TGLBH continues

I apologize for posting this abbreviated installment of The Great Lady Bug Hunt. It is not as long as I had hoped to post and I am not making excuses, the fact is that I have had two migraines since last I posted here and they have a tendency to stifle the creative process. It is my hope that writing the story will serve as a form of happy therapy and help to get me over the last of the depression, time will tell.

I am certain the entire story will see many revisions before I am satisfied with it, though it had been my hope not to post anything until I was sure it would hold water. This installment has I think, a few leaks but it is all that I produced last week and I feel obligated to post something. Perhaps next week will be better. Without further ado…

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Before Boomer had a chance to say anything, his Uncle Bill’s head popped through the car door and he reached down, pulling Oscar off his chest. “Sorry about that,” he said to Boomer.

“It’s okay,” Boomer, grinned. He shot out of the car like a rocket (that is how he got his name you know, he runs so fast he’s like a sonic boom) grabbing his cousins sticky fingers as he went and they tore around the side of the garage. This was what he had waited almost a whole year for, Aunt Hattie’s garden! That is to say, a bird house that hangs in Aunt Hattie’s garden. He could hear his great Aunt Hattie and Aunt Amy at the front of the house exclaiming, “Scott! Jessie! You’re finally here, just when we were beginning to worry.” The further back into the garden they went the louder the chatter from the birds became and the softer the voices of the adults until at last it was only Boomer, Oscar and the friends they had made last year.

The most wonderful thing about Aunt Hattie’s garden is that it is unlike any other garden anywhere else in the world. It is a wild and untamed place with large grassy areas that are mowed and large islands of wild grasses and trees and bushes left there for the birds and animals for food and shelter. There are only a few small flower gardens and even they have been encouraged to go wild to a small degree. One flower garden came to be because a tree fell down and Aunt Hattie could not move the bigger pieces of wood so she made what she calls a stump garden. Now there are plants that happily grow and cling to the fallen wood. Near the back of the proper yard, just outside of the woods in one of the wild areas, there are three large spruce trees and Boomer and Oscar made a beeline for them.

They were both laughing as they ran around to the back side of the trees. They ran up to the one in the middle and disappeared. At least that is what you would have thought if you had been peering out of the woods watching them. They had discovered the secret of the trees last year when they were helping one of their friends, the Great Lady. and you will soon meet her. For now, Boomer and Oscar were glad to be back and they needed to be sure everything was as it should be before they went to visit any of their friends. The first of which would of course be the Great Lady.

Once inside, under the heavy branches of the spruce trees it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the shadowy light. It was cool and the air was moist, it smelled like Christmas trees and the ground was spongy soft with deep layers of pine needles. They threw themselves down onto the carpet of pine needles drawing in deep breaths of pine scented air and… was that… oh no a skunk! They sat up and crab walked to the tree trunk warily eyeing a skunk that sat just inches from where they were laying. They looked at each other and Oscar, gulped, and said in a dry, cracked voice, “Is that you Brutus?”

The skunk blinked a couple of times, twitched its tail, made a noise that sounded something like clearing its throat, blinked again and started laughing. He laughed so hard that his bushy tail shot straight up in the air, and he had a small accident that changed the look of surprise on the cousins’ faces to one of alarm and they quickly covered their noses. The skunk fell onto the bed of pine needles and rolled over onto his back, kicking his legs and laughing harder still. When at last he could speak, he said in a stuffy nose sounding voice, “Oh… I wish you could see your faces! Of course, it’s me, what other skunk would volunteer to wait for you in the daylight?”

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And there it is, warts and all. Thanks for taking the time to stop by. I have another visit to The Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday; perhaps my doctor there can get my brain back in working order. I have every faith that she will.

There is always hope.