The Gnomes

There is a secret living in my backyard. It's in the big old tree in the middle of Mommy's flower gardens. Mommy doesn't know about the secret. I told Daddy, but he pretends it is something else.
One afternoon the sun was shining with a strange sparkle. Laughing, Mommy and I were playing chase around the huge tree in the middle of the backyard when the phone rang. The ring of the phone in the kitchen came out through the open window over the sink. It had a weird sound to it as well.
"Dhira, be a good girl while Mommy goes in to answer the phone. I won't be long."
"Ok, Mommy. I'll play here by the tree."
I watched Mommy dash across the thick green grass with her bare feet. She skipped every other step up from the grass to the back patio. I blinked and the back door was closing. She disappeared into the house.
That's when I heard a noise from inside the dark hole at the bottom of the oak tree. It wasn't directed at me. I could tell because it came from all around. If it was directed my way, it would have come from one place. I have this extra sense for things like that.
Mommy didn't like it when I climbed through the tangled tree roots that circled one of her favorite gardens, but my curiosity moved my hands and feet carefully between each twisted part. I was drawn to a black hole behind one of the tallest yellow flowers when a wrinkled nose and a pair of old Granpa eyes peeked out from one side of the tree.
"Don't go in there." The voice was musical and sounded like fairies, if I knew what fairies really sounded like.
"Why not? Who are you?" I should have been scared by a strange voice in my backyard, but somehow I knew that I would be safe.
"Would you just walk in to someone else's house without being invited?"
A little man in a black pointed hat and an old blue suit crept out from his hiding place. He didn't have on any shoes and his white beard almost touched the ground. He smelled of wet dirt.
"I'm Teddy Toddy. I live in this tree with my brother. He's over there."
On the other side of the hole another little man appeared out of the shadows. He looked just the same as the first one except his hat was blue and his suit black.
"I'm Toddy Teddy." They looked like the little statues of gnomes that Granma had in her yard.
"You can call me Teddy, and my brother Toddy. Would you like to play?" The old gnomes smiled at me.
"Dhira? Mommy's going to be on the phone for a bit. Will you be okay playing by yourself?" I turned and saw Mommy sticking her head out the kitchen window.
"Mommy, you look silly. I'll be fine. I'm playing with the gnomes."
"Sure, honey. Whatever you say. I'll call you when dinner is ready." Mommy disappeared back through the open window and I turned back to the old gnomes. We laughed and played the rest of the afternoon.
After dinner Mommy let me have milk and cookies in the backyard while the fireflies were out. Giggling amidst the little flying balls of light I twirled my way towards the oak tree. At the edge of the flower garden nearest the tree roots, I left two cookies on a rock. Decorated with ornate spirals, twists, and knots, a little box with a hinged lid sat nestled in the edge of the grass. It was beautiful.
"It's our parcel box. So you can leave us letters and things." Two pairs of eyes twinkled in the dark.
"Oh! Like a mail box, right, Teddy?" I had always liked sending mail to Granma and Granpa.
"Just like a mailbox, Dhira." I could hear the smile in Teddy's voice, even if I couldn't really see him.
"Will you be our friend?" I heard Toddy's voice as a whisper under the sleeping flowers.
"Yes. We'll be the bestest of friends."
"Dhira. It's time for bed." Mommy was standing at the back door in her nightgown.
"I have to go now, but I'll be back tomorrow afternoon to play. Bye, Teddy. Bye, Toddy." I ran off towards the house and didn't catch what they said over a sudden wind. I got a weird feeling in my stomach, but it went away.
I ran to the backdoor and could hear Mommy and Daddy talking. They were talking about the tree. They didn't stop talking so I guessed they hadn't heard me.
"You can't take the tree out. You know its Dhira's favorite place to be right now." Mommy was always looking out for me.
"Honey, you know I don't want to, but it's going to break the foundation out from under the house in twenty to thirty years." From the look on Mommy's face Daddy was doing it again. Mommy had to explain to me one time that he got a bit neurotic about getting things into order before they got too out of order.
"Darling, you are killing me. We may not even be in this house in ten years!" I knew that Mommy could talk him out of whatever scheme he had come up with this time. Mommy was good at pointing out the flaws in Daddy's ideas.
"But, think of the possibilities. A rose garden. A gazebo. A hot tub! Come on, we love this house." Oh, no! Daddy brought the big guns this time. Those were three of Mommy's favorite things.
"Vine trellises?"
"Around the entire back porch, just like you want." I couldn't believe what was happening. Mommy was being sucked in to Daddy's plan. I had to do something; I had to tell Teddy and Toddy.
I ran back to the flat rock by the oak tree. I was already crying.
"Why the tears, child?"
"Teddy, Mommy and Daddy are talking about taking away your tree!" I was terrified. I couldn't let Mommy and Daddy do anything to the tree. My friends lived there.
"Don't worry about that, child. Go back inside and go to sleep. We'll take care of it." Toddy's voice made me sleepy. It hit me real fast and everything went black before I realized what had happened. I fell into a sleep with no dreams.
I woke up in my own bed when my alarm clock went off for school. Mommy must have carried me to my bed because I don't remember leaving the backyard. My memory of yesterday was falling in with the other things I had forgotten. But I didn't want to forget!
I went downstairs for breakfast finding an empty kitchen. Mommy wasn't standing at the stove pushing eggs around in a pan and Daddy wasn't sitting at the table with his nose buried in a newspaper. Something weird was in the air. It made my skin tingle with goose bumps.
Mommy was collapsed at the back door, mumbling about vines. Daddy was standing out on the porch. He was just standing there with his head tilted up to the dark sky.
"Daddy? What's wrong, Daddy? What happened to Mommy?"
"She was surprised about the vine trellis. She's just fainted. She'll be fine."
"What?" I was a little confused. Mommy had always wanted vines that covered the trellis she had built around the patio, so we could eat breakfast outside. She said it would be like a café. Whatever that was.
"Vine trellis." He was looking up into a twisted cross pattern of vines. Crossing in neat curls, vines wormed their way around the trellis skeleton that Mommy built. She must have put up white lights too. The lattice glittered from the lights as if it was covered in fairies. It was magical.
"Wow! What is it, Daddy?" It looked like the designs on the little box the gnomes had left beside the rock.
"Vines, kiddo. Coming right out from under the house. It's amazing. It's like the house is alive. It must be. It must have overheard me and Mommy last night and wants us to stay!" Daddy's words were starting to ring true. I giggled with delight.
"It's the gnomes, Daddy." I knew he wouldn't believe me
"Sure it was, baby. Sure it was." But maybe Daddy did believe me.