Everyone finished supper, and it was time to go outside for the run-of-the-quilts. The dolls left the dining room in an orderly manner and saw the quilts lined along the braided rug road. Each quilt had a waving motion to it, as though it was ready to take off into the sky, but the dolls knew this about the quilts, because Betty Lou taught them everything about the run.

As the dolls stood and waited to see which quilt they were going to hop onto, Queen Faustina announced that she had a special message. “Tonight,” she paused as she smiled at the dolls, “Madame Poulette and I have a secret to tell all of you who are the special October dolls to leave the land on this night of Halloween.”

“Ah, the secret,” Plume said out loud. “We finally get to hear it. I love to hear when a secret comes out.”

“Yes Plume, the secret is finally coming out,” the Queen grinned. “Usually the one hundred dolls all go to the city for the run, but tonight, for the first time ever, Madame Poulette has magically instructed each quilt to go to different parts of Louisiana.”

The dolls jumped up and down with joy, because they were the first group to ever do this. Whenever a first happened in the land, their names went upstairs on Madame Plume’s Wall of Fame. Everyone applauded.

Faustina stood proud. “Before all of you leave the land, I will read the list of names. As I read your name, you will hop onto the first quilt, and so on down the line. Some of you will be two on a quilt, and some of you will fly alone. Madame Poulette will show you if you are to pair up, or not.”

The dolls waited anxiously.

Antoine had Buddy with him, his raccoon he brought back to the land in his brown tie bag. Three of the Cajun Fairies heard the news and came flying into the land from their oak tree to watch the run-of-the-quilts.

“I’ll read your names in alphabetical order, starting with the girls.” Faustina began by unrolling a beautiful scroll wrapped on a piece of cypress wood with purple tassels hanging from each end.

“Amy, Brittney, Carolyn, Christine, Courtney, Danielle, Debra, Diane, Dolly, Donna, Dorothy, Emily, Faye, Gwen, Helen, Jade, Jasmine, Karen, Katie, Laura Ann, Linda, Lisa, Lori, Madison, Maggie, Mickie, Miriam, Monica, Monique, Myra, Nancy, Ophelia, Patricia, Patsy, Patty, Ruby, Sandi, Sara, Sharon, Sondra, Suzie, Tammy, Tilly, Tina, Vanessa, Vera, Vinette, Wanda, Whitney Lynn, and Zoe.”

“And now for the boys.” Faustina unrolled a second scroll.

“Archie, Billy, Bobby, Buddy, Chevy, Dale, David, Davy, Danny, Dennis, Donald, Duffy, Dustin, Elvis, Gerald, Harold, Jeff, Jerame, Jerry, Jimmy, John, Jordy, Junior, Joe, Kim, Larry, Lawrence, Levy, Mark, Michael, Mike, Monte, Morgan, Noah, Norman, Philip, Ralph, Raymond, Reed, Richard, Ricardo, Roland, Scott, Steve, Ted, Teddy, Tristan, Tyler, Victor, and Zachary.

When all of the dolls were on the quilts they were suppose to be on, anxiously awaiting departure from the land, Faustina named the towns in Louisiana where their final destination would be.

“With permission from me, Queen Faustina, and all of you having my key seal of approval, you will be leaving the Land of Sha Bebe for these parts of Louisiana;

Grande Isle, Port Fourchon, Leeville, Golden Meadow, Galliano, Cut-Off, Larose, Venice, Buras, Houma, Lockport, Raceland, Thibodaux, Morgan City, Pierre Part, Baton Rouge, Clinton, Lafayette, New Iberia, Crowley, Abbeville, Lake Charles, Bayou Boeuf, Opelousas, Kentwood, Hammond, Alexandria, Natchitoches, Shreveport, Monroe, and Ruston.”

Everyone was applauding and waiting for Poulette to get in position to start the run-of-the-quilts. The sun had gone down and the night was clear with the full moon still showing her brilliant glow. The Bebe Land Band was playing music, and Antoine had such a good feeling inside, like he had when he was with his family, that the moment became overwhelming for him. He went to Plume and Marie and gave them a tight hug for giving him his life back.

Standing in front of all of them, he picked up his fiddle and joined in with music until Poulette was ready to send the dolls off to different parts of Louisiana. When the Bebe Land Band stopped playing, Antoine put his fiddle down.

Madame Poulette came to the front quilt, and with her magic wand in hand, she picked up the front end of her long black dress and started the run by tipping the first quilt with her wand. When she did that the first quilt took off into the sky. She did the same thing for the second quilt and so on down the line. As she ran along to each quilt, everyone clapped and chanted, “Run Poulette run -- Run Poulette run -- Run Poulette run.”

With each quilt that flew into the sky, the doll on that quilt yelled back to the residents, “Bye, we love you.” With those words, the last thing they saw in the land as they flew high into the sky was Madame Poulette’s stars shining around her long black dress. Poulette ran until the last quilt was air borne.

When the run was done, the Bebe Land Band began playing again, and they all danced. It was a joyful moment to see them leave the land to help the humans. It was now ten o’clock at night, and they had two more hours left until the midnight hour, when the new bunch of dolls would come running out of Madame Plume’s plantation house to live in the sugar shacks of the one hundred dolls who had just left. Until the midnight hour, they danced.