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Bad Idea #1: Sleeping in waaayyy late.
The night before I had officially gone to bed at five oh three. And that was all thanks to Olaf, for, as you remember what happened in my last post, he woke up with nightmares, so Loki and I had to read to him to help him fall back to sleep. Well, I hadn't gotten any sleep before that, either, so I finally was able to doze off at five o'clock. It wasn't pretty. Needless to say, I woke up at noon, when the sun was right over the middle of She's house, reflecting off the frosty snowless grass. And that still wasn't far enough sleep for me, but I didn't have a choice. Napoleon had marched into She's room with Benny behind him, who had found a harmonica downstairs and they were parading through the empty house and playing harmonica music out of tune. I tried turn my head around so I wouldn't hear them, but I was eventually forced out of bed by Napoleon's sayings of "the early bird gets the worm" and "carpe diem" and then Benny chiming in before they marched back out the door, "It's twelve thirty. Time to do stuff." And that last statement from Benny was so vague that I realized that the truth of the matter was that I was being kind of a lazy bum, and it would be really rude to just stay in bed all day. What if they were doing something downstairs without me? I groggily slumped off the dresser and pretended to be a slug until I got downstairs where everyone else was.
Bad Idea #2: Being totally oblivious, rebellious, and tired.
Yeah, I know it kind of contradicts the last one, but it's true. I regret the fact that I slept in for too long, but I regretted it more that I was totally crazy and sleep-deprived for the rest of the day. So really not that much different from what I usually act like, but at least when I've had eight or more hours of sleep I'm able to at least pretend to be normal. Or at least, as normal as a glowy-handed ice powered singing doll can be. But after I almost tripped four times on the stairs and zombie-walked into wrong room, I was pretty much on the fine line between tired and absolutely insane.
"Morning, Elsa!" Olaf called cheerily once I found the kitchen.
"Or should I say afternoon?" Napoleon asked jokingly. I was subconsciously glad that he was acting like himself again.
"Hmph." I replied, then once I gave my eyes a good rub, I realized what was going on. Each of the dolls were helping clean up something on the human's kitchen table. Paper scraps for placements, the little porcelain tea set, and bits of leftover food. I vaguely recalled Benny telling me that everyone else was downstairs having breakfast before they left the Room She Lived In. But I was still half asleep by then.
"Sorry, we kind of had breakfast without you." Loki said, looking apologetic.
"Kind of?" I murmured.
Magneto, who was just shredding the makeshift paper placemats into smaller bits, laughed.
I saw Dorothy amble up to me. "Don't worry, Elsa. You didn't miss all of breakfast." She had something for me in her basket, but I wasn't sure what they were. They looked to be sticks with food on them. She took one out for me and held it in her tiny fingerless hand.
"What are these?" I asked, taking the food stick in my own ice-blue hands.
"Breakfast kabobs," Dorothy explained. "Bell invented them."
"You're welcome!" I heard a voice call out to be, who I assumed had to be Bell's.
"She took a toothpick from the bottle in the cupboard and put some pieces of leftover food on it. These ones have strawberry and waffle chunks with some cream on top. I saved you some if you want to smell them."
"Thanks, Dorothy," I said, and gave Bell's creation a sniff. I was sure that they were as good as they looked, but they were too cold to give off much of a scent. But Dorothy looked like she had tried so hard to save me some food that I had to feel thankful. "A" for effort, right? "Mm... these are wonderful. Thanks, Bell! Thanks Dorothy!"
"You better finish that soon." said Benny from the table.
"What? Why?" I asked.
"She and the other humans left ten minutes ago. They mentioned something about picking up someone else from their house and bringing them here to this one. So we had to hurry up and make and finish breakfast before they come home." Benny said.
"When are they returning?"
"We don't really know. But better safe than sorry, right?"
"I guess so."
I didn't really help much the cleaning. Why should I? I didn't make the mess. Which was probably a childish way to think, but my brain had finally woken up and now it was buzzing with activity. The humans had gone out to retrieve another human? I wonder what that meant. But maybe Benny had just worded it in a strange way. I'm sure She was just having a friend over. Yeah. That had to be it. And now that I thought I had discovered what Benny meant, I was actually pretty excited. She sometimes went to her friends' houses, but She never once had one at her own house, at least that I remembered since I had been found in November.
And this is when my next bad idea pops into that crazy head of mine.
Bad Idea #3: Wandering off to try to see this new human.
You guys can probably tell that I'm a curious sort of girl. I'm always wandering off, getting into trouble, going on adventures. If something new is occurring, I'm always likely to go off on my own and explore what it is. And it's exactly what happened. While everyone was distracted by cleaning up the table, I slipped away and ran to the front door. I wasn't sure if the humans would bring the new person through the front door, the side door, or the back door, so I figured that here was the best place to wait. With some struggle, I managed to pull myself onto a chair and then onto the dining room table, which was in good view of the front door. I stroked my head across the wood finishing. I remembered so much about this table, and only just recently had all of these things happened. The time Loki got stuck in a goblet on Thanksgiving, the time Loki, Olaf, and I had first found the tiny painted advent tree (which I noticed had many more ornaments on it) and then we had first met Magneto in his little ceramic town soon after. I chose to sit by the advent tree, spinning it around with my hand occasionally to get the music box going. It was bright, cheerful, fast-paced song, one I recall being named, "Toyland." Not that I knew what that meant.
I didn't have long to wait. The humans came home only a minute after I had sat down. I had to lean against the advent tree to get it to stop spinning and playing the music, or else they might become a little suspicious of what was really going on.
And yes, they came in through the front door, just like I was hoping. There was She, just like I knew her, but also some other girl with her. The two of them came into the house, throwing off their shoes and laughing about something or another.
"So when's your ugly sweater Christmas cookie party again?" The new girl asked.
She rolled her eyes jokingly. "Um, tomorrow?"
The new girl laughed. "Oh, right. Well, I still need to find an ugly sweater. I might have to borrow one of my mom's."
"You don't have to wear an actual ugly Christmas sweater. I'm wearing this nasty vomit-looking one I found at Goodwill. Apparently it was made in Australia." She explained.
The new girl's eyes lit up. "A nasty vomit-looking sweater?"
"Um, yup. At least that's what I think it looks like."
"Can you show me?"
"Sure. It's upstairs, in the back of my closet, hiding. I'm pretty sure because it is ashamed of how it looks. Or maybe I am."
And just like that, they were gone, like that white-and-then-black flash you sometimes get before your eyes when you blink.
As their feet pounded up the stairs, I wondered where everyone else had gone. The house was oddly quiet now. Perhaps they were all up in the Room She Lived In, where the humans were now. I really wanted to go upstairs and follow them, and for two supposedly good reasons. One, the new girl seemed oddly familiar to me, and I wasn't sure why. And two, the girl had a bag with her, and it looked like a pale, plastic-esque leg with blue shoes of the same material poking out of the side of the girl's bag, horrifyingly similar to ones I wore. And that's when I made my next bad idea for the day.
Bad Idea #4: Following the humans to my upcoming doom.
I didn't know it yet while it was happening, but following the humans upstairs to the Room She Lived In was probably the worst decision I had made all day. But at the time I didn't know that it was. I was just trying to go upstairs and sneak into She's room without the humans hopefully seeing me. That's probably where all of the other dolls were, and besides, I wanted to find out who that girl was and if that was really another Elsa doll in her bag.
So I crept up the stairs lightly, one at a time, careful to the alert any other possible humans in the house, (though I was pretty sure the rest of them were outside shoveling snow) and once I made it upstairs to She's room, I tucked myself behind a corner and eavesdropped on what She and the other girl were saying through the crack in the open door.
Both of them were sitting on She's bed under the ceiling o' snowflakes, going through the other girls bag, looking for something, but unfortunately it wasn't the suspicious-looking foot. They weren't saying much of interest to me quite yet, but I had only just arrived to the spot I needed to be. They were laughing and talking about the funny things that had happened in English class on the previous day. As boring as it was to me, I swore to myself that I would wait until they brought up whatever was in the other girl's bag.
And speaking of the other girl, I felt like I should have known her from somewhere. Maybe not her voice or her face, exactly, but the way that she spoke. Energetically. Not loudly, or softly, but somewhere just in-between, a tone that was loud enough to be heard and someone that you wanted to hear because at any moment something funny or interesting could pop out of her mouth. After thoroughly racking my brain, I recognized where I knew her from. Many times over and over I told myself that such a thing was impossible, but maybe it wasn't anymore. The girl was MyLittleMegara from one of the blogs I had followed from mine. And now she was in the house. I stumbled from the corner and into the pathway of light, just as She got up from the bed to close the door.
Bad Idea #5: Posing as the other doll.
"What do you have there?" MyLittleMegara asked, craning her neck to see what She had stopped for my her doorway.
"It's my Elsa doll," She explained, picking me up and bringing me into the room. "Funny, I don't remember leaving her out here."
"Maybe she got up and walked over here by herself." MyLittleMegara said with a laugh. My chest pounded with fear, even though I knew she was only joking.
"Yeah, right." She said, rolling her eyes. She bent my legs into a sitting position and set me down on the bed, in front of the two girls, a freak doll on display with both of them to see.
"She's pretty." said MyLittleMegara, and I tried not to let a thankful blush creep into my cheeks.
She rolled her eyes again. "You have the exact same one!"
"They're both pretty!" MyLittleMegara insisted, and began to reach for something in her bag. I stopped, wanting to lean forward to see better, but I couldn't. This was the moment of truth. And, it was just my luck, she grabbed the foot and gently pulled out the doll.
It was like staring into a mirror. Most people look at mirrors, just to adjust their appearance for a few minutes, and unless you're doing a fancy hairstyle or putting on a lot of makeup, you usually don't stand there for more than a few minutes obsessing over your reflection.
This was not like those times.
This was one of those getting-flashbacks-from-Wandering-Oaken's-because-I-just-found-my-identical-twin moments. She had the same big blue eyes with long black lashes, the same face shape and lip coloration, height and width, and the same dress and cape as me. The only thing that appeared different about this new Elsa was her braid, which was snowflake earring-less, and was slung over her left shoulder instead of her right. I wondered if she was left-handed. I wondered if she could write. So it really was like looking into a mirror, the same on both sides of the glass, only reflected so that, say, a birthmark in your right eye, so that your reflection would have it in the left eye.
We both stared at each-other, both shocked and surprised but held by the invisible cuffs called The Code of Dolls. She was the first to make an impression.
"Hi." the Other Elsa mouthed, a little dumbfounded, like me.
"Hi." I replied, first making sure that the humans wouldn't notice if we had a lip-synced conversation. Fortunately, they were too busy looking for the Other Elsa's shoes in MyLittleMegara's bottomless bag, which had fallen off somehow from the time I had seen them poking out of the bag downstairs.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Elsa."
The Other Elsa make a laughing face at me. "Mine, too."
I blinked at her to make up for my lack of a giggle. "What a coincidence."
"I like your snowflakes." she said.
"Oh, these?" I asked, pointing to my braid. "She gave them to me."
Other Elsa wrinkled her nose, the same nose I had. "Who is She?"
"My owner, or human." I mouthed back.
"But I thought her name was..."
Other Elsa didn't get the chance to finish her sentence. The girls had found her shoes with a proclaimed "Aha!" and forced them on her feet, making us stop all forms of socializing from then on. They didn't actually do anything with us, they just kind of set us on the bed next to each-other. It was a little weird, and I could tell that Other Elsa thought so, too. As soon as they had us in the spots they wanted us to be, the humans left the room, without so much as a thought as to what would happen to us while we were gone.
"Well," Other Elsa said, smoothing out her dress skirt. "That was odd."
I laughed, for real this time. "You can say that again."
"I feel kind of bad, though. We didn't exactly get to have a proper introduction."
"Well, my name's Elsa," I said. "But you probably already know that. This is where I live." I spread my arms out to all parts of the Room She Lives In, as if I owned to place. I guess I kind of did for now.
"Really? Do you mind if I maybe take a look around while the humans are still gone?" Other Elsa asked shyly.
I nodded. I remembered when I was first found, placed on She's bed still in my box and twisty ties, when Loki had to free me. I was interested in She's room, too.
Other Elsa jumped off the bed without much thought and began to walk around. "I hope you don't mind me doing this. But seriously. She has a pretty cool place," She tilted her head up towards the ceiling. "Ooh, I love the snowflake ceiling. Did She make these?"
"Yep," I replied with a smile. "That's my favorite part, too."
We had only met each-other a few minutes ago, but I could already tell that even though me and the Other Elsa had strikingly similar appearances, we had extremely different personalities. This Elsa was more extroverted and adventurous, and while I do enjoy exploring, I usually prefer to do it alone. I took this as a perfect opportunity to ask this Other Elsa a few questions.
I jogged forward, trying to catch up with her quick pace and she snooped around She's room.
"So!" I began.
Other Elsa looked over at me. "Yes?"
"I'm just going to come right out and say it. What are your views on Christmas?"
Other Elsa looked confused. "Christmas?"
"Yeah... Christmas. Surely you must know what that is."
"Oh, yeah, I do," said Other Elsa, continuing to stroll around She's room. "I just never thought of it much."
"Why not?" I asked, somewhat taken aback.
Elsa stopped walked and turned around to face me right in the eye, with the same eyes I had. "Of course it's an important holiday, I'm not doubting that. But I feel like it's such an easy holiday to figure out, so it doesn't require much thinking about it."
"Really?" I was anxious to learn what the Other Elsa had to say. If she already had the idea of Christmas all figured out already, then this might make my quest to find the meaning of Christmas a whole lot easier.
"Sure. Christmas is all about love. Love for family, love for friends, love for Jesus, and then sharing that love."
That seemed like a pretty good answer to me. I felt like we were getting closer and closer to the true meaning of Christmas. Well, we had to be now, that the 12 days of Christmas were coming to a close. But there was one tiny problem.
"Well, that's all fine and well, but... who is this Jesus?"
But Other Elsa didn't have time to answer my question, because that's when we heard the human's footsteps coming up the stairs, and we had to scramble up onto the bed and sit down. But there was one tiny detail I forgot to take note of. Before, I was sitting on the right side, and the Other Elsa on the left, but now we had changed our positions. I had hoped that this wouldn't have much of an effect on the future, but as it turns out, it actually did.
MyLittleMegara was done visiting She, (I found out that they had just come over for homework help) and now they were ready to gather up their belongings and take their Elsa dolls home. But that's when MyLittleMegara reached for me, and She placed Other Elsa on her dresser, where I stay. Or, stayed. It was no longer my home anymore.
And my worst hopes were confirmed when MyLittleMegara slug her bag over her shoulder and carried me all the way downstairs to the store, with only a nervous glance from the Other Elsa on my dresser to wish me luck.
Bad Idea #6: Getting dollnapped.
Yes, it is now a thing. You may not think so, but you've probably never felt the fear rushing through you as your owner willingly gave you away to someone else. Well, maybe not so much willingly as oblivious. It was an easy mistake to me when I looked exactly the same as the other Elsa doll.
I turned my head ever so slightly, just so I could be reassured by the last thing I saw in She's house, probably forever. But all of my friends had disappeared, and I felt my heart sink. They wouldn't be able to tell which Elsa doll was me or the other one now. But as soon as I was about to give up, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
"Olaf! Psst!" I hissed. It had to be him. Only he would hide behind a dresser that way.
He poked his head out to see me a little more. There was fear in his eyes.
I wasn't sure what else to do. Should I tell him to "run and get help?" Or "don't worry about this, I'll figure out a way to get back?" But both of them seemed like a bad idea, and considering the title of this post, I didn't think we needed any more of those.
Instead I only gave him a nod, and I think that was enough. It said everything it needed to. Eventually, with our without them finding out that the other Elsa doll wasn't me, or breaking the Code of Dolls in the process, I had to find a way out. Dolls never die, and forever is certainly a long time to wait for home.
"You have everything?" She asked, looking around her to make sure everything of MyLittleMegara's had been picked up.
"Yep, I think so. Besides, you're the one that always leaves your stuff at my house."
"No!" I wanted to yell. I wanted to thrash out and jump out of her hands and run back up the stairs to get the Other Elsa. "No, not me! Take her, she's yours, not me!" Not that I was throwing her under the bus, but we just belonged in different homes. I did not belong in hers, and she did not belong in mine.
But I didn't have much of a choice. I couldn't do anything to alert the humans of the mistake they were making. MyLittleMegara's hands, though not clamped down too tight, were wrapped fully around me, including my arms, which would have been useful had I the chance to use them. I couldn't scream out to them, because that would be breaking The Code of Dolls. So I stayed where I was, unblinking, unmoving, unspeaking, and watched as MyLittleMegara stepped out of She's house as the big green front door closed with a heartbreaking thump behind us.
Bad Idea #7: Not getting help from the other dolls.
I'll admit, there was a bright side to this whole "getting dollnapped" thing. For one thing, I was getting dollnapped by MyLittleMegara. At least I knew her, even if it was only through the Blogger website. Not that she knew me. Of course, she probably read all of my stories, but she probably just assumed that She wrote all of my blog posts. And even though MyLittleMegara was probably a great human to break the news to, you could never tell. Besides, the Code of Dolls was already so fragile. I had already experimented in that a few times. Once more time, and who knows what could happen?
So I kept my identity under wraps. I was lost, and afraid, and in a place I didn't know. In the back of my mind, I remembered from reading MyLittleMegara's blogs that she had a lot of dolls upstairs, ones that would probably be happy to help me find a few to get home, but for some reason, but conscious mind was much too occupied with other things to think of doing that.
When I arrived in MyLittleMegara's house after a sickening car ride, I was placed on the stairs to be taken to her room later. I was checked out by their dog, you know, sniff the hair and arms, maybe a face lick, but I was so used to She's dogs at home doing the same that I wasn't afraid. In fact, the presence of the dog made me feel more comfortable in such a new and alien-like place. I recalled that dogs were good for relieving stress.
Well, that dog had certainly helped. But there was nowhere for me to go. A human seemed to occupy one part of the house or another. All I could do was remain in one spot, in one pose, with one thought. I had to get home. One way or another, I knew I had to get there, and somehow, if I could, without breaking the Code of Dolls. So I guess it wasn't really my fault that I didn't try to get help from the other dolls upstairs, because I was chained to one place, waiting for a human to decide my fate for me. Nothing really out of the ordinary, of course.
Bad Idea #8: Using the laptop in MyLittleMegara's house.
There finally came a time when I was given the chance to move, and I took it. I probably spent an hour on those stairs, forming the disorganized thoughts in my mind into one solid mass of ideas. And that solid mass of ideas became a thing like a plan. It was a way to get home, and I was just waiting for my chance. MyLittleMegara was a blogger, obviously, so, obviously again, she would have had to have a laptop somewhere in the house. And judging by the typing and clicking noises I had been hearing for the time I was sitting on the stairs, a laptop was in the living room, not far from the staircase, but still a long and nerve-inducing walk of terror.
My chance came when the human, who I had guessed to be MyLittleMegara with her laptop, but was really someone else, instead with a keyboardless laptop, left the room. (What do you call those? With just the screen? I've never seen one of those before.) They retreated from the living room and ran up the stairs to stop an urgent beeping noise that had come from the washing machine, signaling that the cleaning of the clothes were finished.
I muttered a thanks to whoever would listen and dashed to the living room where I knew the laptop lay, paranoid at any small squeak in the floor or echo of my own footstep. And to my relief and surprise, there it was, MyLittleMegara's laptop. Unlocked, open, ready for me to put my plan into action. If I would have given it a second thought, I might have felt a little guilty to use someone else's property, especially a human's, but I had to get out of here.
My hands, trained from so much blogging, already knew where all the keys were. I pulled the laptop up to my legs and laid my hands on the "F" and "J" keys, then went to gmail. I noticed so many open tabs already, something that I didn't take so much as a second glance at, but I knew would bother the heck out of She. She wasn't here, but if I could get my botched-up plan to work, She just might be.
Biting my lip out of extreme fear and little hope, I composed a message to She. There was a one in a million chance that the other Elsa doll had She's laptop to use, but also that she was in the same spot I was, resulting through the humans' emails to try and contact each-other. But we were both the same doll, so our minds couldn't be too different. It went like this:
Bad Idea #9: Sending the email.
Of course, it was a bad idea to write the message to begin with. But I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't just stay here and pretend to be MyLittleMegara's Elsa doll forever. I guess I could, but did I really want to? Anyway, I had already spent the time coming up with this idea, as well as putting it into action, so there was really no point in quitting now. Besides, I wasn't sure how else to do this. I had no choice but to click "send" and pray that it was Elsa that would reply and not She.
Sucking in more breath I didn't know I needed, I pushed the send button with the little white arrow. There was no going back now. I had to wait, to see if it would work or if I was doomed to break the code of dolls.
Bad Idea #10: Almost breaking the Code of Dolls (Again?)
Now that the Other Elsa had (crossing my fingers) received the message, I left the laptop as I had found it and ran back to the stairs, just in time. The other human was coming down the stairs again from loading and unloading the clothes dryer. Sometimes it was great being a doll, never actually having to wash your clothes since you're never really changed out of them.
"I almost stepped on your Elsa doll," said the human, yelling out to no one in particular. "Are you going to move her, or am I going to move her for you?"
My heart, had I had a physical one, would be thumping wildly in my chest. Already my mind was spinning with a hundred thousand things. Would the Other Elsa get my message? Would she reply? Would she carry out a plan to get She to notice her? What if She reads the email instead of her? What will become of me at this house that I barely know? What am I going to do to get MyLittleMegara to notice me for who I am? But above all, it wasn't my thoughts, but my emotions, that ruled my mind. I missed She terribly. I was afraid in this new place but somehow comforted that at least I knew someone here, even if they were a human. I was angry at myself and She, for not doing anything when the chance was given to us. I just didn't know what to do anymore. But maybe... maybe there was something that I could do.
My hand sneaked over to my waist when the human wasn't looking, where I carefully flipped on my switch. Now all I had to do was wait for a little bit of outside motion, and then I could sing and glow and get the attention of someone in the house. I didn't care who it was anymore. Nobody would suspect a doll of turning on their own switch.
"Yeah, I'll get her in a minute." A voice called back, MyLittleMegara's.
"Maybe you can put her by the back window for a while," the other human suggested. "It's snowing a little bit now. Maybe she'd like to see that."
Yes, yes! I pleaded internally. I would love to see snow, because then that would mean someone would have to see me!
Thankfully, she agreed. "Sure, that would be cute."
I watched as MyLittleMegara came down the stairs, ready for anything. As soon as her hand passed by my eyes to pick me up, I let out my theme song in a bellow louder than anyone, including me, expected. I think MyLittleMegara almost dropped me in surprise.
When I finished my song, the other human laughed. "I think someone's excited to see the snow."
"Yeah, I guess so... wait a minute..." MyLittleMegara began. "Something's off."
"What is it?"
"I don't think this is my doll."
"How can you tell?"
"Mine doesn't have snowflakes in the braid," she pointed it my hair. "She put some old snowflake earrings in her Elsa's braid. Mine doesn't have that."
The other human sighed. "Well, call her up, then. See when we can return the doll."
"Okay, I'll do that right now." MyLittleMegara grabbed me and set me in a lovely spot by the back window, just as she had promised, and once I was standing securely, she ran to the receiver where the home phone lay.
I looked out the window at the falling snow. The windows in this house were bigger than the ones in the Room She Lived In, so you could see more of the landscape at a time. The lights from the tree were white, instead of the blue ones at She's house, and they were reflecting on the misty glass like a thousand halos. My gaze was sort of unfocused, with a dreamy smile on my lips, while I twisted the silver snowflake earrings in my braid. It wasn't my only defining feature, but when there's someone out there that looks exactly like you, something like this is certainly helpful to have.
I had to resist a girly squeal when the human picked up the house phone and dialed a number. Beep. Beep-beep. Beep Beep. Beep Beep. There was a dull ringing noise, and then a click and She's voice was heard on the other end of the line.
"Hello?"
"Um, hi... I think I may have something of yours." said MyLittleMegara, pushing some hair behind her ear.
"It's very funny you should say so," She replied with a short laugh. "Because I was just about to say the same thing."
Good Idea #1: Telling my story (yes, I know I cheated and put 11 and not 10, but it was 10 Bad Ideas, not 10 Bad Ideas and 1 that was good.)
I peered out She's window to the yard below. My hands were folded in front of me, and my legs had gone numb from standing unmoving for so long. But I was relaxed, completely at ease for the first time in 24 hours. After the phone call, the both of them had agreed to exchange the Elsa dolls as soon as possible, and instead of waiting until tomorrow at the Ugly Sweater and Cookie Party, and soon as possible meant that the human would drop me off at She's house when they went out to buy groceries a few minutes afterwards. I was brought home in the back of the car, and delivered back to She at her front door with a few awkward, yet thankful, "sorrys" exchanged before parting ways again. Other Elsa and I exchanged a happy wink before leaving.
It was good to be home again. At last, everything had She's aura around it. The smell of her tea, black leaves with orange peel and cloves, wafting up from downstairs and through the crack under the door. The sound of her favorite piano music, River Flows in You, so it was called, gently playing on the speakers in her room. The stray bobby pins and pieces of jewelry that had themselves scattered on each dresser top. I had missed all of these things with an aching passion, just the wanting to be home again, but now that I all had it, I still felt the weight of sadness on my heart. So what was wrong? I sighed, sad that I was so sad, and stared at the view outside.
Each house in She's neighborhood had a pleasantly thick layer of snow on their roofs, looking like the small ceramic houses in the town downstairs. Each house had a warm yellow glow coming from each window, reflecting off the snowy grass. Thin white smoke floating out of the smokestacks, but it was eventually lost to the sky, which was the same color as the smoke, still with big clumps of snow piling down. The roads where lonely, with frozen water and black tracks from previous cars of other humans, coming home from a long day at work or school. Daylight Saving's time had ended a while ago, but despite the early sunset, there were no stars in these skies. Just gray. The whole world looked like someone had hit the "pause" button on the remote, had there been any.
Except for She's yard. She and another, somewhat smaller human were bundled up in hats and coats and boots, wrecking havoc throughout the yard. She was kneeling in the snow, packing the damp snow up with her gloves and throwing a snowball out into a random spot in the yard, then watching both of the dogs try to chase after it, but failing to find the snowball each time. She would laugh and form more snowballs to throw and trick the dogs. The other human was busy pushing a messy-looking ball of snow and dead leaves across the yard, but it was getting too big and heavy. She seemed to notice that the other human was having a rough time, so She threw her last snowball for the dogs to find and took over the job of pushing the snow-boulder. Meanwhile, the smaller human bent down to pick up winter's greatest weapon and hurled it at She's shoulder. It split in two on impact, and with that, She sprang from pushing the snow-boulder and threw a fistful of snow at the other human's leg, which didn't have much of an effect, but in no time at all a full-blown snowball fight had begun, with both the dogs and the snow-boulder left behind until they were done. I smiled sadly to myself and wondered if the two were sisters, but that eventually dropped into a frown when I realized that I was an Elsa without an Anna.
Behind them, the only other movement I saw came from the neighbor's house, where an older woman with a scarf wrapped around her head was being helped out of an old purple car. Before the old woman was even able to stand up completely, she was embraced with a younger, brunette woman and two small children, probably the old woman's daughter and her grandchildren. The man that had helped her out of the car was grinning broadly as he held the old woman's purse and luggage. Reading the taller child's lips, I heard him say, "Nana." I wondered if I was not the only one coming back home for the holidays.
"Psst, hey, Elsa," said a whispery voice, breaking me out of my daze. "We're conversing in the Guest Room if you want to join. Remember? It was that one place where we had the Secret Santa gift exchange. All the humans are outside so we have some time before it gets too dark and they have to come in."
I looked over my shoulder to see Olaf staring back up at me from the floor.
"Oh, no thanks, Olaf." I replied. If I was going to sulk, I had better not dampen anyone else's mood.
"It'll make you feel better."
"But I don't feel bad." I lied.
"Come on, please? We all really missed you. Even Magneto was kind of afraid of what would happen to you over there. We're in the Guest Room wondering where you are, so they sent me to check on you. There's Dorothy and Bell, and Napoleon and Benny, and Loki and Magneto. Everyone's over there waiting for you."
"That's nice," I said with closed-lipped smile. "But I wasn't in any danger over there. MyLittleMegara is very nice and so is her house."
"Who?"
"One of my blogger buddies." I explained.
"Are you going to write about what happened to you in your blog?"
"You bet." I replied.
"But..." Olaf looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. "You haven't even told us your story yet."
I wheeled my head around. "What? I haven't?"
"Um, well, no," Olaf explained sheepishly. "We kind of know what was going on by what She was saying on the phone, but that's only half of the story. She's half. We didn't get to hear yours."
"Well then," I said, lifting my skirts and jumping off the windowsill. "My blog can wait. Friends are more important right now." Who knew? Maybe a good talk would help my mood, too.
Olaf smiled and held out his arm. "Shall I escort you?"
I laughed, kind of a gross one with a snort. "You're learning way too much from Napoleon."
Olaf shrugged. "I am helping him with his amnesia."
"And good of you to do so," I said, ruffling his stick-hair. "Now let's go to the Guest Room."
On the way there, I was thinking about lots of things. How the dolls would react when they saw me, and how She would treat me after this incident, but mostly what the lesson would be at the end of the blog post when I finally started writing. I decided on the most obvious answer, Christmas is about learning from your mistakes. You can mess up horribly on Christmas, even ten times like me. You can break a special ornament or knock down the tree or get someone an awful present, but no matter what you have done, you can always find forgiveness in people's hearts during the most wonderful time of the year. So that was what I did.
As it turns out, all the dolls were very happy to see me, and I had to remind myself that it had been a bad time for them to visit me immediately after being brought home since all the humans were in the house. But now I was back and still in one piece. Not that I wouldn't be, of course. I got some handshakes and a few hugs, and then they all settled down around me, eyes wide as the smiles on their faces. I couldn't help but feel the same, all the sorrow from earlier at the windowsill long gone.
I opened my mouth to speak, and the story began. "The night before I had officially gone to bed at five oh three..."
"Morning, Elsa!" Olaf called cheerily once I found the kitchen.
"Or should I say afternoon?" Napoleon asked jokingly. I was subconsciously glad that he was acting like himself again.
"Hmph." I replied, then once I gave my eyes a good rub, I realized what was going on. Each of the dolls were helping clean up something on the human's kitchen table. Paper scraps for placements, the little porcelain tea set, and bits of leftover food. I vaguely recalled Benny telling me that everyone else was downstairs having breakfast before they left the Room She Lived In. But I was still half asleep by then.
"Sorry, we kind of had breakfast without you." Loki said, looking apologetic.
"Kind of?" I murmured.
Magneto, who was just shredding the makeshift paper placemats into smaller bits, laughed.
I saw Dorothy amble up to me. "Don't worry, Elsa. You didn't miss all of breakfast." She had something for me in her basket, but I wasn't sure what they were. They looked to be sticks with food on them. She took one out for me and held it in her tiny fingerless hand.
"What are these?" I asked, taking the food stick in my own ice-blue hands.
"Breakfast kabobs," Dorothy explained. "Bell invented them."
"You're welcome!" I heard a voice call out to be, who I assumed had to be Bell's.
"She took a toothpick from the bottle in the cupboard and put some pieces of leftover food on it. These ones have strawberry and waffle chunks with some cream on top. I saved you some if you want to smell them."
"Thanks, Dorothy," I said, and gave Bell's creation a sniff. I was sure that they were as good as they looked, but they were too cold to give off much of a scent. But Dorothy looked like she had tried so hard to save me some food that I had to feel thankful. "A" for effort, right? "Mm... these are wonderful. Thanks, Bell! Thanks Dorothy!"
"You better finish that soon." said Benny from the table.
"What? Why?" I asked.
"She and the other humans left ten minutes ago. They mentioned something about picking up someone else from their house and bringing them here to this one. So we had to hurry up and make and finish breakfast before they come home." Benny said.
"When are they returning?"
"We don't really know. But better safe than sorry, right?"
"I guess so."
I didn't really help much the cleaning. Why should I? I didn't make the mess. Which was probably a childish way to think, but my brain had finally woken up and now it was buzzing with activity. The humans had gone out to retrieve another human? I wonder what that meant. But maybe Benny had just worded it in a strange way. I'm sure She was just having a friend over. Yeah. That had to be it. And now that I thought I had discovered what Benny meant, I was actually pretty excited. She sometimes went to her friends' houses, but She never once had one at her own house, at least that I remembered since I had been found in November.
And this is when my next bad idea pops into that crazy head of mine.
Bad Idea #3: Wandering off to try to see this new human.
You guys can probably tell that I'm a curious sort of girl. I'm always wandering off, getting into trouble, going on adventures. If something new is occurring, I'm always likely to go off on my own and explore what it is. And it's exactly what happened. While everyone was distracted by cleaning up the table, I slipped away and ran to the front door. I wasn't sure if the humans would bring the new person through the front door, the side door, or the back door, so I figured that here was the best place to wait. With some struggle, I managed to pull myself onto a chair and then onto the dining room table, which was in good view of the front door. I stroked my head across the wood finishing. I remembered so much about this table, and only just recently had all of these things happened. The time Loki got stuck in a goblet on Thanksgiving, the time Loki, Olaf, and I had first found the tiny painted advent tree (which I noticed had many more ornaments on it) and then we had first met Magneto in his little ceramic town soon after. I chose to sit by the advent tree, spinning it around with my hand occasionally to get the music box going. It was bright, cheerful, fast-paced song, one I recall being named, "Toyland." Not that I knew what that meant.
I didn't have long to wait. The humans came home only a minute after I had sat down. I had to lean against the advent tree to get it to stop spinning and playing the music, or else they might become a little suspicious of what was really going on.
And yes, they came in through the front door, just like I was hoping. There was She, just like I knew her, but also some other girl with her. The two of them came into the house, throwing off their shoes and laughing about something or another.
"So when's your ugly sweater Christmas cookie party again?" The new girl asked.
She rolled her eyes jokingly. "Um, tomorrow?"
The new girl laughed. "Oh, right. Well, I still need to find an ugly sweater. I might have to borrow one of my mom's."
"You don't have to wear an actual ugly Christmas sweater. I'm wearing this nasty vomit-looking one I found at Goodwill. Apparently it was made in Australia." She explained.
The new girl's eyes lit up. "A nasty vomit-looking sweater?"
"Um, yup. At least that's what I think it looks like."
"Can you show me?"
"Sure. It's upstairs, in the back of my closet, hiding. I'm pretty sure because it is ashamed of how it looks. Or maybe I am."
And just like that, they were gone, like that white-and-then-black flash you sometimes get before your eyes when you blink.
As their feet pounded up the stairs, I wondered where everyone else had gone. The house was oddly quiet now. Perhaps they were all up in the Room She Lived In, where the humans were now. I really wanted to go upstairs and follow them, and for two supposedly good reasons. One, the new girl seemed oddly familiar to me, and I wasn't sure why. And two, the girl had a bag with her, and it looked like a pale, plastic-esque leg with blue shoes of the same material poking out of the side of the girl's bag, horrifyingly similar to ones I wore. And that's when I made my next bad idea for the day.
Bad Idea #4: Following the humans to my upcoming doom.
I didn't know it yet while it was happening, but following the humans upstairs to the Room She Lived In was probably the worst decision I had made all day. But at the time I didn't know that it was. I was just trying to go upstairs and sneak into She's room without the humans hopefully seeing me. That's probably where all of the other dolls were, and besides, I wanted to find out who that girl was and if that was really another Elsa doll in her bag.
So I crept up the stairs lightly, one at a time, careful to the alert any other possible humans in the house, (though I was pretty sure the rest of them were outside shoveling snow) and once I made it upstairs to She's room, I tucked myself behind a corner and eavesdropped on what She and the other girl were saying through the crack in the open door.
Both of them were sitting on She's bed under the ceiling o' snowflakes, going through the other girls bag, looking for something, but unfortunately it wasn't the suspicious-looking foot. They weren't saying much of interest to me quite yet, but I had only just arrived to the spot I needed to be. They were laughing and talking about the funny things that had happened in English class on the previous day. As boring as it was to me, I swore to myself that I would wait until they brought up whatever was in the other girl's bag.
And speaking of the other girl, I felt like I should have known her from somewhere. Maybe not her voice or her face, exactly, but the way that she spoke. Energetically. Not loudly, or softly, but somewhere just in-between, a tone that was loud enough to be heard and someone that you wanted to hear because at any moment something funny or interesting could pop out of her mouth. After thoroughly racking my brain, I recognized where I knew her from. Many times over and over I told myself that such a thing was impossible, but maybe it wasn't anymore. The girl was MyLittleMegara from one of the blogs I had followed from mine. And now she was in the house. I stumbled from the corner and into the pathway of light, just as She got up from the bed to close the door.
Bad Idea #5: Posing as the other doll.
"What do you have there?" MyLittleMegara asked, craning her neck to see what She had stopped for my her doorway.
"It's my Elsa doll," She explained, picking me up and bringing me into the room. "Funny, I don't remember leaving her out here."
"Maybe she got up and walked over here by herself." MyLittleMegara said with a laugh. My chest pounded with fear, even though I knew she was only joking.
"Yeah, right." She said, rolling her eyes. She bent my legs into a sitting position and set me down on the bed, in front of the two girls, a freak doll on display with both of them to see.
"She's pretty." said MyLittleMegara, and I tried not to let a thankful blush creep into my cheeks.
She rolled her eyes again. "You have the exact same one!"
"They're both pretty!" MyLittleMegara insisted, and began to reach for something in her bag. I stopped, wanting to lean forward to see better, but I couldn't. This was the moment of truth. And, it was just my luck, she grabbed the foot and gently pulled out the doll.
It was like staring into a mirror. Most people look at mirrors, just to adjust their appearance for a few minutes, and unless you're doing a fancy hairstyle or putting on a lot of makeup, you usually don't stand there for more than a few minutes obsessing over your reflection.
This was not like those times.
This was one of those getting-flashbacks-from-Wandering-Oaken's-because-I-just-found-my-identical-twin moments. She had the same big blue eyes with long black lashes, the same face shape and lip coloration, height and width, and the same dress and cape as me. The only thing that appeared different about this new Elsa was her braid, which was snowflake earring-less, and was slung over her left shoulder instead of her right. I wondered if she was left-handed. I wondered if she could write. So it really was like looking into a mirror, the same on both sides of the glass, only reflected so that, say, a birthmark in your right eye, so that your reflection would have it in the left eye.
We both stared at each-other, both shocked and surprised but held by the invisible cuffs called The Code of Dolls. She was the first to make an impression.
"Hi." the Other Elsa mouthed, a little dumbfounded, like me.
"Hi." I replied, first making sure that the humans wouldn't notice if we had a lip-synced conversation. Fortunately, they were too busy looking for the Other Elsa's shoes in MyLittleMegara's bottomless bag, which had fallen off somehow from the time I had seen them poking out of the bag downstairs.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Elsa."
The Other Elsa make a laughing face at me. "Mine, too."
I blinked at her to make up for my lack of a giggle. "What a coincidence."
"I like your snowflakes." she said.
"Oh, these?" I asked, pointing to my braid. "She gave them to me."
Other Elsa wrinkled her nose, the same nose I had. "Who is She?"
"My owner, or human." I mouthed back.
"But I thought her name was..."
Other Elsa didn't get the chance to finish her sentence. The girls had found her shoes with a proclaimed "Aha!" and forced them on her feet, making us stop all forms of socializing from then on. They didn't actually do anything with us, they just kind of set us on the bed next to each-other. It was a little weird, and I could tell that Other Elsa thought so, too. As soon as they had us in the spots they wanted us to be, the humans left the room, without so much as a thought as to what would happen to us while we were gone.
"Well," Other Elsa said, smoothing out her dress skirt. "That was odd."
I laughed, for real this time. "You can say that again."
"I feel kind of bad, though. We didn't exactly get to have a proper introduction."
"Well, my name's Elsa," I said. "But you probably already know that. This is where I live." I spread my arms out to all parts of the Room She Lives In, as if I owned to place. I guess I kind of did for now.
"Really? Do you mind if I maybe take a look around while the humans are still gone?" Other Elsa asked shyly.
I nodded. I remembered when I was first found, placed on She's bed still in my box and twisty ties, when Loki had to free me. I was interested in She's room, too.
Other Elsa jumped off the bed without much thought and began to walk around. "I hope you don't mind me doing this. But seriously. She has a pretty cool place," She tilted her head up towards the ceiling. "Ooh, I love the snowflake ceiling. Did She make these?"
"Yep," I replied with a smile. "That's my favorite part, too."
We had only met each-other a few minutes ago, but I could already tell that even though me and the Other Elsa had strikingly similar appearances, we had extremely different personalities. This Elsa was more extroverted and adventurous, and while I do enjoy exploring, I usually prefer to do it alone. I took this as a perfect opportunity to ask this Other Elsa a few questions.
I jogged forward, trying to catch up with her quick pace and she snooped around She's room.
"So!" I began.
Other Elsa looked over at me. "Yes?"
"I'm just going to come right out and say it. What are your views on Christmas?"
Other Elsa looked confused. "Christmas?"
"Yeah... Christmas. Surely you must know what that is."
"Oh, yeah, I do," said Other Elsa, continuing to stroll around She's room. "I just never thought of it much."
"Why not?" I asked, somewhat taken aback.
Elsa stopped walked and turned around to face me right in the eye, with the same eyes I had. "Of course it's an important holiday, I'm not doubting that. But I feel like it's such an easy holiday to figure out, so it doesn't require much thinking about it."
"Really?" I was anxious to learn what the Other Elsa had to say. If she already had the idea of Christmas all figured out already, then this might make my quest to find the meaning of Christmas a whole lot easier.
"Sure. Christmas is all about love. Love for family, love for friends, love for Jesus, and then sharing that love."
That seemed like a pretty good answer to me. I felt like we were getting closer and closer to the true meaning of Christmas. Well, we had to be now, that the 12 days of Christmas were coming to a close. But there was one tiny problem.
"Well, that's all fine and well, but... who is this Jesus?"
But Other Elsa didn't have time to answer my question, because that's when we heard the human's footsteps coming up the stairs, and we had to scramble up onto the bed and sit down. But there was one tiny detail I forgot to take note of. Before, I was sitting on the right side, and the Other Elsa on the left, but now we had changed our positions. I had hoped that this wouldn't have much of an effect on the future, but as it turns out, it actually did.
MyLittleMegara was done visiting She, (I found out that they had just come over for homework help) and now they were ready to gather up their belongings and take their Elsa dolls home. But that's when MyLittleMegara reached for me, and She placed Other Elsa on her dresser, where I stay. Or, stayed. It was no longer my home anymore.
And my worst hopes were confirmed when MyLittleMegara slug her bag over her shoulder and carried me all the way downstairs to the store, with only a nervous glance from the Other Elsa on my dresser to wish me luck.
Bad Idea #6: Getting dollnapped.
Yes, it is now a thing. You may not think so, but you've probably never felt the fear rushing through you as your owner willingly gave you away to someone else. Well, maybe not so much willingly as oblivious. It was an easy mistake to me when I looked exactly the same as the other Elsa doll.
I turned my head ever so slightly, just so I could be reassured by the last thing I saw in She's house, probably forever. But all of my friends had disappeared, and I felt my heart sink. They wouldn't be able to tell which Elsa doll was me or the other one now. But as soon as I was about to give up, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
"Olaf! Psst!" I hissed. It had to be him. Only he would hide behind a dresser that way.
He poked his head out to see me a little more. There was fear in his eyes.
I wasn't sure what else to do. Should I tell him to "run and get help?" Or "don't worry about this, I'll figure out a way to get back?" But both of them seemed like a bad idea, and considering the title of this post, I didn't think we needed any more of those.
Instead I only gave him a nod, and I think that was enough. It said everything it needed to. Eventually, with our without them finding out that the other Elsa doll wasn't me, or breaking the Code of Dolls in the process, I had to find a way out. Dolls never die, and forever is certainly a long time to wait for home.
"You have everything?" She asked, looking around her to make sure everything of MyLittleMegara's had been picked up.
"Yep, I think so. Besides, you're the one that always leaves your stuff at my house."
"No!" I wanted to yell. I wanted to thrash out and jump out of her hands and run back up the stairs to get the Other Elsa. "No, not me! Take her, she's yours, not me!" Not that I was throwing her under the bus, but we just belonged in different homes. I did not belong in hers, and she did not belong in mine.
But I didn't have much of a choice. I couldn't do anything to alert the humans of the mistake they were making. MyLittleMegara's hands, though not clamped down too tight, were wrapped fully around me, including my arms, which would have been useful had I the chance to use them. I couldn't scream out to them, because that would be breaking The Code of Dolls. So I stayed where I was, unblinking, unmoving, unspeaking, and watched as MyLittleMegara stepped out of She's house as the big green front door closed with a heartbreaking thump behind us.
Bad Idea #7: Not getting help from the other dolls.
I'll admit, there was a bright side to this whole "getting dollnapped" thing. For one thing, I was getting dollnapped by MyLittleMegara. At least I knew her, even if it was only through the Blogger website. Not that she knew me. Of course, she probably read all of my stories, but she probably just assumed that She wrote all of my blog posts. And even though MyLittleMegara was probably a great human to break the news to, you could never tell. Besides, the Code of Dolls was already so fragile. I had already experimented in that a few times. Once more time, and who knows what could happen?
So I kept my identity under wraps. I was lost, and afraid, and in a place I didn't know. In the back of my mind, I remembered from reading MyLittleMegara's blogs that she had a lot of dolls upstairs, ones that would probably be happy to help me find a few to get home, but for some reason, but conscious mind was much too occupied with other things to think of doing that.
When I arrived in MyLittleMegara's house after a sickening car ride, I was placed on the stairs to be taken to her room later. I was checked out by their dog, you know, sniff the hair and arms, maybe a face lick, but I was so used to She's dogs at home doing the same that I wasn't afraid. In fact, the presence of the dog made me feel more comfortable in such a new and alien-like place. I recalled that dogs were good for relieving stress.
Well, that dog had certainly helped. But there was nowhere for me to go. A human seemed to occupy one part of the house or another. All I could do was remain in one spot, in one pose, with one thought. I had to get home. One way or another, I knew I had to get there, and somehow, if I could, without breaking the Code of Dolls. So I guess it wasn't really my fault that I didn't try to get help from the other dolls upstairs, because I was chained to one place, waiting for a human to decide my fate for me. Nothing really out of the ordinary, of course.
Bad Idea #8: Using the laptop in MyLittleMegara's house.
There finally came a time when I was given the chance to move, and I took it. I probably spent an hour on those stairs, forming the disorganized thoughts in my mind into one solid mass of ideas. And that solid mass of ideas became a thing like a plan. It was a way to get home, and I was just waiting for my chance. MyLittleMegara was a blogger, obviously, so, obviously again, she would have had to have a laptop somewhere in the house. And judging by the typing and clicking noises I had been hearing for the time I was sitting on the stairs, a laptop was in the living room, not far from the staircase, but still a long and nerve-inducing walk of terror.
My chance came when the human, who I had guessed to be MyLittleMegara with her laptop, but was really someone else, instead with a keyboardless laptop, left the room. (What do you call those? With just the screen? I've never seen one of those before.) They retreated from the living room and ran up the stairs to stop an urgent beeping noise that had come from the washing machine, signaling that the cleaning of the clothes were finished.
I muttered a thanks to whoever would listen and dashed to the living room where I knew the laptop lay, paranoid at any small squeak in the floor or echo of my own footstep. And to my relief and surprise, there it was, MyLittleMegara's laptop. Unlocked, open, ready for me to put my plan into action. If I would have given it a second thought, I might have felt a little guilty to use someone else's property, especially a human's, but I had to get out of here.
My hands, trained from so much blogging, already knew where all the keys were. I pulled the laptop up to my legs and laid my hands on the "F" and "J" keys, then went to gmail. I noticed so many open tabs already, something that I didn't take so much as a second glance at, but I knew would bother the heck out of She. She wasn't here, but if I could get my botched-up plan to work, She just might be.
Biting my lip out of extreme fear and little hope, I composed a message to She. There was a one in a million chance that the other Elsa doll had She's laptop to use, but also that she was in the same spot I was, resulting through the humans' emails to try and contact each-other. But we were both the same doll, so our minds couldn't be too different. It went like this:
Bad Idea #9: Sending the email.
Of course, it was a bad idea to write the message to begin with. But I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't just stay here and pretend to be MyLittleMegara's Elsa doll forever. I guess I could, but did I really want to? Anyway, I had already spent the time coming up with this idea, as well as putting it into action, so there was really no point in quitting now. Besides, I wasn't sure how else to do this. I had no choice but to click "send" and pray that it was Elsa that would reply and not She.
Sucking in more breath I didn't know I needed, I pushed the send button with the little white arrow. There was no going back now. I had to wait, to see if it would work or if I was doomed to break the code of dolls.
Bad Idea #10: Almost breaking the Code of Dolls (Again?)
Now that the Other Elsa had (crossing my fingers) received the message, I left the laptop as I had found it and ran back to the stairs, just in time. The other human was coming down the stairs again from loading and unloading the clothes dryer. Sometimes it was great being a doll, never actually having to wash your clothes since you're never really changed out of them.
"I almost stepped on your Elsa doll," said the human, yelling out to no one in particular. "Are you going to move her, or am I going to move her for you?"
My heart, had I had a physical one, would be thumping wildly in my chest. Already my mind was spinning with a hundred thousand things. Would the Other Elsa get my message? Would she reply? Would she carry out a plan to get She to notice her? What if She reads the email instead of her? What will become of me at this house that I barely know? What am I going to do to get MyLittleMegara to notice me for who I am? But above all, it wasn't my thoughts, but my emotions, that ruled my mind. I missed She terribly. I was afraid in this new place but somehow comforted that at least I knew someone here, even if they were a human. I was angry at myself and She, for not doing anything when the chance was given to us. I just didn't know what to do anymore. But maybe... maybe there was something that I could do.
My hand sneaked over to my waist when the human wasn't looking, where I carefully flipped on my switch. Now all I had to do was wait for a little bit of outside motion, and then I could sing and glow and get the attention of someone in the house. I didn't care who it was anymore. Nobody would suspect a doll of turning on their own switch.
"Yeah, I'll get her in a minute." A voice called back, MyLittleMegara's.
"Maybe you can put her by the back window for a while," the other human suggested. "It's snowing a little bit now. Maybe she'd like to see that."
Yes, yes! I pleaded internally. I would love to see snow, because then that would mean someone would have to see me!
Thankfully, she agreed. "Sure, that would be cute."
I watched as MyLittleMegara came down the stairs, ready for anything. As soon as her hand passed by my eyes to pick me up, I let out my theme song in a bellow louder than anyone, including me, expected. I think MyLittleMegara almost dropped me in surprise.
When I finished my song, the other human laughed. "I think someone's excited to see the snow."
"Yeah, I guess so... wait a minute..." MyLittleMegara began. "Something's off."
"What is it?"
"I don't think this is my doll."
"How can you tell?"
"Mine doesn't have snowflakes in the braid," she pointed it my hair. "She put some old snowflake earrings in her Elsa's braid. Mine doesn't have that."
The other human sighed. "Well, call her up, then. See when we can return the doll."
"Okay, I'll do that right now." MyLittleMegara grabbed me and set me in a lovely spot by the back window, just as she had promised, and once I was standing securely, she ran to the receiver where the home phone lay.
I looked out the window at the falling snow. The windows in this house were bigger than the ones in the Room She Lived In, so you could see more of the landscape at a time. The lights from the tree were white, instead of the blue ones at She's house, and they were reflecting on the misty glass like a thousand halos. My gaze was sort of unfocused, with a dreamy smile on my lips, while I twisted the silver snowflake earrings in my braid. It wasn't my only defining feature, but when there's someone out there that looks exactly like you, something like this is certainly helpful to have.
I had to resist a girly squeal when the human picked up the house phone and dialed a number. Beep. Beep-beep. Beep Beep. Beep Beep. There was a dull ringing noise, and then a click and She's voice was heard on the other end of the line.
"Hello?"
"Um, hi... I think I may have something of yours." said MyLittleMegara, pushing some hair behind her ear.
"It's very funny you should say so," She replied with a short laugh. "Because I was just about to say the same thing."
I peered out She's window to the yard below. My hands were folded in front of me, and my legs had gone numb from standing unmoving for so long. But I was relaxed, completely at ease for the first time in 24 hours. After the phone call, the both of them had agreed to exchange the Elsa dolls as soon as possible, and instead of waiting until tomorrow at the Ugly Sweater and Cookie Party, and soon as possible meant that the human would drop me off at She's house when they went out to buy groceries a few minutes afterwards. I was brought home in the back of the car, and delivered back to She at her front door with a few awkward, yet thankful, "sorrys" exchanged before parting ways again. Other Elsa and I exchanged a happy wink before leaving.
It was good to be home again. At last, everything had She's aura around it. The smell of her tea, black leaves with orange peel and cloves, wafting up from downstairs and through the crack under the door. The sound of her favorite piano music, River Flows in You, so it was called, gently playing on the speakers in her room. The stray bobby pins and pieces of jewelry that had themselves scattered on each dresser top. I had missed all of these things with an aching passion, just the wanting to be home again, but now that I all had it, I still felt the weight of sadness on my heart. So what was wrong? I sighed, sad that I was so sad, and stared at the view outside.
Each house in She's neighborhood had a pleasantly thick layer of snow on their roofs, looking like the small ceramic houses in the town downstairs. Each house had a warm yellow glow coming from each window, reflecting off the snowy grass. Thin white smoke floating out of the smokestacks, but it was eventually lost to the sky, which was the same color as the smoke, still with big clumps of snow piling down. The roads where lonely, with frozen water and black tracks from previous cars of other humans, coming home from a long day at work or school. Daylight Saving's time had ended a while ago, but despite the early sunset, there were no stars in these skies. Just gray. The whole world looked like someone had hit the "pause" button on the remote, had there been any.
Except for She's yard. She and another, somewhat smaller human were bundled up in hats and coats and boots, wrecking havoc throughout the yard. She was kneeling in the snow, packing the damp snow up with her gloves and throwing a snowball out into a random spot in the yard, then watching both of the dogs try to chase after it, but failing to find the snowball each time. She would laugh and form more snowballs to throw and trick the dogs. The other human was busy pushing a messy-looking ball of snow and dead leaves across the yard, but it was getting too big and heavy. She seemed to notice that the other human was having a rough time, so She threw her last snowball for the dogs to find and took over the job of pushing the snow-boulder. Meanwhile, the smaller human bent down to pick up winter's greatest weapon and hurled it at She's shoulder. It split in two on impact, and with that, She sprang from pushing the snow-boulder and threw a fistful of snow at the other human's leg, which didn't have much of an effect, but in no time at all a full-blown snowball fight had begun, with both the dogs and the snow-boulder left behind until they were done. I smiled sadly to myself and wondered if the two were sisters, but that eventually dropped into a frown when I realized that I was an Elsa without an Anna.
Behind them, the only other movement I saw came from the neighbor's house, where an older woman with a scarf wrapped around her head was being helped out of an old purple car. Before the old woman was even able to stand up completely, she was embraced with a younger, brunette woman and two small children, probably the old woman's daughter and her grandchildren. The man that had helped her out of the car was grinning broadly as he held the old woman's purse and luggage. Reading the taller child's lips, I heard him say, "Nana." I wondered if I was not the only one coming back home for the holidays.
"Psst, hey, Elsa," said a whispery voice, breaking me out of my daze. "We're conversing in the Guest Room if you want to join. Remember? It was that one place where we had the Secret Santa gift exchange. All the humans are outside so we have some time before it gets too dark and they have to come in."
I looked over my shoulder to see Olaf staring back up at me from the floor.
"Oh, no thanks, Olaf." I replied. If I was going to sulk, I had better not dampen anyone else's mood.
"It'll make you feel better."
"But I don't feel bad." I lied.
"Come on, please? We all really missed you. Even Magneto was kind of afraid of what would happen to you over there. We're in the Guest Room wondering where you are, so they sent me to check on you. There's Dorothy and Bell, and Napoleon and Benny, and Loki and Magneto. Everyone's over there waiting for you."
"That's nice," I said with closed-lipped smile. "But I wasn't in any danger over there. MyLittleMegara is very nice and so is her house."
"Who?"
"One of my blogger buddies." I explained.
"Are you going to write about what happened to you in your blog?"
"You bet." I replied.
"But..." Olaf looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. "You haven't even told us your story yet."
I wheeled my head around. "What? I haven't?"
"Um, well, no," Olaf explained sheepishly. "We kind of know what was going on by what She was saying on the phone, but that's only half of the story. She's half. We didn't get to hear yours."
"Well then," I said, lifting my skirts and jumping off the windowsill. "My blog can wait. Friends are more important right now." Who knew? Maybe a good talk would help my mood, too.
Olaf smiled and held out his arm. "Shall I escort you?"
I laughed, kind of a gross one with a snort. "You're learning way too much from Napoleon."
Olaf shrugged. "I am helping him with his amnesia."
"And good of you to do so," I said, ruffling his stick-hair. "Now let's go to the Guest Room."
On the way there, I was thinking about lots of things. How the dolls would react when they saw me, and how She would treat me after this incident, but mostly what the lesson would be at the end of the blog post when I finally started writing. I decided on the most obvious answer, Christmas is about learning from your mistakes. You can mess up horribly on Christmas, even ten times like me. You can break a special ornament or knock down the tree or get someone an awful present, but no matter what you have done, you can always find forgiveness in people's hearts during the most wonderful time of the year. So that was what I did.
As it turns out, all the dolls were very happy to see me, and I had to remind myself that it had been a bad time for them to visit me immediately after being brought home since all the humans were in the house. But now I was back and still in one piece. Not that I wouldn't be, of course. I got some handshakes and a few hugs, and then they all settled down around me, eyes wide as the smiles on their faces. I couldn't help but feel the same, all the sorrow from earlier at the windowsill long gone.
I opened my mouth to speak, and the story began. "The night before I had officially gone to bed at five oh three..."
Learning from my mistakes,
Queen Elsa
*groans* I'M SOOOOORRRRYYYYYYY
ReplyDeleteHaha, don't worry about it. It was actually kind of a fun time now that I look back at it. There was really no doubt that you knew what was going on, anyways. Besides, it was the perfect circumstance to fit into my 12 days of Christmas.
DeleteYes, Molly let me in on the code of dolls when I was pretty young. I'm glad you had fun on your sort of scary adventure!
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