Once, there was a pair of magic scissors. Plenty of magic people had used them to do magical things, from trimming tassels on magic carpets to clipping twigs from wooden boys. But the scissors were now old and bent, and their edges now dull and chipped. So, they sat at the bottom of a drawer, waiting for years to be used.
The last person to own them was an old inventor, and they passed away before they could fix the scissors. So, the scissors were packed up and sold to a trinket shop, where they were then bought by a mother for her little daughter. The daughter was a creative type, and loved old and storied things – especially shiny ones – so the scissors made a perfect birthday present.
The daughter loved her dolls and would use the scissors to style their hair and snip up their clothes to fit the latest fashions. But then, her little brother – littler even than her – got a hold of the scissors and did some cutting of his own. He rampaged through the house, snipping as he went, until he came upon a piece of paper he'd covered in scribbles the day before. That paper, he cut into the shape of a person.
"Why?" you may ask. Well, for no particular reason.
But cut they did, and a person's shape, they did make. And then, as the daughter wrested the scissors from her brother's hand, the paper came to life. Scribbled and scuffed, stained and crinkled, the paperkin stood up and asked the obvious question:
"My new doll!" the daughter replied, and she scooped up the paperkin in her arms and dumped it out into her favourite dollhouse.
Even though the paperkin was covered in scribbles, the daughter tried her best to write over them. She wanted the best parts of all her dolls to be on the paperkin, so she drew on it the best clothes she could imagine and the happiest face with the rosiest cheeks. Then, she introduced it to the rest of her beloved dolls.
With the scissors in hand, the daughter tapped all her dolls on the head and brought them to life just like the paperkin. The dolls all played with each other happily, frolicking and tea-partying, but the paperkin didn't dance their jaunty dances or drink their imaginary teas. It looked at the patterns on its paper body and puzzled over them, wondering what they were. In its head, it saw many more patterns, each of them colourful, but none of them particularly pretty.
The little brother's scrawls, it seemed, were not just paper-deep. They made the poor paperkin's thoughts come in not-so-clear, and made the other dolls look at them and know the paperkin was different. The dolls wore polka dots and stripes, and others wore tartan or plaid. Some dressed in leopard print, others in lace, but they knew all these things were by design, while what was different about the paperkin was more of a mistake.
Not only did the dolls notice, but so did the daughter, and she worried the paperkin would be left out, so she took the scissors again – as well as some paints – and got to work making everything better. But her idea of better was not what the paperkin hoped, as she trimmed off its corners and painted over her little brother's mess. Snip, snip, snip.
Over top of the scribbles, she drew more presentable things, turning smears into stripes and stains into squares. She looked at her work and was satisfied by what she saw, and she popped the paperkin back into the dollhouse where everything could at last be normal.
The dolls treated the paperkin better, like it was one of them, but the paperkin didn't feel better; only trimmed. Even though its colours now matched and its shape was neater, it could always feel what was now overwritten, and what had been cut. But from then on, when the paperkin wrinkled or its smile faded, the daughter took it from the dolls and made it tidy again. Snip, snip, snip.
When the daughter grew up, the dolls grew up, too, and when they and the paperkin outgrew the dollhouse, they left and found places to call their own. When they stepped from the daughter's doorstep – with a twinkle and a flash – each doll of porcelain, plastic, and paper, turned into skin and bone. They stayed in touch, for the most part, but the paperkin left; to places where no one knew of once-paper people or of dolls that were easier to love.
And whenever the paperkin felt like too many people were staring – like too many people could tell it was different – it did as it had been taught and took out a pair of scissors. Snip, snip, snip.
