Amy's very odd walk

One hot summer day Amy was walking down the dirt road near her house. She was kicking at pebbles and wishing something interesting would happen for a change. Mom had told her to go find an adventure, but she didn’t think she was very good at that. Close at her heals was her ever present companion, Fred the cat.

As they rounded a bend in the road a noise off to the side attracted Fred’s attention. He was normally a very good cat. He almost always walked behind Amy and rarely ran off. This is the only reason mom would let him out of the house, because he always stayed close and safe. He was a cat however, and being a cat was naturally a little bit curious.

Fred went closer to a little break in the bush at the side of the road and Amy called to him “Fred, what are you doing? Come over here.”

Fred was not being distracted from his interest in the sound, he was determined to find out what was causing it. Amy decided to walk over and see what was so interesting and try and get him to come back to their walk. As she got closer she started to hear what sounded like very quiet sobs.

Suddenly, Fred ran off going right through the center of a thick est part of the woods. He was heading right for whatever it was that was crying, and Amy had to follow him. As she ran she called, “Fred! Fred stop! Come back here cat!.” It did not do any good though, Fred did not even slow down.

Amy tried to keep up, but the trees and shrubs were very close together. The gaps were big enough for a cat, but not for a little girl. She started falling behind and eventually lost sight of him all together. It took her a few minutes but eventually she burst out of the woods into a circular clearing in the trees. She came to s top just as quickly as she had burst through the trees and just stared in shock. On the far side of the clearing she saw a very strange sight. Fred was crouched over a very strange and very little man.

The little man was dressed in ripped up old fashioned looking clothing. Amy had seen clothes like this before, but not since she and her parents had visited a pioneer village. He looked like he had stepped out of a picture from her great grandmother’s mantle and promptly fallen down and gotten messy. He was also wearing a long skinny hat, the kind that a soldier might have worn a long time ago. It was black with bright yellow trim and now only partially on his head. His greyish green cheeks had tear streaks through patches of mud. Fred was looming over him, keeping him pinned to the ground. His entire body was just a little bit bigger then Fred’s head. His yellow eyes looked up at Fred with a mix of awe and terror.

“Please sir” he squeaked “please, I did not mean to disturb you. I meant no harm.” Fred lowered his head down to him and with a nudge of his head, knocked the little man back into the tree. The man tried to get up, but Fred kept rubbing his head against the tiny man.

“Help! Please, he is going to eat me!”

Fred started to purr and tried to flop onto the tiny man’s lap. Amy finally got there in time to see that his hat had been knocked from his head exposing a disheveled bit of brown hair on top of a near bald head. The little man looked up at Amy and said fearfully, “Please miss giant, please don’t fall down too. I am afraid that his weight is already more then I can bear.”

“Fred, get off him” Amy exclaimed. She went over and nudged him off. Fred reluctantly moved, but sat close enough to the little man that his purr must have been very loud indeed. “Are you all right?” Amy asked the little man, who was now dusting himself off and getting to his feet. “I am sorry if Fred scared you, he was just trying to help I think. Were you the one who was crying?”

As if that reminded the little man of his woes, he started wailing again, “Oh my home is gone! I will never see my family again!” He cried. “Oh, Miss giant! Just step on me now and end my suffering for I will never be happy again!” With that he flopped onto a comfortable looking toadstool.

“There, there,” said Amy, reaching down to pat the little man on his very bony shoulder. “Is there anything I can do?” Even Fred looked very concerned and tried to nose the little man but only ended up flipping him over again.

“Please ask your servant to stop throwing me for a start” the little man sniffed.

Amy looked surprised. “Fred isn’t my servant, he’s my cat” Amy giggled. “Don’t you have cats where you are from? He is my pet” Amy explained

The man looked skeptical. “He is bigger then any pet I have ever seen, but then a lot of this land is strange to me” and as though that reminded him of how upset he was to be here, he started sobbing again.

After a few minutes he loudly blew his nose, causing Fred to jump and hiss a little, and looked like he was trying to put on a happier face.

“Kind giantess” He sniffled, “Might I humbly beg your assistance?”

“Um, do you mean ask for my help?” Said Amy, looking very confused indeed.

“Yes, of course my lady, will you please help?” He dropped dramatically at her feet., “Please! You are my only hope!” His yellowy eyes looked so sad that she could not help but feel sorry for him.

“”I will do what I can, but how can I help?”

“Well, you see that big rock over there?” he asked, pointing at what looked like a small hill at the edge of the circle that had a big log in front of it. “That is where the door is to my house, and if I don’t uncover it and go back before the sun goes down I will be trapped in the giant world forever.”

“How did you get here in the first place?” asked Amy, looking at the very large log and then at the very small man. “Did you squeeze through a crack?”

“No, I came through to find some delicious berries” he explained, pointing at a pile of bright red berries off to one side “and I was a little tired after eat... I mean picking so many of them. I decided to curl up under that bush over there” he said, pointing to a low cedar bush on the far side of the clearing “and nap for a little while.”

“As I was in the middle of my snooze I heard a loud, awful buzzing! Two giants like you were using some magic device to cut through that tree over there. When it fell it completely covered my way home.” He sniffed, like this part of the story was particularly painful. “They took some of the tree, but they left the very part I needed them to move. They were talking about coming back for it tomorrow but that will be too late for me to go home!”

And with that he lost the happy face he was trying to put on and crumpled into a dirty, frumpy, little grey ragged heap again.

Amy just wanted to help him. “There, there” she comforted him, patting his little back gently. “I will help you.” And with that she walked over to the fallen tree.

It was only part of a tree, but to her nine year old eyes it looked huge. She knew by the long shadows the sun was casting it would be dark soon so she did not dare go back home for help. She thought about the problem, walking around the tree.

First she tried pushing it. Fred even did his best to help. It was no good.

Then she tried rolling it. Nope, it held firm.

She tugged and pulled and even kicked it, but all she managed to do was bruise her foot.

She was just about to give up when she saw a long branch. Remembering something her parents had said about using a lever to move something that is too big for you to move alone she grabbed it and hauled it over to the log.

Using a little rock to lean the branch against, she put it under the log and crossed her fingers.

“I hope this works” she said.

“Meow” added Fred hopefully.

“Please” said the little man,

And with that Amy pushed down on the branch with all her strength.

At first it seemed that nothing was going to happen. Then, slowly, it started to shake a bit. Then it started to wiggle. Finally, just when Amy thought she was going to fall down from how hard it was, the log jumped and rolled away from the hill. In it’s place was a hill, much like any other hill, that had what appeared to be a tiny rabbit hole near the bottom.

Amy collapsed from the effort, but was grinning from ear to ear. “I did it” she muttered proudly to herself.

The little man ran over to her and grabbed two of her fingers, pumping them up and down enthusiastically. “Thank you miss giant, thank you indeed! I, Blargnarf the brave will never forget your help!”

“Amy” she said. “My name is Amy.”

“Well then Lady Amy, I am forever in your debt.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little stone disk. “Should you ever need my help, just come to the circle and call for me while touching the disk. I will come if I can, and I will never forget your kindness.” Amy took the little stone and then he jumped into the hole. There was a brief flash of light, and then the world went back to normal.

With that Amy and Fred started back home. As she was walking up the driveway Amy was still trying to decide if it had all been her imagination. Still, somehow she knew that this was not the end of her adventures with Blargnarf,. In fact she was pretty sure it was just the beginning.