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Thursday, September 5, 2019

Stephanie's Story

Growth and development?……sounds far too clinical and boring if there's a story to be told! Especially when the story is set in an Enchanted Forest. A little girl named Stephanie told me a story that was far more interesting. 

 Stephanie’s Story

"My little sister, Emily and I were not to go any farther than three giant steps into the forest. Then it was only if we wanted to sit in the shade of the old tree that had stories to tell us. Well, silly, the tree couldn’t talk but if we sat really still and pretended we weren’t watching but we really were watching, we could watch the story. Kind of like watching a TV story and we were in it. The story always started with squirrels. We had watched them on the same day - always Friday - when our mom was busy and she told us to go outside to play. First there would be a big fluffy squirrel with the longest fluffiest curviest tail you ever saw. She - 'cause we figured out it was the mom - would come down the tree. Then she’d stop and look at us! She did so look at us! Then she would come down a little farther and run to the other side of the tree then back up again. Then she started making her chattery squirrel noises and then guess what? There would be one and then two and then three littler squirrels! We watched and watched all summer. The babies got bigger and bigger and bigger until we couldn’t tell which was the mom and which were her babies! And then. There was this owl. When we first saw it he looked kind of scary all hunched up with feathers sticking up like funny ears. It just sat there. Even when the squirrels were running up and down and all around. Sometimes, it would fly up to another branch where there was another owl. They looked like friends ‘cause they kind of snuggled beside each other. It looked like there was a nest and my little sister Emily wanted to climb the tree and see but I wouldn’t let her in case she fell down and we had to tell our mom. Then we heard the big whistle that our mom calls us with so we went home. The End"

“No, No!! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 
& Through the Looking Glass

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I can see them under the tree watching the “story”.

Susan Ward said...

Thank you. I'm always amazed at how little stories come to me, just word by word, from nowhere.