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Joy Cavanaugh's tiny nose flattened against the window as she maneuvered her slender body to more clearly examine the carved Madonna Rupert had in the front window of his shop. How could any wooden object be so beautiful? The long, sheen, carved, black hair hung down in back was the same as hers. The eyes were blue the same as hers. The complexion of the doll was that of a summer tan, exactly like hers, and that was where any likeness ended. She withdrew her head from the nearness of the window so she could gaze at her own countenance being reflected by the glass. The day of her birth the pretty looks fairy must have been on vacation. Joy was one of the ugliest babies most people had ever seen and time had done absolutely nothing to alleviate the condition. She was continuously teased by her schoolmates and was always the recipient of all the ugly jokes their evil little minds could formulate. Shopping with her mother was not pleasurable for many adults took one look and turned away disturbed by a face only next of kin could love. Tears welled in her eyes, ran down her cheeks, and silently splashed on the dirty sidewalk. Self pity filled her thoughts and she was so involved with her inner feelings she was unaware Rupert was looking down at her. He gently tapped her shoulder and when she turned in his direction he handed her the Madonna. "Oh! I can't take this," she said as she looked up into a kindly old face. "I can't pay for it." "Don't worry about that little girl. I made this doll with my own hands and I made it just for you. See the beautiful smile she has on her face? Your face should always look like that too." "I wish it could. Her face is beautiful and mine is ugly. If I looked like her I'd smile all the time too." "Is that so? Don't you know looks are only skin deep?" Her eyes welled again as she broken heartedly replied, "They told me in school beauty is skin deep but ugly goes all the way to the bone." "That's utter nonsense." angrily responded her newest friend. "It's what's inside the heart that makes a person ugly or beautiful and you're as beautiful as any little girl I know. Forget the nasty things people say and be happy. Take your new doll home and maybe she'll help make you feel better." Joy cradled the dazzling doll in her arms as she slowly walked back to her house. There was a sacrosanct enchantment starting between her and the figurine bordering on the unbelievable. It was seldom Joy left the invulnerability of her room to join the jeering masses but today was different. She had been aroused by a thought phantom and was mystically led to Rupert's shop. She showed the gift to her mother, explained why she thought Rupert had presented it to her, and went upstairs to become better acquainted with her new friend. She tenderly fluffed her feather pillow and settled the doll's head on it. She stared at the doll thinking how extraordinarily beautiful it was when she heard a soft sweet voice say, "I'm glad he gave me to you." Joy quickly stepped back in surprise. The voice seemed to come from the doll but Joy knew that was impossible. She's made of wood and the tiny lips never moved. She stood absolutely quiet waiting to hear more words so she could locate the direction of their origin. The doll said again, "I'm glad he gave me to you." Joy's first impulse was to leave the room but curiosity got the better of her. "Did you really say something to me?" "Yes," the doll answered, "I spoke to you but not in the way you usually hear words. I actually didn't say the words I just thought them and you understood them." "How can you think? You're just a doll." "No, I'm not just a doll. I'm a special doll made just for you. I'm a doll far wiser than anyone you know for I have the knowledge of two thousand years locked within me. In my original state I sat by the roadside and listened and watched as people and animals walked by or rested beneath my branches. Some of the stories they told were of great suffering and others were of great pleasure." "How could you understand what they said? If there were different people they must have spoken different languages." "Language means nothing to me. I don't hear the words I feel the thoughts. The same way I speak with you. You can't hear my words for I can't speak but my thoughts are in all languages." "I don't think I understand that." "It's really very simple, Joy. Suppose you and a German, who speaks no English, both see a rainbow. His thoughts and yours would be the same about the magnificent arc but if he described it to a friend he'd have to use German words to describe the same thing you'd use English to describe. Thoughts have no nationality." "What a wonderful way that must be to go through life, reading thoughts," Joy said and sadly added, "I'm glad I can't do it." ,br> "Why?" "Then I'd hear all the people saying how ugly I am." "You think you're ugly? Boy, I've seen some real ugly people in my days. I saw one man who was so ugly his face stopped a sun dial. I knew another man who stopped by a brook to get a drink and when he bent down over the water all the fish swam away and the water retreated out of his reach." "I haven't heard those ugly jokes," Joy said trying hard to suppress the smile that wanted to sit on her face, "but I think I've heard all the rest of them. One boy told me I was so ugly I must have fallen out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down and when I landed on the ground someone hit me in the face with an ugly stick. A girl told me my face was always dirty because I was so ugly soap and water wouldn't get near it. But the remark that really hurt me was one I wasn't supposed to hear. I know my brother really loves me but I heard him tell one of his friends I was so ugly that when I was born the doctor saw my face and and tried to put me back." "Am I beautiful to you, Joy?" "Oh, yes. You're very beautiful." "How can that be? I'm just a piece of gnarly old wood that was cut and shaped by someone's knife." "Oh! but you are beautiful." "So are you, Joy, but in a different way. You have a lifetime ahead of you to do good things for many people, and I'm here to help you, but first you've got to forget any thoughts of being ugly. Hold me up in the mirror close to your face and tell what you see." Joy lifted her new friend from the bed and carrying her to the mirror placed their faces cheek to cheek. "I see two totally different faces," Joy said, "your beautiful face and my...." "And your different face," the doll said. "If everyone turned their faces inside out you'd look just like every other person in the world and that wouldn't be good. Look at your face carefully, Joy. What color are your eyes?" "They're blue the same as yours." "No, those eyes aren't just blue. They're azure blue. They're the same blue God chose to make the sky color out of and they're beautiful. What color is your hair?" "It's black just like yours." "No. Your hair isn't just black. It's the color of the raven and the crow that fly around squawking to everyone, ""Look at us. We're black and we're beautiful."" What else do you see?" "Two ears, a nose, a mouth with teeth, and of course skin." "Two ears to hear all the beautiful music in the world, a mouth that can move and utter words of wisdom, a nose to smell flowers or cakes being baked in the oven, white teeth to chew all the good things you like, and skin to hold everything together. You are indeed a lucky girl, Joy." "I guess I am lucky but I'm surely not as pretty as other girls I know." "Does being pretty mean so much to you that you let yourself become unhappy al the time?" "I'm not unhappy all the time. When I'm alone by myself and nobody can see me I'm as happy as anyone else. It's only when I'm out among others I feel ugly." "Look deep into the mirror and tell me what you see." "I still see an ugly face." "I disagree with you. What you see is a face that doesn't have a smile on it. When you think ugly all the time you may become ugly. Smile more, show those white teeth, and let others know you're happy." "I'll try but I don't think it will make any difference." Joy was so engrossed in the comparisons between her and her new doll she didn't hear the voice from downstairs. "I hear your mother calling you for dinner. When you go down think funny thoughts and smile all the time." "I can't just smile without a reason. I have to have something make me smile." "You go down to dinner and I'll see if I can help." Joy laid Madonna on the bed with her head on the pillow and went down stairs where her father, mother, and brother were already sitting at the table. When she walked into the room her brother smiled at her and said, "Hi, pretty ugly twice." Before her father could say anything to defend her Joy asked, "Why twice?" "Well," her brother answered tickled with his own wit, "one you're pretty ugly and two you're pretty apt to stay that way." Normally that would have bothered Joy but instead she smiled a big smile and said, "Many people have told me I look a lot like you." That made both parents smile and before her brother could think of a reply she said, "You made a very nice oxymoron, Chuckie." "A what?" her brother who was a year older than her asked as the interest of both parents turned to Joy. "Pretty ugly is a good oxymoron," Joy said as she smiled at her brother. "An oxymoron is a combination of contradictory words. I think the most famous one is jumbo shrimp." "Where did you learn that word, Joy?" her dad asked. "Usually an eleven year girl wouldn't know what that means or even how to use it in a sentence." "Oh! I know what it means and I know a lot of others too. I may be stretching the correct meaning just a little bit but I think for us girls a very good oxymoron is smart boy." This went completely over her brother's head but both parents got a good laugh out of it. "Do you have an oxymoron for your father?" her mother asked. "I could think one up but sometimes they are not always funny. In fact, I can think of two for dad. He was a lawyer before he became Governor so brilliant lawyer and honest politician both come to mind." Her father looked at her with a scowl until he saw the smile on her face that reached from ear to ear and she said, "I was only joking with you, Dad." Her father had to laugh as he asked, "You have one for your brother and two for me. Do you have one for your mother?" "I'm afraid not, Daddy. How can anyone say anything about a woman as smart and beautiful as mom is?" Her mother immediately arose from the table and walking over to Joy placed her right hand beneath Joy's chin and tilted her head back. Then she gave her daughter a big kiss on the lips. This was one of the most enjoyable evenings the family had ever spent together at the table. Usually the parents were constantly jumping on their male heir because he was always making remarks about Joy's disadvantage and trying to tease her. He loved his sister, as much as brothers love younger sisters, but he was always a thorn in her side; until tonight. "Did something happen to you today, Sis?" he asked. "You look different tonight somehow. You seem to be prettier." "I'm not any prettier, Chuckie. I still have the same pretty ugly face, as you called it, but I did learn a secret today. When I looked into the mirror I saw my face as it was, but when I smiled as big a smile as I could it seemed to change me a little, so from now on all I do is smile." Governor Cavanaugh was talking to his wife about the problem he was having with the excessive numbers of homeless people in one of his cities. "I know most of them can't help being homeless and I get so frustrated when I can't do anything to help them." "No one needs to be homeless unless they want to," Joy broke in. Governor Cavanaugh winked at his wife and smiled at his young daughter. "What would you do if you were in my shoes, Joy." "It's very simple. I'd give each one of them a job and a home." "And just how would you do that?" "I've heard you talk about an emergency fund. Suppose you used some of that money to put the homeless to work." "That's a wonderful idea honey but I don't have any jobs for them." "Then you must create some jobs." "How can I do that?" he asked a little surprised at his daughter's interest in such a project. "Our city is big, Daddy, and over on the other side of the city I remember seeing a whole lot of brick buildings that are falling down. I heard you say bad people were selling drugs from the buildings even though they are dangerous to be around. If all those buildings were very carefully torn down and all the homeless people were paid minimum wages to clean the bricks they could be used again to build another big building where they could live." "You have a good idea, Joy, but a house is much more than just bricks. There has to be electricity, water, heat, air-conditioning, refrigerators, stoves, and all the things that we have in our house." "That's a simple problem. I think a lot of the businesses in the city would donate things for the homes once they were built. If they didn't you could always ask the people in the whole state to donate some money or even ask for an additional penny in taxes. I think most of them would be tickled pink to help." "That sounds like a good idea, Honey. Maybe I'll toss it out at one of our monthly meetings and see what the others think." "There's something else you could do too." "What would that be?" "Have the police department pull a surprise attack on the empty buildings and catch all the people selling drugs. You could use the money they collect to start working on the bricks." "We don't have enough policemen to do that." "As governor can't you call in the National Guard and let them help you?" "How come you know so much about these things?" "I don't know. I just keep getting these thoughts in my mind. In fact I just thought of something that made me laugh." "What?" "When I sit in my room and watch TV I learn that our government does some funny things. For instance, they're trying to stop drugs from coming into our country by cutting off the supply from some place called Columbia. That to me is really stupid. When you have a headache you don't cut off your head you take an aspirin. So instead of trying to cut off the head of the drug dealers why don't they catch the people using the drugs and make them stop. That way there wouldn't be any demand so they wouldn't need a supply." "How could we do that?" her father asked completely dumbfounded by the wisdom of so young a child. "If it was me and I caught someone buying drugs I'd make them pay dearly. If they have enough money for drugs why should they have enough money to pay for their own treatment. I would also take the people selling them drugs and give them one warning. The second time they got caught I'd take away their bank account, all their money, their car if they owned one, and their house. Then they wouldn't sell drugs if they knew they would lose everything they own." "You sure are right there, Honey. Are there any other thoughts floating around in that smart little head of yours?" "Oh, goodness, yes. I saw on TV that our nation is in debt, deep in debt. I have a way that I believe we could take two or three hundred million dollars a week off the National debt and make almost everyone happy." "How would you do that, Honey?" her father asked now deeply engrossed in the thoughts of his daughter. "I would start a national lottery like England, Ireland, Australia, and other nations have done only I'd give back half of the money to the people. Just for the fun of it let?s say the government sold four hundred million dollars worth of tickets a week. They could use two hundred million dollars to reduce the debt and two hundred million would go back to people with winning numbers. BUT, I wouldn't give one person two hundred million dollars. Instead I'd give two hundred people a million dollars apiece; tax free." "How do you know about the lottery and all these other things?" her mother asked. "I've spent a lot of time in my room because I'm so ugly I don't want people to see me but that doesn't mean I can't listen and learn. There is another way we could save millions and millions of dollars every year and I think it would help our nation immensely. You'll know if I'm right or wrong, Daddy. We have fifty states and we have a republican and a democratic senator fom each one of them. Supposedly they are the smartest politicians people could vote into office. This part of out political system makes sense to me but why we have so many people in the House of Representatives doesn't make sense at all and if you really think about it we don't need them. This is a system of mostly lawyers created by a group that was mostly lawyers and the comman tax payer gets stuck for actually billions of dollars every year for something useless. It isn't only the salaries we pay them but the money wasted on all their employees as well and I understand most of them retire with more pension every year than most common people make in their lifetime." "I've got to disagree with you there, Honey," her dad answered with a knowledgeable smile on his face. "I think they are necessary to keep country running in the right direction." "I don't think so especially in this time and age. When the House of Representatives was first created people wrote with a quill and rode animals for transportation. People who lived in out of the way districts needed to be represented. Now the House in Washington, D.C. is absolutely reduntant. With our phones, computers, and other methods of communication they're about as useful as wings on a frog, and we do have State Representatives in every state." "What other thoughts do you have?" asked a bewilded father. "I was thinking about something mom might be interested in. I've heard her talk about lawyers and how disappointed she was in the legal system when Mr. Simpson?s dream team bamboozled the jury into thinking he hadn't killed two people. Imagine what it would be like if a group of chemists put their heads together and came up with some foolproof truth serums. I know scopolamine works on the nervous system and is used as a truth serum as is sodium pentothal. Think what that would mean to everyone. If a crime is commited and the one thought to be the perpetrator was apprehended wouldn't it be nice to know positively if that person was innocent or guilty. If someone was given a pill or an injection of something that worked on the brain and wouldn't allow them to lie wouldn't that be wounderful. This is the part that would be so fantastic. It would never allow an innocent person to go to prison or a guilty person to go free and as an added benifit we could get rid of most of the lawyers in the world. It would also save the millions of tax dollars the people spend to prosecute someone that has allegedly committed a crime." "Wow," a startled mother said as she stared at her daughter. "Anything else?" Chuck asked not really understanding the biggest part of the subjects his younger sibling was so elaborately talking about. "I know how much we all love sports and I know how expensive it is for all of us to go, so suppose we did something about it. I know mom and daddy both went to college and when they graduated wanted a good paying job. I think I remember daddy saying sixty thousand dollars was a good place to start after graduation but just yesterday I heard on TV that some football player was getting thirty four million dollars for signing a three years contract. I don't think any sports figure in the world is worth that much and I think we are foolish to give them all that money." "How could we change it?" Chuck asked now interested in what his sister was saying. "I think five or six young college graduates should get together and start something like a FOS club. That stands for Fans Of Sports. They should be in the middle of the country and have a big 1-800 telephone system set up in a building. Suppose they charge each member five dollars for a lifetime membership and they got a hundred million people to join the first year. That would be five hundred million dollars. Then any decisions made about any team or team member would be voted on my the FOS. But that isn't the good part. Right now for the four of us to go to a game it costs over sixty five dollars. I'd drop the entrance fee back to five dollars for grown-ups and two dollars for children. That would be fourteen dollars and I think that's fair. But, if I did that all the players on the field or in the courts wouldn?t be able to receive thirty million dollars like the man I was telling you about. I would start every player off at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year for the first year, two hundred thousand for the second year, and three hundred thousand for the third year. After that nothing more unless they were in the playoffs. The two playoff teams would receive five hundred thousand for each player to come in second and the first place team would each get one million dollars. Think of the games we'd see then. If every person playing is a millionaire I don't think they play as hard as they would if they were just slightly rich." "That makes sense to me, Sis," Chuck said shaking his head in appreciation of his sister?s great thoughts. All three members of her family were held spellbound as Joy explained the many things running through her mind. Thoughts that people in position of authority never spoke about because they probably never thought about such trivial things. "Have you been thinking about these things for a long time, Honey?" her mother asked curious about where all this knowledge was coming from. "No. Most of the things I'm talking about come to me as I'm speaking. I have been thinking about some things after I see them on TV but now I can see a resolution to some of the things I have wondered about." "Like what, Honey?" "I have seen the hurricanes on TV and how awful they are. I know that in 1972 Agnes cost three billion dollars and killed a hundred and thirty four people. In 1989 Hugo cost four billion dollars and killed more than fifty. In 1992 Andrew cost twelve billion and killed more than fifty people." "Hurricanes are awful things, Joy, but there?s absolutely nothing we can do about them," her father said remembering how bad things had been at the time. "I don't think there's a reason in the world to ever have another hurricane and I think the solution could be a very simple one." "How do you think we can stop hurricanes?" her father asked expecting a childish answer but not quite sure what words would come from his daughter's lips. "The Air Force has been flying through harricanes since 1941.We know hurricanes consist of high-velocity winds blowing circularity around a low-pressure center. This center develops when warm saturated air is forced upward by denser cooler air. From the edge of the storm toward its center, the atmospheric pressure drops sharply and the wind velocity rises." Three mouths popped open at the words coming from such a small mouth and she continued. "Suppose we took two or three big airplanes like the 747 or the C-5 and transformed them into ice cold water carrying machines and then spread the cold water on hurricanes just as they are upgraded from tropical storms to hurricanes. The cold water could cool the warm air that is pushing up and turn it back into a tropical storm.If that isn't cold enough we could always saturate the air around the eye with liquid nitrogen" "That's a wonderful thought but it would never work," her father said almost immediately. "How do you know it wouldn't work if it has never been tried?" Joy asked with the same seriousness that her father had shown in his answer. "Do you have any other bright ideas?" her somewhat jealous brother asked now that Joy was getting all the attention. "Oh, Chuckie, I?m getting all kinds of thoughts and you?ll know how much they bother me." "What bothers you so much about your thoughts and what are they, Sis?" "What bothers me the most about them is that I'm too young to do anything about them. Do you realize that grownups are actually killing the younger generations with their greed?" "How?" "I'll give you two examples. First, they are destroying our rain forests so fast that someday soon we may not have enough oxygen to breathe but that is not the worse thing they are doing. Just stop and think a minute, Chuckie, about something that grownups don't seem to care about or they have never thought about. In 1852 men became really interested in crude oil. They had been messing around with it for a few years but became really interested in it when a Canadian named Abraham Gessner, a physician and geologist, got a patent for producing kerosene from crude oil. In 1855 someone named Ben Silliman wrote a paper on how important the products removed from crude oil could be. It has been down hill all the way since then. I'm not sure you'll understand them but here is the truth as I know it. Lets say that crude oil weighs seven pounds a gallon, or somewhere in that vicinity, and a barrel of crude oil holds forty two gallons, so a barrel of crude weighs about two hundred and ninety four pounds. Are you with me so far?" Chuck gave a head shake to the affirmative. "It's worse now but I'll give you an example of how bad it was in the 1980s. All the oil companies in the world removed over fifty three million barrels of crude oil a day. Do you understand what that means Chuck." This time Chuck shook his head to the negative. "Think for a minute, Chuckie. Fifty three million barrels a day. That's something like sixteen billion pounds a day being removing from the earth and most of it comes from the same section of the world. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, and Russia are all in a line from North to South. Not a straight line but close enough. If all that weight is removed from one section of the world it is possible it could affect global warming and even cause the world to tip on its axis. Maybe, Chuckie, it will be people like you and me who may save the world before grownups completely destroy it. If the crude oil in the ground acts as a barrier between the earth's core and its crust, and I think it does, now wonder the earth is getting warmer and we are having global warming." "I'd like to help but what could we do." "Something will have to be done before you and I are old enough to help but if I could I'd make all the nations that take oil from the earth refill the void they leave with water." "Don't most of the nations use water to raise the oil?" her dad asked. "Some of them do but most of them don't. Water is used in some places and in other places steam but most of the oil comes to the surface because of the pressure in the earth or it is helped up with pumps." "How in the world do you know all these things, Joy?" a pair of confused parents wanted to know. "They are just thoughts that come to my mind. They may be correct and they may not but I think they are and two things I'm thinking about should really bother you, Dad." "What are those, Honey?" a deeply rapt governor inquired of his daughter. "I don't think in some ways our legal system is worth a hill of beans. Yesterday on TV the news was telling about a grandfather who was traveling from Florida to Ohio and stopping off in Georgia to visit his children. The reporter said he was molesting his grandchildren in all three states and when they caught him he was sentenced from one to ten years in prison. Yet after serving only four months in prison he was released." "Did they say why he was released?" her dad asked. "Yes, and that was the most stupid thing of all. They said the prisons were overcrowded and when a new prisioner came in they had to release someone to make room for the new offender. This is the real crazy part. They incarcerated a stupid young man who had written bad checks and released a sick old man so he could go back and molest other children. Does this make sense to you?" "No, it doesn't," the head of the household had to admit. "What's the other thing bothering you?" "Do you ever think about the eleven most powerful single sentences ever written?" Now Mr. Cavanaugh was lost for words and was working his brain trying to think of the sentences his daughter was referring to. "They're the ten amendments and the preamble to our constitution. Each is a single sentence and I believe most lawyers don't understsnd their meaning. For instance, a short time ago on the TV news it showed a truck in California being chased by police cars and the people in back of the truck were throwing everything possible at the police and wouldn't stop. Finally after a chase of several miles the truck was forced to stop and all the occupants started running for the woods. When they were captured and hand cuffed it was discovered none of them could even speak English. The first thing some brilliant lawyer said was their first amendment rights had been violated. I don't understand how people who are in our country illegally qualify under the first amendment. I really wonder where all the good lawyers are when you need one. Take the bombing of the building in Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh was tried in another state and that is in direct violation of the sixth amendment which states the accused shall be tried by an impartial jury in the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. The lawyers argued the people of Oklahoma couldn?t be impartial and I think is a disgrace to them. All of them had their rights violated so a man accused of killing men, women, and children could get a fair trial. How stupid is that?" Mr. Cavanaugh pushed his chair back from the table and went into the living room to try an ingest what he had just heard his daughter say. Mrs. Cavanaugh cleared the table and Joy headed for her room and her new friend. "Did you give me all those wonderful thoughts when I was at the table?" she asked her little wooden playmate. "What are thoughts, Joy?" "Just things that come to people?s minds." "That is only partially correct. Thoughts can be almost anything. They can be happy things or something that can scare you half to death. Things you remember from when you're real young until the day you die but mostly thoughts are the power to imagine. You can sit right here in this room and travel to Mars if you use your imagination. Many people think many things and the person that thinks an original thought is usually called a genius. With my help, Joy, I see you becoming one of the free thinkers of the world." Joy laid down on the bed next to her toy and held her in her arms. She heard her mother call from downstairs and ran, with doll in arms, to see what her mother wanted. "Joy, I need to do some shopping and I wondered if you wanted to go with me?" "Of course I do, Mom. Do you mind if I take my doll with me?" "If you want to take her along it's fine by me." They walked out to the car and after fastening their seat belts headed for the mall that was only four miles away. Half way to their destination they had stopped at a four way stop sign and as Mrs. Cavanaugh started across a drunken driver rammed into the passenger side of the car. Joy lost consciousness and when she awoke she was in the hospital. Her head and face completely covered with bandages. Her father, mother, and brother were by her side. "She's finally awake," her father said as both parents bent over and kissed her. "How do you feel, Honey?" her mother asked. "I'm a little sore on my right side but my face hurts something awful. Are you all right, Mom?" "Yes, I'm fine," mother answered giving her daughter an extra kiss on the hand for thinking about her well-being while she was hurt so badly. For eight days Joy was nursed in the hospital before the bandages could be removed from her face and she couldn?t believe her eyes when she saw the face hiding behind the bandages. It was the face of her Madonna. She thought the doll had been destroyed in the accident and she figure she had received one last gift from her wooden friend. The first thing she did when she got home was to go upstairs and stare into her mirror. Never had she seen such a beautiful face on a human being and as she was admiring herself she saw her doll laying on the pillow. There was something wrong with her for she now had the face Joy had been born with. Joy ran to her and picking her up in her arms hugged her tight as tears rolled down her face. "I'm sorry, Madonna. I didn't mean to steal your face. You were so beautiful and now you look like I have for all my years. Please forgive for making you so ugly." Tears rolled from her face like there had been a flood and the floodgate had broken. Joy awoke with a start and looked at the doll beside her. Her face was as beautiful as ever and rising from the bed she looked into the mirror. Her face was the same as it had been before she had fallen asleep and had her horrible dream about the accident. "I'm so glad you're still beautiful, Madonna," Joy said as she hugged her doll close. "I wouldn't change that beautiful face for all the money in the world." Joy grew up, went to college, got a master's degree in ecology, a law degree, and became the head of a new movement to save the world from its inhabitants. Her lovable smile, which she always wore, and her ability to solve problems that others had found insurmountable were her two greatest assets. She had turned twenty six and on the ninth of June, married her college sweetheart, and exactly a year later gave birth to a baby girl. The baby was far prettier than her mother had been when she was born and the black-haired blue-eyed girl was named Athena. Athena was a godess adored by the Athenian people because she gave them the olive tree. The first toy the new baby ever played with was a wooden doll that had been carved from a piece of olive tree. At the age of twenty five Joy became the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for the language she gave to the world. She called it Almega, the combination of Alpha and Omega (the beginning and the end) and it was taught in every nation on earth so no matter where you went you could always talk to and be understood by the locals. |
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