I wrote this story as a gift for my daughter Emily.
Outside, the snow dazzled and sparkled. Inside, it warmed
the back, shoulders and dark hair of a beautiful nine year old girl. The
pleasant feeling was coupled with the joy she was feeling while reading her
favorite book. Her body may have been sitting on the window seat in her
sister’s room, but her mind was worlds away…
“Emily, are you coming? Hurry up!” Amber called to her best
friend in the next tree over. “We don’t want to be late!”
“I’m coming! Just one more paragraph and I’ll be done with
this chapter!” Emily called back, not looking up from her book.
Amber sighed impatiently, tapping her foot so that the
leaves on the branch she was standing on trembled to the beat. “It’s not like
it’s not her third time through this book,” she muttered to herself.
“Okay, done! I’m coming!” Emily tucked her book safely in
the hollow of the tree and stood up. She smoothed out her purple petunia dress
and looked around for her shoes. She always kicked her shoes off while she
read, which meant she was always looking for her shoes when she was not
reading. “Have you seen my…”
“Shoes?” Emily looked up at Amber who was dangling her shoes
from her fingers. Emily gave her a sheepish grin as she gracefully lifted
herself from her branch with her wings and silently glided to Amber’s branch.
“Shanksh,” she said through closed teeth. Amber rolled her eyes with a smile.
Both fairies ascended into the dappled sunlight glinting
through the foliage of their forest. They dipped and swirled through the air
giggling. As they flew, they were joined one by one by other fairies their age.
They waved and greeted many of their friends. “Hi, Cherry!” “Leela! Did you
finish that killer math assignment?” “Hey, Chad!” An exceptionally cute fairy
by the name of Charles winked at them and set them off into another gale of
giggles.
As they approached the wide, tall Oak tree, they slowed in
their flight. Mrs. Wood smiled at her class as they alighted on the front steps
of the Greenwood School for Young Fairies and ran on tip
toes to their seats. “Welcome, Everyone! I trust you had a wonderful weekend.”
She was greeted by lots of nodding heads and murmured,
“Um-hmm”s.
“I hope you were all able to finish your homework,” she said
brightly. A few people bit their lips and looked down because they had
obviously forgotten. “Not to worry,” she said pleasantly. “We will only have
time for a few of you to report today, so those that aren’t finished have
another day, but please be prepared to present your findings tomorrow.” Several
sighs and relieved expressions could be heard throughout the room. “Now, who
would like to be first to present today on something in the forest that
changes?”
Charles looked around and then sat up straight and raised
his hand. “Charles!” Mrs. Wood’s voice held surprise. “Please stand at the
front of the classroom and tell us about your findings.”
Charles stood and shuffled to the front of the classroom in
his moss green shorts and short sleeved shirt. His sandaled feet made no sound
on the grass that grew like carpet on the floor. He ran his fingers through his
sandy colored curly hair. His blue-green eyes were still looking at the floor
when he reached the front of the room and turned to face his classmates. He
smiled as he looked up. “When I was flying home from school on Friday, thinking
about this assignment, I decided to fly over the lake and take the long way
home. I didn’t want to get eaten by a jumping fish or anything, so I stuck
close to the edge of the lake and flew around and around it. After about the
third time around, I decided to stop and get a closer look at a moving cloud I
had noticed under the water. I landed on a cattail and peered down into the
water. As I watched, the cloud moved and shifted around and I could see that it
was made up of a whole bunch of really tiny critters. I kept watching and I
could see the ones on the edge of the cloud and I realized they were little
tadpoles!” Charles grinned and held his fingers up to show how tiny they were.
Even to a fairy, who are much smaller than we are, these tadpoles were pretty
small.
“So, anyway, as I sat there swaying on that cattail, I
realized that these little guys used to be eggs and pretty soon, they’ll be
frogs. Pretty cool change, right, Mrs. W?”
“Yes, Charles. Great job! Later today, we’ll be starting to
write about our findings about the change around us. Really great.” Mrs. Wood
leaped (with the help of her wings) to the front of the classroom and wrote ‘Tadpole
to Frog’ on the sanded wall of the tree with her pollen chalk. She turned
around as Charles took his seat again. “Anyone else?”
Emily tentatively raised her hand. Looking timid, she went
to the front of the room when Mrs. Wood smiled at her encouragingly.
“Well,” she started softly. She glanced at Amber who winked
encouragingly and mouthed “Speak up!” Emily laced her fingers together behind
her back and stood up straight and tall. Taking a deep breath, she started
again, “On Saturday, my sisters Becca and Grace and I discovered an unopened
chrysalis hanging outside our bedroom window. Last week, we noticed that a
caterpillar had been chewing the edges of the leaves around our house. I guess she
picked our branch to build a chrysalis because it is nice and sunny, and
sheltered from the wind. She just sort of hooked herself on there, hanging
upside down. The chrysalis is grey and it looks like layers and layers of paper
wrapped around her long body. My mother said they stay in their chrysalis for
about 10 days and I figure she’s been in there for about 8 days.”
“You know, Emily, that sounds like a great field trip for
our class if we could watch your butterfly emerge. How does that sound?”
Emily nodded vigorously without speaking. Mrs. Wood
chuckled. “Alright, we’ll have to see about that. Good work, Emily! Sounds like
you’ve got the makings for a great write-up, too! Good luck!” Emily flitted to
her desk while Mrs. Wood wrote ‘Caterpillar to Butterfly’ underneath Charles’
project name.
Amber was practically dancing in her seat, bouncing up and
down and waving her arm in the air. “Yes, Amber, would you like to be next?”
Mrs. Wood smiled.
Amber jumped out of her seat and skipped to the front of the
room. She loved having all eyes on her and she began to talk so fast, Mrs. Wood
had to stop her and remind her to speak slowly and distinctly. She started
again.
“I was flying through the forest with my brother, Mikey and
my Dad and we flew farther than we had ever been before. My Dad was telling us all about what the
forest looked like when he was a kid. He said it went on and on without ever ending…
or at least as far as he knew. He said he never thought it had an edge. Right
after he married my Mom, though, there was this huge fire!” Mrs. Wood nodded
sadly, remembering. “It burned, like, EVERYTHING! It almost got all the way
here to our small town. Everyone was getting ready to move as it got closer and
closer.
“Then he told us about how the whole town, every single
fairy there was, went out and combined their magic and stopped the fire. He
said it was like a wall of magic that wouldn’t let the fire pass. He said it took
all of their energy and they stayed there for, like, a whole day, just keeping
up their magic wall. When the fire finally died, they were all so exhausted,
they just dropped to the ground right there and slept. As they slept, the
plants underneath them grew up around them and kept them safe while they slept.
When they woke up, they were laying where it was plush and green, but right in
front of them everything was black an charred. Everything had been killed and
burned. He cried a lot when he told us about that part.”
“Amber, I hate to interrupt your fascinating story, but I
was wondering if you could tell us about the part that made you think about the
assignment. What was the change that you wanted to document in your project?”
Mrs. Wood said kindly.
“Well, when we stopped at the edge of the forest on
Saturday, it wasn’t black anymore. There was green stuff draped on everything
that used to be black. There aren’t any tall trees there anymore, but there are
baby trees and lots and lots of green stuff growing everywhere!” Amber was
making big gestures with her arms and jumping around to show just how much
green there had been there.
“Amber, that is a very ambitious project you’ve got in mind,
there. But I think you can do it. Wonderful idea!” Mrs. Wood added ‘Forest after Fire’ to the list on the board. “I think
we’ve got a great start for our projects, Class. I want you all to keep
thinking about what you’d like to learn more about and write your project on.
For now, let’s take a break at recess. Please clear your desks and enjoy your
break!”
“Emily?! Emily, where are you?”
Emily became aware of the sun again on her back. “Huh?”
Carpet was on the floor instead of grass. She shrugged her shoulders to be sure
there were no wings fluttering behind her. Next to her on the window seat,
Amber smiled her same smile. Was that a wink? Emily looked again at her
favorite doll. “Did you just wink at me?” she whispered.
“Em? Come to the living room for Family Home Evening!”
called her mother. Emily shoved her bookmark in her book, grabbed Amber and
trotted off to spend time with her real life family, with a big grin on her
face.
