Open Writing

Mummy and Daddy are always telling me not to talk to strangers or have anything to do with them as I could be kidnapped and murdered, but the lady was so petty that I didn’t think that I was doing anything wrong.

In any case she wasn’t really a stranger. I had seen her lots of times when I walked home across the park from school with my friends. She’d be sitting on a park bench rocking a baby, or it would be asleep in a pram beside her. She always smiled and said hello.

I hadn’t seen her for some time but she was there this day, but without her baby. She stopped me and said “May I speak with you for a moment please.’’ I didn’t think there was any harm in stopping. My Mummy is also always telling me to be polite. Sometimes grown-ups’ instructions can be very confusing!

“Susan – that’s your name isn’t it? I heard your friends call you that. Susan can you help me please.” She looked very worried so I stopped beside her. Just for a minute, I told myself.

“Can you come home with me for a little while? Rosie, my baby is sick. She won’t feed and she is getting weak and ill. Perhaps if she sees another little girl she might take a little milk and get better. Please say you’ll come and help me feed her.”

The lady looked so sad, as if she was about to cry. She pleaded with me telling me that it would only take a little while. I looked around but my friends had gone on ahead.
I didn’t know what to do but she seemed a nice lady, quite safe I thought. Also, I felt sorry for her and wanted to help.

She spoke quietly, and I felt sure it would be all right to go with her. So I got into the car with Alice, that was the lady’s name, and luckily the trip didn’t take long. I would have been a bit worried otherwise.

Alice lived in a small house with a garden that had lots of bushes. Itwas nice, I liked it. I thought that it was a lovely garden for playing hide and seek. Alice told me she lived alone in the house with Rosie. The house had belonged to her parents and it was now hers, after her parents died.

When we went into her house she took me to the baby’s room. It was a lovely pink room with lots of nursery pictures on the walls. There was a bed in one corner and opposite it was a cot decorated with pink bows and frills. There was also a pink chest of drawers and a rocking chair. The flower-patterned curtains were drawn, making the room cool and shady from the afternoon sun.

Alice told me to make myself comfortable on the bed. Then she went to the cot and picked up her baby who was wrapped in a fluffy knitted shawl. She cradled the baby in her arms talking softly to it then she went and sat in the rocking chair, gently rocking her baby. She seemed to forget that I was there.

“Can I see the baby?” I asked.

Alice hugged the bundle closer to her. “No, not yet. Just stay there,” she said.

“I want to see her. Please Let me hold her.” I love babies and I often wished that
I had a little baby brother or sister of my own to play with.

Alice looked alarmed. “Don’t come near!”

I was getting a little impatient. ”How can I help if I can’t see her?” I asked.

By this time I was feeling a little anxious and uneasy. Something was not quite right.
I jumped off the bed and went to Alice to have a closer look at the baby. At first Alice told me go away and held the baby close to her chest, hiding her from me but after a while as I insisted on seeing her baby, she reluctantly laid the bundle on her lap, still cooing to it.

I moved the blanket away from the baby so that I could see it better. I stared at it puzzled, then looked up at Alice who was now crying silently.

“But this is not a baby. It’s only a doll. Just a doll!” I protested.

Alice snatch up the bundle and hugged it to her chest again.

“Don’t say that! It is not a doll. It is a baby. It’s my little Rosie!”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

I stamped my foot. “It’s not! It’s only a doll! You’ve tricked me. I want to go home. Now. Please!”

I ran to the door and rattled it but it wouldn’t open. Unknown to me she had locked it.
I was getting a little scared now.

“Susan, wait please. This IS my baby, my Rosie. But she is sick and won’t take her milk. Please help me with her. Come back here please….”

And now, instead of being frightened, I suddenly felt sorry for Alice. She must be sick herself not to know that she was hugging a doll and not a baby. But I insisted that I had to go home, that my mother was expecting me. That she’d start looking for me if I didn’t get back soon.

“Just stay with me for a while” Alice pleaded. “See, she is nearly asleep. Come and sing to her with me. As soon as she is asleep I will take you back. There is no need to be scared of me, Susan.”

Alice crooned softly to the doll, rocking it gently. I stood by the door, not knowing what to do. I wasn’t scared any more. Alice didn’t seem dangerous. In any case I was sure if I yelled no one would hear. The house stood on its own with a very private garden in a quiet street. I didn’t know what was going on with Alice, but I felt that to scream and yell out would be the wrong thing to do.

I stood helplessly by the door and sucked my thumb. I hadn’t sucked my thumb for a long time, but suddenly it felt good in my mouth. I kept very quiet and watched Alice. She unbuttoned her blouse and held the bundle to her chest as if she was feeding a baby. She rocked gently in the chair and talked softly to the doll which she seemed to think was her baby.

Eventually she smiled and said, “ There, that’s better. It’s working. You have helped me. Rosie has had a good feed and she will be fine now. I’ll just put her down and I’ll take you back.”

Gently she re-wrapped the doll and put it down in the cot and covered it with a blanket just as if it was a real baby.

“She’s almost asleep. Come and see.’’

I decided that I had better do as she said. Besides I was curious about the whole situation so I crept up to the cot and stood beside Alice. She took my hand and we looked down at the doll together. She seemed so sad and a very confused lady.

“Thanks to you Rosie is well now. She’s asleep. Now I’ll take you back to the park.”

With Alice still holding my hand we quietly left the room and went out to her car. We got in and she thanked me for helping her.

I said again, “ I didn’t do anything and it’s not a baby, you know. It’s only a doll. Where is your baby?” I asked and felt mean when she covered her face and started to cry again.

After a while she dried her eyes and sat quietly for some time till I started to get impatient and reminded her again about taking me home, that my mother would be waiting. She patted my hand and said quietly,

“Susan, I suppose I know, really that it’s not my baby. My Rosie. That it is only an old doll of mine. Sadly my Rosie died and sometimes it helps me to pretend that the doll is Rosie. I just get a little mixed up at times. But I couldn’t bear it if I don’t pretend sometimes that the doll is Rosie and that she is still with me.

She nearly made me cry too and I began to understand a little bit better. At last she started the car and drove me back to the park. I was thankful that she hadn’t harmed me. In fact, I almost liked her even though she acted so weird. I didn’t fully understand but I felt very sorry for her.

“You have helped me a lot. You are a kind little girl.” she said, as she dropped me off at the park and said good-bye. “One day I will get well and everything will be fine again.”

She drove off and I never saw her again. I ran all the way home wondering if I would get into trouble but when I told my mother what happened she hugged me and comforted me and surprisingly she didn’t scold me though she repeated again that I was never, never, under any circumstances, to go off with a stranger ever again, even a harmless looking one.

A few days later my mother told me that my poor friend, Alice, had been taken to hospital for treatment and that I wasn’t to worry anymore about her. Hopefully, in time, Alice would be well again.