The Beautiful Clown Doll

by SL BugBug Milliken

A soft warm breeze filled with the scent of late blooming flowers blew in the window and ruffled the lace curtains. Rambley-Bambley lay among the dolls and stuffed animals dreaming of catmint ice cream. Meowmie was playing the piano, and there was nothing that Rambley-Bambley liked better than listening to her play. She was playing "My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice" from the opera Samson and Delilah, one of Rambley-Bambley’s favorites. She got up off the bed, stretched and walked in to the living room where she sat down on the couch with several of her brothers and sisters. The computer was on, and Maile was sitting at it, working on a new painting for the PSP Guild. I was sitting on the piano swaying dreamily to the music. Suddenly I opened my eyes, jumped down and walked over to the computer. "Move over, Maile dear, and let me work on this machine for a while. Why don’t mew go paint with mewr watercolours?" Maile had been painting a picture of a lovely bedroom. There were pink gingham curtains on the windows, and a lovely flowered spread on the bed. An old-fashioned doll sat primly in a tiny rocker near the bed. She was dressed like the princess in the opera "Swan Lake". Although I was her younger sister, sweet, silly Maile really looked up to me, and I knew she would do whatever I asked. Now she jumped down from the computer, and wandered off to find some catmint ice cream. I had had a brilliant inspiration to get mewmie a lovely new doll fur Christmas. So I sat down at the computer and started searching as mewmie launched into "The Emporer’s Waltz", by Johann Strauss. Although it wasn’t from an opera, it was a long piece which mewmie loved to play on the piano. It would take at least 15 or 20 minutes, so I knew that I was safe doing an Internet search. Mewmie would be off in lala land fur a while. I looked and looked, and finally I found the perfect doll. It was a lovely large clown doll dressed in hot pink silk, and painted like a Poirot. The picture showed the doll sitting in a bed of lovely spring flowers, and I could imagine it on mewmie’s flowered bedspread. The color of the clown’s outfit would beautifully compliment the pink gingham curtains in the bedroom. Should have showed him sitting in a bed of catnip, I thought. Should have showed him eating catmint ice cream. Hee hee. I finished up the order on the computer just as mewmie finished playing her song on the piano. Ah. Time for dinner, and then off to bed. No more opera, no more catmint ice cream, no more playing with the curtains, or sniffing the flowers. The only painting Maile would be doing was in her sleep. I hopped onto the bed and snuggled close to mewmie, pretending I was a lovely black cat doll. Several weeks went by. I sat by the front window each day and peaked between the curtains to see if the mailman had a package for us. Finally it arrived, and while mewmie played the piano, I whisked that lovely painted clown doll inside and hid it under the bed in the guest bedroom. "What was that?" mewmie asked as she finished playing and went to the computer to read her email. "Oh, nothing," I said, as I quickly plucked a flower from the rose bush and handed it to her. "Why, thank you, BugBug," she said. "This is a lovely flower. I think maybe we should all celebrate the end of summer with some catmint ice cream." So ended another day in the soap opera which is my life. Words List Provided by: Leo