Lily's Flower Igloo by Natalie Wade

Lily's Cedar Tree Pillow Fort

Lily bounded into the garage in search of empty boxes.  Yesterday her parents had bought a new washer and dryer, and the boxes just might serve her purpose.

“Dad, can I have one of the boxes for the washer and dryer?” Lily asked.  “I want to make a pillow fort in the old cedar tree.”

“A what?” her dad asked as he gave her a strange look.

“A pillow fort in the hollow part of the old cedar tree next to the woods,” Lily stated.

“Oh, I guess so,” replied her dad.  “Good luck with that.”

Lily dragged the box out to the cedar tree.  When some of the bottom branches were moved, the tree had a hollow place big enough for a child to stand.  Lily thought this box would fit just fine.  It took some pushing and pulling, but Lily finally managed to move the box into the hollow place.  It fit perfectly.

Lily ran inside and grabbed scissors, markers, and crayons and took them out to the box.  First, she cut a hole in the side of the box for a doorway.  Cutting through the cardboard was hard work but she persisted until she managed to make it exactly like she wanted.

Next, she went inside the box and began to decorate her walls.  She wanted her pillow fort to be filled with colorful pictures of happy places.  This took her until sundown.  When she finished the last picture, she gathered her things and went inside for supper.  Tomorrow, she would fill the fort with the floor pillows that she had found in the garage and had saved specifically for this purpose.

The next morning after breakfast Lily headed out the back door with an armful of pillows.  When she reached the cedar tree, she stopped and stared in horror.  It had rained in the night, and the box was now warped and crumpled from getting wet.  A very sad Lily trudged back to the house.

“How’s my inventor’s pillow fort coming?” asked her mom as she came through the back door.

“It’s ruined!” wailed Lily.  “It rained and now it is all wet.  I didn’t think rain would come inside the tree.”

“Lily, look at the trees,” instructed her mother.  “See all the holes between the leaves.  Even though the tree does offer a little protection from rain, some rain still makes its way inside the tree.”

Lily went back outside to remove the ruined mess of her pillow fort.  As she threw the remains in the trashcan, she noticed an old parachute she had used for a birthday party two years ago in the garage.  Then an idea came to her.  She grabbed the parachute and some old string and ran back out to the cedar tree.

She bunched the middle of the parachute into a bubble and tied one end of the string around it.  Then she took the other end of the string and threw it over the lowest branch in the hollow place of the tree.  She pulled the string until the parachute was hanging from the branch.  Then she tied the other end of the string to another branch to hold it in place.

Then she headed back to the garage for the other box.  She pushed and pulled until she managed to get the box in place and then covered it with the parachute like a tent.  Again, she grabbed her scissors, markers, and crayons.  This time when she made the door, she cut it out to where it lifted up and held the parachute away from the opening.  Then, she redid all her wonderful happy place pictures.  By the time she was finished, it was again sundown.  She ran inside looking anxiously over her shoulder at the new pillow fort.  Would it be there in the morning?

The next morning she headed out with her armful of pillows and walked slowly in the direction of the cedar tree.  The fort was still there!  It had rained in the night, but this time the parachute protected the fort.  Lily arranged her pillows and ran inside to get her parents.

“Come see my pillow fort!” Lily said excitedly as she dragged her mom and dad to the cedar tree.

“Wow! Lily,” said her dad.  “This is a really cool hideout.”

Lily beamed as she gave her parents the grand tour.  She hoped this cedar tree pillow fort would be around for a long time.

Niko's Search

Niko held the rope that had once secured his cow to the fence.  He moaned in disgust.  Where could that cow have gone?  Niko’s family only had the one cow.  They did not have any pigs, sheep, goats, or chickens.  Just the cow.

            After gathering a few supplies, Niko set out following the cow’s tracks.  The trail led up the path of the old dormant volcano that towered over his village.  Why would the cow head up the mountain?  As he entered the dense tropical forest, he became nervous.  All of his life he had heard strange tales of this volcano.  Most of his village avoided this path.  The jungle seemed to swallow up the sunlight as he went deeper into the dense undergrowth.  Then the trail began a steeper climb.

            Niko struggled to maintain his footing as he continued to climb.  All along the way, he fussed at the cow swearing it had to be half billy goat to climb this trail.  Suddenly, the rocks began to slide out from under him, and he slid into a hollow just to the right of the trail.  Once he reached the bottom, he considered himself fortunate that he had not slid all the way back down to his village.  However, looking up the sides of the ravine made him reconsider his luck.  How would he climb back up to the trail?

            For a long while, Niko struggled in vain to climb the steep sides of the ravine.  Every time he reached even close to halfway up, he simply slid back down.  This was not going to work.  Just then, he noticed a palm tree growing close to the side of the ravine.  At the top, it tilted toward the trail.  If he climbed the tree, maybe he could jump back to the trail.  He decided it was worth a try.

            Niko shimmied up the tree like a monkey.  Fortunately, climbing trees was one of Niko’s specialties.  When he reached the top, he very carefully climbed out on the limb hanging closest to the trail hugging it with all of his limbs.  A gentle breeze made the fronds of the palm tree brush against his face.  They tickled like the whiskers of a cat, but Niko tried to ignore them.  The farther out onto the limb he went, the more it sagged until Niko began to fear it might break.  Deciding to go no further, Niko slowly rose to his feet and jumped with all of his might toward the trail.  As the limb sprang back into place, it actually propelled Niko farther than he could have jumped on his own.  He landed with a roll safely back on the path.

            For a moment Niko sat on the path catching his breath.  Then, he very carefully continued up the path making sure to choose his steps wisely.  The path began to wind up the side of the mountain and with every turn Niko’s heart pounded a little harder.  He didn’t like winding trails.  After a while, he came around a corner to find himself face to face with a large statue that had a horrifying mask for a face.  Niko screamed before he could stop himself.  On the other side of the path stood a statue exactly like this one.  He must be at the entrance to old abandoned palace he had heard so much about all of his life.  He tried to forget all the spooky tales he had heard about this place, but that only made him remember every single one.

            Just then he heard a noise that made him jump.  Something was just on the other side of the entrance.  Niko stood frozen in fear as he tried to decide what to do.  Then he heard the noise again, and this time it sounded remarkably like a “moo.”  Slowly, he walked between the statues into an open courtyard.  There in the middle of the courtyard was his cow happily chewing the grass that grew there.  Niko was so relieved all he could was laugh.

            “Come here you crazy cow,” Niko said as he walked over to it. 

            He placed the rope he had brought around the cow’s neck and started back for home.  The cow followed without a fuss still chewing his cud.

            “That must be some mighty fine grass to come all the way up here to get it,” Niko said to the cow as he patted his side.

            The cow looked at him and mooed as if to say, “You better believe it.”  

The Nothing Turtle

           In the middle of a dark and quiet wood lived eleven turtles in a small and shallow pond.  Life for the turtles drifted along happily for the most part.  Three of the turtles spent most of their time singing their favorite songs.  Another three spent their days exercising and building up their muscles.  Two of the turtles liked to tell and write stories, and another two spent their days taking pictures with the camera they shared between them.  One turtle, however, did nothing all day long every day.

            One day this turtle that liked to do nothing decided the rest of the turtles were disturbing his wonderful nothingness with all that singing, exercising, storytelling, and picture taking.  He decided he would have to do something about it.

            He walked up to the singing turtles and said, “The turtles that are exercising over there wanted me to come over and tell you that all this singing is throwing off their exercising rhythm.  They want you to be quiet for a while.”

            The singing turtles looked over at the exercising turtles with annoyed looks and started singing louder.  The nothing turtle sneaked away with a grin on his face and came up to the storytelling turtles.

            “The picture taking turtles are upset with you because you disturbed a butterfly they were trying to photograph,” said the nothing turtle with a gleam in his eye.  “They want you to go somewhere else to tell your stories so you won’t disturb them anymore.”

            The storytelling turtles looked over at the picture taking turtles and started telling louder and longer stories.  They were not going to go anywhere.

            Next the nothing turtle went up to the exercising turtles and said, “The storytelling turtles wanted me to tell you that all your grunting and splashing around is making them forgot where they are in their story.  They want you to stop.”

            The exercising turtles looked at the storytelling turtles and started exercising even harder making water splash everywhere.           

Lastly, the nothing turtle went up to the picture taking turtles and said, “The singing turtles wanted me to come over and tell you that they are mad at you for taking pictures of them.  They said it makes them forget their words, and they want you to stop.”

The picture taking turtles walked up to the singing turtles and started taking pictures right in their face blinding them with the flash.  That was all it took.  In a matter of seconds, the singing turtles started yelling at the picture taking turtles.  Then the storytelling turtles started yelling at the picture taking turtles.  Then the exercising turtles started yelling at the storytelling turtles and so on and so on until everyone was yelling at everyone else except the nothing turtle.  He slipped off quietly to his spot and waited.

Before long all the turtles were so angry with each other that they all sulled up and went to different areas of the pond.  No one was speaking to anyone else and everybody was doing nothing.

“Ah,” said the nothing turtle to himself.  “Finally, I have peace and quiet.”

After a while the rest of the turtles began to feel bad about yelling at each other.  Slowly they began to congregate in their groups and apologize to each other.  As they talked they all began to realize what the nothing turtle had done.  They all decided the nothing turtle needed something to do.

All ten turtles approached the nothing turtle as he sat in his spot.  When the nothing turtle saw them approaching, he began to get nervous.

“What do you want?” the nothing turtle asked gruffly.

“We have all decided we want you to be our audience for our special night of entertainment,” they all said together.

The nothing turtle just looked at them in disbelief.  After all the mischief he had caused, they wanted him to do something.  Nobody had ever asked him to do anything before.  He didn’t know what to say.

“Well,” the nothing turtle started slowly.  “If that is really what you all want, I guess I could do that.”

It was settled.  The next night the singing turtles sang their best songs.  The storytelling turtles told their best stories.  The exercising turtles showed off their best moves, and the picture taking turtles photographed the whole event.  AND the nothing turtle found that he was now the audience turtle.  He had a place in the pond after all.

Lullabelle and the Pirate Ship

           Lullabelle the fairy along with her mouse friend, Twitch, were visiting her cousin, Annabeth.  Annabeth lived by the sea, and this was Lullabelle’s first time to see the sea as well as Twitch’s.

            Lullabelle sat on Annabeth’s front porch adding ice cubes to her drink.  The thermometer on the side of the house read 98 degrees.  Lullabelle did not think she had ever been this hot.  Annabeth had assured her that later in the afternoon the sea breeze would start to blow, and it wouldn’t feel quite so hot.  However, Lullabelle wasn’t sure at this point if that was possible.

            Suddenly, they all heard a loud explosion.  Lullabelle nearly jumped out of her skin.  “What in the world was that?” she gasped.

            “Oh, that’s just the pirates in the harbor,” sighed Annabeth.  “They must be practicing shooting cannonballs again.”

            Lullabelle looked at Twitch and nodded.  Hot or not, this was something that just had to be investigated.  She picked up Twitch and flew to the harbor. 

            As she reached the harbor, she saw the huge pirate ship anchored in the bay.  Just then, another loud boom jolted Lullabelle and Twitch, and a cannonball whizzed by them missing only by about 50 ft.  They would have to be careful.

            Lullabelle flew up to the side of the ship.  She and Twitch crawled in one of the canon holes that had been left open.  She prayed the whole time that the canon would not fire while she was that close to it, and it didn’t.  Quietly, they crept along the wall as they looked around in wonder.  Pirates were running here and there loading canons and preparing them to fire.  The pirates were far too busy to notice a tiny fairy and a mouse sneaking up the steps to the main deck.

            Once they reached the main deck, they found their way to the captain’s quarters.  It was empty except for the captain’s parrot.  He appeared to be asleep on a bird rail next to the window.  Lullabelle and Twitch carefully explored the cabin trying to be extra carefully quiet.  They did not want to wake that bird.

            Just then, Lullabelle slipped on a map that was lying on the table and caused a whole roll of maps to fall to the floor.  Quick as a flash, Lullabelle darted behind a yellow curtain with Twitch right behind her.  Twitch’s gift of camouflage kicked in, and he turned the same color as the curtain.  Lullabelle had to stifle a giggle because he looked just like a pile of mustard.  Carefully, Lullabelle peeked out of the curtain.  The bird was awake!

            Lullabelle’s mind raced as she tried to figure out how they could get passed the parrot and to the door.  Then Twitch leaned back against the window and it moved slightly.  The window was open!  Very slowly and carefully, Lullabelle and Twitch opened the window until they could both squeeze out.  They were free!

            With Twitch in her arms, Lullabelle hightailed it back to Annabeth’s house.  Behind them they could hear the loud boom of the pirate’s canons firing, but they were safely out of range.  Visiting a pirate’s ship had been exciting, but they both agreed that they had had enough adventure for one day. 

Madison and the Playroom

             Madison and Marie stood in the doorway of the playroom looking at the huge mess that stood between them and the slumber party they wanted to have on Saturday.  Mom had said that the playroom had to be clean or there would be no slumber party.

            “Well, we better get started,” said Marie with a sigh.  “If we don’t, we will never get done.”

            “I don’t even know where to begin,” said Madison looking around at the mess.  “I can’t even see the floor.”

            “You’re right,” said Marie.  “We need an attack plan.  Why don’t you start over in that corner and I’ll start over here in this corner.  We’ll meet in the middle.”

            Madison trudged over to her corner.  It had piles of art supplies that they used to make things.  She started with the crayons and put them all back in their containers.  Then she put them back in the art desk on the other side of the room.  Next she attacked the piles of different packages of construction paper.  She stacked them neatly, and then, tried to pick up the entire stack.  As she tried to turn to make her way to the art desk, she dropped all of it on her big toe.

            “Oww!” cried Madison as she hopped around trying to hold her injured toe.

            “What happened?” asked Marie rushing over to see what was wrong.

            “I dropped a stack of construction paper on my toe,” said Madison as she sat down and inspected her toe.

            “Oh, you will live,” said Marie matter-of-factly.  “Now don’t try to take it all at once this time.”

            Madison picked up part of the construction paper and limped over to the art desk.  She opened the drawer where the construction paper was supposed to go and disturbed a moth taking a nap.  The moth buzzed by her face making Madison scream and drop the construction paper, which scattered all over the top of the art desk.

            “What happened this time,” asked Marie starting to get aggravated with her sister.

            “A bug flew in my face,” said Madison as she shivered in disgust.  “I hate bugs!!”

            “Get back to work,” said Marie as she rolled her eyes.

            It took Madison some time to pick up all the scattered construction paper and put it in the drawer.  Before long, however, she finished putting all the art supplies in their rightful place and could start on the next pile.  This pile consisted of dirty dishes and glasses they had left in the playroom when they had their last party.  Madison wanted to touch those as little as possible so she went to the kitchen to get a big bowl.  She would put them in the bowl and then take the bowl to the kitchen.  When she picked up the last plate, she noticed a puddle of red goo on the floor.

            “Oh yuck!” exclaimed Madison.  “I think I might hurl.”

            “What now!” yelled Marie as she went over to see what Madison had found.  Marie grabbed a scrap piece of paper, wiped up the red goo, and carefully smelled of it.

            “Oh, it’s just strawberry jam that came off of one of the plates,” said Marie.  “Now get back to work.”

            Madison and Marie worked in silence for quite a while until suddenly Madison jumped up in excitement.  “I found it! I found it!” she cried.

            “What did you find?” asked Marie not even looking up.

            “Look, I found my missing piece to the zoo puzzle,” Madison said excitedly.  “I have been looking for this forever.  Now, my gray elephant will finally be complete.”

            Madison went over to the puzzle boxes and put the piece back in the zoo puzzle box.  While she was there she decided to straighten up the puzzle boxes and games.  When she moved one of the game boxes, she found an old birthday candle shoved into the corner.

            “What do I do with this?” asked Madison holding up the birthday candle.

            “Just throw it away,” said Marie.

            Madison went over to the garbage can to throw it away.   When she turned around, she noticed how close they were to being done.

            “Wow,” said Madison.  “I can see the floor now.  We are almost done.”

            Marie stood up and stretched.  “You’re right.  We are almost done.  Wow, that was much easier than I thought it would be.”

            “We are the greatest picker-uppers in the world,” said Madison as she made a muscle.

            This made Marie giggle.  The two girls finished the final items and stood together surveying their work.

            “We do make a great team, don’t we?” said Marie as she gave her sister a playful shove.  Madison looked at her sister with a great big smile on her face.  The party was on after all.           

Dylan and the Beetle

           Dylan leaned against his broom and wiped the sweat from his face.  This was hard work.  He really regretted knocking that baseball into the neighbor’s window now, but he couldn’t undo it.  His father had given him the option of cleaning the furniture store over mowing the neighbor’s lawn for a month.  He now decided neither option was easy even though this option would only take one day.

            He had already cleaned the upstairs showroom and office.  Now he had to clean the huge showroom on the main floor.  As he scanned the room, it looked like a sea of furniture as far as the eye could see.  He would have to sweep around all that furniture before he could call it a day.

            Just then a big, fat insect buzzed by his head and landed on the floor next to a loveseat.  For a moment, Dylan stared at the bug.  It must have been some sort of beetle with blue and red streaks on a field of black.  He had never seen a bug like it.  His first instinct was to catch the bug and put it in a jar.  That would make a cool show and tell for science class next week.

            Dylan had seen some mason jars in the upstairs office.  He laid down his broom and quickly went upstairs to grab a jar.  The jars did not have any lids so he grabbed a piece of paper and a rubber band for an improvised lid.  Then he went back to the showroom to see if the bug was still there.  It was.

            Slowly, he crept toward the bug.  He planned to grab it with his hand and quickly stuff it in the jar.  As he made his way toward it, he wondered if this was a pinching beetle.  Just as he was debating whether or not grabbing the beetle with his hand was a good idea, the beetle flew up and nearly hit him between the eyes.  Dylan shrieked as he dodged the bug.  Now it was personal.

            Dylan no longer cared if he kept the bug alive.  A squished bug in his jar would be just as good.  He picked up his broom and started chasing the bug around the room.  After nearly sending a lamp crashing to the floor, Dylan decided that maybe his attack plan needed some work even though he thought that was the ugliest lamp he had ever seen.  It reminded him of a walrus.  He started shooing the bug into a more open place.  The beetle just would not cooperate.  Finally it landed on an old upright piano his father kept in the corner.  Tired of the chase, Dylan sat on the bench and began to plunk on the keys.

            Suddenly, Dylan heard a commotion outside and ran out the front door to see a parade of motorcycles coming around the block.  They proceeded down Main Street and just kept coming around the corner.  There must have been hundreds of motorcycles.  The smell of exhaust nearly knocked Dylan down, but he didn’t care.  He had never seen that many motorcycles together at one time.

            As the last motorcycle disappeared from sight, Dylan turned and walked back into the store.  There on the floor next to his broom sat his friend, the beetle.  Dylan decided the beetle had earned the right to live and left it alone.  After all that excitement, he still had to sweep the big showroom and maybe the beetle could keep him company.  With that, he picked up his broom and set to work.