• Memories.... Humans don’t start having memories until they are around age 4, but everything they learned before stays in their heads. I was made over 6 years ago, supposed to be a gift to the shop owner’s nephew and then traded back to the shop owner for a rubber ball. Not sure if it was due to the dust collected on my eyes, but my time at the shop just seemed like a big blur until the day she picked me of the shelf.
    "Oooo aren't you the cutest little thing. I want to take you home and make you my friend." Said the little girl, "I would love to take you home with me, but I'm afraid that my mom wouldn't let me."
    This small person with lemon drop yellow hair tied in to handle bar tassels from her head brought me close to her face. Her eyes bluer then the shop owner’s overalls, looking at me up and down, from my black wooden block feet to the strings that held me up. The little girl with her tiny pale hands compared to that of the shop owner, grabbed me from my control rod and let my body hang as she gently descended me until my two feet landed on the ground. I thought to myself: another kid that will play with me and leave me at this little shop's shelf to collect dust again. She manipulated the control bar forcing the strings to move my limbs as if I was possessed by some higher being causing me to trot across the floor. I looked at my feet as they moved as natural as her feet and the other humans feet moved. Soon I saw the destination she was taking me towards which was the shop owner himself.
    “Well hello there. How might I be able to serve a beautiful princess like you?” said the shop owner as he kneeled to one knee being eye level to the little girl. Smiling at the little girl with his white beard covering most of his face except his spectacles and teeth he barely has matching the girl’s hair.
    “I found him,” She said, nearly shoving me into the shop owner’s face “and would like to know how much he costs so I can take him home with me?”
    “he, right here cost 10 pounds, there are other better toys here that cost less than he does.” said the shop owner “ are you sure that you wouldn’t want some of the other toys?”
    “No, I want him.” She said putting me down, reaching into the pocket of her yellow flowered dress. “Is this enough?” holding in her hands towards the shop owner: 1 pound, a smooth gray pebble, and 2 pieces of candy.
    “No, I’m sorry it isn’t enough, would you like me to show you something that you could buy?” sadly said the shop owner
    “Is there any way that I’m able to take him home with me?” said the little girl as her bottom lip quivered and tried to hold back her tears
    “There is no need to cry, please don’t. What is your name my young princess?” asked the shop owner quickly thinking of something
    “My name is Annie sir.” she replied
    “Ok Annie, why don’t we make a deal? You are able to take ….”
    “Faust.” Annie quickly interrupted
    “Ok, you are able to take Faust home with you, but whenever you have a pound or two, you must come and pay for him until you have paid for him completely. Is that a deal?” asked the shop owner
    “Deal.” Said Annie sticking out her tiny white pinky
    “Ok, he is now yours” said the shop owner nearly covering Annie’s pinky as he wrapped his around hers.
    Wow, I am actually leaving this shop. I am going to a new home and be played with one little person that won’t be leaving me at this shelf. I won’t be seeing this old man everyday and hearing how his wife gripes to him about her friends and how she doesn’t look as pretty as her other friends. With a great big smile little Annie grabbed me and scurried out of the shop with her little legs onto the road passing by small shops, nearly crashing into every person that she passed by. I was just filled with amazement, taking in everything I saw, for this was the first time that I had ever been outside of the shop. Taking in everything I could while being carried by this little girl who would now be my friend. Wait friend? What is a friend? How do I become a friend…. How does a puppet like me, who is unable to move speak or do anything without someone controlling me be a friend to a human? I know I have heard many kids that would come into the shop to look and play with the other toys calling each other friend, but what does it mean to be a friend? As my little human slowed down to a halt, I noticed that we came to a building that looked nothing like the shop which I came from. It seemed to be made out of gray stone, a door made out of wood twice the size of my little Annie. She held me in both of her hands to where I face her.
    “Faust, this is your new home. You will be living here with me and my mommy and daddy. I am afraid that if my mommy and daddy find you, they won’t let you live here with me and become my best-est. friend,” said Annie. Before she touched the door she looked left and right making sure no one was around then shoved me in her dress. I am pretty sure that friends don’t shove other friends under their dress. Are her parents really that scary, or are they that bad that I must be hidden from them? Only being able to see nothing but black, I heard the door open and Annie’s little feet hurry inside and close the door. Only hearing her feet walk around and feeling us move around the house Annie checked if the cost was clear for me to come out from under her dress.
    “Ok Faust, it seems that no one is home, so you could come out.” Confirmed Annie, pulling me out of her dress, finally being able to see light and my new home. She set me down on a bed as she went to another room. The new home of mine seemed plain from what I was able to see from the bed. An old wooden table that seemed to have broken many times and is continually being repaired as a new part of it breaks. There were two wooden dressers that seem to be worn out from the years as if the wood was beginning to rot before they made it. Annie walked into the room with a bunch of stuff in her arms.
    “You are Faust, a butler who uses to be a trader that traveled around the world. When you got back to Britain to see your family, you accidentally took business away from gangster and destroyed all your trade connections and left you in debt. The only way that an intelligent man like you would be able to make a living was to become a butler for the queen,” said Annie with her cute white smile of hers. A butler? Messing with Gangsters? Trader? The queen? What kind of imagination does this little human have? I understand the part where she wishes me to become a butler and her wishing for me to do as she wishes, but everything else, I wonder if there was anything that happened to her before this that would place those kind of ideas in her head for my story.
    “Thank you my queen for giving me a history, and bringing me to life. What do you wish for me to do?” I said with a gentle voice.
    “No silly I am not the queen.” Said Annie
    “But you are my master, and the story you gave me says that I serve the queen.”
    “Then I helped the queen find her slippers before bed, and her reward was her best butler who was named Faust.”
    “So I was given to you by the queen to serve you and do your bidding?”
    “Yes.” Giggled Annie as she now realized what a complicated and funny story she gave me. “ As my first command for you, I want you to be my friend forever, ok?”
    “Ok master, I shall be your friend forever,” I confirmed
    “I don’t want you to call me master, just all me Annie.” She giggled as her cheeks turned from the white marble they usually are to a rosy red.
    “Ok mast… I mean Annie.” I said as one of my arms was being pulled up to shake her hand. Annie picks me up and looks at the light green and blue rags that are meant to be my clothes and says,
    “A butler cannot look like this,” I would never agree to be a butler, but what can I say? I am just a puppet. Everything that I say is nothing but dialog that comes from her imagination. I guess I am a butler, saying what she wishes for me to say. Yes I know I don’t fit the attire to be a butler, but what can we do? The shop owner sells puppet clothes, but you still owe him for buying me. “I knew you wouldn’t look like a real butler when I brought you home, that’s why I brought these.” she continued as she pointed to the crafts that she brought from the other room. I am not sure what is more surprising, the fact that you knew from the beginning that I was going to be a butler, or that you have all this material to attempt to make me look like a butler. As Annie was about to grab the scissors, she heard the front door open.
    “Oh no, I need to hide you,” whispered Annie then she started looking around the bedroom for a place to hide me.
    “Annie are you home? Where are you brat?” said a threatening female voice. Then I found myself under a pillow barely being able to hear anything that is being said.