We were very fortunate at the Salvation Army; everyone was welcoming and helped us find a place in the very cramped storage boxes.
The dolls befriended some other teenage dolls and they disappeared talking about past experiences and previous owners. I went for a wander round and past the mass of clothing rails, shelving units and bookcases was a very pretty trestle table where 3 China dolls stood upon it, it was easily the best location in the shop at they were high up out of reach and could see out of the windows.
They all seemed friendly enough and introduced themselves
Lucy – was dressed as little red riding hood, complete with a basket of fruit. She had long black ringleted hair and huge brown eyes.
Mollie – the smallest of the three dolls, wears a pretty blue dress and hat, has light brown hair and a smiley face.
Amber – the tallest of the group and easily the most attractive with her big blue eyes and long blonde crimped hair.
I’d been talking to the dolls for around 20 minutes when a grouchy voice shouted
“They don’t actually care son.”
In shock I turned to see an old rabbit teddy with an ear missing. The dolls began to tut and told me not to listen to Doug as he could be rather surly. I climbed down from the dolls table and made my way over to Doug.
“So you’re new here ‘eh?” Said Doug in his deep gruff voice.
He made me feel a bit uneasy, with a voice as rough and deep as his you couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or not.
“Yeah I was donated, I feel a bit lost actually” Came my rather feeble reply. I was hoping that he’d take pity on me. He did.
“Its not bad here, you know?” he said, I think he must have sensed that I felt rather down after losing my home. “Everyone gets on well, occasionally the odd spat breaks out but then you cant have nice all the time can you?”
From that I got the feeling that most of the spats in some way involved him but I didn’t say anything.
“So how you feeling?” Doug continued.
“It just seems weird, you know?” I began, more thinking out loud than talking “ This morning I was at home, where I’ve always been, I had no idea that this might happen.”
Doug nodded.
“Now I’m here, I just feel more bewildered than anything, its like a strange dream.”
Doug laughed “well you just need to give yerself a few days, y’all soon settle in. Least there’s them others with you.”
I stood for some time chatting to Doug, he told me a bit about his past, how he lost his ear etc. He told me how happy he was here and that it was a nice place. I looked around me and I could see he was right. Everybody was chatting, introducing themselves, making friends. Doug said having new toys is a regular occurrence and pretty soon we’ll be part of the furniture as it were, he said the new ones are never the newest for long.
I felt much more comfortable and settled after speaking to Doug, I realised that I could be here for some time and that I just needed to make the best of it before I got re-homed again.
(Little did I know how long I’d be here for!)
