AlternativeScenarios

Opal was playing with her Polly Pockets recently. They live usually in a largish bin of mixed small items; Playmobil, unbrand plastic animals, the Polly Pockets and their remaining accessories. They were a birthday present, and the mother of the child who gave them said "I'm not crazy about them, but they're not totally horrible, the shoes are soft enough that they don't hurt if you step on them, and besides, they're only temporary; trust me, they'll have started to disappear by this evening." In point of fact, most of them lasted for about 18 months, although I think she may now have lost the dolls themselves, after taking them to school on Monday.

Anyway, I'd made a foam-core dollhouse of sorts, which she ignored for months, and suddenly became obsessed with. She'd fetched out a pile of things to play with, and this evening she went to put them away. It turns out that her choice was two Polly Pockets (fashionably dressed women), a hair dryer, a hair brush, a pink chair, a table made out of a barrel, two wine glasses and a pitcher (which she assured me was full of wine), a search-and-rescue dog, and a rodent tooth. A genuine rodent tooth, from her rodent skull.

Originally, I was seeing this as a sort of witchcraft scenario, but now I think it goes like this; one of the Polly Pockets has just returned from a hard day's work at her emergency services job, and she and her housemate are having a quiet drink while contemplating, thoughtfully, the appropriate response to the giant rodent tooth she unearthed. Clearly the monster is dead, but are there others, lurking? Is that what happened to the person they were searching for?

I'd ask Opal what she was playing, but she'd just roll her eyes and tell me I should have been there and I'd know, and why don't I make her more food for her dolls?

Read to Opal today: She read My Map Book, Paul read some of Agent Boo 2, I read some more of The Salt Sorcerer of Oz

The Running Book Count: 323 + 92 (last year 1170 + 121)