My name is Anne and I’m now in high school. It’s lunchtime. I’m eating out with some girls from my class. But all they talk about is what’s going on in school and what was on television the night before. I later complained about this to my cousin, Aaron.
“Well, that’s their life,” he said to me.
“True, but there is more to life than that.”
However, I enjoyed the company of my girlfriends. They were sweet girls. But I was different. I thought differently. I would say to myself, “Why can’t I think like other people think.” However, we all loved music and dancing and I was always dancing at our class parties.
Before high school was Jr. high. It was there I got into a schoolyard fight with V. I hated Jr. high. I learned almost nothing and I was bullied. Before that was elementary school—K through 6 grades. That was fun. I did very well and loved it.
Now I’m a senior in high school. Next year, college? What am I supposed to do in life? Get married, find a rich husband, have 2 to 3 children, sit in a chair with my hands folded and smile?
How depressing.
Well, I’m tired now. I’m going to go to sleep. I’ll just rest on the couch for a little while. Then I decide to go to bed. But where is the bedroom. Can’t find the bedroom. I open a door. It’s the door to the porch. I go out.
But where am I? I see fields of daisies. Beautiful daisies. No streets, they’re gone, no cars, they’re gone, just daisies. I run through the field of daisies.
I come to a tree.
“Hello,” I hear.
I look up. I see a beautiful black cat with bright green eyes in the tree.
“Hello,” he says to me. “My name is Ebony. Would you like to be friends and live with me?”
“Yes,” I say. “My name is Anne.”
“Come inside,” says Ebony.
“Oh,” I say as I see a door in the tree. I open the door and go inside. I go up a flight of stairs and see a branch. Ebony is sitting on the branch. I go out, sit down on the branch and join him. And we just sit there, and sit there, and sit there.
“What do you do all day, Ebony?”
“Just sit here.”
“That’s all?” I ask. “Just sit?”
“No,” says Ebony. “Sometimes I lie down.”
“Oh,” I say. “What happens when you get hungry?”
“There’s a kitchen inside with lots of food.”
“Oh,” I say.
All of a sudden,
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Let’s go inside,” says Ebony rushing inside. I follow him.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“What’s that?” I gasp.
“Those are the hunters. They will kill anything in sight.”
“But I’m a human,” I say.
“Look again,” says Ebony.
I look down on myself. I see a bushy tail. I look like a squirrel.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Anne, let’s go to the underground cave,” says Ebony. “Follow me.”
We go down 2 flights of stairs. It leads to a cave. There is a stream of water in the cave.
“This water is good,” says Ebony. “You can take a drink if you want.”
So, I do, cupping my hand. “Wow,” I say. “It tastes like strawberry punch. And look at the nuts over there, piled up against the cave wall. And I’m hungry.
“Me too. Let’s have dinner,” says Ebony. “We’ll have nuts and strawberry punch.”
As we eat, more and more animals join us for dinner, horses, donkeys, dogs and cats. The animals, come into the cave and the cave gets bigger and bigger. There seems to be an endless amount of animals and an endless amount of food and drink. Then comes the music, a monkey playing the guitar. And we all dance and sing.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Everyone gets quiet.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The hunters are nearby. Let’s hope they don’t discover the tree and then the cave.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
We wait. We wait for a long time. No more Booms. Well, the party’s over and we all leave. Ebony and I go back to sitting on our branch.
“Why do we sit on this branch?” I say.
“Because,” says Ebony.
“Why because?” I say.
“Just because.”
Ring! Ring! Ring!
“Oh, there’s my alarm clock,” I say as I shut it off. “What a dream! Off to school I go.” I continue talking to myself. “One more year of high school and then what? We’ll see.”
My mom makes me orange juice and scrambled eggs for breakfast. I eat and rush out when I see the school bus from the window.
But when I go out, I don’t see the school bus. I don’t see the houses on my block and I don’t see the cars in the street. I see daisies, a field of daisies. I run through the field of daisies.
I come to a tree.
“Hello,” I hear.
.
Comments