HETTY: a short story

“Hi! My name is Hetty!”

 

A fair-skinned beauty sits primly on a small table while mustering all her effort to extend her right arm, as if to receive a handshake.  Her curly white hair which attractively adorned her head lay loose.  She’s wearing striped jumper shorts that matched her plain, white, collared shirt, which supposedly were to attract attention.   But they did not.

 

“Hi! I’m Hetty!” She called again to a pigtail-haired girl, who was grinning with her two front-teeth missing, and pointing at her while tugging at her mom’s hand.  Well, the mom just dragged her away, unmindful of her fading smile and teary eyes.

 

“Sigh! I guess I’m going to stay here forever.  Oh! I hope not!”  Hetty sadly bowed her head.  She looked around her, and saw the other stuffed dolls beside her.

 

“I know I’m better than them!”  She said to herself.  “Look,” talking to nobody in particular, “only I have these white curls!  Only I have this fair skin!  I’ve even counted hundreds of girls looking at me with their longing eyes, ever since I was put into display.  Why won’t anybody pick me?”

 

“Look, Mom!”  Hetty heard a voice from her left, and she turned towards it. 

 

“Isn’t she adorable?”, said a smiling, long-haired girl, who was probably in her five or six years in childhood, and once again pointing at her.

 

“Yes sweetie, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”  the mom replied, with that same glitter in her eyes.

 

Hetty’s hopes soared high, and she began to speak.  “Ahem! Ahem! Uh, Hi! I’m Hetty!  I’m glad you like me!”  But they didn’t seem to hear her.  The mother and daughter instead just stood outside her glass case, looking admiringly at her.

 

“Uh, I can be your good friend, little girl.  What’s your name?”,  Hetty said again, as she tried to wave her hand.  But as she did so, the mother and daughter turned around and walked away to who knows where.

 

“Why aren’t they seeing me? Why can’t they hear me?” And Hetty started to cry in obvious frustration and bitterness.  “I want to get out from this place!  But nobody wants me at all!” And she cried some more.

 

“Oh! There she is Mom!!!”, an excited, shrill voice once again caught Hetty’s attention, which made her stop sobbing for a while.  A boyish-looking girl in her school uniform was running towards her, with her mom in a business suit following behind. 

 

“Hetty!!!” She heard the girl mention her name again, as her two palms now lay flat on her glass casing, and her eyes wide in excitement and joy.

 

“Oh Mom, what happened to her?”  The girl asked the mother as a trickle of tear fell from her eyes while watching Hetty.

 

“Yes dearie, she’s in a sad state. Sigh.  Look at her feet, her other shoe is missing.  And look at the black dots on her skin,” the mom sympathetically patted the girl’s head.

 

Hetty looked at herself and said, “No, you don’t understand!  I don’t have missing shoes!  I’m just this way since I was put on display.  In fact, many other girls have found me adorable!”

 

“Oh Hetty! You do have shoes!  Look at your other foot, see, it has only one shoe on it!” the little girl replied.

 

Hetty’s eyes widened for she then noticed that the little girl was in fact talking to her.  No one ever did… yet.

 

“You… talked to me?”  Hetty asked almost in a whisper, not believing that someone actually is giving her attention.

 

“Of course! I do talk to you!  I always did, even before your ears were sewn on your head,” the girl said as she happily answered Hetty, who was still wearing that bright eyes and smile.

 

“Is it because I didn’t have ears yet that I haven’t heard you talked then?” she asked the girl.

 

“Hmm, maybe,” the girl said, “Because now you’re talking back to me.  You never did that before.  It was mom who arranged your ears.”

 

“How… how can that be?”  Hetty asked in bewilderment, even as her heart now seemed to recall a kind of warmth and joy that appeared to be with her all along.  “And how can you say that I don’t look the way I used to?”

 

“Of course I know Hetty!  I own you, remember?”  But Hetty can’t remember anything.  The girl continued, “Your curls aren’t as shiny anymore!  But I’m going to wash it when we get home.  And then, I don’t know what happened to your shoes, but we’re going to replace that anyway. And then your skin…”

 

“Home? But what happened to me?”  Hetty interrupted the girl.  “How did I ever get here?”

 

“You got lost, because my friend borrowed you from me.  She said she didn’t know where she lost you, and she said sorry.  I’ve been looking for you for days, and I cried every night at the thought of you.”

 

Hetty felt compassion in the girl’s voice.  “But, I don’t understand why the other girls let me think I am beautiful…” there was an evident self-pity in her voice.

 

“Oh, of course you are a beauty Hetty!  Even with how you look right now, your beauty is still noticeable. But you’re more beautiful than what they see, because I know you even before they did!”

 

At that point the girl turned to her mom, “aren’t we going to get her home now, Mom?”

 

“Yes dearie, we are.  Hold on just a moment, and I’ll talk to that guy over there.”  Then the mom approached a bald-head man sitting behind a table with some filed papers on the side.

 

It wasn’t long before the little girl was hugging Hetty so close to her heart, assuring her, “I won’t let you get lost again, I promise you.”

 

Hetty lay contentedly in the little girl’s arms.  Somehow, all those feelings of sadness, pity and loneliness vanished when the girl held her. 

 

“My owner,” she asked softly, “what is your name?”

 

“Jessica,” the girl replied, as she looked down at her with loving eyes, and the sweetest smile Hetty had ever seen.

 

“Jessica… Mmm… beautiful…  I love that name.”  Hetty smiled back, and let her owner pat her soft back.

 

Hetty would have wanted to ask further what was that place they found her in, but she thought it not important anymore. But if only dolls could read, she would have found this on top of that glass case: “DOLLS LOST AND FOUND SECTION.”

/written by CA Azarcon in 2010.