Woggy and Finn spilled out of the box and onto an unfamiliar sidewalk in an unfamiliar town. The street was full of life. People were walking on the sidewalks, storefronts were opening, and cars puttered along the road. It was morning now, which was confusing, but that is the way it happened, and the town was waking up slowly, getting ready for the new day.
Woggy and Finn looked around in wonder at all of the sights of the town. The architecture was amazing here; there were the perfect amount of arcs and just enough texture on every building. There were shiny metal buildings, buildings made of red brick, and some that had painted wood. Many of the buildings were brightly colored and had welcoming signs like Come on in we’re open! and Welcome! in the windows. Some buildings had tall pointy roofs and others were short and stout, and everything felt alive and interesting.
“Is this Land of Land?” asked Finn.
“No,” replied Woggy. “I don’t know where we are.”
“It looks a lot like the Town of Down,” said Finn. “I saw a picture of it in a book once.”
Woggy and Finn took a step, and then another, and soon they were walking down the sidewalk in what they thought was the Town of Down. Their walking carried them to a park. It was the nice kind of park with one big tree, and benches, a swing set, and a big grassy area for playing and running around. The smell of green grass blended with the smell of fresh doughnuts from the nearby bakery.
Of all the fun things that they could have done in that nice park, the two boys decided to sit down to rest. After all, it was almost bedtime when they decided to hop in a box and go off on an adventure, and they were tired. They sat on one of the wooden benches that faced the big grassy area.
Woggy sat and watched the people walking and playing. He was thinking of home and his bed when he noticed a small glow about the size of a large marble flying around in the air in front of him. He reached up his hand and the glow landed in his palm. He closed his hand quickly around the glow and pulled it close to his eye. He opened his fingers, just a bit, and saw a mysterious, bright marble. It looked like beauty and creativity and joy all in one small shining orb.
Unknown to Woggy, a girl sat on a nearby bench, drawing pictures in a book. Suddenly she stopped drawing and looked up. She scanned the sky, and then she turned to see a boy holding a glowing hand to his eye. That boy was, as you have certainly guessed, Woggy.
“Excuse me,” Woggy heard a voice say beside him. “I think you took my Spark.”
Woggy turned his head to see a girl on the next bench looking at him expectantly. He opened his hand, and the glow flew about, happy to be free, and happy to brighten the world once again. It darted over to the girl, ran across her paper, and finally landed on her shoulder, but only for a second. Soon it was dancing about in the sky again.
“What are you drawing?” asked Woggy.
“I’m drawing a horse,” said the girl as she held up her drawing pad. “I think they are beautiful.”
Woggy walked over to get a better look.
“That is really good,” he said with a shining smile.
“Thanks,” said the girl, who was once again drawing.
“What is your name?” asked Woggy.
“Sara,” replied Sara.
“I’m Woggy.”
“What kind of name is Woggy?” asked Sara curiously.
“It is short for Pollywog.”
The girl looked at him, raised her right eyebrow and then gave him an accepting nod.
“I like Woggy better,” she said as she moved her pencil along the page.
“Do you draw a lot?” asked Woggy.
“Yeah, all the time. My mom is always busy, so she buys me paper, and pens, and pencils. I would rather just spend time with her, though.”
Woggy gave an understanding nod to this.
Sara knew that her mom loved her—she just didn’t always feel loved. She did not want more gifts and toys; what Sara truly wanted was to be noticed, and to spend time with her mom. But most days her mom was simply too busy.
Everyday Sara would draw something that she knew her mom liked. She started with pictures of flowers and soon became quite good at it. Then she started drawing houses and beautiful buildings because that is what her mom liked to draw. Now she was practicing drawing horses.
There were several pictures of horses hanging up around her house and Sara remembered her mom telling her of the times that she had ridden horses as a little girl, and how magical it was. Sara had never ridden a horse, but she thought maybe if she could draw one well enough she might be able to connect with her mom.
Woggy turned to see what Finn was doing, but Finn was gone. Woggy looked around, starting to panic. Where was he? Finn was not on the bench, he was not on the grass, and he was not on the swings. How could he have disappeared so fast? Was he back in Land of Sand? Woggy felt alone and lost. He had just made a great friend and now that friend was gone.
“Have you seen my friend?” asked Woggy, worriedly, to Sara. Without looking up, Sara pointed her pencil forward. Woggy looked up, relieved to see Finn walking towards them. And even more relieved to see that Finn had found doughnuts. It had not been long since they had eaten supper, but that was supper, and now it was breakfast time.
Even Sara gave her attention now to the wafting smell of sugar in the air. The three split the two donuts evenly and afterward, they all felt happy and full of energy.
“Is this the Town of Down?” asked Finn with a mouthful of doughnut.
“We just call it Downtown,” said Sara matter-of-factly.
Finn and Woggy nodded at this and told Sara of the adventures that they had had so far. After the doughnuts, they all felt like running. So, they ran. They ran through the park, they played tag, they swung on the swings, and they climbed the one big tree.
Spark –Sara’s glowing marble friend—played with them and shot through the sky curiously. Spark was particularly curious about the balloons that a man was selling. He spun around a big red balloon and his glow shone through.
They even made friends with a brown dog who bounded up to them with a stick as a gift. It was not really a gift for them to keep, just a gift for them to throw so he could chase it and once again offer it back to them. It was a marvelous morning. The three of them were becoming great friends now.
The midday sun pulled its way up to the center of the sky and shone down on the three children running around in the green park. The sun had given life to all of the green things in that park and now it was shining its life down to brighten the day for everyone in Downtown.
The children ran and played, and then ran some more, trying to catch their breath. They finally caught it, and then they laid down in the grass watching the clouds float along in the sunny, blue sky.
Finn’s stomach alerted him that it was once again time for food. “I’m hungry,” voiced Finn, interpreting the growls of his belly.
“I know where we can get some good food,” said Sara.
They all hopped up and followed Sara to a small restaurant called “Eat Here.” Under the sign was an arrow pointing to the door. When they walked in Woggy and Finn both noticed the pictures decorating the walls. Pictures of beautiful flowers, and buildings, and even a couple of pictures of horses. They did not know that they had just walked in with the artist of those pictures.
They sat down at a table and a friendly woman came up to the table. The friendly woman was friends with Sara’s mom, and she was practically an aunt to Sara. She simply loved the girl, and took time to notice Sara and the things that Sara cared about. That was part of the reason Sara’s art covered the walls of the restaurant. That, and the fact that Sara was a very talented artist. The friendly woman had big brown eyes and a welcoming smile. “Hello, my little friend,” she said.
“Hey Mara!” said Sara. “These are my friends Woggy and Finn. We have been playing in the park. We are hungry!”
“Well, any friend of Sara’s is a friend of mine. You boys order whatever you want, and I will put it on Sara’s tab,” she said with a wink and a smile.
They ate a feast. A feast of tacos, chips and dips, and burritos. The food was magical, it was full of wonderful flavors, and it brought happy memories of home to Woggy’s mind. The happy memories flashed through his mind and gave him warm feelings, but the memories themselves did not linger. There was too much delicious food to eat to focus on anything but the moment.
Woggy ate a big burrito smothered in queso, Sara got something called a fajita, which sizzled and smelled amazing, and Finn ordered the taco-doodle-doos, which were very cleverly named chicken tacos. Their growling stomachs soon settled down to take a nap, and they sat back in the booth, relaxed.
“When are you guys going home?” asked Sara. “I wish you could just stay here.”
“I don’t know,” answered Woggy. “We should probably go home soon.”
“But how do we get home?” asked Finn.
“I don’t know.”
“If you walked down a one-way street to get to Land of Sand, and then flipped a box to get here, maybe you just need to disobey another sign to get back,” said Sara. “What about going out that emergency exit door when there is no emergency?”
This was really a terrible idea, because as everyone knows -well, almost everyone- emergency exit doors make a terrible screaming noise when they are opened, and this immediately turns what was not an emergency into an emergency. Also, you will get into a lot of trouble if you open an ‘emergency exit’ door without an emergency.
But they did not know this, and for some unknown reason the loud screaming speaker had decided not to come into work that day, so when they opened the door, there was no sound, and thus no emergency. The doorway opened up, not to the Town of Down, but to somewhere different, somewhere that smelled green.
Immediately, Spark dashed through the open door.
“Spark!” shouted Sara as she ran after him without thinking.
The boys looked at each other, and then chased after Spark and Sara into the unknown. They launched through the door and nearly tripped on each other in the middle of a forest of trees.