Fake Stars

 Socks are overrated. Shoes, even more so!

This can be testified by the thirteen year old girl with calloused soles who now comes scurrying out of her small brick house and down a small path in the middle of an ivy swallowed trench that is said to be a collapsed tunnel of  a dragon from the olden days when dragons roamed our earth and ate all the figs and spinach nobody wanted. It’s a real shame they moved to Venus…

Jo curled her toes in the soft dirt and flung out her hands, spinning on her heel, she flung her head back and let the sun dance over her face. Cicadas hummed and screeched in the ash canopy and a gentle breeze played with the leaves of the ivy vines. In other words, this was a good day.

A singing starling perched on the old wooden bridge above her watched as the girl spun around one last time and took off down the path, ivy leaves reaching for her ankles as she bounded like a doe with the slopes of it like a sea around her. She was a dragon herself, gliding through her tunnel, with delicate bright, paper wings, claws of bronze, eyes made of candlelight and skin that was embellished with waxy, burgundy scales. Her smile widened as she gazed at the sky, it seemed to be on fire, it must have been her who set it ablaze. The sun was melting to the forest floor and our girl wanted to get there in time to watch it and get a taste of the golden, smoldering sea before the moon took her place and the sun was taken underground to be forged again for the next day. So, flapping her paper wings, she took off and weaved through the trees, over branches, past bird nests, and finally made it to the clearing. But she was too late, the sea of the sun had already been taken away by the elves and was probably being given to the dwarves as she stood there beholding in the glade. Paper chains of green, yellow, orange and red were strung through bushes and low hanging limbs of trees that seemed to be reaching out, asking for whimsical adornments. A couple of the limbs had dropped their paper chains and the girl looked around taking in everything that needed a little fixing, as she did so, she pulled a frog scrunchie out of her satchel and bundled her piles of curls up on top of her head in a heavy bun. Ringlets stuck out from it and fell on her forehead, but she blew them away and plopped her satchel down on the huge stump in the middle of the glade.

Just as Jo settled the last paper chain on its branch, a knock like that of a woodpecker issued from behind a tree on the opposite side of the clearing. She brushed her hands against her vest as she walked over the tree. She walked around it, but there was nothing there. The knock came again, three trees over, and Jo found nothing behind that one either, then, she saw a flash of red two trees over and she dashed to the tree she had seen it go behind, and just as the knock came again, she whipped around the tree. A cry rang out and a boy about the same age as Jo fell to the ground. Jo leaned against the tree and raised an eyebrow at him in mock surprise and scolding. “You really should know better than to try and scare me, Lord Fireball.” She said fiercely as she held out a hand to help him up. The boy looked sheepish for a second, then his striking blue eyes flashed with a mischievous look and he ran a hand through his copper hair, cropped so close to his head that it gave the appearance that his scalp was on fire. 

“I can always try, Dutchess Hops.” He winked and took the Dutchess’ hand and she pulled him to his feet. Hops started walking back to the stump and her friend fell in step next to her, picking bits of moss and twigs off his clothes. A candle sat in the middle of the stump and Fireball pulled out his matches and struck one till it blazed to life. After the wick had caught the spark, Fireball dunked the match in a rusty pot of rainwater that sat next to the stump. 

Hops sat down crosslegged at the other side of the stump and Fireball squatted, at attention.

“What is the matter, Dutchess?” Fireball asked at the heavy grief in the girl’s eyes. Hops looked up and met Fireball’s gaze, her expression was grim. 

“...We don’t have any more stringy cheese.” 

A beat passed between them and then Fireball thumped his fist on the table, “No more stringy cheese? How am I supposed to survive without stringy cheese, Hops?!”  He cried in agony.

Hops opened her mouth to answer him but closed it as Fireball let out a gasp and collapsed on the ground, his body didn’t move a muscle. His eyes gazed without looking at anything and his chest didn’t rise an inch. 

Hops sighed and stood, she walked over to her friend’s evidently lifeless body which twitched when gave him a firm kick in the ribs. “You’re such a drama queen.” She huffed after he still didn’t move, and she dropped a stringy cheese stick on his chest that still had yet to move. Once the cheese landed on him, his eyes fluttered open and his chest rose dramatically. A grin spread over his face and the lines on his cheeks that rose up to his eyes crinkled and his eyes lit up with childlike joy. Hops ignored his energetic thank you’s and responded dryly, “You have serious problems.” 

The boy winked at her again and stripped the plastic off the cheese. Contended, he pretzeled his legs under himself as he gently pulled string after string off and put it in his mouth. 

Hops turned her attention to the dark sky, the moon and stars were blacked out by clouds who were helping them in their game of hide and seek with the earth. So, she moved to the nearest tree, jumping, she grabbed a branch and hung there, she started swinging her legs back and forth under her. Once she was swinging them high enough, she threw one leg up, catching one foot over a branch and then the other. Hooking her legs over that branch, she let go of the last branch and let her body fall in an arch. Twisting her back so that her outstretched hand could catch the next branch and kicking off of the branch she had swung from, she finally pulled herself up onto the third branch. Her bun had come loose while she was swinging upside down and her hair plumed and billowed about her raspberry red face.

“Boy, your hair’s really frizzin’, Hops. Did you let it air dry again?” Fireball called from where he sat on the ground. He’d already finished his cheese stick and was leaning back on his elbows watching his friend’s feats. 

“You know it takes too long to blow dry,” Hops panted as she scrambled up the rest of the way to a wooden box on the side of the tree. She unclipped the clasp on the box and reached in, flipping a switch in the box. In the canopy above her, strings of fairy lights flickered to life.

As Hops jumped to the ground from the lowest branch, a warm honey-glow bathed the glade and she moved over to Fireball, lowering herself into the golden grass next to him. Her hair pooled around her shoulders as she looked over at her best friend with a smile, he grinned back at her, and they both looked up at the sky together, their eyes, so full of wonder and dreams, twinkling with the light of a thousand fake stars.

The End…or, perhaps, it is simply a farewell, until the next time, dear friend.

By: E. E. Huckabee