Maybe it started with the trip to Yellowstone. Maybe it started with a story about a lost buffalo calf. Maybe it started two hundred years ago when the great buffalo herds roamed the plains. For Livia and Kaden it started sometime after their Yellowstone vacation when they were driving (being driven. They are only about two years old after all) along a flat portion of highway between their parents houses. Kaden’s dad and Livia’s mom are brother and sister and they found that if they were going about the same place that Livia and Kaden both seemed to get along better if they could entertain each other.
“I don’t know what it is,” said mom, “but it seems like they just seem to communicate.”
“Kdn,” said Livia. “I don’t know what the big deal is,” she thought, “It’s nice to have someone who can understand me. The big folks just can’t seem to hear right.”
“Taak”, replied Kaden, “I couldn’t agree more,” he thought, “They want us to talk but when we say something, they can’t understand.”
“Look over there,” thought Livia as she pointed to the side of the car. “Bufflo” she said. “That big rock looks just like a buffalo,” she thought.
“No,” answered mom, “that’s not a buffalo. It’s just a big rock.”
Livia rolled her eyes and looked over at Kaden. “It does look like a buffalo,” he thought with a sad smile. “Although dad read me a book that said they are really bison, not buffalo.”
“Rock” he said. “I wonder how that big rock ended up in the middle of that field?” he thought.
Kaden’s mom spent the rest of the ride working on teaching him to say “Buff-a-lo”. Kaden was very patient with her. He enjoyed working on something over and over (and over and over and over) again until he got it right. He was still having a little trouble getting mom to understand his words.
“Vcblry,” he said, just as clear as could be. “It seems everyone has a somewhat limited vocabulary,” he thought, “They just seem to say the same words over and over.”
“More”, replied Livia. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” she thought, “My mom seems to have this thing about some book with breakfast food. I’m sure it can’t have more than 50 words repeated over and over.”
“No.” exclaimed Kaden, “I know that book. I’m not sure I’d like that color eggs.”
As they pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, Livia’s mom called out to Kaden’s dad, “You should have heard them. They were talking about rocks and buffalo all the way home. They are both getting really good with words.”
“Yeah,” grumbled Kaden’s dad, “but they don’t look like they are ready for a nap yet. I wouldn’t mind a snooze.” He had been up too late. Parents get a little cranky when they stay up too late. He made up for it though by swinging Kaden all around and up and down getting to the door. Kaden had a great time riding on his shoulders like the king of the world.
“Why don’t we let them play in the back yard while we all go in and rest,” said Kaden’s mom, who was a little tired herself, expecting a brother or sister for Kaden in just a few months. So before you knew it, Livia and Kaden were in the back yard, with the swing set, the slide, and especially the grape vine.
The grapevine was always a magical place for any of the children who frequented the back yard and Livia and Kaden were no exception. They hadn’t taken more than one or two grapes each when a giggle from the other side told them that Jake and Julie were there for a visit.
“Elves there!” said Livia with more excitement than surprise. “We could have a really cool adventure with them,” she thought as she looked at Kaden. “Do you think we could get permission to go to the other side of the vine with them?”
“Mom?” wondered Kaden out loud. “I think we should ask but who can tell with moms,” he thought, “They don’t always act rationally.” With that the two jumped up and ran over to the house, up the steps, into the kitchen and tugged at Livia’s mom.
“Play, Jake and Julie?” asked Livia with a pleading look to her eyes that can really only be achieved by a serious girl of about the age of two.
Her mother looked down at her with a likewise serious look, “Hmmm.” She hmmed and looked over at Kaden’s mom resting on the sofa. “None of the kids ever has any trouble when they play with Jake and Julie, but they’ve never brought them to the house or anything. I’m sure if it’s clear they can’t cross any roads they won’t have any problems.”
“Sounds fine to me,” said Kaden’s mom, “as long as it’s OK with you and they can’t get into any trouble.”
Livia’s mom knelt down and looked her straight in the eye. “You can go play as long as you don’t cross any roads…none at all.” Livia smiled and kissed her cheek and gave a great big hug. With that the two ran back out of the kitchen, down the stairs, across the yard and to the grapevine.
“No roads,” said Kaden as they reached for the small hand just poking through the thick leaves of the grapevine. “You know how parents are,” he thought, “their rules don’t have to make sense. Sometimes I wonder if they just make them up as they go along.”
Jake and Julie looked at each other with a small nod, “We understand the ‘no crossing any roads’ rule. We’ll make sure that’s not a problem, but come on, we need your help.” With that the four of them ran along a trail leading through woods that couldn’t be seen from the back yard, which might seem odd to big folk but didn’t seem to bother Kaden or Livia in the slightest.
They ran for what seemed like an awfully long time, but who can get tired running with elves (try it sometime…you’ll see). Finally they came to the edge of the woods where they could look out over what looked like endless plains of rippling grass. Not far away stood a giant rock, that looked just like the one they saw earlier; the one that looked like a buffalo.
When they reached it, Livia and Kaden touched it in something like awe. “Bfloo?” asked Kaden out loud. “This really does look like a big bull buffalo lying in the grass,” he thought, “but how did it get here and why is it a rock?” He looked at Jake and Julie with questioning eyes and was a little surprised to see a tear on Julie’s cheek.
She nodded her head sadly. “You’re right,” she said, “It was a buffalo, but somehow it turned into a rock…it seems like they’re all turning to rocks. We need to stop it or there could be none left. I don’t want to see the grasslands without buffalo.”
Livia was looking down at the grass behind the ‘rock’. “Cluu” she said as she crawled around it. “We need to find some clues about why this is happening,” she thought, “There has to be a reason.”
Jake looked around at the grass, “Bogworts are always the reason for bad things, when you get right down to it,” he answered. “Maybe they dug up the buffalo’s favorite raspberry patch.” He had a slightly wistful look in his eyes. Elves are very fond of raspberries and have a difficult time imagining anyone who doesn’t consider them their favorite food.
Kaden caught Livia’s eye, “bery” he said as he shook his head. “Buffalo eat grass, not berries,” he thought. “We need to figure out what’s wrong with the grass.” He got down on his hands and knees to get a bit closer to the ground. This was way easier than it would have been for a big person. A big, clumsy adult might have missed a rusty glimpse that Livia saw from just a few inches away. Crushed under the rock was an old piece of wire.
“Wre”, said Kaden, “Looks like standard barbed wire. 14 gauge with a left hand twist I’d guess,” he thought. “I saw some like it at Grandpa’s place. They use it to keep the cows and horses in the field.”
Livia looked around the grassland, “Around a field with cows and horses is one thing,” she thought, “what’s barbed wire doing in a place like this?” And then she and Kaden looked at each other. “Bogworts” they both said out loud. This was a problem that Jake and Julie could help with, but Livia and Kaden would need to help too.
Kaden pointed to the wire and looked questioningly at Julie. “I see,” said Julie, “The buffalo don’t like the wire and they get so sad they turn to stone.”
“Well,” said Jake, “We just need to figure out a way to keep the buffalo happy so they don’t turn to stone.”
“Back,” said Livia. “It isn’t enough to keep them from turning to stone. We need to get them to turn back to buffalo again,” she thought.
“Bogworts…Mgnet,” said Kaden. “My mom read me a book about magnets, and Dad brought home one from work,” he thought, “We just need to find some magnets. The Bogworts could do the rest.”
“Hmmm,” hummed Julie, “I know where there’s a big chunk of magnetic metal over in the hills.”
“Bogworts…Gold,” said Livia. “I think I have a plan,” she thought. And it was a really good one.
A quick trip to the hills and the elves, and Livia and Kaden, were ready. The plan was clever, well thought out, and yes, maybe a little bit dangerous. The great thing was that you could always count on Bogworts to be both greedy and stupid. The best plans took advantage of both.
Soon Livia and Kaden were skipping through the Bogwort village as bold as could be, and they were playing catch with big chunks of Gold!! The Bogworts couldn’t believe their eyes. This was like taking candy from a baby…OK, maybe like taking gold from a pair of small children, but close enough. What they didn’t notice was that while they had their eyes firmly fixed on Livia and Kaden, Jake and Julie were running around behind them, slipping a chunk of magnetic rock into each back pocket.
When Livia and Kaden reached the edge of the Bogwort village the Bogworts broke out of their “holy cow, it’s gold and little kids” trance and took off running after the two small ones in question. Kaden and Livia were both much quicker than the Bogworts gave them credit for. If the Bogworts happened to ask their parents how fast they could run when they really wanted to, they would have known. As it was, Kaden and Livia got to the edge of the open plains just ahead of the Bogworts. It was a good thing Jake and Julie had gotten there first and were ready with stage two of the plan.
A giant sling shot was sitting by the edge of the grass, pulled back and ready. A short rope tied to a stake, kept it that way. As Livia and Kaden got there they dumped their “gold” into the pocket of the sling shot and Jake cut the rope.
The Bogworts watched in horror as golden nuggets flew out over the grassland as far as the eye could see. The greedy Bogworts forgot all about the children and ran out into the open plains in every direction. As they ran all over, bent down looking for gold nuggets, the magnets Jake and Julie had slipped into their back pocket attracted all the wire and metal trash that the Bogworts had thrown out there for years.
As the elves and children headed back to the grapevine Jake gave Kaden a low five and knuckles. “The fool’s gold worked great,” Jake said with a big grin. “The magnets will have all the grass cleaned up in no time,” added Julie. Kaden and Livia just smiled.
They got back to the grapevine before the big folk even woke up from their naps.
The next day Livia and Kaden were taking a short break at a rest area by a big park next to open grass that stretched out as far as their eyes could see. The big folk were getting things ready for a picnic while the other kids just ran and played, glad to be away from the cars for a bit. Livia and Kaden seemed to just be finding bits of trash and wire out in the grass and were making it a game to bring it to the trash cans.
The picnic was fun and then it was time to drive home. As they passed where they had seen the big rock the day before, Kaden said, “Bfloo”.
“No,” said his Dad, “Remember, that was a big rock.” And he looked. “Huh,” he said, where’d that big rock go? Isn’t this where it was?”
“Buffalo”, said Kaden with much better pronunciation.
© Roy E. Moxley 2011, all rights reserved
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Aaron to the Rescue!
It was a beautiful day in the backyard, but Aaron was playing alone. Ella was practicing piano. Ashton was finishing up his kindergarten homework, Livia and Preston were napping. Even his good friend, Spencer, wasn’t home that day. Aaron sat in the backyard looking at the grapevine. Hmmm….something was missing but he couldn’t quite place his finger on what it was. As he reached for a particularly juicy looking grape he realized what it was. Jake and Julie elf weren’t there grabbing it first. They were nowhere to be seen. They weren’t always there when Aaron was bored on a beautiful day but today was so much like an elf day...
The more he thought about it, the more worried Aaron got. Something must be wrong. Jake and Julie were always there to bring any of the children through the grapevine to their forest but Aaron somehow knew that today, and maybe only today, he could go through on his own if he wanted to…needed to. He ran into the house to ask his mom for permission. “Mom, I think I need to go see if everything is alright with Jake and Julie. Is it OK if I go look for them?”
None of the kids had ever mentioned that Jake and Julie were elves to their mother. She gave him a long look and said, “That will be fine dear. Just don’t cross any roads and be back in time for supper.”
“Thanks Mom,” Aaron said over his shoulder as he ran back to the vine. There was only the alley behind the grapevine to anyone looking, but Aaron wasn’t looking, he was going through the middle of the vine. There was no alley when he went through, only the deep shaded forest of Jake and Julie’s homeland. Aaron looked around and thought a minute. He needed a plan. If Jake and Julie were in trouble there had to be Bogworts involved. Aaron knew the trail to the elf village was over to the left. That meant the Bogworts were somewhere over to the right. Aaron went running, quietly, down the path to the right where he knew trouble would be waiting.
It didn’t take long to find the trouble. Aaron wasn’t as quiet as an elf, but it didn’t take a lot of quiet to sneak up on Bogworts. As he crept around the edges of the Bogwort village there were Jake and Julie, tied to a pole in the middle of town with great big Bogworts all around. One of the biggest Bogworts was speaking, “Ha, the famous Jake and Julie elf…our prisoners. We knew you couldn’t resist that big pile of fresh raspberries we put in the middle of our trap. Now you’re our prisoners and we will never let you go.”
That didn’t sound too good to Aaron. When friends are in trouble you didn’t wait, you helped. Aaron knew he needed a rescue plan, and it was always Julie who came up with the plans. “Think,” thought Aaron, “I need a plan before dinner. Hmmm, Jake and Julie couldn’t resist raspberries. I need something Bogworts can’t resist.” With a few more thinks that became thoughts, Aaron had his plan. It was obvious, and like the best plans it couldn’t fail…if Aaron was brave enough to make it work.
While all the Bogworts were busy with Jake and Julie, Aaron looked around town until he found what he was looking for. A trail of soggy empty pizza boxes led to the pizza shop. Boldly, Aaron walked into the front door. The little ding from the door didn’t worry him a bit. He knew Bogwort service would be terrible. Looking carefully around, Aaron found just what he thought he would. The only Bogwort working at the shop was out the back sneaking a cigarette. That should take plenty of time.
Aaron moved like lightning around the shop. He spread out some pizza dough he found and looked for the sauce. What was in the dish labeled, “Sause” looked like something out of a bad movie; more like something Aaron’s grandpa would use for tomato soup, than tasty pizza sauce. Aaron looked on a dusty shelf and saw a big can of tomatoes. He found an old onion that he peeled back the layers until he found some good parts, and then, on that same dusty shelf he found some garlic powder. He didn’t want to risk anything that looked like it might be meat such as pepperoni or sausage. He quickly put the sauce on the dough and found some, not too old looking, mozzarella cheese and a reasonably clean grater. In no time the pizzas were in the oven and Aaron worked on part two of the plan. He found a big fan and set it up by the front door. He found the microphone that they used to tell customers their pizza was ready. Then it was just waiting for the pizza. Of course there was still the Bogwort out back seeing how many cigarettes could be turned into butts in a single break, but Aaron wasn’t too worried. Ten minutes was plenty of time to cook pizza, and Aaron was pretty sure it would take the Bogwort longer than that to finish his last one and find out the door was locked. After that it would still take the average Bogwort at least another ten minutes to figure out he could go around to the front door instead of just pulling on the locked door.
When the pizzas came out of the oven, Aaron opened the front door and turned on the fan to blow the pizza smell all over town. Then he turned on the microphone and turned up the volume as high as it would go. “Free pizza to the first hundred customers, today only,” he announced and he ran out the door. You would think that your typical Bogwort would be a little curious about a boy running away from the pizza shop when everyone else was running towards it, but hey, this was free pizza. (In fact it even ended up great for the pizza shop. When they found out that Bogworts really liked pizza that didn’t taste like someone spilled tomato soup on a piece of cardboard, business became super good.)
The town square was empty of everyone but Jake and Julie when Aaron ran up to them. “Great to see you Aaron,” said Jake, “we knew you would come to help us.”
“How could you know that?” asked Aaron with a tilt to his head. “I had a feeling you were in trouble, but I didn’t know anything.”
“Feelings can be a way of knowing,” said Julie, “You didn’t have to see us in trouble to know we were in trouble. We’re glad you came. Now how are you going to cut these ropes?”
“I know,” said Jake. “You could go to the glass cliff, get a big chunk and chip it into a sharp edge and come back and cut the rope.”
“That would take too long,” said Julie, “How about if you sneak into all the houses in town, take out their mirrors, focus the sun’s rays on the back of the pole and burn the rope in two.”
Aaron thought about those options. “How about if I just untie the knots and we get out of here?”
Jake and Julie looked at each other, “Simple, but effective,” said Julie. “Sometimes the best plans are the easiest.”
With no more delay, Aaron untied the knots (he was really good at knots) and the three of them headed out of town. “Just a minute,” Jake said as he ran back.
“What…” said Aaron, but Jake was back in no time with a big box of really good looking raspberries. “We can’t leave this behind after all the trouble we went through to get it!” He said.
“I have to get back before dinner,” Aaron said as they ran along the path. “I don’t know how I’ll make it.”
“Leave that to us,” said Julie, “A little elf magic could come in handy here. We don’t want your mom mad at us.”
Aaron was sure they were at least another twenty minutes to the grapevine, but there it was around the next bend. As Aaron went through, Jake pushed the box of raspberries over to him. “We know where there’s more,” he laughed. Aaron just smiled and brought the box into the house.
“Is everything OK with Jake and Julie?” asked his Mom as Aaron handed her the box of raspberries.
“Oh yeah, everything is great. They sent these raspberries to thank you for letting me go over to see them,” said Aaron.
“I can make some more raspberry freezer jam, that’s perfect!” answered his Mom. “And look, it’s just time to eat now.”
Aaron smiled.
The End
© Roy E. Moxley 2011, all rights reserved
The more he thought about it, the more worried Aaron got. Something must be wrong. Jake and Julie were always there to bring any of the children through the grapevine to their forest but Aaron somehow knew that today, and maybe only today, he could go through on his own if he wanted to…needed to. He ran into the house to ask his mom for permission. “Mom, I think I need to go see if everything is alright with Jake and Julie. Is it OK if I go look for them?”
None of the kids had ever mentioned that Jake and Julie were elves to their mother. She gave him a long look and said, “That will be fine dear. Just don’t cross any roads and be back in time for supper.”
“Thanks Mom,” Aaron said over his shoulder as he ran back to the vine. There was only the alley behind the grapevine to anyone looking, but Aaron wasn’t looking, he was going through the middle of the vine. There was no alley when he went through, only the deep shaded forest of Jake and Julie’s homeland. Aaron looked around and thought a minute. He needed a plan. If Jake and Julie were in trouble there had to be Bogworts involved. Aaron knew the trail to the elf village was over to the left. That meant the Bogworts were somewhere over to the right. Aaron went running, quietly, down the path to the right where he knew trouble would be waiting.
It didn’t take long to find the trouble. Aaron wasn’t as quiet as an elf, but it didn’t take a lot of quiet to sneak up on Bogworts. As he crept around the edges of the Bogwort village there were Jake and Julie, tied to a pole in the middle of town with great big Bogworts all around. One of the biggest Bogworts was speaking, “Ha, the famous Jake and Julie elf…our prisoners. We knew you couldn’t resist that big pile of fresh raspberries we put in the middle of our trap. Now you’re our prisoners and we will never let you go.”
That didn’t sound too good to Aaron. When friends are in trouble you didn’t wait, you helped. Aaron knew he needed a rescue plan, and it was always Julie who came up with the plans. “Think,” thought Aaron, “I need a plan before dinner. Hmmm, Jake and Julie couldn’t resist raspberries. I need something Bogworts can’t resist.” With a few more thinks that became thoughts, Aaron had his plan. It was obvious, and like the best plans it couldn’t fail…if Aaron was brave enough to make it work.
While all the Bogworts were busy with Jake and Julie, Aaron looked around town until he found what he was looking for. A trail of soggy empty pizza boxes led to the pizza shop. Boldly, Aaron walked into the front door. The little ding from the door didn’t worry him a bit. He knew Bogwort service would be terrible. Looking carefully around, Aaron found just what he thought he would. The only Bogwort working at the shop was out the back sneaking a cigarette. That should take plenty of time.
Aaron moved like lightning around the shop. He spread out some pizza dough he found and looked for the sauce. What was in the dish labeled, “Sause” looked like something out of a bad movie; more like something Aaron’s grandpa would use for tomato soup, than tasty pizza sauce. Aaron looked on a dusty shelf and saw a big can of tomatoes. He found an old onion that he peeled back the layers until he found some good parts, and then, on that same dusty shelf he found some garlic powder. He didn’t want to risk anything that looked like it might be meat such as pepperoni or sausage. He quickly put the sauce on the dough and found some, not too old looking, mozzarella cheese and a reasonably clean grater. In no time the pizzas were in the oven and Aaron worked on part two of the plan. He found a big fan and set it up by the front door. He found the microphone that they used to tell customers their pizza was ready. Then it was just waiting for the pizza. Of course there was still the Bogwort out back seeing how many cigarettes could be turned into butts in a single break, but Aaron wasn’t too worried. Ten minutes was plenty of time to cook pizza, and Aaron was pretty sure it would take the Bogwort longer than that to finish his last one and find out the door was locked. After that it would still take the average Bogwort at least another ten minutes to figure out he could go around to the front door instead of just pulling on the locked door.
When the pizzas came out of the oven, Aaron opened the front door and turned on the fan to blow the pizza smell all over town. Then he turned on the microphone and turned up the volume as high as it would go. “Free pizza to the first hundred customers, today only,” he announced and he ran out the door. You would think that your typical Bogwort would be a little curious about a boy running away from the pizza shop when everyone else was running towards it, but hey, this was free pizza. (In fact it even ended up great for the pizza shop. When they found out that Bogworts really liked pizza that didn’t taste like someone spilled tomato soup on a piece of cardboard, business became super good.)
The town square was empty of everyone but Jake and Julie when Aaron ran up to them. “Great to see you Aaron,” said Jake, “we knew you would come to help us.”
“How could you know that?” asked Aaron with a tilt to his head. “I had a feeling you were in trouble, but I didn’t know anything.”
“Feelings can be a way of knowing,” said Julie, “You didn’t have to see us in trouble to know we were in trouble. We’re glad you came. Now how are you going to cut these ropes?”
“I know,” said Jake. “You could go to the glass cliff, get a big chunk and chip it into a sharp edge and come back and cut the rope.”
“That would take too long,” said Julie, “How about if you sneak into all the houses in town, take out their mirrors, focus the sun’s rays on the back of the pole and burn the rope in two.”
Aaron thought about those options. “How about if I just untie the knots and we get out of here?”
Jake and Julie looked at each other, “Simple, but effective,” said Julie. “Sometimes the best plans are the easiest.”
With no more delay, Aaron untied the knots (he was really good at knots) and the three of them headed out of town. “Just a minute,” Jake said as he ran back.
“What…” said Aaron, but Jake was back in no time with a big box of really good looking raspberries. “We can’t leave this behind after all the trouble we went through to get it!” He said.
“I have to get back before dinner,” Aaron said as they ran along the path. “I don’t know how I’ll make it.”
“Leave that to us,” said Julie, “A little elf magic could come in handy here. We don’t want your mom mad at us.”
Aaron was sure they were at least another twenty minutes to the grapevine, but there it was around the next bend. As Aaron went through, Jake pushed the box of raspberries over to him. “We know where there’s more,” he laughed. Aaron just smiled and brought the box into the house.
“Is everything OK with Jake and Julie?” asked his Mom as Aaron handed her the box of raspberries.
“Oh yeah, everything is great. They sent these raspberries to thank you for letting me go over to see them,” said Aaron.
“I can make some more raspberry freezer jam, that’s perfect!” answered his Mom. “And look, it’s just time to eat now.”
Aaron smiled.
The End
© Roy E. Moxley 2011, all rights reserved
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Ashton and the Bogworts
Ashton was in the backyard, alone and bored. His brother Aaron and sister Ella were gone at school. His younger sister Livia was taking a nap, as was littlest brother Preston. Ashton was all alone on the swing set and bored, bored, bored. After going back and forth on the swing for a little bit a feeling of thirst pushed through the boredom and he jumped off and ambled over to the grapevine. He had just reached out for a juicy bunch of grapes when a small hand reached out from the other side and grabbed it first. He almost fell over, he was so surprised. He knew about Jake and Julie, of course, but it had always been Ella who they talked to before.
“Those are my grapes.” He protested.
“Oh really,” answered Julie, from the other side of the vine, “Did you plant them?”
Ashton shook his head no.
“Water them?” asked Julie, “Weed them, fertilize them, pollinate them or pick little bugs off of them?”
Ashton sort of looked down at the ground and again shook his head no.
“In that case, I guess I can share some anyway,” said Julie and she neatly broke the bunch in half and handed some to Ashton. “After all, it’s only fair to share with a fellow adventurer. We could use your help with a little Bogwort problem we’ve been having”.
“You need my help?” breathed Ashton. This was so cool, he was the only one there and Julie the elf was asking for his help.
“You’ll have to check with your Mom,” replied Julie, “but help is always good when Bogworts are around.”
“Hurry and ask,” put in Jake, “We’ll be right here.”
Ashton quickly ran into the house. Mom was reading on the sofa and Ashton bounced up next to her and whispered (so he wouldn’t wake Livia or Preston, “Mom, can I go help Jake and Julie? They said they needed me.”
Mom looked Ashton in the eye, “You can go with Jake and Julie, but you have to promise me you won’t cross any roads.” They lived in a small block with an alley behind the house. You couldn’t go very far if you didn’t cross any roads to get there.
“I promise,” said Ashton, “Thanks Mom” and he gave his mom a quick hug and headed back outside.
It was only 50 feet back to the grapevine but Ashton was breathless when he arrived. “Is it Bogworts?” he asked when he got there, his face pushed into the leaves as far as he could. He could see nothing but big green leaves until Jake reached out a hand and pulled him through a gap in the big vine. “It seems like it’s always Bogworts” replied Julie when he was through. “If we don’t do something fast we could lose the best raspberry patch for miles.”
“How can I help?” asked Ashton with a big grin. He loved raspberries and he had a pretty good idea that if he could help Jake and Julie with their Bogwort problem he could end up with at least a good sized handful of them.
“We’re really not sure of a plan,” answered Jake, who almost always had a plan for everything. “They’ve managed to get a garbage pile going so fast and so big it could take serious magic to get rid of it before it piles into, on top of, and all over the raspberries.”
“Let’s go,” broke in Julie, looking up at the sun. “I’d sure like to see what we could get done before we have to get Ashton home.” With that, she started jogging down the path into the forest that by anything Ashton could think of should be in the middle of the neighbor’s back yard. For some reason it just wasn’t there when the kids were with Jake and Julie.
“Serious magic,” thought Ashton, not even noticing that he wasn’t getting tired as he ran along for a pretty long time with Jake and Julie. “I’d really like to see some serious elf magic.” It seemed like it was about 15 minutes later that Julie signaled them to slow down to a quiet jog. The three of them slipped off the path and into some undergrowth across a clearing from a huge garbage pile of beer cans, pizza boxes, potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers. Bogworts apparently didn’t much go for fresh vegetables or anything else that didn’t come out of a can, box, or BHT soaked wrapper.
“Where’s all the Bogworts?” asked Ashton in a very quiet whisper.
“It’s just after lunch,” answered Jake. “Or at least just after a really late breakfast,” Julie put in as she looked carefully at the giant trash pile and stood up out of the bushes. “It’s still best to be careful though,” she went on quietly, “there could still be someone around and we don’t want any trouble.”
Just then they heard a rustling in the bushes behind them and a somewhat larger elf than either Jake or Julie stepped through the low plants at the edge of the woods. “It looks like we made it here just in time,” said the new elf, without even whispering.
“Hi Earl,” greeted Jake, “This is our friend Ashton. He came here to help with the trash problem that seems to be growing here.”
“Ashton,” went on Julie, “this is Earl the elf. He lives in our village.”
“Hmmm,” muttered Earl as he looked down at Ashton. He was more than a head taller than either Jake or Julie, and they were bigger than Ashton, even a little bigger than his sister Ella, and she was just finishing third grade. “He looks like he could help sneak around to see how we can get those Bogworts for piling their trash in our forest.” Earl looked at the trash pile and then to each side along the edge of the woods. “Come on Ashton, you come with me this way and Jake and Julie can go that way and we’ll meet on the other side of the trash. That way we can be sure none of those rotten Bogworts are around and we can set a trap without anyone seeing.” Without even seeing what anyone else thought he took Ashton’s hand and headed around to the left of the trash mound.
“What about a plan?” whispered Julie, in a pretty loud whisper, so Earl could hear as he headed away.
“Plans are for weaklings,” answered Earl over his shoulder as he guided Ashton along.
Jake looked like he was going to say something loud, but Julie pulled him over to the right side and just whispered, quietly this time, “Come on, we need to scout around to the other side before Ashton gets to the ‘you know what’ and there’s trouble.” Jake had a questioning look in his eyes and then he realized what Julie meant and he nodded and moved silently back into the trees and moved along, keeping the trash pile in sight. Jake and Julie could move really fast without a sound when they wanted to, and now they really wanted to.
Earl and Ashton went around the left, a little closer to the trash pile, and not as quiet, but still not so loud that a Bogwort would be able to notice them. As they moved along, Ashton noticed two things at almost the same time. A somewhat small Bogwort was sitting at the edge of the trash pile seemingly hard at work on something in his hands. The second thing Ashton noticed was that he was sitting on the other side of a small road that led to the trash pile.
Ashton froze as they came closer to the road. “I told my Mom that I wouldn’t cross any roads,” he whispered urgently to Earl. “I just can’t do that.”
Earl looked over at the small Bogwort and then down at Ashton. “It’s just a road,” he said, “There’s not even a Bogwort cart in sight. I’ll make sure you cross safely.”
Ashton just stood there staring at the road. Just as Earl was taking hold of his arm Julie appeared behind them from the woods. “We’ve looked all around the other side,” she said, “There’s just this little Bogwort. I can’t tell what he’s doing, but he sure is interested in it.”
“Perfect,” answered Earl, “I’ve got just the thing for this nasty little Bogwort.” He started to pull a fine rope out of his pack.
“This isn’t just about Bogworts Earl,” Jake piped in, appearing soundlessly from the woods. “We need to figure out how to get rid of all this trash.”
“First I’ll take care of the little Bogwort, and then we can figure out the trash,” replied Earl. He didn’t take his eyes off the Bogwort.
“Come on Ashton,” whispered Julie, “I know a shortcut to the other side of the road without crossing it.” Ashton wondered how that could work, but he followed Julie into the woods where she took off running down a twisting path to the right. It seemed to Ashton that they were only running for a few moments when they arrived in the woods a little behind the Bogwort, without ever crossing the road. Earl was standing in the clearing, just out of the woods, just a little ways from the Bogwort, who was still doing something with a piece of trash in front of him.
Earl started swinging his rope that had a heavy pinecone tied to the end. It was pretty clear to Ashton that Earl was going to hit the Bogwort with the pinecone. That didn’t seem like a very nice thing to do to anyone; especially someone who didn’t seem to be doing anything to hurt anyone else. Ashton wished Aaron or Ella was there, but with them at school there was no one but him with Jake and Julie. They were both looking at Ashton, with a little bit of a question in their eyes. Ashton looked at Earl swinging the pinecone really hard and knew what he had to do.
With a quickness you had to know Ashton to understand, he ran at Earl and tackled him with a hard jump onto his back. Earl went down like a sack of potatoes with Ashton right on top of him. As Earl struggled to get up Ashton grabbed the rope and pinecone and threw them into the woods. It wasn’t until Ashton got off him that Earl was able to stand up. His eyes were angry as he looked down at Ashton. “I’ll get you for that,” he threatened as he bunched up his fists and took a step forward. Jake and Julie both quickly jumped between Ashton and Earl. “It’s easy to pick on someone smaller than you,” said Jake, who didn’t look even a little worried. “The two of us add up to about your size,” went on Julie, “if you want to start something, why don’t you try us?” She wasn’t holding anything but there was a long stick near her feet that Ashton could just imagine would be in her hands to break over Earl’s head if he made a move.
Earl seemed like he could imagine that too as he gave a small snarl, “You’re all going to get it from me,” and he ran back into the woods. It seemed to Ashton that Earl made way too much noise for an elf. The way he crashed through the bushes was louder and clumsier than Ashton knew even he could move. Ashton turned around to see the little Bogwort. “Who are you?” the Bogwort asked, looking Ashton straight in the eye.
“I’m Ashton,” he replied, “and these are my friends Jake and Julie.” He paused for a moment. “They’re elves,” he finished. The Bogwort looked at Jake and Julie’s pointed ears, light build and green clothes and nodded. “I figured,” he answered. “My name’s Bob. Bob the Bogwort, but you can just call me Bob if you want.”
“What are you doing?” asked Julie, looking at the piece in Bob’s hand. It was a can, paper removed and the sides cut in varying strips. Some of the strips were curled into tight rings. It looked not a bit like trash. More like something being made… maybe even something kind of pretty.
Bob looked suddenly bashful. “It’s just something I like to do.” He answered. “I like to turn ugly things into something nice. This can be a little doll chair when I get done. I like to give them to little kids for toys. Some little ones don’t have any toys you know.” Ashton looked hard at Bob. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Bob’s ears were getting just a little pointed, like Jake and Julie’s.
“Hmmm,” hummed Julie, “We have a problem with trash here and you seem to be able to turn it into toys.” She looked thoughtfully at the pile of trash.
Bob looked at the trash. It was a really big pile. “I don’t think I could do anything about that big of a pile,” He said with a sad regret. “I just can’t work that fast.”
Ashton looked at Jake and Julie. He wished his brother and sister, Aaron and Ella were there. They had really good ideas sometimes. Then it seemed to pop into his head what Ella would say. “Isn’t there some kind of elf magic that could help Bob get more done?” he asked.
Julie looked thoughtfully at Bob. He did seem a little slimmer than your typical Bogwort. And yes, his ears were definitely getting pointy. “It takes an elf to do elf magic,” she said, looking Bob right in the eye. “Tell you what,” she went on, “Bob, you and Ashton stay here and see what you can do about making trash into toys while Jake and I go see what we can do to tangle up that road the Bogworts use to get here.” As she and Jake skipped off down the road she looked back at Ashton and Bob. “Don’t worry,” she called, “Have fun and you’ll be done before we get back. And that won’t seem like more than a couple of minutes.” With that they vanished around a corner.
Ashton looked at Bob with some doubt, “Do you think you could show me how you do that?” Bob smiled back, “I’ve wanted to show people what I do for the longest time.” With that he showed Ashton how to turn cans into doll furniture, pizza boxes into little houses and wrappers into shiny stars. They had only been at it for the blink of an eye when Jake and Julie came running down a path out of the woods. Ashton looked down at a little pile of toys at his feet. There was no more trash anywhere to be seen. “How…?” he muttered at Jake and then he looked at Bob.
Jake scooped up the toys and put them into his pack. “I know some kids who would love these,” he said. “They live over in the elf village. Bob do you want to take them there? I’ll bet you would know just how to get there.” Ashton looked at Bob and realized he was looking at an elf. The Bogwort he had been was gone and he was now a slim elf; pointy ears, green clothes, a fun little smile and just a hint of sparkle on his cheeks. “I’ll see you there at dinner,” said Bob the elf, “I know where I can get a big bunch of raspberries on the way.” And with that he skipped off through the woods without a sound.
“Come on Ashton,” said Julie, “We have one last problem. There’s about a thousand Bogworts following us and we need to lead them around in a circle to finish the spell that tangles the road so they can’t use it to find their way back here ever again.” She took Ashton’s hand and led him off into the woods. “Have you ever heard about plan number seven?” Ashton ran along with Julie, real excitement rising up inside him. Aaron had told him about plan number seven and he couldn’t believe he would get to be a part of it. “Can I be the rabbit?” he asked as they came into sight of the Bogworts, “I can run really fast.”
“Perfect,” said Jake as he ran ahead to the right, “you lead them in a circle that way. We’ll take care of the rest.” Julie peeled off to the left and Ashton was alone with all the Bogworts running towards him.
As they got close, Ashton thought he recognized the lead Bogwort. It looked just like Earl.
“I see you,” shouted the Bogwort that looked like Earl. “I told you I’d get you and now you’ll never get away. Get him you guys.”
Ashton smiled a sad little smile. Earl might have once known about plan seven, but that was when he was an elf. “You’ll have to catch me first,” he yelled as he turned to run where Jake had showed. Bogworts could just never seem to avoid chasing anything smaller than they were when it was running away from them. Ashton ran just fast enough to keep the Bogworts from thinking they couldn’t catch him. Earl was big and should have been able to catch up in no time, but he must have eaten too much cold pizza and he seemed to catch his feet on every vine and bush that Ashton ran past.
Plan seven needed them to stay close though, so Ashton let them get ever closer to catching him. He could almost feel them grabbing his neck. It was tricky running so close to the Bogworts. Ashton hoped Jake and Julie would start plan seven soon. At just the time he was hoping this, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye…both eyes really. Jake and Julie came swinging down out of trees on both sides of the trail Ashton was running on. Jake scooped up Ashton and they were both standing in the tree that Julie had been on moments before…before she swung across the trail. Jake gave Ashton a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a whispered, “good job” before he swung down again, to stay on the ground this time.
Jake and Julie took off, slowly running in opposite directions, leaving the Bogworts in a terrible frenzy about which direction to run. If they had really wanted to lose them, Jake and Julie could have walked away carrying a big sign that said, “Elves going this way !!” and the Bogworts would have had trouble finding them. As it was they stopped to pick some really good looking berries along the way, stop to warn a passing rabbit to get off the trail, and discuss racing strategy with a passing turtle. By this time Earl managed to split the Bogworts into two groups. One group running after each elf. Ashton stayed up in his tree, very quietly, and watched the whole thing.
When Jake and Julie circled back to cross paths with each other, the colliding groups of Bogworts made any pursuit hopeless. Jake and Julie skipped along through the branches while the Bogworts argued about which trail each group was supposed to follow. Earl’s yelling could be heard above it all, and he didn’t sound happy, or elf-like, at all. The Bogworts probably would take a day or two to find their way back to their village, and never would be able to find the road to their former garbage dump.
Jake and Julie came back and picked up Ashton and brought him back to the grapevine. “Did Earl really turn into a Bogwort? And did Bob really turn into an elf?” asked Ashton as he crawled through into his own back yard.
“Bogwort is as Bogwort does” answered Jake, with a sad smile. “And elf is as elf does,” went on Julie with more of a happy smile. As Ashton turned to the vine to say goodbye, Julie handed out a big bag of raspberries. “You were a big help,” she said, “Please give these to your mom with our compliments.”
Ashton went into the house just before Aaron and Ella got home from school. Livia and Preston were just getting up from their naps. Everyone thought raspberries, with a little cream and sugar was a wonderful afternoon treat.
After that, every time he did something especially good, Ashton would check his ears, just in case. You could never be sure.
The End
PS: Just a note from Grandpa-- The idea of turning trash to toys came from stuff my dad used to do. He really could turn a tin can into a very cute doll chair. He even taught me to do it. Maybe I could show you some time.
© Roy E. Moxley 2011, all rights reserved
“Those are my grapes.” He protested.
“Oh really,” answered Julie, from the other side of the vine, “Did you plant them?”
Ashton shook his head no.
“Water them?” asked Julie, “Weed them, fertilize them, pollinate them or pick little bugs off of them?”
Ashton sort of looked down at the ground and again shook his head no.
“In that case, I guess I can share some anyway,” said Julie and she neatly broke the bunch in half and handed some to Ashton. “After all, it’s only fair to share with a fellow adventurer. We could use your help with a little Bogwort problem we’ve been having”.
“You need my help?” breathed Ashton. This was so cool, he was the only one there and Julie the elf was asking for his help.
“You’ll have to check with your Mom,” replied Julie, “but help is always good when Bogworts are around.”
“Hurry and ask,” put in Jake, “We’ll be right here.”
Ashton quickly ran into the house. Mom was reading on the sofa and Ashton bounced up next to her and whispered (so he wouldn’t wake Livia or Preston, “Mom, can I go help Jake and Julie? They said they needed me.”
Mom looked Ashton in the eye, “You can go with Jake and Julie, but you have to promise me you won’t cross any roads.” They lived in a small block with an alley behind the house. You couldn’t go very far if you didn’t cross any roads to get there.
“I promise,” said Ashton, “Thanks Mom” and he gave his mom a quick hug and headed back outside.
It was only 50 feet back to the grapevine but Ashton was breathless when he arrived. “Is it Bogworts?” he asked when he got there, his face pushed into the leaves as far as he could. He could see nothing but big green leaves until Jake reached out a hand and pulled him through a gap in the big vine. “It seems like it’s always Bogworts” replied Julie when he was through. “If we don’t do something fast we could lose the best raspberry patch for miles.”
“How can I help?” asked Ashton with a big grin. He loved raspberries and he had a pretty good idea that if he could help Jake and Julie with their Bogwort problem he could end up with at least a good sized handful of them.
“We’re really not sure of a plan,” answered Jake, who almost always had a plan for everything. “They’ve managed to get a garbage pile going so fast and so big it could take serious magic to get rid of it before it piles into, on top of, and all over the raspberries.”
“Let’s go,” broke in Julie, looking up at the sun. “I’d sure like to see what we could get done before we have to get Ashton home.” With that, she started jogging down the path into the forest that by anything Ashton could think of should be in the middle of the neighbor’s back yard. For some reason it just wasn’t there when the kids were with Jake and Julie.
“Serious magic,” thought Ashton, not even noticing that he wasn’t getting tired as he ran along for a pretty long time with Jake and Julie. “I’d really like to see some serious elf magic.” It seemed like it was about 15 minutes later that Julie signaled them to slow down to a quiet jog. The three of them slipped off the path and into some undergrowth across a clearing from a huge garbage pile of beer cans, pizza boxes, potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers. Bogworts apparently didn’t much go for fresh vegetables or anything else that didn’t come out of a can, box, or BHT soaked wrapper.
“Where’s all the Bogworts?” asked Ashton in a very quiet whisper.
“It’s just after lunch,” answered Jake. “Or at least just after a really late breakfast,” Julie put in as she looked carefully at the giant trash pile and stood up out of the bushes. “It’s still best to be careful though,” she went on quietly, “there could still be someone around and we don’t want any trouble.”
Just then they heard a rustling in the bushes behind them and a somewhat larger elf than either Jake or Julie stepped through the low plants at the edge of the woods. “It looks like we made it here just in time,” said the new elf, without even whispering.
“Hi Earl,” greeted Jake, “This is our friend Ashton. He came here to help with the trash problem that seems to be growing here.”
“Ashton,” went on Julie, “this is Earl the elf. He lives in our village.”
“Hmmm,” muttered Earl as he looked down at Ashton. He was more than a head taller than either Jake or Julie, and they were bigger than Ashton, even a little bigger than his sister Ella, and she was just finishing third grade. “He looks like he could help sneak around to see how we can get those Bogworts for piling their trash in our forest.” Earl looked at the trash pile and then to each side along the edge of the woods. “Come on Ashton, you come with me this way and Jake and Julie can go that way and we’ll meet on the other side of the trash. That way we can be sure none of those rotten Bogworts are around and we can set a trap without anyone seeing.” Without even seeing what anyone else thought he took Ashton’s hand and headed around to the left of the trash mound.
“What about a plan?” whispered Julie, in a pretty loud whisper, so Earl could hear as he headed away.
“Plans are for weaklings,” answered Earl over his shoulder as he guided Ashton along.
Jake looked like he was going to say something loud, but Julie pulled him over to the right side and just whispered, quietly this time, “Come on, we need to scout around to the other side before Ashton gets to the ‘you know what’ and there’s trouble.” Jake had a questioning look in his eyes and then he realized what Julie meant and he nodded and moved silently back into the trees and moved along, keeping the trash pile in sight. Jake and Julie could move really fast without a sound when they wanted to, and now they really wanted to.
Earl and Ashton went around the left, a little closer to the trash pile, and not as quiet, but still not so loud that a Bogwort would be able to notice them. As they moved along, Ashton noticed two things at almost the same time. A somewhat small Bogwort was sitting at the edge of the trash pile seemingly hard at work on something in his hands. The second thing Ashton noticed was that he was sitting on the other side of a small road that led to the trash pile.
Ashton froze as they came closer to the road. “I told my Mom that I wouldn’t cross any roads,” he whispered urgently to Earl. “I just can’t do that.”
Earl looked over at the small Bogwort and then down at Ashton. “It’s just a road,” he said, “There’s not even a Bogwort cart in sight. I’ll make sure you cross safely.”
Ashton just stood there staring at the road. Just as Earl was taking hold of his arm Julie appeared behind them from the woods. “We’ve looked all around the other side,” she said, “There’s just this little Bogwort. I can’t tell what he’s doing, but he sure is interested in it.”
“Perfect,” answered Earl, “I’ve got just the thing for this nasty little Bogwort.” He started to pull a fine rope out of his pack.
“This isn’t just about Bogworts Earl,” Jake piped in, appearing soundlessly from the woods. “We need to figure out how to get rid of all this trash.”
“First I’ll take care of the little Bogwort, and then we can figure out the trash,” replied Earl. He didn’t take his eyes off the Bogwort.
“Come on Ashton,” whispered Julie, “I know a shortcut to the other side of the road without crossing it.” Ashton wondered how that could work, but he followed Julie into the woods where she took off running down a twisting path to the right. It seemed to Ashton that they were only running for a few moments when they arrived in the woods a little behind the Bogwort, without ever crossing the road. Earl was standing in the clearing, just out of the woods, just a little ways from the Bogwort, who was still doing something with a piece of trash in front of him.
Earl started swinging his rope that had a heavy pinecone tied to the end. It was pretty clear to Ashton that Earl was going to hit the Bogwort with the pinecone. That didn’t seem like a very nice thing to do to anyone; especially someone who didn’t seem to be doing anything to hurt anyone else. Ashton wished Aaron or Ella was there, but with them at school there was no one but him with Jake and Julie. They were both looking at Ashton, with a little bit of a question in their eyes. Ashton looked at Earl swinging the pinecone really hard and knew what he had to do.
With a quickness you had to know Ashton to understand, he ran at Earl and tackled him with a hard jump onto his back. Earl went down like a sack of potatoes with Ashton right on top of him. As Earl struggled to get up Ashton grabbed the rope and pinecone and threw them into the woods. It wasn’t until Ashton got off him that Earl was able to stand up. His eyes were angry as he looked down at Ashton. “I’ll get you for that,” he threatened as he bunched up his fists and took a step forward. Jake and Julie both quickly jumped between Ashton and Earl. “It’s easy to pick on someone smaller than you,” said Jake, who didn’t look even a little worried. “The two of us add up to about your size,” went on Julie, “if you want to start something, why don’t you try us?” She wasn’t holding anything but there was a long stick near her feet that Ashton could just imagine would be in her hands to break over Earl’s head if he made a move.
Earl seemed like he could imagine that too as he gave a small snarl, “You’re all going to get it from me,” and he ran back into the woods. It seemed to Ashton that Earl made way too much noise for an elf. The way he crashed through the bushes was louder and clumsier than Ashton knew even he could move. Ashton turned around to see the little Bogwort. “Who are you?” the Bogwort asked, looking Ashton straight in the eye.
“I’m Ashton,” he replied, “and these are my friends Jake and Julie.” He paused for a moment. “They’re elves,” he finished. The Bogwort looked at Jake and Julie’s pointed ears, light build and green clothes and nodded. “I figured,” he answered. “My name’s Bob. Bob the Bogwort, but you can just call me Bob if you want.”
“What are you doing?” asked Julie, looking at the piece in Bob’s hand. It was a can, paper removed and the sides cut in varying strips. Some of the strips were curled into tight rings. It looked not a bit like trash. More like something being made… maybe even something kind of pretty.
Bob looked suddenly bashful. “It’s just something I like to do.” He answered. “I like to turn ugly things into something nice. This can be a little doll chair when I get done. I like to give them to little kids for toys. Some little ones don’t have any toys you know.” Ashton looked hard at Bob. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Bob’s ears were getting just a little pointed, like Jake and Julie’s.
“Hmmm,” hummed Julie, “We have a problem with trash here and you seem to be able to turn it into toys.” She looked thoughtfully at the pile of trash.
Bob looked at the trash. It was a really big pile. “I don’t think I could do anything about that big of a pile,” He said with a sad regret. “I just can’t work that fast.”
Ashton looked at Jake and Julie. He wished his brother and sister, Aaron and Ella were there. They had really good ideas sometimes. Then it seemed to pop into his head what Ella would say. “Isn’t there some kind of elf magic that could help Bob get more done?” he asked.
Julie looked thoughtfully at Bob. He did seem a little slimmer than your typical Bogwort. And yes, his ears were definitely getting pointy. “It takes an elf to do elf magic,” she said, looking Bob right in the eye. “Tell you what,” she went on, “Bob, you and Ashton stay here and see what you can do about making trash into toys while Jake and I go see what we can do to tangle up that road the Bogworts use to get here.” As she and Jake skipped off down the road she looked back at Ashton and Bob. “Don’t worry,” she called, “Have fun and you’ll be done before we get back. And that won’t seem like more than a couple of minutes.” With that they vanished around a corner.
Ashton looked at Bob with some doubt, “Do you think you could show me how you do that?” Bob smiled back, “I’ve wanted to show people what I do for the longest time.” With that he showed Ashton how to turn cans into doll furniture, pizza boxes into little houses and wrappers into shiny stars. They had only been at it for the blink of an eye when Jake and Julie came running down a path out of the woods. Ashton looked down at a little pile of toys at his feet. There was no more trash anywhere to be seen. “How…?” he muttered at Jake and then he looked at Bob.
Jake scooped up the toys and put them into his pack. “I know some kids who would love these,” he said. “They live over in the elf village. Bob do you want to take them there? I’ll bet you would know just how to get there.” Ashton looked at Bob and realized he was looking at an elf. The Bogwort he had been was gone and he was now a slim elf; pointy ears, green clothes, a fun little smile and just a hint of sparkle on his cheeks. “I’ll see you there at dinner,” said Bob the elf, “I know where I can get a big bunch of raspberries on the way.” And with that he skipped off through the woods without a sound.
“Come on Ashton,” said Julie, “We have one last problem. There’s about a thousand Bogworts following us and we need to lead them around in a circle to finish the spell that tangles the road so they can’t use it to find their way back here ever again.” She took Ashton’s hand and led him off into the woods. “Have you ever heard about plan number seven?” Ashton ran along with Julie, real excitement rising up inside him. Aaron had told him about plan number seven and he couldn’t believe he would get to be a part of it. “Can I be the rabbit?” he asked as they came into sight of the Bogworts, “I can run really fast.”
“Perfect,” said Jake as he ran ahead to the right, “you lead them in a circle that way. We’ll take care of the rest.” Julie peeled off to the left and Ashton was alone with all the Bogworts running towards him.
As they got close, Ashton thought he recognized the lead Bogwort. It looked just like Earl.
“I see you,” shouted the Bogwort that looked like Earl. “I told you I’d get you and now you’ll never get away. Get him you guys.”
Ashton smiled a sad little smile. Earl might have once known about plan seven, but that was when he was an elf. “You’ll have to catch me first,” he yelled as he turned to run where Jake had showed. Bogworts could just never seem to avoid chasing anything smaller than they were when it was running away from them. Ashton ran just fast enough to keep the Bogworts from thinking they couldn’t catch him. Earl was big and should have been able to catch up in no time, but he must have eaten too much cold pizza and he seemed to catch his feet on every vine and bush that Ashton ran past.
Plan seven needed them to stay close though, so Ashton let them get ever closer to catching him. He could almost feel them grabbing his neck. It was tricky running so close to the Bogworts. Ashton hoped Jake and Julie would start plan seven soon. At just the time he was hoping this, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye…both eyes really. Jake and Julie came swinging down out of trees on both sides of the trail Ashton was running on. Jake scooped up Ashton and they were both standing in the tree that Julie had been on moments before…before she swung across the trail. Jake gave Ashton a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a whispered, “good job” before he swung down again, to stay on the ground this time.
Jake and Julie took off, slowly running in opposite directions, leaving the Bogworts in a terrible frenzy about which direction to run. If they had really wanted to lose them, Jake and Julie could have walked away carrying a big sign that said, “Elves going this way !!” and the Bogworts would have had trouble finding them. As it was they stopped to pick some really good looking berries along the way, stop to warn a passing rabbit to get off the trail, and discuss racing strategy with a passing turtle. By this time Earl managed to split the Bogworts into two groups. One group running after each elf. Ashton stayed up in his tree, very quietly, and watched the whole thing.
When Jake and Julie circled back to cross paths with each other, the colliding groups of Bogworts made any pursuit hopeless. Jake and Julie skipped along through the branches while the Bogworts argued about which trail each group was supposed to follow. Earl’s yelling could be heard above it all, and he didn’t sound happy, or elf-like, at all. The Bogworts probably would take a day or two to find their way back to their village, and never would be able to find the road to their former garbage dump.
Jake and Julie came back and picked up Ashton and brought him back to the grapevine. “Did Earl really turn into a Bogwort? And did Bob really turn into an elf?” asked Ashton as he crawled through into his own back yard.
“Bogwort is as Bogwort does” answered Jake, with a sad smile. “And elf is as elf does,” went on Julie with more of a happy smile. As Ashton turned to the vine to say goodbye, Julie handed out a big bag of raspberries. “You were a big help,” she said, “Please give these to your mom with our compliments.”
Ashton went into the house just before Aaron and Ella got home from school. Livia and Preston were just getting up from their naps. Everyone thought raspberries, with a little cream and sugar was a wonderful afternoon treat.
After that, every time he did something especially good, Ashton would check his ears, just in case. You could never be sure.
The End
PS: Just a note from Grandpa-- The idea of turning trash to toys came from stuff my dad used to do. He really could turn a tin can into a very cute doll chair. He even taught me to do it. Maybe I could show you some time.
© Roy E. Moxley 2011, all rights reserved
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Grapevine Elves and the End of the Rainbow (Part 3, conclusion)
Jake, had in the meantime been wracking his brain for a distraction. Bogworts were, as a rule, painfully easy to distract. But of course there would be 5 small children skipping away from them in an open field while carrying treasure. Hmmm, the only thing that could distract a Bogwort army from something like that would be pizza and root beer. Or at least what they thought was pizza and root beer. Jake had only minutes, so he moved fast, like only an elf in a hurry can move. He found a blown over sassafras tree and broke off a fairly fresh piece of the root (smells just like root beer, check it yourself). The pizza was a little tougher, but really it only needed a box, some imagination on the part of the Bogworts (not tough when it came to what they thought might be free food), and some crushed basil and oregano leaves. The suggestion of a box was a little tricky until Jake saw a birch tree with just the right color of white bark. He politely asked the tree if he could take a bit of the peeling bark and was told, “Of course if it will help in dealing with Bogworts”. Everyone liked to help teach Bogworts a lesson, even trees. Especially trees.
Just as the Bogworts took off at a run after the children, Jake got to the edge of the clearing. A friendly breeze happened to come up just then to bring the Bogworts the unmistakable scent of pizza and root beer. They had been chasing that rainbow for quite a while and a Bogwort can only live so long on candy bars, energy drinks, cigarettes, and gummy bears.
When that hungry army spotted Jake, with what they thought was a stack of pizza boxes, they momentarily lost all thought of chasing down the children. They changed directions faster than a, than a…well, faster than anything slower than a Bogwort army after some pizza and root beer. Jake dropped the “boxes” and skipped back into the woods, heading around to the far side to meet up with Ella’s group. “We have to hurry now,” he said to them all, “Those Bogworts will be really mad when they find out we tricked them.” And with that, he led the way down the path to where Julie would be waiting.
A huge roar came to them before they had gone far. “That must be the Bogworts,” exclaimed Livia, “they sound really mad!”
“Not a problem,” answered Jake as they all ran along, “as long as we get to Julie before they get to us. We may need one more plan before then. If anyone can think of something, now would be a good time.”
At that, Kaden stopped suddenly by planting his feet firmly, the way only a 16 month old child can, and dragged everyone to a stop. When they were all looking at him he carefully took his hands from Ashton and Aaron and raised one finger. With the other hand he made a peeling motion, the baby sign for “Banana”.
“Hmmm,” said Ella, thinking of the impact of a banana at that moment, “That could work, but I don’t think we have any bananas.” Kaden just looked at Aaron. Aaron got a slightly guilty look and pulled a banana from the carry bag he had on his back. “I brought one in case we got hungry.” He explained.
“Perfect,” said Jake, “anyone for a piece of banana?”
“Of course we have to come back for the peel later,” said Ella.
“Of course,” nodded Jake, “After all, we aren’t Bogworts.” And with that they all took a piece of banana and carefully placed the peel on the trail, just past a corner that the Bogworts would be running around. They ran on down the trail, just before the Bogworts rounded the corner at a run.
The sound of falling Bogworts was music to their ears as they skipped on ahead. Bogworts ran as a tight group, and when the leader slipped and fell it was a sure thing that everyone else would trip and fall over him. The children were safe with Julie and her “friend” when the Bogworts finally caught them.
As the Bogworts, now scraped up from their little banana adventure, and with dirt and leaves all over their assorted ring pops and candy bars, ran out of the forest they saw Jake and Ella, Aaron, Ashton, Livia and Kaden playing between the claws of a huge dragon while Julie sat on its head, scratching behind its ears. “Oh yeah, right there,” the dragon rumbled. “I just can’t seem to scratch that one spot.”
The dragon only had to look at the Bogworts, and all thought of treasure seemed to leave them. Sudden business elsewhere…forgot to get my homework done…big assignment due tomorrow…a thousand reasons to be heading home came to those Bogworts and they ran, not walked, to the nearest exit back into the forest.
Jake and Julie, Ella, Aaron, Ashton, Livia, and Kaden said goodbye and thank you to the dragon (and there’s another story waiting to happen) and they headed back home.
You might ask, “What about the treasure?” and so they all had one more stop to make. A beehive sat on the edge of the forest, near the grapevine. The bees had had a tough year. Jake and Julie thought it might be a really good idea to leave the treasure with them. The treasure was, in fact, a large pot of golden honey, which would mean a lot to a hive of hungry bees. It could even mean a short vacation in the near future that would be very helpful. Of course one small cup could be saved to give to mom, maybe to put on some toast at breakfast.
The next day, the bullies were at school again when Ella and Aaron were headed home. This time though, Ella and Aaron made it a point to not run quite so fast. This encouraged the bullies to chase them past the edge of the schoolyard and even past the house on the corner with the beehive. It seemed these bees had some visitors from another hive, cousins perhaps on vacation, that didn’t like bullies running past. Several stings later (just little stings, no torn stingers left in the skin), the bullies actually caught up to Ella and Aaron, sitting at the edge of the yard petting Max, their “killer” dog, terror of mailmen everywhere. Max only looked up from getting his head scratched and gave a lazy smile, which showed all his teeth. The bullies suddenly remembered important business elsewhere…homework to do…stings to take care of…maybe even some chores they could do for their mother…anything to get them out of there.
Ella and Aaron looked over to the grapevine and gave a little wink. Behind the grapes there was a little twinkle that could have been a clever elf winking back.
The End
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.
Just as the Bogworts took off at a run after the children, Jake got to the edge of the clearing. A friendly breeze happened to come up just then to bring the Bogworts the unmistakable scent of pizza and root beer. They had been chasing that rainbow for quite a while and a Bogwort can only live so long on candy bars, energy drinks, cigarettes, and gummy bears.
When that hungry army spotted Jake, with what they thought was a stack of pizza boxes, they momentarily lost all thought of chasing down the children. They changed directions faster than a, than a…well, faster than anything slower than a Bogwort army after some pizza and root beer. Jake dropped the “boxes” and skipped back into the woods, heading around to the far side to meet up with Ella’s group. “We have to hurry now,” he said to them all, “Those Bogworts will be really mad when they find out we tricked them.” And with that, he led the way down the path to where Julie would be waiting.
A huge roar came to them before they had gone far. “That must be the Bogworts,” exclaimed Livia, “they sound really mad!”
“Not a problem,” answered Jake as they all ran along, “as long as we get to Julie before they get to us. We may need one more plan before then. If anyone can think of something, now would be a good time.”
At that, Kaden stopped suddenly by planting his feet firmly, the way only a 16 month old child can, and dragged everyone to a stop. When they were all looking at him he carefully took his hands from Ashton and Aaron and raised one finger. With the other hand he made a peeling motion, the baby sign for “Banana”.
“Hmmm,” said Ella, thinking of the impact of a banana at that moment, “That could work, but I don’t think we have any bananas.” Kaden just looked at Aaron. Aaron got a slightly guilty look and pulled a banana from the carry bag he had on his back. “I brought one in case we got hungry.” He explained.
“Perfect,” said Jake, “anyone for a piece of banana?”
“Of course we have to come back for the peel later,” said Ella.
“Of course,” nodded Jake, “After all, we aren’t Bogworts.” And with that they all took a piece of banana and carefully placed the peel on the trail, just past a corner that the Bogworts would be running around. They ran on down the trail, just before the Bogworts rounded the corner at a run.
The sound of falling Bogworts was music to their ears as they skipped on ahead. Bogworts ran as a tight group, and when the leader slipped and fell it was a sure thing that everyone else would trip and fall over him. The children were safe with Julie and her “friend” when the Bogworts finally caught them.
As the Bogworts, now scraped up from their little banana adventure, and with dirt and leaves all over their assorted ring pops and candy bars, ran out of the forest they saw Jake and Ella, Aaron, Ashton, Livia and Kaden playing between the claws of a huge dragon while Julie sat on its head, scratching behind its ears. “Oh yeah, right there,” the dragon rumbled. “I just can’t seem to scratch that one spot.”
The dragon only had to look at the Bogworts, and all thought of treasure seemed to leave them. Sudden business elsewhere…forgot to get my homework done…big assignment due tomorrow…a thousand reasons to be heading home came to those Bogworts and they ran, not walked, to the nearest exit back into the forest.
Jake and Julie, Ella, Aaron, Ashton, Livia, and Kaden said goodbye and thank you to the dragon (and there’s another story waiting to happen) and they headed back home.
You might ask, “What about the treasure?” and so they all had one more stop to make. A beehive sat on the edge of the forest, near the grapevine. The bees had had a tough year. Jake and Julie thought it might be a really good idea to leave the treasure with them. The treasure was, in fact, a large pot of golden honey, which would mean a lot to a hive of hungry bees. It could even mean a short vacation in the near future that would be very helpful. Of course one small cup could be saved to give to mom, maybe to put on some toast at breakfast.
The next day, the bullies were at school again when Ella and Aaron were headed home. This time though, Ella and Aaron made it a point to not run quite so fast. This encouraged the bullies to chase them past the edge of the schoolyard and even past the house on the corner with the beehive. It seemed these bees had some visitors from another hive, cousins perhaps on vacation, that didn’t like bullies running past. Several stings later (just little stings, no torn stingers left in the skin), the bullies actually caught up to Ella and Aaron, sitting at the edge of the yard petting Max, their “killer” dog, terror of mailmen everywhere. Max only looked up from getting his head scratched and gave a lazy smile, which showed all his teeth. The bullies suddenly remembered important business elsewhere…homework to do…stings to take care of…maybe even some chores they could do for their mother…anything to get them out of there.
Ella and Aaron looked over to the grapevine and gave a little wink. Behind the grapes there was a little twinkle that could have been a clever elf winking back.
The End
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
The Grapevine Elves and the End of the Rainbow (Part 2)
He took a slightly soggy fry out of the box and looked at it like you would a particularly interesting but still slimy banana slug (go to Seattle to see those). He bent it carefully and stated, “I’d guess about 3 hours from the fryer and 13 minutes since the box was dropped. They have a head start but we can beat them to the end of the rainbow.” Ella could see the rainbow ahead of them…and on the other side of the road !!
“How can we get to the end at all?” she asked, “we’d have to cross the road and Mom said we couldn’t.” Ella was very careful to obey her mother, especially on this side of the grapevine. She saw the look her mom always gave her when she said she was going for a “walk” with Jake and Julie. Grown-ups clearly didn’t believe in elves but there was always something about that look. The rule was always, “don’t cross any roads.” Ella had a pretty strong feeling about not crossing roads here.
“No worries,” broke in Julie, “we know a shortcut. We know a shortcut to everywhere.” Ella looked down the road in both directions. It seemed to go a long ways. Julie just gave her a smile and headed down a path that angled back away from the road. After three left turns Ella was sure they were going around in circles, but they never seemed to cross a path or the road. It seemed like the little ones should be getting tired, but they seemed to just be enjoying the walk. Jake was walking next to Ashton and telling outrageous stories about Bogwort habits. “You couldn’t do that!!” insisted Aaron, who had been listening, “your fingers would fall off.”
“I’ve seen it myself,” said Jake with a confident tone, “Trust me, Bogworts are about as gross as you can get and not leave a slime trail.” He paused and looked ahead, “We’ll have to be quiet now. We’re almost there.” Sure enough, Julie raised her closed fist at a right angle and then motioned all the kids to get down and they crawled under the bushes towards the edge of a wonderfully huge field of clover. The rainbow could be seen plunging down right in the middle of the field, colors as bright as the frosting on one of Aaron’s birthday cakes Grandma would make when they visited over New Year’s eve. They could also see Bogworts over to their left, just arriving at the edge of the field.
“But we can’t reach the end of the rainbow,” explained Aaron, very quietly. When we try to get close, it will just move further away. My teacher says it’s just light reflected from water drops in the air.”
“That’s right” said Julie, “We won’t get close to the rainbow. It will get close to us! Now here’s the plan,” and she whispered to Ella a simple set of instructions. “Can you do it?” she asked, looking Ella right in the eyes. Ella pressed her lips together and put her chin out (just a little. She didn’t want to look like Jay Leno). “We’ll do it,” she said, “I trust you and Jake. We’ll get away with it.” With that she took her little train of brothers and sister and cousin around the edge of the field, to the far side, just inside the trees. “OK,” she said to the group as she took a deep breath, “This is it!! Let’s go.” And she led them skipping out into the middle of the field.
It took a lot of courage, from every one of them, to skip into a field where they could see a huge bunch of Bogworts coming in on the other side. What the Bogworts saw was someone else skipping up to the end of the rainbow. The end of the rainbow that held “their” treasure! With a roar the Bogworts started running straight towards the kids.
Ella stopped where Julie had told her and kept calm while she slowly counted out loud to seven. (She counted to seven because that’s what Julie said to count to; not Ten, not Three…Seven). What was toughest was counting to seven with her eyes shut, and all the kids eyes shut.
At “Seven” the children opened their eyes to a field now filled with color. Sure enough, as the Bogworts had run towards the rainbow it had gotten further away from them. Now it surrounded the kids and there was the pot of treasure right at their feet. “Grab the pot, Aaron, and let’s get out of here,” yelled Ella, and she headed at a run, with her hand firmly holding Livia, back into the forest. She could only hope that the elves would come up with the distraction the plan needed.
{to be continued}
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.
“How can we get to the end at all?” she asked, “we’d have to cross the road and Mom said we couldn’t.” Ella was very careful to obey her mother, especially on this side of the grapevine. She saw the look her mom always gave her when she said she was going for a “walk” with Jake and Julie. Grown-ups clearly didn’t believe in elves but there was always something about that look. The rule was always, “don’t cross any roads.” Ella had a pretty strong feeling about not crossing roads here.
“No worries,” broke in Julie, “we know a shortcut. We know a shortcut to everywhere.” Ella looked down the road in both directions. It seemed to go a long ways. Julie just gave her a smile and headed down a path that angled back away from the road. After three left turns Ella was sure they were going around in circles, but they never seemed to cross a path or the road. It seemed like the little ones should be getting tired, but they seemed to just be enjoying the walk. Jake was walking next to Ashton and telling outrageous stories about Bogwort habits. “You couldn’t do that!!” insisted Aaron, who had been listening, “your fingers would fall off.”
“I’ve seen it myself,” said Jake with a confident tone, “Trust me, Bogworts are about as gross as you can get and not leave a slime trail.” He paused and looked ahead, “We’ll have to be quiet now. We’re almost there.” Sure enough, Julie raised her closed fist at a right angle and then motioned all the kids to get down and they crawled under the bushes towards the edge of a wonderfully huge field of clover. The rainbow could be seen plunging down right in the middle of the field, colors as bright as the frosting on one of Aaron’s birthday cakes Grandma would make when they visited over New Year’s eve. They could also see Bogworts over to their left, just arriving at the edge of the field.
“But we can’t reach the end of the rainbow,” explained Aaron, very quietly. When we try to get close, it will just move further away. My teacher says it’s just light reflected from water drops in the air.”
“That’s right” said Julie, “We won’t get close to the rainbow. It will get close to us! Now here’s the plan,” and she whispered to Ella a simple set of instructions. “Can you do it?” she asked, looking Ella right in the eyes. Ella pressed her lips together and put her chin out (just a little. She didn’t want to look like Jay Leno). “We’ll do it,” she said, “I trust you and Jake. We’ll get away with it.” With that she took her little train of brothers and sister and cousin around the edge of the field, to the far side, just inside the trees. “OK,” she said to the group as she took a deep breath, “This is it!! Let’s go.” And she led them skipping out into the middle of the field.
It took a lot of courage, from every one of them, to skip into a field where they could see a huge bunch of Bogworts coming in on the other side. What the Bogworts saw was someone else skipping up to the end of the rainbow. The end of the rainbow that held “their” treasure! With a roar the Bogworts started running straight towards the kids.
Ella stopped where Julie had told her and kept calm while she slowly counted out loud to seven. (She counted to seven because that’s what Julie said to count to; not Ten, not Three…Seven). What was toughest was counting to seven with her eyes shut, and all the kids eyes shut.
At “Seven” the children opened their eyes to a field now filled with color. Sure enough, as the Bogworts had run towards the rainbow it had gotten further away from them. Now it surrounded the kids and there was the pot of treasure right at their feet. “Grab the pot, Aaron, and let’s get out of here,” yelled Ella, and she headed at a run, with her hand firmly holding Livia, back into the forest. She could only hope that the elves would come up with the distraction the plan needed.
{to be continued}
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Grapevine Elves and the End of the Rainbow (part 1)
by Roy E. Moxley
The day could only get better for Ella and Aaron. On the way home from school they accidently walked past where the 6th graders were playing. Those older kids couldn’t pass up on the chance to chase anyone smaller. Ella and Aaron didn’t know what would happen if they got caught and they didn’t want to find out. Ella ran in ‘running club’ and Aaron liked basketball so they were both really fast. They ran like the wind for home and the big kids gave up at the edge of the school ground.
Later that afternoon, Ella and her brothers Aaron and Ashton and even little Preston and Livia were playing in the backyard with their cousin Kaden. Of course the older ones were being careful with the little kids, but swings and slides and playing in the grass are for everyone. Kaden didn’t talk much but he used baby sign language very well, considering he wasn’t even two years old yet.
While Ashton and Kaden were pushing trucks around to build a play road, Kaden suddenly looked at the back fence and made the sign for “leaves”. Ella puzzled for just a minute and said, “He wants to go to the grapevine.” That made perfect sense to Aaron, who always liked to munch on grapes, and who knows who you might meet through the grapevine.
The whole bunch headed to the vine and sat down to eat grapes. Ella picked a bunch of particularly juicy looking grapes and leaned towards the vine and whispered, “Jake and Julie, are you there?” She was answered by a giggle and a small hand reached through the vine and grabbed some grapes right out of her hand.
“Of course we’re here,” said Julie, “Where else would we be?”
Again Kaden pointed and this time he made the sign of a rainbow. Sure enough a passing storm to the East had formed a beautiful double rainbow that was a glory. All the kids stared in wonder at the reds, yellows, and even greens that arced across the sky. Jake and Julie saw the rainbow too, “A rainbow means treasure,” said Jake. “And a treasure means Bogworts,” finished Julie. “Why don’t you all come along?” said Jake, “we could use your help and you could learn something about how to take care of your problem with the big kids.”
“How did you know about that?” asked Aaron, he wanted to know the why’s and how’s of everything.
“We know lots of things,” answered Julie, “hurry and ask your mom if you can come help.”
Ella knew this might get a little bit complicated because Kaden was already moving towards the grapevine. It might take a little bit of convincing to get Aunt Marla to agree to let him go wandering around out of the yard. Of course lying to mother was completely out of the question.
“Mom, and Aunt Marla,” she started as soon as she ran into the house, “Could we all go for a walk behind the back yard. We won’t cross any roads. Kaden wants to go too.” Her mother gave her a piercing look and nodded slowly, “It’s fine with me, on two conditions, first- Preston stays here with me, he’s just too heavy to carry around, and second- with the Livia and Kaden going you need to hold hands the entire time…that is if it’s OK with Marla.” She looked over at Marla, who really seemed to be enjoying the time without having to keep a constant eye on Kaden. Marla knew Ella was very responsible for an eight year old and Aaron and even Ashton would help. “It’s OK with me as long as you’re not gone too long.”
“Oh we won’t be gone long at all,” answered Ella, who knew something about how long adventures with elves ended up taking after you got home. It usually didn’t seem like you had been gone at all. So Ella ran back to the grapevine and gave everyone the rules. Then they all headed, hand in hand, through the grapevine.
The rainbow seemed even brighter from the other side of the grapevine. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Yup, they were all there, along with every other color that was even possible. “Which end do you think?” asked Julie, looking at Jake. “Hmmm,” he replied, “The index of refraction of the light in the water droplets times the cosine of the angle of the sun to the horizon…let’s go to the left end.”
“He always has to show off at least a little,” Julie whispered to Ella at the front of the chain of children. “It doesn’t matter which end of the rainbow we go to, there’s a treasure there and that means Bogworts will be after it too. If we get there before them we have to figure out a way to keep it. If we get there after them we have to figure out a way to take it.”
“Who does the treasure belong to?” asked Ashton, who was holding on to both Livia and Kaden’s hand. He was a good one to keep in the middle and Ella knew it. He was strong enough to hold on to the little one’s hands and it kept both his hands out of trouble. Aaron took up the end of the line. He was quick enough to head off trouble and his free hand could pick up (and throw) a pinecone faster than you could say, “That pinecone would really hurt if it hit a Bogwort’s nose.”
“You’ll see,” answered Julie, “What we need now is a plan.”
“A plan with a find and pickup,” said Jake.
“And of course a distraction,” went on Julie.
“And an escape,” said Jake with a twinkle in his eye and excitement in his voice.
“And a dragon,” finished Julie.
Ella had been following that pretty well until the dragon part. She couldn’t claim to be an expert, of course, but her idea of dragons was that they were big and dangerous and mean. “Ummm,” she started, “don’t you think a dragon might be a little scary for the little ones?” Livia and Kaden had been following the conversation on their own. You could just tell that if Kaden had a hand free he would be trying to make the sign for “bird” which for him meant anything from a penguin to an eagle, or apparently a dragon. Livia just got a concerned look on her face and said, “Do dragons eat princesses?”
“No, not a mean dragon” said Julie, “Dragons come in all types, just like people. There are dragons that would have fun helping us deal with Bogworts. We just need one of those dragons.”
Just then Jake, who was in front of the group, came to a sudden halt at the edge of a small road through the forest. “Bogwort tracks,” he said, pointing down.
Aaron looked for some sign in the damp earth next to the road. He didn’t see any footprints of any kind. “What would a Bogwort footprint look like?” he asked with a puzzled look, as he stared down at an empty patch.
“Not footprints,” explained Jake, pointing at all the trash next to the road, “tracks.” There were beer cans, cigarette butts, soda bottles, fast food bags, and generally garbage of every kind strewn along the road. “They’re headed for the end of the rainbow too,” he went on. The rainbow’s bright colors were clearer than ever and seemed to be just ahead. Jake bent down and picked up an almost empty box of French fries.
{To be continued}
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.
The day could only get better for Ella and Aaron. On the way home from school they accidently walked past where the 6th graders were playing. Those older kids couldn’t pass up on the chance to chase anyone smaller. Ella and Aaron didn’t know what would happen if they got caught and they didn’t want to find out. Ella ran in ‘running club’ and Aaron liked basketball so they were both really fast. They ran like the wind for home and the big kids gave up at the edge of the school ground.
Later that afternoon, Ella and her brothers Aaron and Ashton and even little Preston and Livia were playing in the backyard with their cousin Kaden. Of course the older ones were being careful with the little kids, but swings and slides and playing in the grass are for everyone. Kaden didn’t talk much but he used baby sign language very well, considering he wasn’t even two years old yet.
While Ashton and Kaden were pushing trucks around to build a play road, Kaden suddenly looked at the back fence and made the sign for “leaves”. Ella puzzled for just a minute and said, “He wants to go to the grapevine.” That made perfect sense to Aaron, who always liked to munch on grapes, and who knows who you might meet through the grapevine.
The whole bunch headed to the vine and sat down to eat grapes. Ella picked a bunch of particularly juicy looking grapes and leaned towards the vine and whispered, “Jake and Julie, are you there?” She was answered by a giggle and a small hand reached through the vine and grabbed some grapes right out of her hand.
“Of course we’re here,” said Julie, “Where else would we be?”
Again Kaden pointed and this time he made the sign of a rainbow. Sure enough a passing storm to the East had formed a beautiful double rainbow that was a glory. All the kids stared in wonder at the reds, yellows, and even greens that arced across the sky. Jake and Julie saw the rainbow too, “A rainbow means treasure,” said Jake. “And a treasure means Bogworts,” finished Julie. “Why don’t you all come along?” said Jake, “we could use your help and you could learn something about how to take care of your problem with the big kids.”
“How did you know about that?” asked Aaron, he wanted to know the why’s and how’s of everything.
“We know lots of things,” answered Julie, “hurry and ask your mom if you can come help.”
Ella knew this might get a little bit complicated because Kaden was already moving towards the grapevine. It might take a little bit of convincing to get Aunt Marla to agree to let him go wandering around out of the yard. Of course lying to mother was completely out of the question.
“Mom, and Aunt Marla,” she started as soon as she ran into the house, “Could we all go for a walk behind the back yard. We won’t cross any roads. Kaden wants to go too.” Her mother gave her a piercing look and nodded slowly, “It’s fine with me, on two conditions, first- Preston stays here with me, he’s just too heavy to carry around, and second- with the Livia and Kaden going you need to hold hands the entire time…that is if it’s OK with Marla.” She looked over at Marla, who really seemed to be enjoying the time without having to keep a constant eye on Kaden. Marla knew Ella was very responsible for an eight year old and Aaron and even Ashton would help. “It’s OK with me as long as you’re not gone too long.”
“Oh we won’t be gone long at all,” answered Ella, who knew something about how long adventures with elves ended up taking after you got home. It usually didn’t seem like you had been gone at all. So Ella ran back to the grapevine and gave everyone the rules. Then they all headed, hand in hand, through the grapevine.
The rainbow seemed even brighter from the other side of the grapevine. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Yup, they were all there, along with every other color that was even possible. “Which end do you think?” asked Julie, looking at Jake. “Hmmm,” he replied, “The index of refraction of the light in the water droplets times the cosine of the angle of the sun to the horizon…let’s go to the left end.”
“He always has to show off at least a little,” Julie whispered to Ella at the front of the chain of children. “It doesn’t matter which end of the rainbow we go to, there’s a treasure there and that means Bogworts will be after it too. If we get there before them we have to figure out a way to keep it. If we get there after them we have to figure out a way to take it.”
“Who does the treasure belong to?” asked Ashton, who was holding on to both Livia and Kaden’s hand. He was a good one to keep in the middle and Ella knew it. He was strong enough to hold on to the little one’s hands and it kept both his hands out of trouble. Aaron took up the end of the line. He was quick enough to head off trouble and his free hand could pick up (and throw) a pinecone faster than you could say, “That pinecone would really hurt if it hit a Bogwort’s nose.”
“You’ll see,” answered Julie, “What we need now is a plan.”
“A plan with a find and pickup,” said Jake.
“And of course a distraction,” went on Julie.
“And an escape,” said Jake with a twinkle in his eye and excitement in his voice.
“And a dragon,” finished Julie.
Ella had been following that pretty well until the dragon part. She couldn’t claim to be an expert, of course, but her idea of dragons was that they were big and dangerous and mean. “Ummm,” she started, “don’t you think a dragon might be a little scary for the little ones?” Livia and Kaden had been following the conversation on their own. You could just tell that if Kaden had a hand free he would be trying to make the sign for “bird” which for him meant anything from a penguin to an eagle, or apparently a dragon. Livia just got a concerned look on her face and said, “Do dragons eat princesses?”
“No, not a mean dragon” said Julie, “Dragons come in all types, just like people. There are dragons that would have fun helping us deal with Bogworts. We just need one of those dragons.”
Just then Jake, who was in front of the group, came to a sudden halt at the edge of a small road through the forest. “Bogwort tracks,” he said, pointing down.
Aaron looked for some sign in the damp earth next to the road. He didn’t see any footprints of any kind. “What would a Bogwort footprint look like?” he asked with a puzzled look, as he stared down at an empty patch.
“Not footprints,” explained Jake, pointing at all the trash next to the road, “tracks.” There were beer cans, cigarette butts, soda bottles, fast food bags, and generally garbage of every kind strewn along the road. “They’re headed for the end of the rainbow too,” he went on. The rainbow’s bright colors were clearer than ever and seemed to be just ahead. Jake bent down and picked up an almost empty box of French fries.
{To be continued}
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Grapevine Elves and the Bogwart Trash
by Roy E. Moxley
Ella and her two brothers, Aaron and Ashton, were having a great day. Their Uncle Doug and Aunt Jesse were visiting from Chicago. Doug was great at pushing them on the swing in the back yard (even though they were quite big enough to swing themselves, it’s always nice to have someone push you). “Let’s go to the school playground,” the three shouted in unison. They didn’t shout too loud, ‘cause their youngest brother and sister, Preston and Livia, were taking an afternoon nap. They looked over at their mom, who was talking to Aunt Jesse. “OK,” she said, “but you hold Doug’s hand and be careful crossing the street.”
Ella thought she was old enough to know how to cross the street by herself, but the chance to have Uncle Doug push them on the big swings was worth the aggravation. He gave “under dogs” almost as well as Grandpa. They walked through the alley, down the sidewalk and across to the school playground. When they got there they just stood in shock. The grass at the schoolyard was covered in pizza boxes, soda cans, candy wrappers and potato chip bags. Just looking at it put them in no mood for playing. Doug and Ella tried to make the best of it and pretended to be cheerful while picking up what trash they could but the mess was everywhere. “If we knew who did it and could catch them maybe we could do something,” said Doug, “but I guess we’ll just have to come back tomorrow and clean up some more.”
It was a sadder group that headed back to the house. No “under dogs”, no jungle-jim races, no real fun in a trashed park. “Jake and Julie Elf could figure out a way to help,” said Ella as she trudged along. “They always know what to do.”
Doug knew a little bit about Jake and Julie from some stories he had heard but he figured he needed to come up with a “grownup” thing to say. “I’m sure they could help if the trash was on their side of the grapevine, but in the real world I don’t know what they could do.” “Oops,” he thought, “I said real world like Jake and Julie weren’t real. I hope Ella didn’t catch that.”
Ella caught everything but kept it to herself. She knew that sometimes there was just no talking to big folk about the way things really were. After a dinner with a lot of talk about, “someone should do something,” Ella and Aaron and Ashton were sitting by the grapevine while Mom, Dad, Doug and Jesse played with the little kids. The summer sun was still pretty high in the sky so it was nice to just enjoy the cool shade in the very back of the yard while munching on a grape or two. “Trade some raspberries for grapes?” came a voice from the other side of the grapevine as a hand filled with plump berries reached through.
“Jake!!” exclaimed Ella, “we could really use your help.” The three children crowded by the vine and related what they had found at the park.
“Bogworts,” said Julie simply when the sad tale was done.
“What are Bogworts?” asked Aaron, who really wanted to know about pretty much everything about anything.
“Bogworts,” answered Ella, “I should have guessed. But can they get to our side of the grapevine?” Ella had seen these brutes on one of her trips to the other side but Aaron wasn’t as well or frequently traveled.
“But what are Bogworts?” repeated Aaron, who didn’t give up easily.
Ella could picture in her mind the brutish look and terrible manners of the Bogworts she had seen but couldn’t begin to describe them. “You’ll just have to see them to understand,” she said, but turning back to the grapevine, and Jake and Julie, she asked, “So what do we do about them?”
“Bogworts can come in all sorts of shapes,” said Julie with a sad little shake of her head, “even people shapes.”
“Especially people shapes,” added Jake. “You’ll need to know some more about them before you can do something about the mess they make.”
Julie let out a little giggle, “Like our first adventure with Bogworts,” she said, “We weren’t as experienced then and it happened like this…”
Jake and Julie were still a little young to be away from their village for very long, or at least the ‘older’ elves thought so. To a fully grown elf, anyone less than about a thousand years old is just a young pup who should be kept on a very short leash. Anyway, Jake and Julie had been out exploring around the elf village when they heard lots of shouting and clamoring from back at home. They ran back as quick as they could, but when they got there the damage had been done. A huge Bogwort army had marched right through the village and made a terrible mess. They must have come awfully fast or the elves would have had time to distract them away. As it was the elves in the village had made sure that the Bogworts didn’t recognize that they had gone through a village at all. Using some Elf magic they made it look more or less like just another area of big oak trees in the forest. What they couldn’t disguise by magic they just made inconspicuous. Even so the Bogworts had made a terrible mess of things.
From the looks of the village, it appeared that a sudden storm had passed through. Instead of rain, though, it had dropped trash. There were candy wrappers, beer bottles, cigarette butts, and every other type of general litter you’ve ever seen. It was scattered all over the clearings of the village. “What a mess!!” said Jake with a shake of his head.
“It looks like someplace a bunch of people would live,” Julie shuddered. That was just about the ultimate insult to an elf. But that wasn’t the worst of it. There were a bunch of the village elders standing in a group by the side of the village. When Jake and Julie went over to see what they were talking about they realized with horror what had happened. When the Bogworts had gone through the village they had taken the flowering ferns that were the source of the elves' magic.
“Wait a second,” Aaron interrupted, “ferns don’t have flowers. They grow from a spore, that’s what makes them ferns.” He’d learned a lot from plant books his mom read to him.
“Don’t interrupt the story,” reproved Julie. “Your ferns don’t have flowers because they aren’t magic. Can we go on now?”
Properly mortified he nodded and Jake went on with the story.
The magic ferns had been cut off right at ground level. Every last one of them was gone. Jake could hardly comprehend the loss this meant. The magic ferns were what gave all the elves in the village their magic. The elders stood silently in a ring around where the beautiful plants had once stood. Jake and Julie were only a little smaller than the elves in the ring but they clearly felt outside any consultation from their elders. “They took all of them,” said one. “I saw the Bogworts put them in a big chest,” said another. “There’s nothing to be done now but wait,” said the chief of the village elders. The others nodded in agreement and one of them added, “In the meantime we had better all get to work cleaning up.”
Jake and Julie knew what that meant for them. The day's work went from hard to downright dreary. Without magic to help them make the work fun the time dragged until it just about stood still. By the time the sun was setting it was two very tired elves that went to their beds. Of course the beds were in a very clean elf village.
Even before the sun was up in the morning, Jake was at the edge of the village where the Bogworts had left. He was looking down at the tracks left behind. Tracking Bogworts was about as difficult as tracking a train. They trampled and left trash wherever they went. Julie came up behind him and said, “Boo!!” Of course Jake had heard her so he didn’t jump. She gave a little frown and came around next to him to stare down at the tracks.
“I hate waiting,” said Jake with a sullen voice, “especially when I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.”
Julie nodded in agreement. “You know,” she said, “instead of waiting for whatever is going to happen, we could always go and take those fern flowers back from the Bogworts.” She looked into Jake’s eyes and saw the little twinkle that meant trouble. “Of course without elf magic it would be somewhat foolish to even try such a thing.”
Jake had a smile just touching the corners of his mouth when he replied, “The elders always say we’re foolish. I think it would disappoint them if we didn’t do foolish things every now and then.”
Julie replied in a grave tone, “We’ve always been told not to disappoint our elders.”
“There’s only one thing to do then,” said Jake, “and we’d better do it fast before this trail gets any older.” The two of them always had their elf equipment with them, so they immediately headed after the Bogworts.
A Bogwort army travels with all the speed of a sea slug, at least under normal circumstances. Jake and Julie knew, however, that for some reason they were able to surprise the village. Because running into a Bogwort army is considered bad luck, the two elves ran through the tree branches that intertwined to form a highway. Bogworts have just about no tree climbing ability, so they just about never seem to look up into the trees. The army Jake and Julie followed was no exception. The trail of gum wrappers, soda bottles, and other trash picked up just outside the village and ran like an arrow to the Bogworts. Jake and Julie were disgusted. Someone would have to pick all this stuff up.
It was just a little before nightfall when they caught up to the trashed out clearing the Bogworts called a campsite. There were Bogworts all over the place. All of them appeared to be trying to look like they were working. Some were walking around picking up a few sticks for a fire. Some of them were pulling cans of beans and boxes of Twinkies out of packs to prepare their supper. Julie didn’t even want to think about what kind of meal you would make out of beans and Twinkies. The two elves decided to scout around the camp for a bit, before they tried to do anything.
A couple of very talkative Bogworts was at the edge of the clearing picking up some pitifully small sticks. The taller one was saying, “...a total waste of time if you ask me. So what if the general wants to get a gold medal in the race to see which army can get to Flat Mountain and back first. I don’t know which he wants more, to beat General Pudding’s third army or to get the gold. What do you think Grugg?”
“I don’t care,” Grugg replied. “My feet hurt, my back hurts, and worst of all I’m all out of grape soda. It’s just the general who gets the gold anyway. Who cares about beating General Pudding, it’s the gold that matters the most. In fact when it comes to gold, nothing else matters, especially not to General Porker.”
“Good grief,” whispered Jake. “They managed to wreak our village because of a stupid race. But how do we get the magic ferns back?”
“Shhh,” replied Julie, “I’ve got an idea, but let’s listen some more.”
Grugg was talking as he kicked at a promising stick, “What I’d like to know is what General Porker wanted to chop those stupid flowers for. Who cares if he’s never seen a fern with flowers before? He said something about new stuff like that, should be worth some gold from the king. I don’t think that makes sense though.” He had a little pause as he sniffed the air, “Say you don’t suppose they’re cooking beans and Twinkies do you Snick? That’s one of my favorites.”
Julie had thought a big cow with digestive trouble was in the area, but when Snick replied she assumed she was mistaken. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I can smell it now. Isn’t that great? Let’s get over there before someone has a chance to snitch all the Twinkie chunks out of the beans, they’re my favorite part.”
Jake had to hold his mouth to keep from gagging as the two Bogworts ran back to the camp. “What do you think?” he asked Julie, when he thought he could remove his hand safely, “Can you think of a plan to get the magic ferns back?”
Julie was getting a big grin. Jake caught the twinkle in her eye and knew that she had a plan. “It’s not enough to just get the fern flowers back,” she said. “I think that these Bogworts need to clean up the mess they’ve been making in the forest, and I think I know how we can get them to do it.”
The plan certainly had everything in it that Jake liked. It was tricky, daring, fun, and had a good chance of working. That was good enough for Jake. The two elves hurried around as night fell, getting everything ready. In the morning they woke up with plenty of time to gather some juicy, ripe, berries along with some nuts, to make a delicious breakfast. They watched with some amusement as General Porker got his troops out of their sleeping bags with lots of yelling and shouting and even a few kicks here and there. By Bogwort standards they got up early to begin a hard day's march. It was only about 10:00 am. After being up most of the night playing mean tricks on each other, when they weren’t playing with fire, the Bogworts were slow and grumpy getting up.
You can imagine the Bogwort’s surprise when, as they were throwing the burned chunks of their breakfast into the trees, they saw an elf walking down the path, right into camp. They couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t watching where he was going at all. He was just bent over picking up every piece of trash he came to. When the Bogworts grabbed Jake, before they could even ask him, he blurted out, “I won’t tell you, no matter what you do!”
“Won’t tell us what?” demanded General Porker, swaggering up to interrogate the prisoner. The Bogworts didn’t capture many elves, so this was a big event. An event perhaps even bigger than beating General Pudding in the race.
“I won’t tell you how I change trash to gold. Nope, not ever, you big ugly Bogwort,” was Jake’s reply. “My dad told me not to tell anyone how we got so rich. I’m just supposed to get as much trash as I can carry, turn it into gold, and come right back.”
Of course this got General Porker’s undivided attention. In the mind of any Bogwort, a rich Bogwort was a happy Bogwort. The only trouble was, every Bogwort thought that applied only to those richer than themselves. General Porker was pretty well off, especially compared to the Bogwort grunts who had to march where he told them. He was sure, however, that if he had more gold, food, clothes, gold, houses, and especially gold, he would be much happier. “I’ll tell you what, little elf,” said General Porker in his most threatening tone, “If you tell me how to turn trash to gold you’ll get to go home for dinner. If you don’t tell me, you will be dinner.” Several of the fatter Bogworts in the area laughed and patted their stomachs, leaving no doubt what the General meant.
Jake gave a big gulp and said, with a little quiver in his voice, “OK, I’ll tell you, but only if you promise to let me go right away.”
“Of course, little elf, “said the General with a great show of sincerity, “If you show me how to turn trash into gold I will let you go.”
Jake looked at the Bogwort lying to him and thought, “you must think I’m just plain stupid, you greedy old goat.” Of course he didn’t say that out loud. Instead, he said, “First, we’ll need a big box to put the trash in.” He made a show of turning around, looking at the campsite. “This big box right here should work. Of course we could just use my pack, like I was going to do, but you guys are so much bigger and stronger than me you could carry much more gold.
“Yes, more gold is good,” said General Porker nodding his head like a dashboard dog on a spring.
“OK, great,” said Jake as he went over to the chest that the Bogworts had put the magic fern flowers in.
Before I go on much further, I should explain just a little bit more about elf magic. Elves can do lots of things that bigger and slower creatures like Bogworts and people just can’t do. These things are like running along tree branches, moving through the woods as quietly as a summer breeze, and talking to trees. When they really wanted to concentrate on their magic, they could do things like tying knots in rope that would untie only when they wanted it to. They could use their magic to start a small fire to cook a hot meal on, even when it had been raining for two weeks. I’m not sure if it was elf magic or the magic that comes from lots of practice, or both, that let Julie shoot an arrow into a target the size of an acorn three hundred yards away. But even with all of this, there was no elf magic that had anything at all to do with gold. The only way an elf or anyone else could turn trash to gold was to recycle it. Jake knew that. Julie knew that. Anyone who’s taken a science class knows that. Greedy Bogwort generals always wanted to believe there were ways to get gold without work though.
Jake knew the trickiest part of the plan was coming up. He’d have to be really careful here. He walked up to the chest and threw open the lid. There were the fern flowers. They were beautiful, even there hidden inside a box. He scooped them out and tossed them to the side. “Let’s get rid of these weeds to make room for the gold,” he said. The General was so intent on gold he didn’t even remember that he had wanted to save the fern flowers. The flowers lay over next to a tree, out of the way, where Jake had casually tossed them.
Before any of the Bogworts could notice what was in the chest, underneath the fern flowers, Jake started laying the trash from his pack into the chest. It didn’t take long before he had a deep layer of assorted papers, wrappers, empty cigarette boxes, and other junk filling up the chest. With the chest still open he pulled an impressive square object out of his pocket. It was covered with shiny stones and mysterious writing. Julie had a lot of fun writing on it and finding just the right things to stick on an empty box of Junior Mints that a Bogwort had thrown on the ground. In the middle of the box was a pointer that pointed at numbers from five down to zero. Right now it was pointed at the two.
“Here you go, your Bogginess,” said Jake as he handed the box to General Porker, “To learn how to turn the trash to gold, you’ll have to be the one to do the magic spell.” Jake then went over to the chest and bent down to shut the top. Before he shut it though, he reached in, while no one could see inside, and turned over the papers he had put inside. On the back of each of the pieces of paper and trash was a shiny layer of gold. During the evening before, Jake and Julie had done three things to get ready. The first was to make the magic looking square to give to the Bogworts. The second thing was to take a gold coin they picked out of a Bogwort’s pocket, and pound it into a very, very thin sheet of gold. Then they put a layer of gold on one side of each piece of trash in Jake’s pack.
Now that the trash was turned over, it looked like a big pile of gold inside the chest. This was where the third thing Jake and Julie had done came into the picture. Under the fern flowers, inside the chest, they had put a whole bunch of heavy rocks. Now the chest was so heavy it was almost impossible to move, just like if it was filled with gold. Jake closed the top of the chest and turned back to the General, “I don’t suppose you can read elf magic writing, can you?” he asked in a perfectly innocent tone.
“Um, I’m sure I could remember with some practice,” stammered the General, “It’s been a while since I’ve done it.”
Jake nodded his head with a serious frown on his face. “Yeah,” he thought, “it must have been a while since you’ve read something that doesn’t exist.” He went on out loud, “I’m sure when I go over it with you a couple of times it will come back to you.” With that he recited a “magic spell” he’d made up with Julie the night before:
“I’may a igpay and very atfay
Oh wha tago siam”
“Be sure to jump on one foot, turn around, and hold up the magic square when you say the magic words and POOF, the trash will be gold,” said Jake with some excitement to his voice. Jake went over the ‘spell’ with the Bogwort several times, until they were both satisfied. General Porker was satisfied he could recite it. Jake was satisfied that the General was so stupid that the plan should go off without a problem.
Now it was time for the General to do the magic. He looked a little like a particularly ugly and fat goat as he jumped around on one foot. The other Bogworts were very impressed that the General could perform such a complex feat of physical prowess. The general was disappointed that there wasn’t a flash of light when he got done, but the disappointment disappeared when Jake opened the chest. “Whoa,” he said in wonder as he looked down at the stack of gold.
Before he had a chance to reach for it Jake whispered in his ear, “You might want to wait until you have the chest safe and sound back at your house before you wave any of that gold around. You can’t be too sure of things. I’ll bet a lot of these guys would be tempted to do something rash to get that much gold.”
“Who cares,” said the General, who nevertheless didn’t grab any of the gold sheets. “I can always just make more and more.”
“Well not exactly,” said Jake with a little disappointment in his voice, “You need to turn that little pointer back to one now. That means you only get one more chance before the magic in the square is all used up.”
“Hmmm,” pondered the General, “That means I’ll have to get lots of trash in a box before I do it again, huh?”
Jake nodded back in great respect for that evidence of deep thinking on the General’s part. “Back the way you came I’d guess you could get about a hundred tons of trash to turn to gold if you could convince your troops to pick it up for you,” he said. “Of course I don’t think they’d want to pick it up for someone else. My father could only make me do it by not letting me play video games until I brought home all the gold I could carry. Now I won’t get to play at all when I get home.” Jake knew that Bogwort kids didn’t want anything more in life than video games. Personally he couldn’t care less. How could you compare a video game to playing tricks on Bogworts.
“What makes you think you’re going home you stupid elf?” yelled General Porker. “You’ll stay with me until I get that next batch of gold. Then maybe we’ll think about letting you go.”
Bogworts weren’t renowned for their honesty so Jake didn’t hold out a lot of hope for that. Jake didn’t want to be around when General Porker found out how fooled he had been. Well, the General didn’t waste much time getting his troops lined up and ready to go. “Now you all listen up real good!!” he yelled, “Any Bogwort who doesn’t fill up his pack with trash on the way back to home will get only vegetables and tofu to eat for the next two weeks.” There wasn’t much worse he could threaten them with, and apparently that worked. They hadn’t gone ten feet before the forest was being picked clean of all trash, glass, and junk that had been scattered by the Bogworts. The ones looking for trash didn’t have to worry about being left behind. It took ten big Bogworts to lift the chest and they could only go about as fast as a snail over lettuce.
The only trick now was for Jake to make his getaway. His hands had been tied behind his back and four Bogworts marched around him in a square. “Here we go,” he thought as he walked under a particularly big oak tree. He stretched his hands out behind him. Moments later he heard the whistle of one of Julie’s arrows part the rope between his wrists. Of course the arrow had a rope tied to the end, and Jake wasted no time scampering up the rope into the branches above.
The Bogwort guards tried to climb up the rope behind him. This was more an indication of the trouble they thought they’d get in for losing him than any particular bravery on their parts. Julie had a good laugh for a few moments watching them trying to haul their bulk up the thin rope. One of the Bogworts on the ground threw a spear at them and that stopped the laughing for a moment. Of course the two elves managed to not be where the spear was. At least not at the same time the spear was there. Elves are pretty careful about things like that. Anyway Julie decided enough was enough and she gave a whistle and pulled the rope right out of the hands of the Bogworts trying to climb it. The Bogworts ended up in a pile on the ground under Jake and Julie’s branch. To be polite the two elves bowed in their most courtly manner and then jumped up into the higher branches. The Bogworts completely lost them from view in seconds.
The Bogwort guards figured they’d be better off if they waited until later to tell General Porker. Maybe it was because of that, the whole Bogwort army kept right on going until they were back to their home. Jake and Julie hurried back to the site of the Bogwort camp and scooped up the fern flowers.
They were starting to wilt as Julie carried them, running as fast as she could, back to the elf village. It had taken them the better part of a day to track the Bogworts to their camp the day before. Julie hoped that they could get back to their village faster than that. The flowers were starting to wilt when the two elves had scooped them gently up off the ground, and even as they ran along Julie could see them fading.
“The village elders will be able to think of something,” panted Jake as they ran down a trail, “they have to, or the elf magic will be gone!”
“I can’t run any faster,” replied Julie, “I don’t think we’ll be able to get back before the flowers are completely gone!”
It was approaching dusk when two tired and dejected elves trudged into the elf village. The fern flowers had completely wilted away. After the flowers were gone, the entire fern plants had turned to dust and blown away. Jake and Julie had stopped running but they seemed more tired than ever. Here it was, their first adventure, and they had failed. It would have been difficult to find two elves in the whole world who felt more sad and useless than Jake and Julie did.
The village elders were grouped around the place where the fern flowers had grown, just like when Jake and Julie had headed off after the Bogworts. One of them came over to greet the two elves as they came into the central clearing. “The funniest thing just happened,” he said, “A whole army of Bogworts came through just a while ago. They weren’t wrecking anything at all. In fact they picked up every piece of trash in the whole area and went back to their bog.”
Julie looked at Jake and a smile touched her face, “I guess that our plan wasn’t a total failure,” she said, “But we couldn’t bring back the fern flowers.”
“We managed to get them away from the Bogworts,” explained Jake, “But the fern flowers wilted away before we could get back. I guess our elf magic is gone for good.”
“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that,” replied the elder. “Look up there,” he said, pointing to a bunch of elf children skipping along a single strand of rope strung over a stream next to the village. “I don’t think I’d try anything like that without elf magic.” Just then one of the girls swung around the rope and up to a tree to go running along a low branch that would have had trouble holding a squirrel.
“But how can there be elf magic without the fern flowers?” stammered Julie. “We saw them dry up and blow away!”
“You’re assuming too many things,” replied the village elder with a smile, “First, just because you can’t see the fern flowers, don’t assume they aren’t there. Second, come on over here and take a look.” He led the way to the circle with the other elders.
As the circle opened to let them in to take a look, Jake let out a low gasp. There, where they had always been, was a stunning bunch of fern flowers. They looked more beautiful and radiant than ever. “Someday we may give away our magic, but a bunch of Bogworts can’t just come along and take it. Elf magic just doesn’t work like that.” The elders looked at Jake and Julie with more than a little pride. “You managed to have our forest cleaner than it’s been since the first Bogwort set foot in it,” one of the elders said. “And best of all you got the Bogworts to do the cleaning themselves. I’d say this calls for a celebration.” The other elders nodded in agreement. “We’ve been saving this for you since the Bogworts cleaned up everything,” went on the elder. He stooped down and picked up a basket from behind the fern flowers. “We figured that since you two were the only elves missing, you must have something to do with them behaving in such an un-Bogwort-like manner. So we all collected these to celebrate your return.”
Jake and Julie didn’t realize the reputation they had, until they looked in the basket. Inside were more plump and juicy raspberries than Jake had ever seen in one place at a time. Julie smiled and took a handful to start the party. “Here’s to Bogwort gold,” she said.
Jake didn’t even answer. He was too busy munching on berries.
“Hmmm,” thought Ella, “so we really need a way to get whoever trashed the playground to clean it up themselves.”
“But we don’t know who they are,” protested Aaron, “We don’t have a trash trail to follow.”
“Did you see someone throwing trash at the playground?” asked Ashton, who was too young to worry about Jake and Julie wandering around the schoolyard at night.
“Yes,” answered Julie, who as a matter of fact did see pretty much everything that went on most anywhere. “They said the party was so much fun they would come back tonight. They were driving lots of shiny cars. There were a bunch of them.”
Jake and Julie were looking through the grapevine at Ella with an expectant look. She thought about the story and gold and trash and what people driving shiny cars might think was important.
“I have an idea,” Ella said. She pulled the house key her mom made her keep on a lanyard around her neck. “This is what keys look like.”
The next morning, early, Doug walked over to the playground. There were a bunch of older teenagers kicking over pizza boxes and trash like they were looking for something. Doug headed to the edge of the yard and looked under a sprinkler cap. Just where Ella had told him to look he saw a whole bunch of shiny keys. How she knew they would be there he had no idea, but there they were.
“Excuse me,” Doug yelled over to the teenagers. When they gathered round he told them, “I’ll just bet if you clean up all this trash you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for.” Doug was a real expert at the innocent but “knowing” look. He sat down on the end of a slide and watched the group pick up every last bit of trash and put it in the bin near the school. Then he suggested they look under the sprinkler cap.
Later, while he was pushing the three kids, and their younger sister Livia, on the swings, he asked Ella how she knew where the keys would be.
“It’s just Elf magic,” she answered. Doug just had to wonder.
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved
Ella and her two brothers, Aaron and Ashton, were having a great day. Their Uncle Doug and Aunt Jesse were visiting from Chicago. Doug was great at pushing them on the swing in the back yard (even though they were quite big enough to swing themselves, it’s always nice to have someone push you). “Let’s go to the school playground,” the three shouted in unison. They didn’t shout too loud, ‘cause their youngest brother and sister, Preston and Livia, were taking an afternoon nap. They looked over at their mom, who was talking to Aunt Jesse. “OK,” she said, “but you hold Doug’s hand and be careful crossing the street.”
Ella thought she was old enough to know how to cross the street by herself, but the chance to have Uncle Doug push them on the big swings was worth the aggravation. He gave “under dogs” almost as well as Grandpa. They walked through the alley, down the sidewalk and across to the school playground. When they got there they just stood in shock. The grass at the schoolyard was covered in pizza boxes, soda cans, candy wrappers and potato chip bags. Just looking at it put them in no mood for playing. Doug and Ella tried to make the best of it and pretended to be cheerful while picking up what trash they could but the mess was everywhere. “If we knew who did it and could catch them maybe we could do something,” said Doug, “but I guess we’ll just have to come back tomorrow and clean up some more.”
It was a sadder group that headed back to the house. No “under dogs”, no jungle-jim races, no real fun in a trashed park. “Jake and Julie Elf could figure out a way to help,” said Ella as she trudged along. “They always know what to do.”
Doug knew a little bit about Jake and Julie from some stories he had heard but he figured he needed to come up with a “grownup” thing to say. “I’m sure they could help if the trash was on their side of the grapevine, but in the real world I don’t know what they could do.” “Oops,” he thought, “I said real world like Jake and Julie weren’t real. I hope Ella didn’t catch that.”
Ella caught everything but kept it to herself. She knew that sometimes there was just no talking to big folk about the way things really were. After a dinner with a lot of talk about, “someone should do something,” Ella and Aaron and Ashton were sitting by the grapevine while Mom, Dad, Doug and Jesse played with the little kids. The summer sun was still pretty high in the sky so it was nice to just enjoy the cool shade in the very back of the yard while munching on a grape or two. “Trade some raspberries for grapes?” came a voice from the other side of the grapevine as a hand filled with plump berries reached through.
“Jake!!” exclaimed Ella, “we could really use your help.” The three children crowded by the vine and related what they had found at the park.
“Bogworts,” said Julie simply when the sad tale was done.
“What are Bogworts?” asked Aaron, who really wanted to know about pretty much everything about anything.
“Bogworts,” answered Ella, “I should have guessed. But can they get to our side of the grapevine?” Ella had seen these brutes on one of her trips to the other side but Aaron wasn’t as well or frequently traveled.
“But what are Bogworts?” repeated Aaron, who didn’t give up easily.
Ella could picture in her mind the brutish look and terrible manners of the Bogworts she had seen but couldn’t begin to describe them. “You’ll just have to see them to understand,” she said, but turning back to the grapevine, and Jake and Julie, she asked, “So what do we do about them?”
“Bogworts can come in all sorts of shapes,” said Julie with a sad little shake of her head, “even people shapes.”
“Especially people shapes,” added Jake. “You’ll need to know some more about them before you can do something about the mess they make.”
Julie let out a little giggle, “Like our first adventure with Bogworts,” she said, “We weren’t as experienced then and it happened like this…”
Jake and Julie were still a little young to be away from their village for very long, or at least the ‘older’ elves thought so. To a fully grown elf, anyone less than about a thousand years old is just a young pup who should be kept on a very short leash. Anyway, Jake and Julie had been out exploring around the elf village when they heard lots of shouting and clamoring from back at home. They ran back as quick as they could, but when they got there the damage had been done. A huge Bogwort army had marched right through the village and made a terrible mess. They must have come awfully fast or the elves would have had time to distract them away. As it was the elves in the village had made sure that the Bogworts didn’t recognize that they had gone through a village at all. Using some Elf magic they made it look more or less like just another area of big oak trees in the forest. What they couldn’t disguise by magic they just made inconspicuous. Even so the Bogworts had made a terrible mess of things.
From the looks of the village, it appeared that a sudden storm had passed through. Instead of rain, though, it had dropped trash. There were candy wrappers, beer bottles, cigarette butts, and every other type of general litter you’ve ever seen. It was scattered all over the clearings of the village. “What a mess!!” said Jake with a shake of his head.
“It looks like someplace a bunch of people would live,” Julie shuddered. That was just about the ultimate insult to an elf. But that wasn’t the worst of it. There were a bunch of the village elders standing in a group by the side of the village. When Jake and Julie went over to see what they were talking about they realized with horror what had happened. When the Bogworts had gone through the village they had taken the flowering ferns that were the source of the elves' magic.
“Wait a second,” Aaron interrupted, “ferns don’t have flowers. They grow from a spore, that’s what makes them ferns.” He’d learned a lot from plant books his mom read to him.
“Don’t interrupt the story,” reproved Julie. “Your ferns don’t have flowers because they aren’t magic. Can we go on now?”
Properly mortified he nodded and Jake went on with the story.
The magic ferns had been cut off right at ground level. Every last one of them was gone. Jake could hardly comprehend the loss this meant. The magic ferns were what gave all the elves in the village their magic. The elders stood silently in a ring around where the beautiful plants had once stood. Jake and Julie were only a little smaller than the elves in the ring but they clearly felt outside any consultation from their elders. “They took all of them,” said one. “I saw the Bogworts put them in a big chest,” said another. “There’s nothing to be done now but wait,” said the chief of the village elders. The others nodded in agreement and one of them added, “In the meantime we had better all get to work cleaning up.”
Jake and Julie knew what that meant for them. The day's work went from hard to downright dreary. Without magic to help them make the work fun the time dragged until it just about stood still. By the time the sun was setting it was two very tired elves that went to their beds. Of course the beds were in a very clean elf village.
Even before the sun was up in the morning, Jake was at the edge of the village where the Bogworts had left. He was looking down at the tracks left behind. Tracking Bogworts was about as difficult as tracking a train. They trampled and left trash wherever they went. Julie came up behind him and said, “Boo!!” Of course Jake had heard her so he didn’t jump. She gave a little frown and came around next to him to stare down at the tracks.
“I hate waiting,” said Jake with a sullen voice, “especially when I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.”
Julie nodded in agreement. “You know,” she said, “instead of waiting for whatever is going to happen, we could always go and take those fern flowers back from the Bogworts.” She looked into Jake’s eyes and saw the little twinkle that meant trouble. “Of course without elf magic it would be somewhat foolish to even try such a thing.”
Jake had a smile just touching the corners of his mouth when he replied, “The elders always say we’re foolish. I think it would disappoint them if we didn’t do foolish things every now and then.”
Julie replied in a grave tone, “We’ve always been told not to disappoint our elders.”
“There’s only one thing to do then,” said Jake, “and we’d better do it fast before this trail gets any older.” The two of them always had their elf equipment with them, so they immediately headed after the Bogworts.
A Bogwort army travels with all the speed of a sea slug, at least under normal circumstances. Jake and Julie knew, however, that for some reason they were able to surprise the village. Because running into a Bogwort army is considered bad luck, the two elves ran through the tree branches that intertwined to form a highway. Bogworts have just about no tree climbing ability, so they just about never seem to look up into the trees. The army Jake and Julie followed was no exception. The trail of gum wrappers, soda bottles, and other trash picked up just outside the village and ran like an arrow to the Bogworts. Jake and Julie were disgusted. Someone would have to pick all this stuff up.
It was just a little before nightfall when they caught up to the trashed out clearing the Bogworts called a campsite. There were Bogworts all over the place. All of them appeared to be trying to look like they were working. Some were walking around picking up a few sticks for a fire. Some of them were pulling cans of beans and boxes of Twinkies out of packs to prepare their supper. Julie didn’t even want to think about what kind of meal you would make out of beans and Twinkies. The two elves decided to scout around the camp for a bit, before they tried to do anything.
A couple of very talkative Bogworts was at the edge of the clearing picking up some pitifully small sticks. The taller one was saying, “...a total waste of time if you ask me. So what if the general wants to get a gold medal in the race to see which army can get to Flat Mountain and back first. I don’t know which he wants more, to beat General Pudding’s third army or to get the gold. What do you think Grugg?”
“I don’t care,” Grugg replied. “My feet hurt, my back hurts, and worst of all I’m all out of grape soda. It’s just the general who gets the gold anyway. Who cares about beating General Pudding, it’s the gold that matters the most. In fact when it comes to gold, nothing else matters, especially not to General Porker.”
“Good grief,” whispered Jake. “They managed to wreak our village because of a stupid race. But how do we get the magic ferns back?”
“Shhh,” replied Julie, “I’ve got an idea, but let’s listen some more.”
Grugg was talking as he kicked at a promising stick, “What I’d like to know is what General Porker wanted to chop those stupid flowers for. Who cares if he’s never seen a fern with flowers before? He said something about new stuff like that, should be worth some gold from the king. I don’t think that makes sense though.” He had a little pause as he sniffed the air, “Say you don’t suppose they’re cooking beans and Twinkies do you Snick? That’s one of my favorites.”
Julie had thought a big cow with digestive trouble was in the area, but when Snick replied she assumed she was mistaken. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I can smell it now. Isn’t that great? Let’s get over there before someone has a chance to snitch all the Twinkie chunks out of the beans, they’re my favorite part.”
Jake had to hold his mouth to keep from gagging as the two Bogworts ran back to the camp. “What do you think?” he asked Julie, when he thought he could remove his hand safely, “Can you think of a plan to get the magic ferns back?”
Julie was getting a big grin. Jake caught the twinkle in her eye and knew that she had a plan. “It’s not enough to just get the fern flowers back,” she said. “I think that these Bogworts need to clean up the mess they’ve been making in the forest, and I think I know how we can get them to do it.”
The plan certainly had everything in it that Jake liked. It was tricky, daring, fun, and had a good chance of working. That was good enough for Jake. The two elves hurried around as night fell, getting everything ready. In the morning they woke up with plenty of time to gather some juicy, ripe, berries along with some nuts, to make a delicious breakfast. They watched with some amusement as General Porker got his troops out of their sleeping bags with lots of yelling and shouting and even a few kicks here and there. By Bogwort standards they got up early to begin a hard day's march. It was only about 10:00 am. After being up most of the night playing mean tricks on each other, when they weren’t playing with fire, the Bogworts were slow and grumpy getting up.
You can imagine the Bogwort’s surprise when, as they were throwing the burned chunks of their breakfast into the trees, they saw an elf walking down the path, right into camp. They couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t watching where he was going at all. He was just bent over picking up every piece of trash he came to. When the Bogworts grabbed Jake, before they could even ask him, he blurted out, “I won’t tell you, no matter what you do!”
“Won’t tell us what?” demanded General Porker, swaggering up to interrogate the prisoner. The Bogworts didn’t capture many elves, so this was a big event. An event perhaps even bigger than beating General Pudding in the race.
“I won’t tell you how I change trash to gold. Nope, not ever, you big ugly Bogwort,” was Jake’s reply. “My dad told me not to tell anyone how we got so rich. I’m just supposed to get as much trash as I can carry, turn it into gold, and come right back.”
Of course this got General Porker’s undivided attention. In the mind of any Bogwort, a rich Bogwort was a happy Bogwort. The only trouble was, every Bogwort thought that applied only to those richer than themselves. General Porker was pretty well off, especially compared to the Bogwort grunts who had to march where he told them. He was sure, however, that if he had more gold, food, clothes, gold, houses, and especially gold, he would be much happier. “I’ll tell you what, little elf,” said General Porker in his most threatening tone, “If you tell me how to turn trash to gold you’ll get to go home for dinner. If you don’t tell me, you will be dinner.” Several of the fatter Bogworts in the area laughed and patted their stomachs, leaving no doubt what the General meant.
Jake gave a big gulp and said, with a little quiver in his voice, “OK, I’ll tell you, but only if you promise to let me go right away.”
“Of course, little elf, “said the General with a great show of sincerity, “If you show me how to turn trash into gold I will let you go.”
Jake looked at the Bogwort lying to him and thought, “you must think I’m just plain stupid, you greedy old goat.” Of course he didn’t say that out loud. Instead, he said, “First, we’ll need a big box to put the trash in.” He made a show of turning around, looking at the campsite. “This big box right here should work. Of course we could just use my pack, like I was going to do, but you guys are so much bigger and stronger than me you could carry much more gold.
“Yes, more gold is good,” said General Porker nodding his head like a dashboard dog on a spring.
“OK, great,” said Jake as he went over to the chest that the Bogworts had put the magic fern flowers in.
Before I go on much further, I should explain just a little bit more about elf magic. Elves can do lots of things that bigger and slower creatures like Bogworts and people just can’t do. These things are like running along tree branches, moving through the woods as quietly as a summer breeze, and talking to trees. When they really wanted to concentrate on their magic, they could do things like tying knots in rope that would untie only when they wanted it to. They could use their magic to start a small fire to cook a hot meal on, even when it had been raining for two weeks. I’m not sure if it was elf magic or the magic that comes from lots of practice, or both, that let Julie shoot an arrow into a target the size of an acorn three hundred yards away. But even with all of this, there was no elf magic that had anything at all to do with gold. The only way an elf or anyone else could turn trash to gold was to recycle it. Jake knew that. Julie knew that. Anyone who’s taken a science class knows that. Greedy Bogwort generals always wanted to believe there were ways to get gold without work though.
Jake knew the trickiest part of the plan was coming up. He’d have to be really careful here. He walked up to the chest and threw open the lid. There were the fern flowers. They were beautiful, even there hidden inside a box. He scooped them out and tossed them to the side. “Let’s get rid of these weeds to make room for the gold,” he said. The General was so intent on gold he didn’t even remember that he had wanted to save the fern flowers. The flowers lay over next to a tree, out of the way, where Jake had casually tossed them.
Before any of the Bogworts could notice what was in the chest, underneath the fern flowers, Jake started laying the trash from his pack into the chest. It didn’t take long before he had a deep layer of assorted papers, wrappers, empty cigarette boxes, and other junk filling up the chest. With the chest still open he pulled an impressive square object out of his pocket. It was covered with shiny stones and mysterious writing. Julie had a lot of fun writing on it and finding just the right things to stick on an empty box of Junior Mints that a Bogwort had thrown on the ground. In the middle of the box was a pointer that pointed at numbers from five down to zero. Right now it was pointed at the two.
“Here you go, your Bogginess,” said Jake as he handed the box to General Porker, “To learn how to turn the trash to gold, you’ll have to be the one to do the magic spell.” Jake then went over to the chest and bent down to shut the top. Before he shut it though, he reached in, while no one could see inside, and turned over the papers he had put inside. On the back of each of the pieces of paper and trash was a shiny layer of gold. During the evening before, Jake and Julie had done three things to get ready. The first was to make the magic looking square to give to the Bogworts. The second thing was to take a gold coin they picked out of a Bogwort’s pocket, and pound it into a very, very thin sheet of gold. Then they put a layer of gold on one side of each piece of trash in Jake’s pack.
Now that the trash was turned over, it looked like a big pile of gold inside the chest. This was where the third thing Jake and Julie had done came into the picture. Under the fern flowers, inside the chest, they had put a whole bunch of heavy rocks. Now the chest was so heavy it was almost impossible to move, just like if it was filled with gold. Jake closed the top of the chest and turned back to the General, “I don’t suppose you can read elf magic writing, can you?” he asked in a perfectly innocent tone.
“Um, I’m sure I could remember with some practice,” stammered the General, “It’s been a while since I’ve done it.”
Jake nodded his head with a serious frown on his face. “Yeah,” he thought, “it must have been a while since you’ve read something that doesn’t exist.” He went on out loud, “I’m sure when I go over it with you a couple of times it will come back to you.” With that he recited a “magic spell” he’d made up with Julie the night before:
“I’may a igpay and very atfay
Oh wha tago siam”
“Be sure to jump on one foot, turn around, and hold up the magic square when you say the magic words and POOF, the trash will be gold,” said Jake with some excitement to his voice. Jake went over the ‘spell’ with the Bogwort several times, until they were both satisfied. General Porker was satisfied he could recite it. Jake was satisfied that the General was so stupid that the plan should go off without a problem.
Now it was time for the General to do the magic. He looked a little like a particularly ugly and fat goat as he jumped around on one foot. The other Bogworts were very impressed that the General could perform such a complex feat of physical prowess. The general was disappointed that there wasn’t a flash of light when he got done, but the disappointment disappeared when Jake opened the chest. “Whoa,” he said in wonder as he looked down at the stack of gold.
Before he had a chance to reach for it Jake whispered in his ear, “You might want to wait until you have the chest safe and sound back at your house before you wave any of that gold around. You can’t be too sure of things. I’ll bet a lot of these guys would be tempted to do something rash to get that much gold.”
“Who cares,” said the General, who nevertheless didn’t grab any of the gold sheets. “I can always just make more and more.”
“Well not exactly,” said Jake with a little disappointment in his voice, “You need to turn that little pointer back to one now. That means you only get one more chance before the magic in the square is all used up.”
“Hmmm,” pondered the General, “That means I’ll have to get lots of trash in a box before I do it again, huh?”
Jake nodded back in great respect for that evidence of deep thinking on the General’s part. “Back the way you came I’d guess you could get about a hundred tons of trash to turn to gold if you could convince your troops to pick it up for you,” he said. “Of course I don’t think they’d want to pick it up for someone else. My father could only make me do it by not letting me play video games until I brought home all the gold I could carry. Now I won’t get to play at all when I get home.” Jake knew that Bogwort kids didn’t want anything more in life than video games. Personally he couldn’t care less. How could you compare a video game to playing tricks on Bogworts.
“What makes you think you’re going home you stupid elf?” yelled General Porker. “You’ll stay with me until I get that next batch of gold. Then maybe we’ll think about letting you go.”
Bogworts weren’t renowned for their honesty so Jake didn’t hold out a lot of hope for that. Jake didn’t want to be around when General Porker found out how fooled he had been. Well, the General didn’t waste much time getting his troops lined up and ready to go. “Now you all listen up real good!!” he yelled, “Any Bogwort who doesn’t fill up his pack with trash on the way back to home will get only vegetables and tofu to eat for the next two weeks.” There wasn’t much worse he could threaten them with, and apparently that worked. They hadn’t gone ten feet before the forest was being picked clean of all trash, glass, and junk that had been scattered by the Bogworts. The ones looking for trash didn’t have to worry about being left behind. It took ten big Bogworts to lift the chest and they could only go about as fast as a snail over lettuce.
The only trick now was for Jake to make his getaway. His hands had been tied behind his back and four Bogworts marched around him in a square. “Here we go,” he thought as he walked under a particularly big oak tree. He stretched his hands out behind him. Moments later he heard the whistle of one of Julie’s arrows part the rope between his wrists. Of course the arrow had a rope tied to the end, and Jake wasted no time scampering up the rope into the branches above.
The Bogwort guards tried to climb up the rope behind him. This was more an indication of the trouble they thought they’d get in for losing him than any particular bravery on their parts. Julie had a good laugh for a few moments watching them trying to haul their bulk up the thin rope. One of the Bogworts on the ground threw a spear at them and that stopped the laughing for a moment. Of course the two elves managed to not be where the spear was. At least not at the same time the spear was there. Elves are pretty careful about things like that. Anyway Julie decided enough was enough and she gave a whistle and pulled the rope right out of the hands of the Bogworts trying to climb it. The Bogworts ended up in a pile on the ground under Jake and Julie’s branch. To be polite the two elves bowed in their most courtly manner and then jumped up into the higher branches. The Bogworts completely lost them from view in seconds.
The Bogwort guards figured they’d be better off if they waited until later to tell General Porker. Maybe it was because of that, the whole Bogwort army kept right on going until they were back to their home. Jake and Julie hurried back to the site of the Bogwort camp and scooped up the fern flowers.
They were starting to wilt as Julie carried them, running as fast as she could, back to the elf village. It had taken them the better part of a day to track the Bogworts to their camp the day before. Julie hoped that they could get back to their village faster than that. The flowers were starting to wilt when the two elves had scooped them gently up off the ground, and even as they ran along Julie could see them fading.
“The village elders will be able to think of something,” panted Jake as they ran down a trail, “they have to, or the elf magic will be gone!”
“I can’t run any faster,” replied Julie, “I don’t think we’ll be able to get back before the flowers are completely gone!”
It was approaching dusk when two tired and dejected elves trudged into the elf village. The fern flowers had completely wilted away. After the flowers were gone, the entire fern plants had turned to dust and blown away. Jake and Julie had stopped running but they seemed more tired than ever. Here it was, their first adventure, and they had failed. It would have been difficult to find two elves in the whole world who felt more sad and useless than Jake and Julie did.
The village elders were grouped around the place where the fern flowers had grown, just like when Jake and Julie had headed off after the Bogworts. One of them came over to greet the two elves as they came into the central clearing. “The funniest thing just happened,” he said, “A whole army of Bogworts came through just a while ago. They weren’t wrecking anything at all. In fact they picked up every piece of trash in the whole area and went back to their bog.”
Julie looked at Jake and a smile touched her face, “I guess that our plan wasn’t a total failure,” she said, “But we couldn’t bring back the fern flowers.”
“We managed to get them away from the Bogworts,” explained Jake, “But the fern flowers wilted away before we could get back. I guess our elf magic is gone for good.”
“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that,” replied the elder. “Look up there,” he said, pointing to a bunch of elf children skipping along a single strand of rope strung over a stream next to the village. “I don’t think I’d try anything like that without elf magic.” Just then one of the girls swung around the rope and up to a tree to go running along a low branch that would have had trouble holding a squirrel.
“But how can there be elf magic without the fern flowers?” stammered Julie. “We saw them dry up and blow away!”
“You’re assuming too many things,” replied the village elder with a smile, “First, just because you can’t see the fern flowers, don’t assume they aren’t there. Second, come on over here and take a look.” He led the way to the circle with the other elders.
As the circle opened to let them in to take a look, Jake let out a low gasp. There, where they had always been, was a stunning bunch of fern flowers. They looked more beautiful and radiant than ever. “Someday we may give away our magic, but a bunch of Bogworts can’t just come along and take it. Elf magic just doesn’t work like that.” The elders looked at Jake and Julie with more than a little pride. “You managed to have our forest cleaner than it’s been since the first Bogwort set foot in it,” one of the elders said. “And best of all you got the Bogworts to do the cleaning themselves. I’d say this calls for a celebration.” The other elders nodded in agreement. “We’ve been saving this for you since the Bogworts cleaned up everything,” went on the elder. He stooped down and picked up a basket from behind the fern flowers. “We figured that since you two were the only elves missing, you must have something to do with them behaving in such an un-Bogwort-like manner. So we all collected these to celebrate your return.”
Jake and Julie didn’t realize the reputation they had, until they looked in the basket. Inside were more plump and juicy raspberries than Jake had ever seen in one place at a time. Julie smiled and took a handful to start the party. “Here’s to Bogwort gold,” she said.
Jake didn’t even answer. He was too busy munching on berries.
“Hmmm,” thought Ella, “so we really need a way to get whoever trashed the playground to clean it up themselves.”
“But we don’t know who they are,” protested Aaron, “We don’t have a trash trail to follow.”
“Did you see someone throwing trash at the playground?” asked Ashton, who was too young to worry about Jake and Julie wandering around the schoolyard at night.
“Yes,” answered Julie, who as a matter of fact did see pretty much everything that went on most anywhere. “They said the party was so much fun they would come back tonight. They were driving lots of shiny cars. There were a bunch of them.”
Jake and Julie were looking through the grapevine at Ella with an expectant look. She thought about the story and gold and trash and what people driving shiny cars might think was important.
“I have an idea,” Ella said. She pulled the house key her mom made her keep on a lanyard around her neck. “This is what keys look like.”
The next morning, early, Doug walked over to the playground. There were a bunch of older teenagers kicking over pizza boxes and trash like they were looking for something. Doug headed to the edge of the yard and looked under a sprinkler cap. Just where Ella had told him to look he saw a whole bunch of shiny keys. How she knew they would be there he had no idea, but there they were.
“Excuse me,” Doug yelled over to the teenagers. When they gathered round he told them, “I’ll just bet if you clean up all this trash you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for.” Doug was a real expert at the innocent but “knowing” look. He sat down on the end of a slide and watched the group pick up every last bit of trash and put it in the bin near the school. Then he suggested they look under the sprinkler cap.
Later, while he was pushing the three kids, and their younger sister Livia, on the swings, he asked Ella how she knew where the keys would be.
“It’s just Elf magic,” she answered. Doug just had to wonder.
© Roy E. Moxley 2011 All rights reserved
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Grapevine Elves and the Magic Pebble
The first of many stories has arrived! Please tell us what you think!
By Roy E. Moxley
The question really isn’t when do children start to see elves behind leafy plants. It’s when do we stop. My grand-daughter, Ella, is eight years old, and she knows all about the elves behind the grapevine between their back yard and the alley.
Ella was on the swing her father had built out of pipe. It was really big and set in concrete, so it didn’t jump around even when Ella got so high she could see over the top. She was a little thirsty, but not thirsty enough to go into the house for a drink of water. Instead she went over to the grapevine for a nice juicy grape. They were big and purple with little seeds inside that you could spit out or crunch, depending on what kind of mood you were in. She saw a perfect bunch and just as she reached out her hand to grab it, another little hand from the other side plucked it first.
“Hey,” said Ella, “that was mine”.
“Was, being the key word there,” replied a cheerful voice from the other side, “It’s a good thing there’s more for everyone.”
“I didn’t see you from the swing-set,” said Ella with a little bit of suspicion in her voice. “Do you live behind the alley?”
“Sort of,” was the reply, “my name is Julie and this is Jake,” a mumbled hello came from around the chewing of sweet grapes. As Ella looked through a break in the leaves she saw twinkling eyes and slightly pointed ears of two children about her size.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you at school,” said Ella with a little puzzle in her voice, “are you new here?”
“No, we’ve been here for a long time,” commented Julie. “We were here when this grapevine was planted.” Ella looked down at the base of the vine. It was as big around as her arm. The vine twisted around rails that formed the fence to the ally, making a green wall as tall as Ella and half the width of the yard. “Grapes are good,” went on Julie, “but we need to head out to get some raspberry plants. We could really use some help. Would you like to come?”
Ella knew she couldn’t just go off with some new kids she just met, even if they were very nice. “I’ll have to ask my mom,” she replied.
“No problem,” said Jake, more clearly now that he had finished his grapes. “We know what she’ll say.”
Ella ran into the house and saw her mother at the sink getting things out of the fridge to start getting ready for supper. Mom was holding Ella’s baby brother in one arm and a bunch of celery in the other. “Mom, can I go help some kids I met get some raspberries?” Ella knew she’d need to add something or there was no chance. “Their names are Jake and Julie and they told me they’ve lived here a long time”.
“That’s fine Ella,” answered her mother, looking in the crisper drawer for the carrots, “don’t cross any roads and be back before supper.” Since their house was in the middle of a not so large block of houses, you couldn’t go very far without coming to a small street.
“OK mom,” sang back Ella as she headed out the door and back to the grapevine.
In the middle of the vine, right near the base, Ella saw Julie getting one more bunch of grapes. “Just a little snack for the trail,” Julie explained. “You need to come through the vine here by this break,” she went on. Ella wondered why she couldn’t just go around but she squeezed through the gap in the vine to stand next to Julie. Funny, she was in a little clearing with big trees up in front of her. There was no sign of the alley at all from this side of the vine.
“Don’t worry about that,” explained Jake as he saw Ella kind of looking around, wondering about things. “Your house is just back through the vine. You can get there any time. But now we need to head out for those raspberries”. With that he headed down a path that led into the trees.
“Come on,” said Julie as she took Ella’s hand, “We do have a long way to go.”
“My mom said I couldn’t cross any roads and I have to be home in time for supper”, explained Ella as they ran down the path after Jake.
“Don’t worry about that.” Said Julie, “where we’re going there aren’t any roads and you’ll get home in plenty of time. It’s really the Frost Giants we need to be concerned about”.
They were now fully in the trees and Jake was well ahead running along a smooth but winding path. He skipped over the occasional tree root and ducked under a low branch every now and then. Ella was proud of how she was keeping up. She liked to play soccer and was in the running club at school. “You’re running with elves now,” laughed Julie as they went on, “there’s no time to get tired with us.”
“What was that about giants?” asked Ella with just a hint of concern in her voice. They had been running for what Ella guessed was more than a mile and she still wasn’t tired. “Running with elves is pretty cool”, she thought.
“Well, giants are pretty selfish,” replied Julie, “they think that just because they like raspberries that no one else should be able to have them.”
“Kind of like a little brother who won’t share a cookie,” said Jake, who was now running along next to Ella and Julie. “We’re really doing them a service by helping them to see that it’s better to give than to receive.”
“Elves are really good about helping others that way,” went on Julie, with only the slightest twinkle in her eye that made Ella wonder if she was being teased just a little bit. Of course from what Ella could tell elves always had a little twinkle in their eye. But then Jake and Julie were the only elves that Ella had ever met and so she realized this might be making a generalization.
“How far is it to these frost giants?” asked Ella. Not that she was worried. It was really fun to just go running along without ever getting tired. Maybe concerned was a better word. She knew mom would be worried if she were late for dinner.
“We’ll be there in no time,” said Jake, “and it’s really Frost Giants, not frost giants. You’ll understand that when we get there. But maybe it is time to stop for a snack.” Jake had just seen a little patch of strawberries next to the trail and he came to a screeching halt. “Strawberries are my favorite vegetable,” he said, trying to talk around a juicy berry.
“Strawberries aren’t a vegetable,” corrected Ella, “Vegetables are like broccoli, string beans and brussel sprouts.” Of course that didn’t stop her from eating several herself.
“You eat your vegetables and I’ll eat mine,” answered Jake, “of course there is a lot to be said for grapes, peaches and especially raspberries.”
Julie just smiled at Ella and shook her head. “We will need to start being quiet about now. Giants can be as dumb as a stone post, but with ears as big as dinner plates they can sure hear.”
“And with eyes as big as sugar bowls we can see elves eating our strawberries too” came a deep voice from somewhere around the treetops.
Julie was up in an instant and as she stood she whispered to Ella, “quick, pick up a pebble, we’ll need it.”
Ella had no idea why she would need a pebble, but she looked around and saw a perfect pebble. It was about the size of the end of her thumb and smooth with shiny flakes surrounded by grey and purple. She held it tight in her fist and looked over at Julie. Ella wasn’t exactly worried, although concerned might be accurate. There was apparently something really big awfully close, but after all she was with a couple of elves. What could go wrong?
Julie, in the meantime, was standing with her hands on her hips looking up at the treetops. What Ella had thought were a couple of tree trunks with big knobs about ten feet off the ground moved from the side of the trail to a clear area above them. A tanned face looked down at them and growled, “And exactly how dumb is a stone post?” it asked.
The giant put his hands on his knees and bent down to peer at Julie. Moving a little to the side of the trail, Ella tried to blend into the bushes next to her; with some success. “I’d put a stone post somewhere between a turnip and a paving stone,” answered Julie without a trace of fear in her voice. “You’d better just watch out though,” she went on, “my friend Ella has a magic pebble, so you don’t scare me.”
‘Magic?’ thought Ella, ‘it’s just a rock I picked up’.
“Hmmm,” rumbled the giant, “I guess being 40 feet taller than you doesn’t count for much when you have a magic pebble.” He brought his face even lower and stared hard at Julie. She just stared back without a word. Ella could almost feel sparks flying between them when the giant broke out into a big grin and said, “Oh Julie, I’ve missed you and Jake coming around here. Why didn’t you send a note?”
“Well, you know it’s time for raspberry planting, so of course we were coming up. You should have known.” And she stepped forward to give a big hug to one of the ankles rising from an enormous foot.
“I’m sorry Grunge,” she said looking up at the huge face above her, “I meant to say a Frost Giant was as dumb as a stone post, not you.”
“No offence taken,” said Grunge with a gentle smile, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Ella was almost standing inside a big bush and she stepped out with a guilty shuffle. Julie took Ella’s hand (the one that wasn’t clenched around the pebble) and pulled her further into the trail, “Grunge,” she said, “This is our friend Ella.” Grunge had lowered his hand almost to the ground and Julie put her hand around a little finger and pulled it over to Ella’s hand, “Ella, this is Grunge, my friend and the nicest giant this side of the rainbow bridge”.
“Very pleased to meet you,” rumbled Grunge, “Any friend of Julie’s is a friend of mine. But where’s Jake? I was sure I heard him earlier.” Just then a yell came hurtling down from the tree tops, followed by Jake who landed firmly on the giant’s neck.
“I’ve got you now, you pillaging pile of pandering poetry.” Jake bellowed, “Julie, you tie his toes together while I pull his ears over his eyes!! Once he falls over it will take him all day to get back up again.” Of course Jake was right about that. Giants are so big, that if they fall down on the ground it can take them a very long time to get back up. That’s why they have beds that are so high. It makes it easy to step down onto the ground.
“Ho, Ho, Ho,” laughed Grunge as Jake did climb around to swing from his ear to straddle his saddle sized nose. “You’ve got me now. I surrender to your famous flying tackle.” Grunge gently reached up and held Jake by the back of his shirt and set him on the ground. “That was brave Jake,” he said easily with his hands back on his knees, “but why would you need a flying tackle when Ella has a magic pebble?”
Ella started to say, “but it’s just a rock I …” when Julie interrupted, “It’s always good to stay in practice Grunge, after all, the Frost giants aren’t as nice as you are. Especially when they find out we want to take some of their raspberry plants for our garden.”
“That is a good idea,” answered Grunge, “of course the Frost Giants took your raspberry plants in the fall but they are quick to take offence.” He turned his head slightly to look at Ella, “may I be permitted to hold the magic pebble?” He asked politely.
Ella glanced over to Julie, who gave her a small nod and a wink. Ella held out her hand with the pebble to the giant, who put his own table sized hand under hers. She dropped the pebble into the middle of his palm and he lifted it up to his eye to examine it closely.
“First rate,” muttered the giant, “very nice shape and size with just a touch of quartz under a light sprinkling of amethyst. The giant seemed lost in another world as he continued, “The mica balances the granite and attracts the eye without being gaudy.” He looked Ella in the eye and said, “You have done well. This is a magic pebble to be proud of,” and he dropped it carefully back into Ella’s hand. She stared at it in wonder. How in the world did he see so much in such a little rock she’d picked up next to the trail? She carefully dropped the pebble into her pocket.
“Have you got a plan?” asked Grunge, as he raised a bush sized eyebrow and looked at Julie. “You don’t just walk up to Frost Giants and ask for a bunch of their favorite food. It’s the perfect time to be planting raspberries and they know it. They might even be expecting you to come and get your plants back.”
“We’re elves,” said Jake as he started munching on another strawberry, “of course we have a plan. That’s why we brought Ella. We sneak in, get the plants, and sneak out…what could be easier? If there’s trouble, we’ll have Ella use the magic pebble. Ella gets home in time for dinner and we still get home in time to plant the berries.” That didn’t really sound like much of a plan to Ella, but sometimes simple is best. With that, Grunge bid them farewell and Jake, Julie, and Ella ran along the path to the land of the Frost Giants.
“I’m sure glad Grunge was nice,” commented Ella, with a bit of a question in her voice, “he was as big as a tree. He could have squished me like a bug if he wanted to.”
“He would never do that,” answered Jake with a little bit of shock, “He’s our friend. We helped him plant strawberries and peaches and plums and cherries so he could have some of his favorite foods when the Frost Giants kicked him out of their land for being too small.”
“Ulp,” thought Ella, “too small?” She was also a little worried about a plan that relied on a magic pebble. She’d just picked up the pebble because Julie told her to when Grunge showed up. She didn’t think there was anything magic about it. Grunge seemed to take it seriously though. He seemed to be pretty smart, not at all as dumb as a stone post.
Way too soon, or so it seemed to Ella, Jake held up his hand to signal stop, without saying a word. Julie smiled to Ella, her eyes shining. The three slipped off the trail into some low bushes on the side of a hill and crept to the top. Hiding under a wild rose just coming into its flowers, being careful to avoid the thorns, they looked out to the valley below.
Nothing like houses could be seen, but what appeared to be huge platforms were laid out between stands of trees. Giants were sprawled out on these platforms with arms and legs draped everywhere. “So why are they called Frost Giants?” asked Ella in a whisper.
Julie looked at her, “Because they’re really big,” she explained.
“No,” hissed Ella, “the Frost part.”
“Oh,” said Julie, “That’s because they live in the cold. When the weather turns even colder in the Fall, they get stronger. In the Spring, when it’s warming up, they get kind of tired and aren’t as strong.”
Even from the hilltop the sound of snoring could be heard. “It’s after lunch,” breathed Ella to Julie lying next to her. She was afraid to make more sound than a rustling breeze. “Are they all still sleeping?”
“I’m sure they were up late last night eating frozen pizza and playing video games,” answered Julie, also just barely loud enough to be heard. When Ella tried to think of the TVs they must use for their games, Jake mouthed the words, “think wide screen.”
“But there will be one awake somewhere keeping an eye on things. But they’re more worried about each other than they are of us. One of them is always trying to take the last of the root beer.” Julie finished.
“Root beer?” wondered Ella.
“To go with the pizza” was Jake’s only response. “There!!” he pointed at one giant slouched against a small mountain on the other side of the valley. “We sneak in, make one distraction on the North side when we grab the plants, and we’re out to the South. No problem-o”
“Problem-o?” asked Ella, “do you speak Spanish?”
“Only Elvish, comprendé?” was Julie’s reply. “Let’s go.” She whispered as she crawled out from the bush and back down the hill. They tiptoed between trees with giants sleeping above until they came to a big garden in the middle of the valley (Ho, Ho, Ho). Nothing could be heard but the loud snoring of giants, but Ella knew by how quiet Jake and Julie were that they couldn’t risk a single sound.
Jake pointed to rows of sticks pointing out of the ground. Ella did her best silent “Are you kidding, that’s just a bunch of sticks. We came all this way for that?” but Julie just nodded her head.
“Time for the distraction” breathed Jake. Julie nodded and took her bow and an arrow silently off her back. She smoothed the feathers on the arrow, aimed carefully to the North and let it fly. It arched into the air without a sound and on the far end of the valley it cut through the stem of a single leaf that had forgotten to fall,…well, last fall. The leaf fluttered to the ground and landed with the slightest rustle against a blade of grass.
“What was that??” bellowed the guard giant on the other side of the valley.
Jake and Julie popped out from under the bushes and each gently pulled up about 6 of the “sticks”, which were really raspberry starts, and ran back to Ella. “Now the fun starts,” said Julie with excitement in her whisper. “Let’s run now.”
Ella wondered how they could possibly outrun those giants, but running was clearly what was needed now. All around them giants were crashing off their sleeping platforms with a “Huh, What, Who’s there?” But all of them were looking to the North.
“That won’t keep them for long,” panted Julie as they ran, “there were more at home than I thought. We’re going to need to use the magic pebble.”
“But it’s not magic,” protested Ella as they ran, “it’s just a rock I found along the trail.”
“Magic is magic,” was Jakes only answer. “We can trip the giants while they’re running after us but we need them to step in the right spot. That’s your job with the magic pebble. Here’s what you do…” with that Jake explained how Ella would be the key to the whole escape. “You can do it. We trust you.”
“Great,” thought Ella, “I just hope I trust me.” What she said was, “I’ll do my best.” And Jake and Julie both thought that would be just right.
As they ran down the path to home, Ella and the elves heard the shouting of the giants behind them get more organized. Pretty soon they heard the thumping of giant feet coming behind them. Jake and Julie ran into the trees and Ella picked a wide, open area to place the pebble down in the path and moved back away from the oncoming giants. With her hands on her hips she stood, more or less bravely, in the middle of the trail waiting.
It seemed like only a few seconds later she saw the heads of the oncoming giants above the far tree tops. As their whole bodies came into view, Ella let out a shout of, “Stop right there!!” The giants were so startled they came to a skidding stop where they were, about 50 yards on the other side of the, not so magical looking, pebble. “I’m only going to give you this one chance to go on back home or you’ll be sorry,” yelled Ella up to the giants. “You can go home healthy now, or you can mess with my magic pebble and go home for bandages. It’s your choice but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ella was glad she was too small for the giants to see how much she was shaking. That pebble looked awfully small.
“You mean that little thing?” bellowed the leading giant, pointing down at the pebble. “Nothing that small can hurt something as big as me. In fact you’re too small to even bother with. I could stomp on you and not even feel it.”
“I know I have to use small words to get through to you,” replied Ella, starting to get a little angry herself, “Just because someone or something is small doesn’t make it less important. Go home now, or go home with bruises. It’s up to you.”
“Humpf,” said the giant as he tried to pick up the pebble. It was too small for him to get his fingers on. “We’ll see about that.” With that he and all the giants took a big step over the pebble and started after Ella.
She skipped ahead just a bit and sang, “Giants and gnomes can shake their bones but nothing here can hurt me.” That just got the giants mad. After they stepped over the pebble, they were only looking at her. Of course, that was the whole plan. They didn’t see the rope that Jake and Julie pulled up from the dust on the path. The giants put their foot right in front of the rope and were all tripped and came crashing to the ground. Ella knew to jump just to the side to avoid the falling giants.
Jake and Julie left the rope and came running up to Ella. “Great job,” they said, “now it’s back home in time for dinner.
Later that evening, after a wonderful dinner with her family, Ella went back to the grapevine for just a bit. “Are you there?” she whispered. A quiet giggle answered from the other side and a hand came out with a palm full of raspberries.
“They grow really fast here,” said Julie as Ella quietly took a couple and enjoyed their juicy sweetness. “Thanks for your help back on the path.”
“It was fun,” answered Ella, “Call me anytime you need me.”
“You too Ella,” was the reply, “but don’t forget this.” And Julie’s hand came through with a little pebble cradled in her palm.
That night, Ella put the pebble on her dresser, next to her family’s picture. “What’s that?” asked her Mom, looking at the pebble.
“Just something I picked up on the other side of the grapevine,” replied Ella, “It’s magic.”
“Hmmm,” was her Mom’s answer, “pretty…. a nice balance of mica and granite.”
{To be continued…}
© Roy E. Moxley 2011
All rights reserved
By Roy E. Moxley
The question really isn’t when do children start to see elves behind leafy plants. It’s when do we stop. My grand-daughter, Ella, is eight years old, and she knows all about the elves behind the grapevine between their back yard and the alley.
Ella was on the swing her father had built out of pipe. It was really big and set in concrete, so it didn’t jump around even when Ella got so high she could see over the top. She was a little thirsty, but not thirsty enough to go into the house for a drink of water. Instead she went over to the grapevine for a nice juicy grape. They were big and purple with little seeds inside that you could spit out or crunch, depending on what kind of mood you were in. She saw a perfect bunch and just as she reached out her hand to grab it, another little hand from the other side plucked it first.
“Hey,” said Ella, “that was mine”.
“Was, being the key word there,” replied a cheerful voice from the other side, “It’s a good thing there’s more for everyone.”
“I didn’t see you from the swing-set,” said Ella with a little bit of suspicion in her voice. “Do you live behind the alley?”
“Sort of,” was the reply, “my name is Julie and this is Jake,” a mumbled hello came from around the chewing of sweet grapes. As Ella looked through a break in the leaves she saw twinkling eyes and slightly pointed ears of two children about her size.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you at school,” said Ella with a little puzzle in her voice, “are you new here?”
“No, we’ve been here for a long time,” commented Julie. “We were here when this grapevine was planted.” Ella looked down at the base of the vine. It was as big around as her arm. The vine twisted around rails that formed the fence to the ally, making a green wall as tall as Ella and half the width of the yard. “Grapes are good,” went on Julie, “but we need to head out to get some raspberry plants. We could really use some help. Would you like to come?”
Ella knew she couldn’t just go off with some new kids she just met, even if they were very nice. “I’ll have to ask my mom,” she replied.
“No problem,” said Jake, more clearly now that he had finished his grapes. “We know what she’ll say.”
Ella ran into the house and saw her mother at the sink getting things out of the fridge to start getting ready for supper. Mom was holding Ella’s baby brother in one arm and a bunch of celery in the other. “Mom, can I go help some kids I met get some raspberries?” Ella knew she’d need to add something or there was no chance. “Their names are Jake and Julie and they told me they’ve lived here a long time”.
“That’s fine Ella,” answered her mother, looking in the crisper drawer for the carrots, “don’t cross any roads and be back before supper.” Since their house was in the middle of a not so large block of houses, you couldn’t go very far without coming to a small street.
“OK mom,” sang back Ella as she headed out the door and back to the grapevine.
In the middle of the vine, right near the base, Ella saw Julie getting one more bunch of grapes. “Just a little snack for the trail,” Julie explained. “You need to come through the vine here by this break,” she went on. Ella wondered why she couldn’t just go around but she squeezed through the gap in the vine to stand next to Julie. Funny, she was in a little clearing with big trees up in front of her. There was no sign of the alley at all from this side of the vine.
“Don’t worry about that,” explained Jake as he saw Ella kind of looking around, wondering about things. “Your house is just back through the vine. You can get there any time. But now we need to head out for those raspberries”. With that he headed down a path that led into the trees.
“Come on,” said Julie as she took Ella’s hand, “We do have a long way to go.”
“My mom said I couldn’t cross any roads and I have to be home in time for supper”, explained Ella as they ran down the path after Jake.
“Don’t worry about that.” Said Julie, “where we’re going there aren’t any roads and you’ll get home in plenty of time. It’s really the Frost Giants we need to be concerned about”.
They were now fully in the trees and Jake was well ahead running along a smooth but winding path. He skipped over the occasional tree root and ducked under a low branch every now and then. Ella was proud of how she was keeping up. She liked to play soccer and was in the running club at school. “You’re running with elves now,” laughed Julie as they went on, “there’s no time to get tired with us.”
“What was that about giants?” asked Ella with just a hint of concern in her voice. They had been running for what Ella guessed was more than a mile and she still wasn’t tired. “Running with elves is pretty cool”, she thought.
“Well, giants are pretty selfish,” replied Julie, “they think that just because they like raspberries that no one else should be able to have them.”
“Kind of like a little brother who won’t share a cookie,” said Jake, who was now running along next to Ella and Julie. “We’re really doing them a service by helping them to see that it’s better to give than to receive.”
“Elves are really good about helping others that way,” went on Julie, with only the slightest twinkle in her eye that made Ella wonder if she was being teased just a little bit. Of course from what Ella could tell elves always had a little twinkle in their eye. But then Jake and Julie were the only elves that Ella had ever met and so she realized this might be making a generalization.
“How far is it to these frost giants?” asked Ella. Not that she was worried. It was really fun to just go running along without ever getting tired. Maybe concerned was a better word. She knew mom would be worried if she were late for dinner.
“We’ll be there in no time,” said Jake, “and it’s really Frost Giants, not frost giants. You’ll understand that when we get there. But maybe it is time to stop for a snack.” Jake had just seen a little patch of strawberries next to the trail and he came to a screeching halt. “Strawberries are my favorite vegetable,” he said, trying to talk around a juicy berry.
“Strawberries aren’t a vegetable,” corrected Ella, “Vegetables are like broccoli, string beans and brussel sprouts.” Of course that didn’t stop her from eating several herself.
“You eat your vegetables and I’ll eat mine,” answered Jake, “of course there is a lot to be said for grapes, peaches and especially raspberries.”
Julie just smiled at Ella and shook her head. “We will need to start being quiet about now. Giants can be as dumb as a stone post, but with ears as big as dinner plates they can sure hear.”
“And with eyes as big as sugar bowls we can see elves eating our strawberries too” came a deep voice from somewhere around the treetops.
Julie was up in an instant and as she stood she whispered to Ella, “quick, pick up a pebble, we’ll need it.”
Ella had no idea why she would need a pebble, but she looked around and saw a perfect pebble. It was about the size of the end of her thumb and smooth with shiny flakes surrounded by grey and purple. She held it tight in her fist and looked over at Julie. Ella wasn’t exactly worried, although concerned might be accurate. There was apparently something really big awfully close, but after all she was with a couple of elves. What could go wrong?
Julie, in the meantime, was standing with her hands on her hips looking up at the treetops. What Ella had thought were a couple of tree trunks with big knobs about ten feet off the ground moved from the side of the trail to a clear area above them. A tanned face looked down at them and growled, “And exactly how dumb is a stone post?” it asked.
The giant put his hands on his knees and bent down to peer at Julie. Moving a little to the side of the trail, Ella tried to blend into the bushes next to her; with some success. “I’d put a stone post somewhere between a turnip and a paving stone,” answered Julie without a trace of fear in her voice. “You’d better just watch out though,” she went on, “my friend Ella has a magic pebble, so you don’t scare me.”
‘Magic?’ thought Ella, ‘it’s just a rock I picked up’.
“Hmmm,” rumbled the giant, “I guess being 40 feet taller than you doesn’t count for much when you have a magic pebble.” He brought his face even lower and stared hard at Julie. She just stared back without a word. Ella could almost feel sparks flying between them when the giant broke out into a big grin and said, “Oh Julie, I’ve missed you and Jake coming around here. Why didn’t you send a note?”
“Well, you know it’s time for raspberry planting, so of course we were coming up. You should have known.” And she stepped forward to give a big hug to one of the ankles rising from an enormous foot.
“I’m sorry Grunge,” she said looking up at the huge face above her, “I meant to say a Frost Giant was as dumb as a stone post, not you.”
“No offence taken,” said Grunge with a gentle smile, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Ella was almost standing inside a big bush and she stepped out with a guilty shuffle. Julie took Ella’s hand (the one that wasn’t clenched around the pebble) and pulled her further into the trail, “Grunge,” she said, “This is our friend Ella.” Grunge had lowered his hand almost to the ground and Julie put her hand around a little finger and pulled it over to Ella’s hand, “Ella, this is Grunge, my friend and the nicest giant this side of the rainbow bridge”.
“Very pleased to meet you,” rumbled Grunge, “Any friend of Julie’s is a friend of mine. But where’s Jake? I was sure I heard him earlier.” Just then a yell came hurtling down from the tree tops, followed by Jake who landed firmly on the giant’s neck.
“I’ve got you now, you pillaging pile of pandering poetry.” Jake bellowed, “Julie, you tie his toes together while I pull his ears over his eyes!! Once he falls over it will take him all day to get back up again.” Of course Jake was right about that. Giants are so big, that if they fall down on the ground it can take them a very long time to get back up. That’s why they have beds that are so high. It makes it easy to step down onto the ground.
“Ho, Ho, Ho,” laughed Grunge as Jake did climb around to swing from his ear to straddle his saddle sized nose. “You’ve got me now. I surrender to your famous flying tackle.” Grunge gently reached up and held Jake by the back of his shirt and set him on the ground. “That was brave Jake,” he said easily with his hands back on his knees, “but why would you need a flying tackle when Ella has a magic pebble?”
Ella started to say, “but it’s just a rock I …” when Julie interrupted, “It’s always good to stay in practice Grunge, after all, the Frost giants aren’t as nice as you are. Especially when they find out we want to take some of their raspberry plants for our garden.”
“That is a good idea,” answered Grunge, “of course the Frost Giants took your raspberry plants in the fall but they are quick to take offence.” He turned his head slightly to look at Ella, “may I be permitted to hold the magic pebble?” He asked politely.
Ella glanced over to Julie, who gave her a small nod and a wink. Ella held out her hand with the pebble to the giant, who put his own table sized hand under hers. She dropped the pebble into the middle of his palm and he lifted it up to his eye to examine it closely.
“First rate,” muttered the giant, “very nice shape and size with just a touch of quartz under a light sprinkling of amethyst. The giant seemed lost in another world as he continued, “The mica balances the granite and attracts the eye without being gaudy.” He looked Ella in the eye and said, “You have done well. This is a magic pebble to be proud of,” and he dropped it carefully back into Ella’s hand. She stared at it in wonder. How in the world did he see so much in such a little rock she’d picked up next to the trail? She carefully dropped the pebble into her pocket.
“Have you got a plan?” asked Grunge, as he raised a bush sized eyebrow and looked at Julie. “You don’t just walk up to Frost Giants and ask for a bunch of their favorite food. It’s the perfect time to be planting raspberries and they know it. They might even be expecting you to come and get your plants back.”
“We’re elves,” said Jake as he started munching on another strawberry, “of course we have a plan. That’s why we brought Ella. We sneak in, get the plants, and sneak out…what could be easier? If there’s trouble, we’ll have Ella use the magic pebble. Ella gets home in time for dinner and we still get home in time to plant the berries.” That didn’t really sound like much of a plan to Ella, but sometimes simple is best. With that, Grunge bid them farewell and Jake, Julie, and Ella ran along the path to the land of the Frost Giants.
“I’m sure glad Grunge was nice,” commented Ella, with a bit of a question in her voice, “he was as big as a tree. He could have squished me like a bug if he wanted to.”
“He would never do that,” answered Jake with a little bit of shock, “He’s our friend. We helped him plant strawberries and peaches and plums and cherries so he could have some of his favorite foods when the Frost Giants kicked him out of their land for being too small.”
“Ulp,” thought Ella, “too small?” She was also a little worried about a plan that relied on a magic pebble. She’d just picked up the pebble because Julie told her to when Grunge showed up. She didn’t think there was anything magic about it. Grunge seemed to take it seriously though. He seemed to be pretty smart, not at all as dumb as a stone post.
Way too soon, or so it seemed to Ella, Jake held up his hand to signal stop, without saying a word. Julie smiled to Ella, her eyes shining. The three slipped off the trail into some low bushes on the side of a hill and crept to the top. Hiding under a wild rose just coming into its flowers, being careful to avoid the thorns, they looked out to the valley below.
Nothing like houses could be seen, but what appeared to be huge platforms were laid out between stands of trees. Giants were sprawled out on these platforms with arms and legs draped everywhere. “So why are they called Frost Giants?” asked Ella in a whisper.
Julie looked at her, “Because they’re really big,” she explained.
“No,” hissed Ella, “the Frost part.”
“Oh,” said Julie, “That’s because they live in the cold. When the weather turns even colder in the Fall, they get stronger. In the Spring, when it’s warming up, they get kind of tired and aren’t as strong.”
Even from the hilltop the sound of snoring could be heard. “It’s after lunch,” breathed Ella to Julie lying next to her. She was afraid to make more sound than a rustling breeze. “Are they all still sleeping?”
“I’m sure they were up late last night eating frozen pizza and playing video games,” answered Julie, also just barely loud enough to be heard. When Ella tried to think of the TVs they must use for their games, Jake mouthed the words, “think wide screen.”
“But there will be one awake somewhere keeping an eye on things. But they’re more worried about each other than they are of us. One of them is always trying to take the last of the root beer.” Julie finished.
“Root beer?” wondered Ella.
“To go with the pizza” was Jake’s only response. “There!!” he pointed at one giant slouched against a small mountain on the other side of the valley. “We sneak in, make one distraction on the North side when we grab the plants, and we’re out to the South. No problem-o”
“Problem-o?” asked Ella, “do you speak Spanish?”
“Only Elvish, comprendé?” was Julie’s reply. “Let’s go.” She whispered as she crawled out from the bush and back down the hill. They tiptoed between trees with giants sleeping above until they came to a big garden in the middle of the valley (Ho, Ho, Ho). Nothing could be heard but the loud snoring of giants, but Ella knew by how quiet Jake and Julie were that they couldn’t risk a single sound.
Jake pointed to rows of sticks pointing out of the ground. Ella did her best silent “Are you kidding, that’s just a bunch of sticks. We came all this way for that?” but Julie just nodded her head.
“Time for the distraction” breathed Jake. Julie nodded and took her bow and an arrow silently off her back. She smoothed the feathers on the arrow, aimed carefully to the North and let it fly. It arched into the air without a sound and on the far end of the valley it cut through the stem of a single leaf that had forgotten to fall,…well, last fall. The leaf fluttered to the ground and landed with the slightest rustle against a blade of grass.
“What was that??” bellowed the guard giant on the other side of the valley.
Jake and Julie popped out from under the bushes and each gently pulled up about 6 of the “sticks”, which were really raspberry starts, and ran back to Ella. “Now the fun starts,” said Julie with excitement in her whisper. “Let’s run now.”
Ella wondered how they could possibly outrun those giants, but running was clearly what was needed now. All around them giants were crashing off their sleeping platforms with a “Huh, What, Who’s there?” But all of them were looking to the North.
“That won’t keep them for long,” panted Julie as they ran, “there were more at home than I thought. We’re going to need to use the magic pebble.”
“But it’s not magic,” protested Ella as they ran, “it’s just a rock I found along the trail.”
“Magic is magic,” was Jakes only answer. “We can trip the giants while they’re running after us but we need them to step in the right spot. That’s your job with the magic pebble. Here’s what you do…” with that Jake explained how Ella would be the key to the whole escape. “You can do it. We trust you.”
“Great,” thought Ella, “I just hope I trust me.” What she said was, “I’ll do my best.” And Jake and Julie both thought that would be just right.
As they ran down the path to home, Ella and the elves heard the shouting of the giants behind them get more organized. Pretty soon they heard the thumping of giant feet coming behind them. Jake and Julie ran into the trees and Ella picked a wide, open area to place the pebble down in the path and moved back away from the oncoming giants. With her hands on her hips she stood, more or less bravely, in the middle of the trail waiting.
It seemed like only a few seconds later she saw the heads of the oncoming giants above the far tree tops. As their whole bodies came into view, Ella let out a shout of, “Stop right there!!” The giants were so startled they came to a skidding stop where they were, about 50 yards on the other side of the, not so magical looking, pebble. “I’m only going to give you this one chance to go on back home or you’ll be sorry,” yelled Ella up to the giants. “You can go home healthy now, or you can mess with my magic pebble and go home for bandages. It’s your choice but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ella was glad she was too small for the giants to see how much she was shaking. That pebble looked awfully small.
“You mean that little thing?” bellowed the leading giant, pointing down at the pebble. “Nothing that small can hurt something as big as me. In fact you’re too small to even bother with. I could stomp on you and not even feel it.”
“I know I have to use small words to get through to you,” replied Ella, starting to get a little angry herself, “Just because someone or something is small doesn’t make it less important. Go home now, or go home with bruises. It’s up to you.”
“Humpf,” said the giant as he tried to pick up the pebble. It was too small for him to get his fingers on. “We’ll see about that.” With that he and all the giants took a big step over the pebble and started after Ella.
She skipped ahead just a bit and sang, “Giants and gnomes can shake their bones but nothing here can hurt me.” That just got the giants mad. After they stepped over the pebble, they were only looking at her. Of course, that was the whole plan. They didn’t see the rope that Jake and Julie pulled up from the dust on the path. The giants put their foot right in front of the rope and were all tripped and came crashing to the ground. Ella knew to jump just to the side to avoid the falling giants.
Jake and Julie left the rope and came running up to Ella. “Great job,” they said, “now it’s back home in time for dinner.
Later that evening, after a wonderful dinner with her family, Ella went back to the grapevine for just a bit. “Are you there?” she whispered. A quiet giggle answered from the other side and a hand came out with a palm full of raspberries.
“They grow really fast here,” said Julie as Ella quietly took a couple and enjoyed their juicy sweetness. “Thanks for your help back on the path.”
“It was fun,” answered Ella, “Call me anytime you need me.”
“You too Ella,” was the reply, “but don’t forget this.” And Julie’s hand came through with a little pebble cradled in her palm.
That night, Ella put the pebble on her dresser, next to her family’s picture. “What’s that?” asked her Mom, looking at the pebble.
“Just something I picked up on the other side of the grapevine,” replied Ella, “It’s magic.”
“Hmmm,” was her Mom’s answer, “pretty…. a nice balance of mica and granite.”
{To be continued…}
© Roy E. Moxley 2011
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