Bush Brats

Everyone on of us has been them or seen them. They wake up as early as they can get out of the house and race off toward the woods, about lunchtime they come back covered in dirt and smiles. Once they've fed themselves they head back out to the forest, not to return till supper. Many has been the parents that wonder what their child could possibly find to do and more than one has been told an outrageous tale when they put the question to the child. Everything from warlocks and elves seem to have afflicted the young person in some grand war that you never knew was being fought mere feet from your house. Most stop asking, some don't bother worrying, but what is to be done when a tall tale takes on more reality than the imagination can justify?


Emily cracked her eye open again, 6:55. She turned over to stare at thee ceiling. Just five more minutes, then her mother would have no cause to scold her for getting up at such an unnecessary time. She couldn't help it, if she couldn't sleep. It wasn't her fault that excitement raked every fiber of her being, vibrating her conscience and keeping sleep far from her.
Her reason was the same as it had always been for the last five years; summer vacation.
When her family had moved a few long months ago to a small town from the country, her world had nearly shattered. The swing set had been her savior, the fantasy storied she borrowed from the library her lifeline.
Her parents insisted that she would make frineds, she just had to waite a little. So she waited. Everyday after the kids were let out of school, Emily would sit on the swing in the playground accross the street from her house and watch as they walked down the street or got on the buses. Some times they would come into the field and play ball. That happened less and less often once the snow came. It got better again when the snow left, but many of the children were under oath from their parents not to play in the mud. This produced a problem for the playground since all the equipment was surrounded by sand which, as any grade schooler can tell you, has a tendancy to purduce an excallent quality of mud when mixed with water.
Emily, being homeschooled, had no taste for what it was like to be in the class room surrounded by other children and waiting for the bus in a giant hudle to keep warm in the winter.
She had when living in the country developed a kind of traition when she was done her course work for the semester; she would go out in the forest and oorganise a party for the woodland faeries to attemnd to celebrate her hard work. The girl making a table of a stump with mushrooms for cups and old bird nests for biscutes may have drawn a couple strange looks, but they were always followed by an exclamation of "oh, how cute!" or "what an imagination."
She looked back at the clock and counted down the seconds before it hit 7:oo. Her covers were off in an instant. She straightened her clother, which she had put on when she woke up about a half hour before. She grabbed her comb and made several passes at her hair before opening her door and creeping out to the klitchen. Her father had evidently just emerged as well, though he bore more marks of a person who had just woken up on a holiday.
"Good morning," Emily chimed happily before raiding the bread box and throwing a piece in the toaster.
"School must be over, otherwise I'd never see you bso early in the morning."
She smiled back at her father as she pulled a jar od peanut butter from the cupboard, "I have things to do today."Her father laughed, "I could point something out on that head, but I don't want to spoil your mood. So what do you have to do today, Emi?"
"Well...stuff."
"EWhat kidnd of stuff?"
Emily continued to watch the toasted intenly, "Just stuff, nothing special."
"Of coure, everyone flies out of bed an hour earlier than usual over nothing special."
Emily snatched the toats the momend iot came up and promptly dropped it on the plate before inserting her fingers into her mouth.
Her father took her hand to examine it for burns, "Unfortunatly enthusiasm doesn't curb the laws of thermal dynamics."
She smiled nervously. \He kissed her finger, "please be a little more careful."
Emily nodded and went back to her toast. She took a rough knife full of peanut butter fom the jar and slathered it on her toast. Her next mothin was to incert it into her mouth before turning in the direction of the door.
"Any milk with that?"
Emily turned to the fridge and pulle out the hinted at jug.
"Apples are on the counter in the basket."
Emily downed the glass then reached for the counter.
"Take a coat or hoodie, it's still a bit cool out there this early."
Emily tunred an expression that showed how hard she was trying not to laughto her father.
The sound made by the door as she closed it was the only indication that there had been another person present in the room when her mother entered.
The air was a bit nippy, but such is often that case before eight in the morning on a late May morning. Emily worked to eat the remains of her breakfast as quickly as she could manage as she made her way past the field and playground and headed in the direction of the forest that fenced in the river not a mile from her house.
A dog barked at her and she saw a grasshopper flying away, that was the only sign she had that there was any life aside from herself. Something she didn't mind at all. it didn't take any more than an hour of wandering about before she found a suitable woodland location for her gathering. The stump was provided albeit a bit uneven compared to the ones she'd used before. The larger problem was finding the mushrooms. The country area she had used to likve in was considerably amper than her present location. Despite the fact that the clearing she had selected, after near an hour of searching she had an abundance of pine cones, acorns, and a number of colorful and very probably poisonous berries. The search had yeilded a single mushroom that size taken into consideration was more fit to e a sugar cub that a cup.
Emily laughed, her green elf friends would have to adjust to a new tea set if this was to continue. A couple of chairs being smaller logs she had collected, gave her the evidence that though she was stil short in quantity by one, the pine cones would provide the best service as cups. her renewwed mission first turned up a large pincone that got speedily dubed the teapot and further searching served to suply her further from her designated site. She was welll out of sight before she located a one that she deemed worthy of an elvish tea party. this in turn explaind her surpiisurprise when upon venturreturning she was greeted by thje sight of three young boys and one girl that were moving her set up to a more sheltered area.
"What are you doing?"
The girl in the group gestured toward Emily, "I told you that stuff belonged to someone."
"Put it back."
"Geez, " One of the boys said in a nasal tone, " We weren't breaking anything, we were just moving it so we could practice."