My first memory from my aerial perch was the sun warming me.  I could hear the wind as it blew me from side to side.  I could see everything!   To my left there was a bird nest with little speckled eggs in it; to my right were bumble bees searching for the perfect flower.  In front of me stretched a field, at the edge of the field was a forest, covered in shadows from so many trees.  At the base of the tree where many things, there were bugs, and grass and… rocks.  They looked so small from up here they must be bigger up close though, maybe they haven’t grown yet.  I could hear them talking, I liked listening to them at first, but after a while I realized they were not being very nice about anything but themselves.  They were constantly talking about how wonderful their smooth surfaces where, and how they would hate to have feathers, or fur, or pretty much anything other than what they already had.  They also said how they think it’s ridiculous how things should have legs, they would much rather roll.  I would have loved to have legs myself, maybe one day I will get legs.  A few months later I was listening to them as usual, but something caught my attention.

“Wouldn’t you hate being a leaf?” the white rock said.

“Yes, they’re far to light and flimsy.”  Said another

“Well in the spring and summer they are, but this time of year they get stiff and fall off the trees.” 

“That’s when they get annoying.  Always falling on us, and getting us dirty.”

What do they mean? I’m not stiff! I’ve changed my color, but I’m not stiff.  They must be making this up. But sure enough a few days later, I started feeling a little dry. 

“It’s nothing.” I reassured myself. 

More days went by; they started taunting us, noticing we were getting brittle.

“Look at those poor, poor leaves. I would hate getting crunchy and brown.  They only get to enjoy one summer before they all fall and get squashed.  That’s why I love being a rock, never having to worry about any of that stuff. Just living the good life.” said the grey rock.

More days went by still, the taunting got worse and more frequent.  Suddenly one day I broke away from my branch and started floating.  Down and down I went, swaying back and forth the whole way down, the winds tugging me from side to side; until I finally floated to the ground.

“OUCH!  Get off, you’re ruining my shine!” said the grey rock.

I never did like this one, he was the most full of himself out of all of them. 

“I’m sorry! I’m just getting used to this.” I said.

“Well you’re not getting off to a good start.” He said

 That’s when my plan came to mind.

“I’m sorry I’m just excited, I’m on my way to a wonderful place.” 

“Where’s that?” said the rock.

“It’s a place far from here; you can see it from the tippy top of my tree.  I’ve been planning to go there ever since I was a bud.”  I said

“Oh really?” said the rock

“Yes really, I best be on my way now though.” 

“Wait! May I come with you?” he said

“Oh no, you wouldn’t want to come with me, it way too far.  Plus, you are too heavy, and it would take to long.”

“I can keep up!”  He insisted

“Well maybe, but I wouldn’t want you getting banged up...” 

“I can polish myself when I get home.” He said

“All right then, if you’re sure, let’s go.”

Off they went, on their way to this “magical place”. They didn’t get far when the rock started falling behind.

“Can you slow down for a minute?” he said

“I thought you said you could keep up.”

“Well yes, but that’s before I knew how bumpy this all was.  Can we take a break?”

“Are you getting tired?” I said

“No, but you go so much faster than I am since you don’t have hardly any weight on you.”

“That is true, one good thing about being a leaf.” I smirked.

“Well sometimes it’s good having weight! You don’t have to worry about being blown away.” 

After some time of walking, we came to a huge trench in the ground, blocking our path.

“Oh great how do we get around THIS? said the rock

“Easy! Float over.” I said

“But I can’t float! How will I get over?”

Sigh… this is going to be a long trip.

“What if you use that big piece of bark going across it? Unless you would like to go back…” I said

“No, I’m not going back; but what if I fall?” he asked

“Don’t have good balance?” I challenged

“Well of course I do, it’s just, that’s a long way down…”

“You’ll be fine!” I said

“Ok… here I go then.”

He started across going very slow, but then he got a little over confident in himself. He started going faster, and faster, and faster. Until finally… he slipped.

“HELP! Help me back up! Please!” he screamed.  He was on the very edge of the bark, just caught by a little stump, but he was slipping.

I paused for a moment, and then decided this wasn’t the time.  I blew over and gave him a push, and he fell back onto solid ground.  He sat huffing and puffing for a little while, catching his breath; then off we went again.

“Thanks for helping me back there, I thought I was toast.” He said

“No problem, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on this place.” I said

We traveled for a while longer, until it started getting dark, and we decided to camp out under a fern for the night. The next morning we started off again.

“When are we going to be there?” 

“We just have to go through that patch of trees, and on the other side of that, we’ll be there.”

“What is this place anyway?”

“I’ve told you, it’s a wonderful place with lots of shimmery stuff, it is contained in a trench, and it has all sorts of things inside it that I guarantee you’ve never seen before.” 

We kept walking until we finally got to the edge of the trees, you could hear all the noises of the different animals inside, Squirrels, chipmunks, mice, bugs, you name it. We went into the shadows, being careful of all the little creatures that might take us to make their nests. 

“It’s a little dark in here, OW!”

“Having troubles finding your way? Would you like to go around..?” I asked

He got a troubled look on his face “Of course not.”

The trees here where much bigger than my tree, they stood very high, and didn’t have any branches till practically the top. Soon we came to a huge root, stretching in both directions.

“How do we get around this one?” asked the rock.

“Easy! I’ll just—“

“Yeah yeah, you’ll just float right over it; but what will I do?” he said

I looked around, and I had an idea.

“What if we build you a ramp?” I said

“Yes! That will work!” he said excitedly

We scavenged around, finding things to build the ramp; but once we got the supplies, we had another obstacle.  I started feeling a bit frail.

 “How will we get it up there though?” asked the rock

“We’ll have to get some help.” I said

We searched for someone kind enough to help, but all we found was a crabby chipmunk, a nasty mouse, and a squirrel that was in a hurry.  We were heading back when we came to something. It looked like a boulder… but it was moving.

“A turtle! We can get help from him!” yelled the rock

“Excuse me? Mr. Turtle?”

He looked at me and smiled “Yes?”

“We are having troubles building a ramp, would you mind helping us?”

“Of course I’ll help you!”

He came back to where we had our supplies, and we soon had it up.  We said our goodbyes to him and were on our way.  After some time, we came to the end of the forest. And in front of was the place we had traveled so far to get to.

“Wow! It’s amazing!” said the rock

“Yes it is, now, for the fun part!” I said smiling.

 “Now what do we do?” he asked

“We go swimming!” I said

“What’s swimming?” said the rock

“it’s very fun, you just jump in, and float!”

“Sounds… a little scary..” said the rock, backing away from the edge.

“Ah well, I’ll just go by myself then” 

“No, I’ll go too.” He said, still not looking sure of himself.

“No no. not if you don’t really want to.” I said

“I’ll go it’ll be fun.”

“Ok then you first.  Just go out on that branch.”  I said trying not to sound suspicious.

He went out onto the branch, waiting for me to tell him when to jump.  Then all the sudden, I got a crack in me that soon turned into a small hole.

“Ready?” I said

“Actually, I don’t think I want to do this anymore.” He said looking over the edge.

I paused.

“Yes, you do.” 

I let go of the branch, and he went flying into the air.                                                                                        

He fell into the water, sinking slowly, fish swam around him sucking him up and spitting him back out.  Seaweed swirled around him, tadpoles sat on him only to swim away moments later.  I took one last look at him, sitting in the bottom of the stream and I thought, he even looked...pretty down there. 

                                                                                                   ~Audrey