Chapter 4 fourth quarter

How can Wendy like herself?In order to let that angelic child play with me, what should I do?In the middle of the night, Carlos's house was not popular at all, and Alan sat on the steps and kept thinking about this issue. For Alan, who was born as a puppet, making children like it is the only reason for her to live.It knows no other way of life than being held in the arms of a child.Just one time is enough. If she will break down one day, Alan hopes that Wendy can hold herself in her arms naturally like she treats other puppets. But how to attract Wendy is a big problem.As long as I can solve this problem, I can be loved by humans like other puppets, but Alan can't think of a good way no matter how hard he thinks.

So Alan decided to ask the princess for advice.Inside these muppets, it's best to talk.The princess does not tease Alan face to face like the prince and the white horse, and at the same time is easier to get along with than the knight, so Alan likes it very much. "This is really difficult." This is the habitual action of the princess when she thinks about a problem, and now she is playing with her woolen hair again. "Alan, do you still remember what the white horse said before?" "You mean I'm different from everyone else?" "Yeah, for example, you look completely different from the prince."

"What's the difference?" Alan tilted her head, observing the prince who was playing on the other side of the room. "The color of the skin is different, isn't it? The prince's skin is pure white, but yours is blue, isn't it? If you are also white, everyone should like you." "Oh, that's right. As long as I'm the same as everyone else, it turns out that Wendy won't play with me because my body is different from everyone else's in many ways, right?" Alan thanked the princess and immediately left the room.The problem is solved, since the blue skin is not good, then it is enough to make it white like everyone else.

The bag of flour is on the far right shelf in the kitchen.Since the puppet's hands are very smooth, they are not suitable for delicate work, but Ah Lan desperately opened the flour bag.Thirty minutes later, standing here is already a puppet covered in flour and turned white. Alan was happily uneasy.Wendy should be able to play with her if she had the snow-white skin of a prince.Alan decided to sit in front of the sleeping Wendy's children's room and wait for the morning, because he wanted to be seen by Wendy first.Since the children's room was on the second floor, Ah Lan, who was covered in flour all over her body, had to climb the cliff-like stairs step by step.

Dan Carlos's dreams are spoiled by his wife's screams. "Husband, get up quickly, there seems to be a thief!" Dan sleepily ran to the kitchen where his wife was, dumbfounded by the horror of the scene.The kitchen floor was covered with flour, making it white. "Surprisingly, it seems that the latest thief has no money for flour." "What are you kidding at this time! Now a thief has broken into our house." "If this is the work of the thief, he seems to like flour." "Isn't it a thief?" "Has anything been stolen?"

Jennifer walked out of the kitchen to check her wallet.Dan fought back a yawn and closed the shelf that had been left open.All of a sudden he noticed what looked like small animal footprints on the floor covered in flour.Footprints extend along the direction of the stairs. Sure enough, the mouse bit the flour bag.After climbing the stairs following the footprints, I found something strange on the ground in front of the children's room.It turned out to be a blue puppet covered in flour, and the footprints just happened to disappear in this place. Dan picked up the puppet in his hands, and it turned out to be the same puppet with arms and legs of different lengths that made people uncomfortable every time they looked at it.Why is this thing covered in flour?Wasn't the puppet supposed to be lying next to Ted last night?Thinking of the footprints just now, Dan had a guess in his head, but he shook his head with a wry smile.Could it be the footprints left by the puppet when it walked?

"Husband, it seems that nothing has been stolen." Jennifer's voice came from downstairs.It may have been woken up by the continuous noise, when the door of the children's room was opened, and Wendy came out. "Good morning, Daddy. What's that? Ah, isn't that the stuffed doll I gave Ted? It's real, and it's so dirty! But it's not mine, and it's none of my business." Although the ploy to smear flour on his body failed, Alan didn't care too much.Because it feels that there are many ways to make itself look like everyone else besides whitening the skin.In any case, as long as you become like a prince, others will like you.

At night, after Alan made sure that Ted was really asleep, he started to move.It would be troublesome if it woke up Ted, so Alan was always very careful when he moved.Because Ted is willing to twist the puppet's neck to play with before going to bed, it is difficult for Alan to be free even though he is on the bed. While Alan was looking for the adhesive in the kitchen, someone yelled it from behind.It turned out to be an impatient knight.Alan immediately understood why the knight was in the kitchen at this time, because the sword Lisa made for him was missing during the day, and he was probably looking for the sword.Because Wendy always ran out to play without putting the toys away, this kind of loss happened frequently.Getting them back was a small job, too.

"How? Did you find the sword?" Regarding Alan's question, the knight replied uninterestedly: "It doesn't matter, anyway, I don't need that kind of thing, it's just a burden!" "You can't say that! Lisa made it for you." The knight stared at Alan's hand. "What are you going to do this time?" Alan showed the knight a bunch of yellow strings he had just collected.Alan used huge scissors to cut off the hair on the tip of the mop and collected it. "I'm going to stick this to my head with adhesive, so I'll have yellow hair like a princess too. Look, my hair is black and fluffy. If it turns yellow, Wendy Definitely love me."

The knight's long arms were folded, staring at Alan.Since the knight's hands and legs are designed to be longer than other dolls, it is taller. "Unfortunately, Alan, even if you put this kind of thing on your head, it still doesn't work. I think you should give up." "But the princess said so, it said that as long as I have white skin, Wendy will like me. I want to be like everyone else." "She's teasing you." "How can you say that? The princess is very nice." Alan said so, so the knight seemed to be regretful and left here silently.

The next morning, Jennifer found Alan with a mop of yellow hair stuck to her head.Of course Wendy didn't like it either. A Lan's yellow wig was pulled out by Ted with a sullen face, and Ted seemed very angry for some reason.Since Alan came to Carlos's house, it has rarely seen Ted express his feelings strongly. It can be said that this is the first time, so Alan was taken aback.Why is he so angry?Is hair made of mop hair so ugly?Is it useless to become yellow hair yourself?The plan to imitate the princess failed, and thinking about what the knight said, Alan's confidence in whether he could become like everyone else began to waver. Even so, Alan wanted to have a well-proportioned body like a knight the next day to attract Wendy.The remnants of the puppets that Ted had tattered before were now in the utility room, and Alan was going to find good-looking arms and legs from them, and glue them to his short hands. on the legs.Because Alan's two arms and legs are of different lengths, it plans to put the arms and legs of other dolls on its own short hands and legs, so as to obtain the balance of the body.Because Alan thinks that as long as he has arms and legs that are all the same length, others will like it.Needless to say it failed again. The next step is to imitate the white horse, because Alan remembered that Lisa said something like this when she played with the white horse again: "I love the horse's eye because it's bigger than the other Muppet eyes." The eyes of the white horse are made of plastic, black pearl-like eyes, only the face of the white horse made by imitating the horse is a bit small, so the eyes look bigger than others. And Ah Lan's eyes were drawn with an oil-based magic pen, just two dots.In the past, Alan never felt anything because he was different from everyone else, but now he suddenly felt shy because of his eyes.So it found the glass ball at night and glued it to its face.It thinks that with such a big and beautiful glass ball, everyone will like it.But that didn't happen. When it had the puppet's arms and legs on it, and the glass ball stuck to its face, Ted took it off right away, and everyone thought it was kind of gross.Especially Jennifer was particularly sensitive, because apart from that time of applying flour, every time Jennifer woke up in the morning, she was the first to find Alan who had been pranked into those strange appearances. Dan began to take an interest in this puppet that appeared in strange shapes every day.But whenever he wanted to check on Alan, Ted would run around the house and refuse to show him. One afternoon, Alan was dragged by Ted to a nearby park.The park sits right in the middle of this residential street with identical houses.Since the park is next to Carlos's house, Jennifer doesn't care too much even if Ted comes to the park alone.Alan was brought here every day and buried under the flower bed.Ted used to play a game where he would dig a hole like a puppy and bury something in it. At this time, Alan was very afraid of Ted.He is not as expressive as his sister, who always stares at others with a straight face.It is difficult for ordinary people to tell what he is thinking from his expression.Moreover, Ted can't control the strength when playing with things, and he broke many things in his hands.So Jennifer usually sees that her son wants to take something, she will rush to put it away before that.The occasions when she didn't do this were limited to weird dolls like Alan that she got for free and didn't mind breaking. So Alan was at the mercy of Ted in the park.Suddenly Ted loosened his hands that were pinching Ah Lan's neck, and Ah Lan fell to the ground.Alan looked up at Ted, who was suddenly frozen and motionless, in disbelief, and immediately understood the reason.It turned out that there was a big black dog, which was huge to Alan and Ted, standing at the entrance of the park and looking at this side. Although the dog had a red collar around its neck and a thick iron chain was dragging behind it, the person who was supposed to be holding the chain and driving the dog was not there.Every time the dog took a step in this direction, the chain dragged on the ground and made a terrible clattering sound.The dog seemed to be in a bad mood, and when it saw Ted, it growled and bared its teeth from time to time. Ted dropped the doll and ran toward the climbing frame when the dog kicked off the ground with a whoosh and ran after Ted.When the iron chain on the dog passed by Alan who was lying on the ground, the cloth all over Alan's body immediately tensed up. At this critical moment, Ted escaped to the top of the climbing frame.But the dog snarled and stared at him, and stood motionless, not going to leave.Allen realized that the dog was waiting for Ted to come down. Alan didn't know what to do at this time.Ted would be in trouble if he didn't get help.But as a puppet, I can't let people know that I can walk.Apart from obediently lying on the ground, it cannot do other actions. Allen's eyes with the magic pen clearly saw Ted nailed to the climbing frame.Ted's expression remained unchanged, but Alan saw that his little hand holding one end of the climbing frame lost its color due to too much force. A strange emotion welled up in Alan's heart, it was eager to protect Ted, whom he had been afraid of just now.It stood up without fully realizing it, and punched the drooling black dog on the tip of its nose.Naturally, the fists of a puppet made mostly of cotton couldn't possibly be powerful.But startled by the unexpected attack of the black dog, he backed away.Even though the dog's teeth, which had switched prey, bit deeply into its body the next moment, Alan was still very satisfied.Because by the time he got the dog's attention, Ted had already gotten off the climbing frame and ran away in the opposite direction. A few minutes later, the dog's owner came to the park and pulled the dog back.A Lan, who was thrown on the ground, had a big hole in his chest bitten by the dog's teeth, and the cotton inside seemed to be coming out soon.Unlike the small hole in his foot, Alan was seriously injured this time. At this time, Alan was exhausted, and it felt that it might just rot like this.Ted has also left, and it is estimated that no one is willing to pick up a puppet that is as dirty as himself.For some unknown reason, the image of Kelly appeared in Alan's dazed mind. Kelly is the one who made them, and she's a teacher.Alan and the others learned to read and write from Kelly, and they lived happily together before being sold to Bell's antique shop.At that time, there were no worries, there was no difference between Lan and other puppets, and everyone played together.In that case, why is it only me who is different now?Alan really wants to see Kelly now, if everyone can play dictatorship games together like that time, that would be great!Alan wanted to cry, but the puppet didn't have tear ducts, so it couldn't cry. Alan was lying on the ground looking up at the red sky, when Ted's figure blocked his sight.He picked up the puppet on the ground with his hand, pressed the cotton that was about to leak out of the hole, and blocked the place with his fingers.He actually came back, which surprised Alan. When he got home, Ted used the pins from the toy badge to pin the hole in the doll's body where the dog had bitten it.Although it was only handled briefly, it was enough to prevent the contents from falling out.This time Alan was surprised that Ted had such wisdom, because according to the prince, Ted was a bad guy and knew nothing. Ted should have witnessed the scene of Alan walking, but he never mentioned it.Later, A Lan even wondered if the child didn't see it at all?Alan thanked Ted in his heart, and stared at the badge pinned to the chest hole many times.This rusty badge, which might have been given as a gift when buying snacks, suddenly became a treasure in Ah Lan's eyes.It's Ted's badge for himself, and it's special.Every time I see this badge, Alan's scarred body will be filled with incredible and happy feelings, no matter how I look at it, I can't get enough of it. Since then, Ted has gradually reduced his rough behavior, or he has been unable to control the intensity before and gradually can control it.Although he still doesn't cry or laugh, and still walks with the puppet's half body in his hands, the touch Alan feels from his little hands is subtly different from before. Ted still didn't say a word, but the way he treated Alan gradually seemed to be a different person.Compared with the previous situation, this change can only be called a miracle.When he was watching TV, he always let Alan sit beside him, and made sure that Alan could also watch the TV screen.Wendy laughed at Ted and said: "Muppets don't watch TV at all." But Alan can already memorize the schedule of the program within a week.Although I watched TV at Bell's shop, the shows I watched with Ted were much more interesting than those. Alan felt a satisfying peace.Until recently he had been terrified of Tad's every move, but now Alan didn't dislike even Tad's drool-covered fingers.From morning to night, the boy never left the puppet, and Alan always moved with him.For Alan, he cared so stubbornly about Wendy in the past, but now it seems to be a distant past.It now sincerely hopes that this will continue. Allen finds himself the only thing he has for Ted, who now has no other toys but himself, and no kids nearby who he could call friends.Dan and Jennifer always put him aside, usually more concerned about their daughter.Thinking of this, Alan couldn't help thinking: How great it would be if he could stay by Ted's side forever like this. It was Sunday.As usual, Alan was picked up from the park by Ted.Today Ted seemed to want the puppet to enjoy it too. He put Alan on the slide platform and let him slide down, and put him on the swing for a while.Parents with children all around gave Tad odd looks, but Alan felt like he was enjoying the park as if he were alone. Waiting for Ted at home is Wendy who is flushed with anger.She grabbed Ted by the neck at the door and, ignoring Ted's resistance, forcibly dragged him to the second floor.It seems that the strength of the young brother is not enough to resist the elder sister. In front of the stairs on the second floor, Wendy put the bear Marcus wet with orange juice in front of Ted's nose. "Ted, did you do this? I can't believe it, why do you keep doing things like this?" Wendy's eyes filled with tears, she cried hysterically.After listening to Wendy's words, Alan probably understood the situation. What Wendy said was this: she left the unfinished juice in the children's room, and then went down to the first floor.Twenty minutes later, I came back to see that Marcus the bear was lying on the floor covered in juice.So Wendy thought it was someone who sneaked into the room to do it while she was away.If this was intentional, Alan, who is also a puppet, felt that it was a malicious prank. Wendy concluded that the culprit could only be Ted, since she had been with Dan and Jennifer when she opened the nursery door.The only culprit I could think of was Ted, but Alan was the only one who knew it wasn't Ted, because they'd been playing together in the park until now, so it couldn't have been Ted. "Aren't you going to admit it? I already know you did it, and I know why you did it, because you're jealous of my little bear Marcus. But it's your fault that Daddy doesn't buy you something because you So many broken toys can't be bought for you to break again, so you only have that weird doll to play with!" Touched by Wendy's vigorous waving hand, Alan's body, which had been held in Ted's arms just now, flew into the air, and then rolled down the stairs until he landed on the ground below the stairs on the first floor.It happened to be lying face up on the ground, so Alan could see the two people standing beside the stairs on the second floor. Allen is anxious because only he can prove Ted's innocence, but now he can't move.Ted is in such a predicament, but he can't move himself. If he moves now, he will be returned, so he will be separated from him. "Wendy, are you upstairs? Hurry up, I'm ready to wash Marcus, come down quickly." Jennifer came out of the bathroom on the first floor. "Oh, isn't it enough? Ted is also reflecting on himself. Besides, Ted is still young, he is just a child, and he can't tell right from wrong at all." While Jennifer was looking up the second floor by the stairs, Wendy was slapped in the face by Ted with the bear Marcus.It shouldn't hurt, right?However, Ted's body staggered and slipped from the top step of the stairs, and his small body was about to roll down. This moment was stretched so long, in Ah Lan's eyes, it was like slow-moving in a video tape.At this moment, Jennifer's screams immediately sounded beside it. In that position, Ted's body would hit the first-floor floor with his head falling backwards.Kelly had taught Alan early on not to hit someone hard on the head.At this critical moment, Alan moved. The sound of the boy hitting the floor echoed through Carlos' house, followed by a second or two of silence. Dan came running. "What's the matter, what happened?" At this time, Alan, who was squeezed between Ted's head and the floor, heard Wendy crying loudly on the second floor. "Ted, Ted fell and rolled down the stairs." Jennifer, motionless, simply explained to her husband.Dan immediately ran over to check on his son, who was lying head up on the side of the stairs. "It's okay, there seems to be no place to hurt. It's a miracle to fall from such a high place. You can see that he is still conscious, and he didn't cry. It's good luck. De will fall on his head." Ted didn't say anything, and got up from the ground. Alan worried that he was really unhurt, but fortunately, he seemed to be walking a little staggeringly. "What's the matter? Scared? Ted's not hurt anywhere." Dan put his hand on his wife's stiff shoulder. "Impossible, I saw it just now. The moment Ted fell, that weird puppet moved by itself as if it was going to catch Ted's head!" The plastic eyes of the knight looking out from the window of the children's room saw a car slowly driving away from the Carlos family's land.Dan, the owner of the family, and Alan, who was about to be thrown somewhere, should be sitting in the car. The Cavaliers feel very sorry for this result. It also heard the quarrel surrounding Marcus the bear in the children's room.When Alan walked around by himself and was seen by Jennifer, the knight even stretched the cloth all over his body, choosing a posture that was very sensitive to capturing sound waves. Dan was a little upset when his wife said the puppet moved by itself, but accepted it calmly.The knight felt that his appearance was a bit strange, and it was thinking that maybe Dan had already vaguely sensed it. For Alan, the decision Dan made was not to return the product, but to throw it in a place far away from his home.The knight felt that Alan's luck was pretty good. In the worst case, it might have been burned, but because Jennifer was really afraid of the curse of the puppet, it was spared. The car carrying Ah Lan had gone so far that it was out of sight.The knight thinks about Alan's recent situation, it seems to be much happier than before, but it's a pity that it turned out like this. The knight didn't dislike Alan.Although Alan is indeed different from everyone else in appearance, this is nothing to the knight.Alan's unique appearance and cutting corners in materials always became the object of the prince's ridicule.When Alan was away, the princess would laugh at Alan along with them, but these things about Alan were nothing to the knight at all.The knight felt a little sympathetic to Alan, but he didn't want to take the initiative to talk to it.If others were teasing Alan, then of course the knight himself followed their words in order not to be excluded by his companions.The pity in the knight's heart for Alan just made him look away from that blue face. Seeing Alan who was finally happy recently, the knight felt relieved.Although it was not very happy for the prince, princess, and the white horse, the knight himself felt that the suffocation in his heart finally disappeared. "The child is gone, and I am finally relieved." Next to the knight stood the princess. "When I saw that kid, I was so angry, especially when he imitated me, I was shaking with anger. I didn't expect him to listen to my advice like that. If I had known, I would have just told him 'you can't do it'. " "It's definitely a good thing that only that guy was taken far away alone. I thought we would definitely be punished along with it." When the prince said "absolutely" and "certainly" repeatedly, the white horse muttered: "However, that guy won't come back, right? What if he comes back?" "If that's the case, there will be riots again. In the future, we can no longer let people know that our puppet can move by itself. In order to prevent it from coming back, we need to do something." "But Ah Lan did it to protect innocent children from getting hurt. Shouldn't this be praised?" The knight told the three puppets that he knew Ted was innocent.That's because the knight was standing next to the prince and the three muppets when they smeared Marcus the bear with juice, but it didn't stop them. "What are you talking about? If you praise it for being so ugly, it will get carried away." Saying so, the princess corrected the knight's mistake. The knight hated the princess because he was jealous of Wendy's favorite Marcus, and then planned to make Marcus dirty and blame Ted.The princess is such a character. For those things that are more favored than herself, she will either dirty them or throw them away, so as to establish a sense of superiority in her heart.And sometimes it really treats the knight as its own squire, but the knight has been silently obeying in order not to cause trouble. The knight began to reflect on his previous behavior. It thought that he should have treated Alan better before. At this time, he recalled Alan he saw last night. Alan sat on the stairs, looking at the badge on his chest contentedly, which made the knight feel very strange.That badge is inconspicuous, why does it take so much importance? Even so, Ah Lan stretched out her hands to her chest over and over again, making sure that the badge was still there before she felt relieved.The knight couldn't understand Alan. When the sword Lisa made for him was lost, he thought it was nothing.Maybe the weight of this badge to Alan is not the same as that of the sword to him. One night a few days ago, Alan found the knight's sword in the trash can, and brought it to it. "This is for you. Jennifer must have thrown it away by mistake. Fortunately, I found it." Cavaliers were not pleased.Seeing Alan's dirty appearance, he searched the whole house for a sword made of paper, and finally even searched in the trash can, which made people suspicious.So the knight didn't take the sword for a long time. "What's the matter? I'm so happy that I can't move? Lisa made it for you with great difficulty. You can't lose it anymore, because it's the evidence to let others know that this thing belongs to you." It was also the princess who threw the sword into the dustbin. The knight knew it, but he didn't tell Alan.The princess mistakenly thought that she was a knight, so she was its subordinate. After making sure that the sound of Dan's car was far enough away, Allen crawled out of the dumpster.It was dark all around, and from time to time a car with lights on passed by on the road in front of it.Along the sidewalk, there is a billboard of a shop with lights out in front of it. Alan sat on the side of the trash can, feeling annoyed about his current situation.It was so tragic that I was forcibly separated from Ted as soon as I started to get along well. But Ah Lan was glad that only her puppet was thrown away.Ignoring the bell's warnings, they walk in front of people at will. (Thinking) It was possible that the prince and the others would be thrown away together, but now it is the only one being thrown away. Alan thinks this ending is already good. Alan didn't regret walking in Jennifer's presence, because saving Ted from injury was the only good thing he had ever done at Carlos's house. A Lan was careful not to be seen, while avoiding the muddy puddles on the ground and walking forward.It is looking for the bus platform, and it is going back to Bell's antique shop.Although it has no money on it, if it is not found, there is no need to pay for it. Alan's walking posture became even more strange because of the holes in the ground that were arched by the dogs.Although there is a badge to gamble on the hole in the chest, there is still a subtle difference in the way the body moves compared to before.Moreover, the sound that is only common among puppets also has a serious echo due to this hole, compared with before there is no such hole. Alan re-examined her body: the cloth on her feet was worn out, there was a hole, and there were stains on her body.It's normal for it to be thrown like this.At this time, Alan suddenly thought of Ted, will Jennifer buy him new toys?Alan was a little worried, if only he could buy it for him.Ted, who was still young, should be happy to receive a new toy from his mother as a gift.Alan walked on the dark road with his bruised body, smiling and imagining these scenes.Ted would be glad if he got a new toy instead of a dirty stuffed animal like himself. All of a sudden, Alan was so uncomfortable that he almost stopped breathing. Although it was a puppet, it shouldn't be able to breathe, but now it can breathe.It realizes that this pain in the heart is this feeling called sadness.Although Alan had sad things before, it was completely different from this time. What is this discomfort?From what part of the cloth and cotton that constitutes the body does it come?Alan was even moved by this kind of heartache that almost twisted her body. Have the prince and princess discovered such feelings in the world? When Alan saw the bus heading for Carlos' house on the bus platform, he realized that the sadness he felt just now was caused by the badge on his chest.