feet as proof. Nevertheless I was a bit sad that I did not have a pretty, big poofy princess dress, like the others. Elisabeth on the other side, wanted simpler clothing. That made me think about something. How close are we to our so called originals? Rapunzel in the movie did not want shoes and Belle was satisfied with what she had as well. Well, she had more dresses to choose from, Belle changed her outfit quite a few times. But there was no answer to my question, even Elisabeth did not know. So we went to ask Ms. Parker. She could not give us a direct answer, either. But she said there are some skills that appear more frequently on certain characters.

‘Rapunzel dolls have more often a thing for art and Tiana dolls for cooking than the other princesses. That doesn’t mean that there are no Jasmines or Snow Whites with artistic talents or Belles and Auroras making extremely delicious food. Or Tianas who couldn’t cook to save their lives. Or any princess that couldn’t dance or sings off key. And there are some really unique ones, I’ve seen princesses who were scared of all kinds of animals, even the smallest and cutest ones and that’s really strange for a princess.’ she explained. ‘Anything can happen, there are even a few very vain and selfish princes and princesses out there.’

‘What about the villain dolls?’

‘Usually they are more troublesome than princesses and princes but many of them are not really evil. A lot depends on the owner as well of course. But’ve never taught them, that’s Georges’ job. I’m only in charge of princesses, in all sizes. You are the smallest ones I take care of.’ That was interesting! There are bigger dolls then us! MS Parker also told us, after Elisabeth asked that it’s usually the classic dolls that get all the good stuff. ‘You are so small it’s harder to make things for you’

‘Are there any boys?’

‘Yes but only very few and always packed together with their respective princess. Princesses are mostly packed together in big sets.’

Lucky, I thought, so I can stay together with my new friend. But with that, there was a surprise in store for me. I wonder which prince she liked so much that she asked about the prince dolls.

A few days passed with waiching films and discussing and little adventures and Elisabeth and I became really good friends. She even told me (if a bit hesitantly) that Prince Philip has won her heart.

‘But most likely he’s not at all like in the movie.’ she sighed.

The princesses were a lively bunch and Ms Parker could hardly manage.

‘I’m happy I don’t have to teach how to read and write.’ she saida little angry ‘You’re never silen, not even for a second! How can anything be taught this way?’

‘Does reading and wirting have to be learned?’ a Jasmine asked with the big, round eyes of surprise.

‘Not you, you’re born with basic knowledge, lucky for you and me. The time wouldn’t be enogh. You are only here because the machines that do the pecking were damaged and had to be repaired. Normally one batch of princesses only spends a few days with me.’

Next day, she announced that the maschines are reapired and that this is going to be our last day and night together. ‘So I thought we could do a singing competition to make it memorable.’

Lizzy was not really happy but that had started earlier.

‘Thisis our last adventure together, I’m afraid.’ she said ‘so let’s enjoy it thoroughly. You never know, with whom you land in one set.’

As for the singing competition, it was a great success. Elisabeth and I managed to get a third place in female dramatic duett category. Not that bad if yo ask me, there were so many participiants.

Ironically, an Elsa-Anna duo won second place with Colors of the wind and a Pocahontas won second place in another category with Let it go.

Ms Parker handed out the prizes. Everybody was happy. Well, almost. A Jasmine complained because she won nothing and a Rapunzel (a different one, not me) wished for more fun songs. ‘There were far too many dramatic songs, we need more jokes’ she claimed

We finished the evening with all of us singing together.

On the next day, we were sorted and I found myself together with hundreds of other Rapunzels. We all fell in some kind of slepp, called packing sleep or shipping trance and I woke up with a bunch of paper under my skirt, some annoying tie around my waist and ties around my hair, too. ‘Elisa…’ I murmured still half asleep. I woke up at once when I got a reply.

‘Elsa? There is no Elsa doll in this set!’ I hesitated. Was I still dreaming?

‘Is there someone?’ I asked.

‘But of course, four of us were put in one box, don’t you remember?

I looked a bit around – as far as my ties let me do so. It looked like I was in a separated one doll cabin and the box had four such cabin.

‘I think… I’m I slept over the whole thing.’

I heard someone laugh.

‘Oh yes, I remember. Let me introduce myself, I’m an Ariel doll and my fabricname is Annis.’

‘I’m Rapunzel and…

‘Rather a Sleeping Beauty!’ another, cheerful voice threw in.

‘Chris, please. You know you’re not supposed to do that.’

I was confused.

‘Chris? Do we have a prince in the box? But that was a girls voice!’ I asked, quite unsure.

Annis laughed and asked Chris to introduce herself.

‘Oh sorry for the confusion. I’m actually Christine but I like to shorten it to Chris. The others say I’m a tomboy so it suits me well.’

‘While we are at it, I’d like to introduce myself as well’ another voice said ‘I am Jasmine and my factoryname is Arabella.’

‘Mine’s Rosemary. But where are we?’

‘On our way to a shop.’ was the answer.

‘Where is Elisabeth?’

‘I’m really sorry but I can’t answer that question. What doll is she?’

‘A Belle, small like us.’

’Oh, in that case she is not in this shipping box for sure. Here are only fourpacks with Rapunzel and Ariel at the top and Merida and Jasmine at the bottom, just like our box.’

She must have sensed that I was sad because she went on talking.

‘Perhaps you’ll see her at the store. The two different sets will likely stand next to each other.’

She was right after what seemed like forever, we were removed from the darkness and placed on a shelf in neat rows. We wernat at the front but we cold still see a lot and see out own picures on the back of the box standing before us. Slowly we moved forward. But even when we were first, I saw nothing of Elisa. Eventually a young lady bought us.

‘She seems nice’ Annis whispered.

We were carefully deboxed so Ariel assumed We’re not going to be a gift and stay with that nice lady. She was wrong. We were packed in bubble wrap and than in an even smaller box and off we went again in that crammed little box on an even longer journey.

‘Oh I knew she took that photo for a reason! We’ll end up as a little ones birthday present and become sticky and staind on our first day!’ Arabella panicked.

‘Pah, we’ll be free and able to wash ourselves. And if it’s that bad, we’ll just flee.’

‘Washing yes but we can’t break the dollcode and simply disappear.’

‘This way I’ll never ever see my best friend again.’

‘We’ll see what we do when we arrive.’

That journey was sure endless long. But even super long trips end and ours ended, too and we were taken out of the box one after another, accompanied by happy ourcries. And so we met our new owner, Meritre. She was all I could wish for and I was fairly happy but I still missed Elisabeth. I hoped she had an equally nice home and found her prince, too.