The Doll That Grew

Thirteen years after the illustrated children's book was published, I think the writing was not as good as it could be. The illustrations didn't help.

I hope it still makes for an enjoyable read though.

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The Doll That Grew
By Damaria Senne
First Published by Macmillan Boleswa, 1993


‘Pule, can I borrow your old car?’ Neo Moloi asked her brother Pule.
‘No,’ Pule said. ‘I’ve just finished fixing it. What if you broke it?’
‘I won’t break it, I promise. Everyone is going to enter the Saturday afternoon race. I’m the only one in our street who can’t enter because I don’t have a car.
‘Weeell-‘
‘I’ll take care of it, I promise. Lend it to me, please, please, please.’
‘Oh do stop begging,’ Pule said laughing. ‘I’ll lend you the car, but you must take good care of it.’
‘I will, I promise,’ Neo said.
Six boys and three girls took part in the car race.
‘On your marks, get set, ready, go!’ the referee shouted. When she said go, all the kids started running and pushing their cars. The trick was to drive the wire car on the dusty, bumpy streets as fast as you can to reach the end of the street first. A racer needed two things to stand a chance of winning– a strong car with wheels that will not jam or break off when they bump against rocks on the street and a driver who can run very fast. Neo was a very fast runner, but could she outrun the boys and drive the car well?
Unfortunately, Neo crashed the car during the race. Pule was very angry.
‘See what you’ve done!’ he shouted at her.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose!’ Neo shouted back. ‘Why are you being so mean to me?’
‘You should have been more careful. You said that you would take care of the car when you borrowed it. Now look at it! ’
Pule bent and picked up his smashed car, handling it with care.
‘Stupid girl!’ he mumbled as he walked away.
‘I am not stupid!’ Neo tried to shout at him. But her voice was low and choked because of the tears. ‘You’re the one who is stupid, acting as if a bunch of mangled wires is a car.’
Mrs Moloi was in the kitchen preparing lunch when the argument started.
‘Why are you and Neo shouting calling each other stupid?’ she asked Pule as she stood at the kitchen door.
‘Look at this,’ Pule said, waving the shapeless mass of wires. ‘Look at what she has done to my car. And she’s not even sorry. She called me stupid when I complained.’
‘Neo?’ Mrs Moloi asked her crying daughter for her version of events.
‘I… I didn’t do it on p-purpose,’ she sobbed. ‘ I was just playing with it, and somehow the wheel went funny and I crashed it. ‘Now he’s being mean to me.’
‘She called me stupid.’
‘Pule’ Mrs Moloi said in a firm voice. They knew that voice: it meant that Mother was getting impatient and they should all stop and listen to her.
Mrs Moloi told Pule to try to fix the car.
‘If you can’t fix it, ask your father to help you when he comes home from work. I’m sure he can do something with it.’
When Pule was gone, Mrs Moloi sent Neo to her to bedroom to collect pieces of cloth, which was left over when she was making Pule a new school shirt. She had been meaning to use the material to make a doll for Neo. Now was the time.
‘Bring me a thread and needle too,’ she said.
Happy again, Neo rushed to do as she was told.
Mrs Moloi cut out a head, a body, hands and feet from the cloth. Then she joined the back and front pieces together, leaving a small opening at the back. There was not enough cloth to stuff the doll properly, so Mrs Moloi decided to use bean seeds.
‘I suppose we could spare some,’ Mrs Moloi said after giving the matter some thought. ‘Go and get them, will you dear?’
Neo was very excited. Humming softly to herself, she ran to the shed. There she found Pule sitting on a bench, fixing his car.
‘I’m very sorry about your car,’ Neo said.
‘That’s all right. It was not as bad as I thought – I will be able to repair it.
‘Good.’ Neo said.
She opened a large container at the corner of the shed and peered inside.
‘No, not this one,’ she mumbled to herself
‘What are you looking for?’ Pule asked curiously.
‘Looking for beans. Mama is making me a doll.’
Neo moved to the next container.
‘With beans?’
‘We don’t have enough material to stuff the doll, so we thought the beans would work just as well. So I’m looking for the bean seeds. Ugggggh! Who decided to put old goat skin here? It smells!’
Waving her hand in front of her face, Neo moved to the next container and peered inside.
‘Yes! Found it!’
Neo used plastic container and dipped it into the bean seed container, then took the beans to her mother.
After stuffing the doll with beans until there was no room for more beans, Mrs Moloi sewed up the opening at the back of the doll. Then she drew eyes, a nose and a mouth on the doll’s head.
‘You take care of that doll,’ Mrs Moloi said. Never leave it outside, because if it rains and those seeds get wet, they will start to grow.’
Weeks later, Pule decided to make another car. Neo sat on the bench, watching. Pule had nearly finished making the car when Mrs Moloi called Neo.
In her rush to answer her mother’s call, Neo did not see Pule’s truck and she stepped on it. She tried to jump to the side, but she landed on top of Pule’s new and unifinishe dcar.
‘Oh no!’ she cried.
Pule was very angry with her. She was ruining his car for the second time. He shouted at her, pushing her off the car. But her feet were stuck in the wires.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Neo said.
But Pule did not hear her.
‘I’ll get you for this,’ he threatened her.
After freeing her feet, Neo ran to the house but she was so upset that she left her doll in the shed. It was near when Neo realised that her doll was missing. The family helped Neo look for her doll, but they did not find it.
‘Maybe you forgot it in the shed,’ Pule said. But they did not find it there when they searched.
That night, the tears that soaked Neo’s pillow were as powerful as the rain that beat on their roof. Neo missed her doll very much. She missed the friend who played house with her. More importantly, missed the friend to all her stories.
Neo was helping her mother weed the yard when they found the patch of growing beans. It was in the space between their outside toilet and the fence separating their home from the next door neighbour’s.
‘Beans! Whoever planted beans here?’ Neo exclaimed where she saw them.
‘I don’t know,’ Pule said quickly.
‘I don’t think your father did,’ Mrs Moloi said. An appalling thought came to her. Pule was very angry with Neo on the day that the doll disappeared.
‘You buried the doll here, didn’t you?’ Mrs Moloi said. ‘You were so angry with her that day that you decided to bury the doll outside.
‘I was just hiding it for a while to scare her, but it rained that night,’ Pule said. ‘I knew the seeds were going to start sprouting, so I decided to hide it. I am sorry Neo.’
‘You should have told Neo about it immediately,’ Mother said in her firm voice.
‘Yes mother,’ Pule said.
‘I’ll forgive you,’ Neo said. ‘If you make me a car of my own!’
Pule agreed that it was a fair trade.