They were surrounded by trees, a forest of them. The door that they came through was gone, and they spun around looking at all of the trees that stretched up into the sky. Sticks and leaves carpeted the ground. Some of the trees were giants that loomed over them, and others were just starting life as they poked up from the ground. It was the time of year between seasons when the summer’s green leaves still clothed most of the trees, but a few trees had moved on to wear yellow and fiery red.
“Oh, how beautiful!” Sara exclaimed.
They took in all of the colors. The reds and browns; greens and yellows in all the various hues and tones. Sara was right—it was beautiful.
Suddenly a voice spoke to them. “What are you doing, trespassing in my forest?”
They looked around, trying to see where the voice had come from. They had been uneasy stepping into this forest where everything was new and exciting and now all three of them felt scared. They all moved in a little closer to each other.
“You will not find me, but I will find you.” The voice was coming from a big, branchy, oak tree.
“Is that tree talking?” asked Sara.
“Yeah, I think so,” answered Woggy in a whisper.
“We mean no harm to you, oh Big Oak! We are lost. We do not want to harm you or your forest!” shouted Finn boldly.
“Wha-, I am not a Big Oak, I am in the tree,” said the tree.
But the voice was right, it was not coming from the tree. Well, it was, but the tree was not the one talking. It was a girl, and she quickly scampered down out of the tree.
“I am Rob, the thief of thieves. Most people think that my name is short for Robin, but it’s really short for Robber!” proclaimed the girl.
She was freckle-faced and had feathery hair the color of a robin’s chest. She was small but had a fierceness in her eyes that made her seem larger. She eyed the group with curiosity. Rob had a serious mouth with a hint of humor glinting on her left cheek.
“Are you going to rob us? I don’t think we have any money. I do have a book in my backpack,” said Woggy nervously.
“No, I am not going to rob you. I am a hero! I take from the rich and give to the poor!”
“Oh! Like Robin Hood?”
“Yeah, kind of. I am wanted by the law!” said Rob as she pulled out a rolled piece of paper and unrolled it with a flourish. The paper said: WATNED! ROB THE THIEF OF THIEVES!
“So, you rob from thieves?” asked Finn.
“I thought you couldn’t read,” said Woggy questioningly. Finn just shrugged.
“Yes! I rob the thieves. I take back the money the king has taken from the people, and I give it back to them.”
“Why does it say WATNED instead of WANTED?” asked Sara.
Rob quickly grabbed back the paper and looked embarrassed.
“Did you make that poster?” Sara asked.
“No! The King did. Well… maybe. OK, fine, I made the poster,” confessed Rob, looking much less intimidating than she had a few moments ago. “I have been so bored. I have been here all day on my own.”
“Why are you here alone? How did you get here?” asked Woggy.
“I don’t know. One minute I was at the Moo-seum, and the next thing I knew I was here, alone.”
“I think it’s pronounced museum,” said Sara knowingly.
“No, it was the Moo-seum, the cow museum. You know, cows, and beef, and milk, and ice cream, and moo.” Rob mimicked the sound a cow makes to perfection.
“I love ice cream! Do you have any?” asked Finn.
Rob looked up at Finn and shook her head.
“How did you get here?” asked Woggy.
“Well, I was looking at cow stuff, and then I saw a sign that said, ‘Ice Cream,’ so I started walking over to it when a big group of people walked by and pushed me out the back door. And then poof! I was here in this forest, alone.”
As ridiculous as it sounds, Rob was telling the truth. She had been there for a good part of the day. She was, however, only telling part of the story but, in her defense, every story is only part of the story. This is another part of the story:
Several days ago, Rob’s mom had lost her job, and her dad was still looking for a job. He was a teacher and none of the schools were hiring until the next school year. The family had all moved to a new town because of her mom’s new job. They were just settling down when the company Rob’s mom worked for went out of business.
Her parents were very stressed about everything when a big man, whose name was Mr. King, came by the house to ask for his monthly money. He got really angry, and his face turned as red as a tomato when Rob’s dad told him that they were not going to have the money to pay rent. He wanted his money and if he did not get it then they were going to have to live somewhere else, possibly on the street. Mr. King did not do charity cases. Rob hoped she would never see Mr. King again.
After the red-faced man left, Rob heard her parents talking about what they were going to do. They sounded really sad and worried. Rob grabbed her jar of money and jingled over to her dad. “Does this help?” she asked, holding the jar out to him. He gave her a loving smile, told her not to worry and that everything would be just fine, and then he gave her a big hug.
A few days went by, and then her aunt came to pick her up for a day trip to the new Moo-seum. And then Rob backed into a door and ended up in a forest all alone.
She had been bored and felt so helpless and alone in the forest. She wished that she could do something to help her parents out, and spent much of her time in the forest imagining that she was taking money back from the mean King who had stolen from his people. She dreamed of being able to help and stopping all the complicated, bad things in life. In her mind, the mean, tomato-faced Mr. King was the villain, and she could stop him by climbing trees and swinging her stick around like a sword.
Now I know what you might be thinking: Rob was just being silly and childish. That is just the way the world works—people have to pay for things to have them. But I think that her feelings were a good thing. What she was feeling was the difference between how the world is and how it should be. Too often the world is a place that is full of greed and selfishness. What the world should be is a place where people help each other when they are in need.
After telling everyone about how she had backed into an emergency door and ended up in the forest, the other children all nodded in understanding. They told Rob how they had gotten there through an emergency exit door, too, and everything made perfect sense to everyone. Everything, except how they would get home.
Since they did not know how to get home, they spent the whole afternoon playing. They discovered that the forest of trees was on an island. It was not a big island; the four children had explored the whole coast in about an hour. They climbed all the trees and pretended to rob the King so they could give the money back to the people. They sword fought with sticks. They even built an amazing fort out of the branches that were lying around. Spark flew about playing tag with the dragonflies. He left a glowing trail behind him as he zigged and zagged through the branches.
Finn and Rob quickly found that they wanted to do a lot of the same things. They were both brave and energetic. They had foot races and tree-climbing races, and soon a friendly competition developed between them. Finn was a faster runner, but just barely. And Rob was a faster tree-climber, and she was a lot faster. Finn was a gracious loser, though, and he took time to listen when Rob gave him pointers on how to climb better.
She taught him how to test the branches a little before trusting them with all of his weight, and how to use the knots on the tree as foot holds. Finn, for his part, was a good student and soon he was almost as good at climbing trees as Rob was.
“We don’t have many trees in Land of Sand,” admitted Finn.
“We have a lot of trees around my house,” said Rob. “I climb them all the time. What do you do for fun in Land of Sand?”
“Mostly I go fishing and swimming,” said Finn.
“I don’t know how to swim,” said Rob.
Finn’s eyes got big, and then he smiled. What better place to learn how to swim than on an island?
“I’ll teach you!” Finn said excitedly.
They ran down to the water and Finn told Rob to start by walking in slowly to get comfortable with the water. Finn dove in and Rob watched the way he moved in the water—it seemed so natural.
Rob walked deeper and deeper until she was up to her shoulders, and then she pushed her shoulders forward and let her feet leave the firm ground. She sank like a rock. But Rob was tenacious, and she tried again and again. Each time she sank, but each time she moved a little more fluidly.
“Just pretend you are part of the water,” said Finn, “and scoop your hands a little more.”
Rob tried and tried, and then she swam. Soon she was swimming like a fish, well a fish that had arms and needed to breath air. Her movements became more and more natural with every stroke. Finn was a proud teacher, and Rob was happy that her hard work had paid off.
Woggy and Sara watched them from the shore, smiling at the laughter of Finn and Rob splashing in the water. Sara and Woggy were finding that they had similar interests, too. The main interest that they had in common was that they both loved creating. Sara created art and Woggy created inventions.
The sandy beach was soon a foundation for a magnificent sandcastle. Together Woggy and Sara found the perfect ratio of water to sand to keep the castle from collapsing. They made the castle tall, with a big wall on the outside, and they even dug a moat around the wall and filled it with water.
Their imaginations went wild with different ideas and stories about their little, but impressive sandcastle.
Finn and Rob ran up the beach, out of breath and still laughing. “That looks so cool!” said Finn, pointing to the sandcastle, and soon Finn and Rob were helping to build it, and they all talked and laughed and were completely covered in sand.
Together they finished the sandcastle and looked at it with admiration and pride, and then they all ran to the water to wash off the sand. They swam for a bit and then rested in the sand, looking out over the water, thinking about how great the day was, and wondering what to do next.
They were all feeling a little tired, and a lot hungry. And those are both feelings that make one think of home. Thinking of home made them wonder how they were going to get home.
Finn was the first to put their wondering thoughts into words by asking, “How are we going to get home?”
“I don’t know,” said Sara.
“We could swim out into the water, and maybe the mainland is not too far,” said Rob, who had just learned to swim, but was quite confident in her abilities.
“I think it's too far to swim,” said Woggy. “We need a boat or something.”
So, the four children explored again, searching for some sort of boat, but there was no boat. There was no way to get home. They were stuck on the island. There was no way to get off. Or was there?
Should they risk it and swim out into the water, or try to find some other way off the island? Should they build something to help them safely escape the Island of Forest of Trees? What do you think they should do?