Cloud Rider

For Camilla, who is never anything but. Except when she’s a tiger or a dragon.

CHAPTER ONE: WHERE THE CUPS WENT.

         Ona lived on the top of a small hill in Utah. She was only three years old, though her mother would often say that Ona wasn’t ‘only’ anything. She was always ‘very much so’.
         To Ona, the hill she lived on was very tall, indeed. It was a long way down, even by car. And a longer way up.
         On very cloudy days, the clouds would agree -– since they’d come and visit, settling themselves at the bottom of the steps at Ona’s front door.
         It was a beautiful sight, looking out the front window and seeing the white and gray-edged quilt (with brown and green patches where the ground showed through) that expanded from the front door to the horizon. Ona’s Mom and Dad would sit on the stoop and stare out into the distance for what seemed, to Ona, to be hours and hours and hours.
          Nothing seemed more boring to Ona.
          "Mom?" Ona would ask. "Can we play a game?"
          "Not right now," Mom would reply, distracted by the expanse of clouds. "Maybe in a little while?"
          "Dad?" asked Ona. "Can you read me a story?"
          "Another one?" Dad would reply. "We just finished three of them." This was often true. Three was the correct number of stories to Ona. "I’ll read more later," he would finish, also distracted by the clouds.
          So Ona would grab a large spill-proof cup of juice (one of the many her Mom would leave ready in the fridge), and oftentimes a granola bar. Then she would walk out the back door, find a small, but friendly, cloud, and go for a ride.

         The most curious thing to Ona wasn’t that she could ride clouds, but that her Mom and Dad would rather stare at the clouds instead of ride them.
         Like most three year olds, Ona had two assumptions: the first was that she was the most wonderful child in the world and the second was that if she could do something then everyone else could. If you told Ona that these two assumptions were contradictory she would simply say, "Now, you’re being silly!"
         At first Ona couldn’t control where the cloud went and was often afraid it wouldn’t take her back home. But it always did.
         Once she could drive the clouds, she would often float them over to a nearby hill and reach down and pick flowers or just look around while she ate her granola bar. She wasn’t able to do much until she ate her granola bar because she needed both hands. If she put the granola bar down onto the cloud
it would fall through. The lost granola bars were not so bad since she could go home and get another one, but the lost cups often caused her Mom to scold her.
         "I don’t know where you could possibly misplace so many cups," her Mom would say. And then there’d be no cups for a few days and that made Ona sad. So she was very careful with cups.

CHAPTER TWO: WHERE THE FROGS WENT.

         One day Ona brought two small frogs with her on the cloud. But when she put them down, they, too, disappeared. She searched for them in the folds of the cloud – which was like trying to find the rubber ducky in a bath tub with too many bubbles – but after awhile she forgot what she was looking for and started steering the cloud towards a hill covered with very many bright and enticing blue flowers.
         On the news that night was a story of a woman who swore that it rained frogs on her lawn party. She held up two frogs as proof.
         Ona smiled. "I’m glad they’re okay", she said.
         Her Mom hugged her. "You’re a very compassionate little girl," her Mom told her. Ona didn’t know what ‘compassionate’ meant, but she enjoyed the hug. Then she frowned at her Mom, declaring with a pout, "I’m a big little girl!"
         Her Mom hugged her again. "You certainly are," she agreed.
         Ona was content.

         One day at preschool the class was learning about clouds. Miss Green, the teacher, told the class that clouds were water vapor, which she explained is rain before it falls to the ground.
         Ona nodded. That explained why her butt was always a little wet after she returned, but not so wet that her Mom thought she had peed her pants.
         One of the other children in the class asked if you could walk on clouds.
         The teacher said, "No."
         Ona said, "Yes". Everyone in the class looked at Ona. She continued, "But once they start moving you need to sit down or you might fall off."
         Miss Green laughed, but none of the children thought Ona was joking.
         "Really?" asked another child.
         "Really," said Ona.
          "Not really," said the teacher. The teacher smiled at Ona, but Ona returned the smile with a pout. Miss Green added, sweetly, "But it would be fun if it were true."
         "It is fun," said Ona to herself.
         Later, during ‘open works’, Michael B. came over to Ona and asked, "Have you ridden on clouds?"
         "Yes", said Ona.
         "Next time, can I come?" asked Michael B.
         "Yes", said Ona. And then, trying to sound like a grown-up, she added, "That would be nice."

         The next cloudy day, Ona told her Mom, "I must invite Michael B. over today."
         "Oh, you must, must you?" teased her Mom with a twinkle in her eye.
         "I promised", declared Ona earnestly.
         "Then you must", agreed her Mom and they called Michael B.’s Mom who drove Michael B. over after lunch.
         The two Moms sat on the stoop drinking grown-up drinks and admiring the clouds.
         Ona and Michael B. went out the back door to ride the clouds.

CHAPTER THREE: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS.

         Michael B. looked at the carpet of clouds that stretched in front of him like cotton
balls tightly packed on a green carpet. He looked up and saw that there was another layer of clouds, a grayer level, above the carpet layer. He looked at Ona, unsure what he was supposed to do.
         "First," said Ona using her ‘explaining’ voice, "we need to find a friendly cloud to make sure we get back."
         Michael B. was nervous. "Do they go up very far?"
         "Nope", said Ona, "the clouds always go straight." Then she pointed at a gap in the clouds to the forest far below. "But the ground goes down."
         This only made Michael B. more nervous.
         "It’s easy," said Ona. "Just step onto the cloud", and she did this as she spoke. "Then sit down." She did. "Then lean forward." Ona leaned forward slightly and the cloud moved away from the side of the hill. It stopped just a few feet away. Ona yelled, overly loud for the short distance she was away, "Lean back to stop and go back!" Her cloud came back to the hill, right in front of Michael B.
         Michael B. said quickly, "I’ll ride with you." He touched the side of Ona’s cloud and was surprised to find that it felt like a pillow. A slightly damp pillow like after you’ve been crying on it. He slowly crawled up the edge and held onto Ona tightly.
         Ona asked casually, "Do you want some juice or a g’anola bar?"
         Michael B. just shook his head, too afraid to talk. He managed two words: "go"
and "slow."
         Ona was nonchalant. "That’s all clouds go," she said.
         "Lean forward," Ona commanded and Michael B. leaned a very small bit forward. The cloud moved away from the edge of the hill. Michael B. looked back at the hill, half wanting to go back and half pleased that he was brave enough not to ask to go back.
         "We’re going to that hill," said Ona, pointing to one of the many hills that poked through the cloud cover. Michael B. noticed a large patch of empty sky between them and the other hill. He was uncertain this was a very good idea.
         Most of the clouds were moving the same direction as they were, but their cloud was going slightly faster. It moved directly through some, bumped others aside and went around still others, depending on if Ona leaned to one side or not.
         "See, it’s easy," said Ona.
         Michael B. agreed, nodding, but he did not loosen his grip on Ona.
         Halfway across, their cloud moved out from the crowd of clouds and into the open
space. Michael B. tried not to look down but failed.
         "It’s very f-f-far down," he stammered. "What if we f-fall?"
         "Clouds don’t fall," explained Ona. It wasn’t quite what Michael B. meant, but he
was too afraid to ask again.
         To Michael B.’s relief, they made it to the other hill and he quickly jumped off.
         "Get back on, silly," said Ona. "If you want to pick flowers, just reach down and grab
them." She demonstrated by pulling up a big, yellow dandelion.
         Ona sang, "Momma had a baby but its head popped off!" She tried to snap off the dandelion top with one hand but couldn’t manage it, so she ripped it off with the other hand and threw it to the ground. She noticed her fingers were now yellow. She tried to rub off the yellow, but got it all over her palm and her other hand.
         "Look!" she said excitedly, "I’m yellow!" She put up her hands, palm forward, to show them to Michael B., but Michael B. was gone! Ona was mad. He wasn’t supposed to play on the hill.
         "Michael B.!" she yelled. "Michael B.!" He was nowhere to be seen. Finally, she saw him sitting in the tall grass, a little ways down the hill. Ona was afraid to step off the cloud to go get him since there didn’t seem to be any other friendly clouds next to this hill. There were many other clouds, but they were all dark and angry looking. She looked up and saw that the top layer of clouds had moved closer and in some places was touching the lower level, like when you pull Silly Putty apart.
         "Michael B.! You better hurry!" she yelled. "It’s going to storm!"

CHAPTER FOUR: LIGHTNING STRIKES.

         But Michael B. refused to get on the cloud. He turned away from Ona, folded his
arms against his chest and shook his head.
         The first drops of rain started to fall.
         "Hurry," yelled Ona again, uncertain of what she should do. She couldn’t get off this cloud, all the others looked worse than angry; they looked mean. She steered the cloud in front of Michael B. Since she couldn’t get the cloud to go any lower, she was hovering right above his head. Even from that height, Ona could tell that Michael B. was crying. "Don’t cry," said Ona softly. "It’ll be okay. We just-"
         "I’m not crying!" snapped Michael B. He didn’t want to cry in front of a little girl. He was supposed to be the brave one. "It’s the rain," he said. "It dripped down my eyes is all." He drew lines from his eyes to his cheeks with his fingers, to demonstrate.
         Ona wanted to argue, but she didn’t think there was time. Her Mom and Dad would be very mad if she were out in the rain. She was trying to think of a way to get Michael B. back on the cloud when-
         "Craa-ack!" Both children looked in the direction of the noise and caught the last glow from the lightning. It came down right between the hill they were on and the hill where Ona’s house sat, barely visible now though the taffy-strings that pulled the two layers of clouds together.
         The rain, as if in response to the lightning, started coming down harder and colder.
         "This is bad!" said Ona. Then she used her ‘serious’ voice. "Michael B. We have to go. Right. Now."
         Michael B. got on his feet. He looked up at Ona. He looked across to Ona’s house,
which seemed an impossible journey through the pillars of black and gray clouds and
sheets of rain. At first he started to turn away and cross his arms again, but then he stopped. He turned back and said, boldly, "Let me just wipe the tea-, the rain from my face and then we can go." But his resolve cracked a little as he started walking the few steps up the hill to be on level with Ona’s cloud. "Will we be okay?" he asked.
         Ona was not so sure. She had ridden clouds in the rain a few times, but it was a light rain and she had never seen the clouds look so angry before. And the lightning was very scary. She looked down at her cloud. It
was a friendly cloud and she knew that a friendly cloud wouldn’t let them get hurt. "Yes," she said, "we’ll be okay." And she believed it.
         Michael B. climbed up behind Ona, grabbing on to her tightly and closing his eyes. "Hurry," he said softly. "I’m not afraid to go really fast."
         Even scared, Ona could not stop from explaining once again, "Clouds don’t go fast."
         She looked left and right and saw that the storm was all around them. She looked straight forward and could just barely see her house. Ona started driving the cloud directly towards it.
         "Craa-ack!" This time they saw the lightning fork its way down from the top layer of clouds, streak through the now thin empty area between the two layers, and shoot through the bottom layer. Where it went, Ona did not know. She hoped the tea party lady had brought the frogs inside, where they’d be safe.
         Ona was scared and she started to cry. Michael B. felt her body shake as she sobbed. It was his turn to be strong.
         "Let’s go up!" he yelled over the roar of the storm.
         Ona yelled back, now angry with Michael B. "Clouds don’t go up!"
         Michael B. pointed to their left. In order to point, he had to remove one of the arms that clutched to Ona. It took some courage, but he did it.
         Ona looked in the direction that Michael B.’s finger was pointing and saw that he was right. There was a line of small clouds, all of which looked friendly, that was slowly moving upwards, as if they had found a cloud escalator. Ona steered her cloud towards them. If Ona and Michael B. were good at anything, it was getting in a line. As soon as they got behind the other clouds and saw that another cloud got in line behind
them, they felt comforted.
         Ona said, "This must be where the friendly clouds go when there is a storm." No sooner had she said this, than their cloud started moving upwards. The trip was rapid, but not too fast and not at all bumpy.
         "Clouds do go up," muttered. Michael B. softly. He was happy to be right.
         They looked up and saw a hole in the now black and crackling upper layer of clouds. They watched as the small, friendly clouds in front of them popped through the hole. Soon it was their turn and – pop! – they hopped
through.
         "Yay!" they both yelled as they realized they were above the storm and felt the warming rays of the sun on their cold, wet clothes and skin. Ona turned around and hugged Michael B.

CHAPTER FIVE: LIGHTNING STRIKES AGAIN.

         They floated with the other friendly clouds just a few feet above the upper layer. The upper layer -– dark gray, rumbling, and with lightning running through it like fish running through an overly stocked pond – looked especially menacing from above. They were glad they were above it.
         Ona said, "Sit down" to Michael B. who did not realize he had stood up. He sat own quickly and they both leaned forward to make the cloud move as fast as it could. Off in the distance they saw the very tip of a hill, which they hoped was the correct one. Ona had never seen it from above before.
         The very top of Ona’s hill was actually a rock that was as tall as Ona but about as wide as their kitchen table. Ona and her Dad would climb to the top of the hill every Sunday. She and their dog Fooey (named after the horse in one of Ona’s favorite stories) would play on the rock as her Dad sat with his back against the rock, drinking his coffee and reading the Sunday paper. Every now and then Ona’s Dad would wake up and say, "I wasn’t sleeping. I was just resting my eyes for a bit." It always made Ona laugh.
         Ona knew she was at the right hill, when she saw the rock. Only the very tip jutted out past the clouds, but it was enough. Ona stopped the cloud just above the rock. Looking down, she saw that it was about five feet below them.
         Michael B. was feeling brave, but he knew danger when he saw it. "I am not going
to jump off onto that rock!" he declared. "We’ll crack our skulls open like pumpkins." He imagined the seeds spilling out of his broken head, just as he always did when his mother gave the same warning.
         Ona pushed at him gently, saying, "Don’t be a silly. We’re going to jump onto the
clouds right next to the rock."
         Michael B. considered this. "Will they hold us? Will it hurt? They look ‘lectric."
         Ona wasn’t sure. The clouds below her, more like one huge cloud than many clouds, did look ‘lectric. They also looked very, very angry.
         Michael B. asked, "Why don’t we stay here for a bit? It’s nice up here."
         Ona looked up at the bright sun. She turned her now only slightly yellow palms upwards and felt the sun’s warmth on them. "It is nice up here," she agreed. "But we must get down. Anyway, it’s time for you to go home." Ona was tired from the adventure and wanted to cuddle with her Mom, alone. She felt bad about wanting Michael B. to go home, but she did. Though it had only been ten minutes since the first drops of rain fell, it felt to Ona as if it had been hours and hours.
         "We are going to jump," said Ona. There was a whitish, fluffy spot a little to the right, so she drove the cloud over to it. Still, it would be a very brave jump, even braver than jumping off the edge of the swimming pool. And her Dad was not there to catch her.
         All of a sudden, they heard a huge rumble and the clouds below them began to roll upwards and downwards, like waves on an ocean. And then a bright blast of light and the loudest "Cra-aa-aa-rack!" yet. As if scared, their friendly cloud tipped on its side. Ona and Michael B. fell off!

CHAPTER SIX: BACK ON THE HILL THE HARD WAY.

         Down they went, right onto the white puffy spot below them. Instead of holding them up, the cloud pushed them side to side, shaking them like Ona’s dog shakes a towel, and then dropped them onto the now muddy hill.
          "Ouch!" said Ona.
          "Good!" said Michael B. who was very happy to be back on at least somewhat firm ground.
         They expected it to be pouring rain, but it was barely drizzling.
         Ona and Michael B. stood up, the tops of their heads touching the very bottom of the clouds. Ona ducked, not wanting her head to touch the bad clouds. Michael B., suddenly curious, poked his hands through the cloud
layer. This was very brave, indeed, since the clouds seemed to be full of ‘lectricity.
         Water from the cloud poured down his arm and soaked his shirt. "Yuck!" said Michael B. "Miss Green was right about the clouds," he said. Then, catching Ona’s angry look, added, "Except she was wrong about riding them."
         It was a long walk from the top of the hill to Ona’s house. Maybe not long for adults, but for two little wet and tired children, it was far enough. It took them almost five whole minutes and by the time they arrived they were very happy to be home.
         As soon as they walked in the back door, Ona yelled, "Mom! Michael B. needs to go home now!" Instead of being insulted, Michael B. nodded in agreement.
         The two Moms came running towards the back door, each quickly grabbing their own child up in her arms. "There you are, my sweetie," both Mom’s said at once. And also at once, they both exclaimed, "You’re soaked through to the skin!"
         Ona’s Mom asked, "Where have you been?"
         Michael B.’s Mom repeated the
question, "Yes, where have you been? I was– we were worried sick!"
         Michael B. looked at Ona, wondering if she was going to tell or if he should. But Ona
didn’t think this was so important. What was important is that she was wet and cold.
         "I’m wet and cold," she told her Mom.
         "I’m wet and cold, too," Michael B. told his Mom.
         The Moms started talking quickly about which of Ona’s dry clothes Michael B.
could wear and where the hot chocolate was and who should make it. Ona thought it was odd that they called him ‘Michael’ and not ‘Michael B.’ She wondered how they knew which Michael they were talking about, since there were three Michael’s at her school and another one at her sitter’s. But she didn’t have time to ask, since she was quickly whisked away from the back door and into her room to be changed.
         Soon enough, Ona and Michael B. were sitting in dry clothes, their heads wrapped in towels, their hands holding mugs of hot chocolate.
         They were told to wait until the ice cube melted in their hot chocolates before they could drink it, and asked to repeat that fact aloud, so they both sat there watching their ice cubes melt. Ona kept checking Michael B’s ice cube to see if his was melting faster, though she was unsure if this was a good or bad thing. Michael B was staring into his cup, lost in thought.
         Ona’s Mom broke the silence. "Kids?" she said to get their attention. They looked up to see her holding a large, clear bag of small, puffy, white objects. "Do either of you want some marshmallows?" she asked.
         "Oh no! No, thanks!" both children quickly replied.

THE END.

Visit http://www.stuartstories.com/stories/ona.html for a PDF version of this story with pictures ... or go to stuartstories.com for lots more stories and writing activities for children.