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KIDS' DAY

Copyright 1998 Deborah Greenspan

Excerpt from Chapter 2:

"Some camping trip," Diana muttered as she trudged along the path. She kicked a rock, but only succeeded in hurting her toe.  Jumping up and down, she held onto it for a moment.  "Ow!  Ow!  Ow!"

A small clearing opened up in the woods ahead of her and she limped toward it.  The woods were dark and moist, and smelled of soil and growing things.  When Diana stepped out into the clearing it felt like a different world.  A giant tree in the center of the meadow was outlined by the late afternoon sun, alive with golden highlights and dancing shadows, and the warm breeze carried the scent of flowers. 

The tree was the largest Diana had ever seen.  Its trunk was so big around that you could fit a small car inside it.  She wondered if anyone had ever thought of making it into a house, and when a door opened in the trunk she was only a little bit surprised. 

An old woman peeked out of the door and smiled at Diana.  She was a sweet looking old woman, a beautiful old woman, a woman who had been gorgeous when she was young, and who now retained that former glory as a kind of light that came from inside.  Oh sure, her skin was all wrinkled and her hair was white, but her wrinkles all seemed to smile and her hair...well, it was almost as if she was lit from within with a bright light that could not be contained.  Whatever didn't seep out through her skin exploded out in her hair.

"Hello," the woman said.

"Hi. I'm Diana."

"Hello, Diana.  Would you like to come inside?"

Diana knew she wasn't supposed to go into strangers' homes, or strange homes, or whatever, but she had to see the inside of that treehouse!

The old woman stepped back inside and walked to the far wall leaving the door open.  Diana looked in for just a moment and then followed her.  The round room was all carved out of wood, with a wooden table carved from the floor, and shelves carved into the walls.  It was a beautiful room, a living room, and Diana was delighted just to sit in one of the little chairs around the table.  It was comfortable and warm.  She sighed contentedly.

The old woman took two dainty white cups off wooden hooks on the far wall, and set them on a small wooden tray.  Diana watched as she poured tea from a delicate little porcelain pot.  Walking across the boards so lightly she almost seemed to float, the old woman set the tray on the table and sat across from Diana.  Handing the young girl a cup of tea, she sipped quietly at her own.

"I really just need directions back to the lake," Diana said.  "I'm not sure how I got here, but I know I've never seen this meadow before, so I must be lost."

"Well, it seems to me that we can always find our way back by remembering how we got where we are," the old woman replied.

"I'm not really sure how I got here.  I was so mad.  I was walking down the path, thinking about my parents, how we're supposed to be on vacation, and I ended up here."

"So they broke their promises, did they?"

Diana sighed.  "They never want to do anything but work.  And that's all they want me to do too.  Why do people have to work so hard?  I don't ever want to grow up if it means that all I can ever do is work.  I wish they could just have fun!"

The old woman's tinkling little laugh rang through the room.  "Do you know what kind of tea this is?" she asked.

Diana had no idea.  The tea was sweet.  It tasted like baby's breath and summer rain. 

"It's made of gardenias picked by the light of the full moon, and maidenhair grown under a trickling waterfall.  Goldenseal and mallow root steeped in water from a pure spring that has been boiled around a pearl of great price add just the spice to make it nice."

Diana didn't know what to say to this, so she just nodded, gazing into her cup.  Then she turned her head toward the old woman's fading laughter and saw that she was alone.  She jumped up.  The treehouse had disappeared. What was going on?  Where had she gone?  The table was no longer there and the chair Diana had been sitting on was not a chair at all.  It was just a large rock.  The teacup in her hand lingered for just a moment, then dissolved into the air.  The old woman's voice echoed across the empty meadow.

"Maybe tomorrow will be a better day," the voice said.

Spooked, Diana started running back the way she had come.  When she got back to the cabin, she was so relieved.  For just a moment, she had lost everything--her mother, her father, her brothers--and knowing they weren't lost simply took her breath away.  Spotting Bobby coming around the bend in the path, she raced toward him and threw her arms around him.  "Oh Bobby!"

"What? What's the matter, Cat?"

She liked his name for her and she tried to live up to it, so she shook off the trembly feeling in her belly and smiled.  "Nothing.  I'm just glad to see you."  Bobby didn't look satisfied, but Mom called from inside the cabin.

It was time to go home, and inside the cabin, Mom and Dad were busy packing up their stuff.  "Diana, where have you been?" Dad asked when she came through the door.

"Oh Daddy, you just wouldn't believe it.  I met this beautiful old woman and…"

"Not now, kitten.  Go and get your things together."

In the car on the ride home, no one was interested in the old woman.  Eric thought her story was a real hoot.  Bobby was dreaming about Samantha, who he would probably never see again, and Teddy didn't think it was a very exciting story.  "Can't you make it more interstin', Diana?  Put some bankrobbers in it, or somethin'."  Finally, Diana gave up trying to tell them what had happened and watched the road outside the window.

Her daydreaming was interrupted by the sounds of snickers from Teddy and Eric.  Both of them were nudging each other and trying hard not to laugh, so she knew something was funny, and it was probably her.  "What are you two goons laughing about?" she asked.

That broke them up, and they were soon laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.  Diana looked around herself.  Was there something on her shirt, her face, in her hair?  Her hair?  She started feeling around on her head, and Eric started choking, so she knew she was getting close.  Oh boy, was she going to get even with him!  "What is it?" she yelled.  And then she knew.  Her finger touched it--a squiggly, slimy, squirmy worm!  She screamed and jumped so high that she hit her head on the ceiling of the van.

Then everyone was screaming.  Mommy told Daddy to pull over, and they stopped the van on the side of the road.  Diana got out and jumped around, trying to get the worm off her, and the boys were told to search the seats of the van.  Daddy scolded the boys and told them they were in big trouble.  Mommy searched through Diana's hair.  Finally, Daddy found the poor worm under Diana's seat, and threw it into the grass on the side of the road.

Back in the car, Diana made a point of not speaking to her brothers.  She leaned her head against the seat, trying not the think of squirmy worms in her hair, and thought instead about the old woman and her living room inside the tree.  She drifted off to sleep, and woke as soon as they stopped the van in front of the house. 

No one carried her inside this time.  "Put your things away before you go to sleep," her mother, the eternal neatnik warned, but she was too tired.  As she drifted to sleep on the pillow of her own comfortable bed, she thought she sniffed the faint scent of flowers and heard the tinkle of the old woman's laughter.  Then again, it might have been a dream.