Plip! Plop! Plip! Polly listened to the rain as it splattered down, hitting the ground outside rhythmically. Christmas day was meant to be bright and sunny, a celebration, but today it was dull and dreary. It was in need of some magic, Polly noticed.

She turned back to play with the dolls she had received as part of her Christmas present. The other half, some pretty mermaid dolls with net tails and a rainbow of colours hidden around their figures, had already been assembled upstairs. These dolls in her hands, called the ‘Little Sisters’, were cardboard bases onto to which she was supposed to stick magnetic fabric outfits that she was designing for them. One dolls’ skin was coloured as dark as rich chocolate and her short, choppy black hair was adorned with lime-green butterfly clips; the other’s skin was as pale as morning light; her yellow hair matched Polly’s plaits right down to the last twist of black ribbon.

And their names were as pretty as their faces: Brandi for the darker doll, and Arielle for the lighter.

What Polly found rather amusing was, because she was supposed to create their outfits, both dolls were dressed only in their finest bikinis, pink for Arielle and a neon yellow for Brandi. She giggled to herself, stuffing both hands into her mouth, before doing the right thing and making the girls some nice clothes. As she was trying to drape a long indigo dress over Arielle, Polly’s feet seemed to lift off the carpet she was sitting on. As one object, Polly felt herself being lifted up, and the room became one gaping surrounding. The floor widened, stretching out of Polly’s view, and suddenly it came hurtling towards her.

“Huh?”

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Author guidance for This story

Originally called 'A Race Against Time', this was a story I made up in Year 5! Serious rewrites followed six years later when I saw it and thought "this would be quite a nice children's story- if it were better".
And so, the final product...

updated Jun 13 '11 by SumnerzAngel