She took one of the mysterious seeds and tossed it into her mouth. Crunch, crunch, goo. Something green poked out of her mouth! Susan started to gag on the vine creeping from her teeth. Then it snapped and landed with a plop.
“Gross!! I’m telling Mom,” I screeched.
Before I could run for the house the vine took root. It burrowed into the dirt, stretched, expanded, and sprouted. It transformed itself into a tree with branches thick as phone poles and leaves like umbrellas. A huge nest was sitting in a fork of the trunk.
I was on my way to get you when my stupid sister started to climb the tree.
“No Susan, no!” I yelled, but you know how she is. When she reached the nest a giant, angry parakeet popped out. It scooped her up, dropped her in the middle of a mud puddle, and flew off into the distance never to return.
I turned around and the tree started shrinking. It shriveled to the size of a long stick. I picked it up.
And that’s why Susan thinks I tripped her with a stick and made her fall down in the mud, Mom.
Gretchen Lancour is a bay area radio personality, writer, and toddler wrangler. She enjoys food you can eat with your hands, hanging at the playground, and writing about herself in the third person. Read her blog: http://cribnotes.pnn.com
© 2008 Gretchen Lancour. Original for CCF (Lancour grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).
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