Storymakers: Forever Always

Storymakers: Forever Always

By Madison
Seventh Grade
Cascade Preparatory School
Burlington, WA

The sun shone on the waving grass of a wide open field. A flower shyly opened its petals to take its first breath of the fresh morning air. Bees hummed as they went about their untraceable, yet busy, work and a songbird trilled a sweet wordless melody from somewhere nearby. The world smelled fresh and clean, the way it does only in spring.

Romping about in the dew-wet grass was a pair of dirty faced children, filling the air with playful shrieks and squeals of delight. The sun seemed to smile upon the peaceful scene, as a warm breeze gently brushed away the clouds, tossing them into shapes to tease the imagination. The children stopped their play for a moment to watch the cloud figures dance across the sky, panting as they lay on their backs in the spring grass. It was clear to see that one was a girl, and one a boy. The boy put his hands behind his head, sighing in a half content, half sad way.

"Why can't every day be like this?" He asked of his companion. The girl sat up and smiled, flipping her curly red hair out of her face with a flourish that startled a few brightly colored birds from their hiding places.

"If every day were like this," She replied, her voice soft and pleasant, "then days like this wouldn't be nearly as sweet." The boy laughingly agreed and the two fell silent once more, caught up in the beauty of the new world blossoming around them. An inquisitive bird perched on one of the stalks of grass waving above the children's upturned faces. It regarded the two of them closely. The boy had a head of curly brown hair, as dark as the earth it lay on, eyes the color of the grass swaying above him. He had an openness about him, perhaps the way his eyes seemed to smile from his round face. His skin was tanned to a pure unbroken gold, making him look like a little creature of the forest himself.

The girl on the other hand, was very fair. Her creamy complexion was a sight to behold; she fairly shone in the midmorning sunlight. The hair that fell around her face in soft curls was a shocking shade of orange, like the heart of a campfire. She would have had an extraordinarily lovely face, but such a spattering of freckles covered it that they quite obscured the childish, yet distinct features. It looked as if someone had thrown a handful of dirt right at her face. Her eyes were a bright clear blue, although fractured here and there with a sliver of emerald green. They were soulful eyes, full of a dreamer's spirit and a child's faith, combined with an irresistible sweetness. She wore her eyebrows high, as if eager to listen, and her mouth seemed molded into a permanent smile. She looked to be the kind of person with whom to be friends, the kind of person with whom to lie about in the spring grass, watching the dew sparkly like diamonds on the long green blades.

They lay there, gazing up at the few flowers smiling and bobbing their colorful heads down at the odd pair until the wetness that had seeped into their clothes began to make them a little uncomfortable. The boy jumped up and helped the girl to her feet. Without a second thought to their sodden clothes they took off through the tall grass, tripping and laughing as they went. They ran all the way to the place where the sky seemed to bend down to kiss the earth. There stood a small forest. It was as old as time, yet untouched by the countless ages that had passed it by. Thick green moss carpeted the ground and some of the branches of the gently swaying trees, dripping little rivulets of water onto the ferns and bushes below.

Just as the children reached the welcoming shade of the outreaching limbs they stopped. The girl bent down and picked up two worn baskets hidden in the wild flowers where the field met the wood. They set at once to picking berries from the small leafy bushes hidden among the dancing shadows, staining their fingers and putting as many of the purple berries in their mouths as in their baskets. After only a short time the two children threw themselves onto the soft moss carpeting the forest floor with a handful of berries to share. The boy had a smear across his cheek where he had wiped his hand, and both of their lips were stained purple. Completely oblivious of this, the children sat with innocent contentment, sucking the berries with pleasure. Their baskets were full, and that was all that mattered. The boy smiled dreamily at the waving grass, chewing his berries absent mindedly.

"This should be our forever always place." He said in his high solemn voice, arousing himself from some childish fancy, "It will always be here, and we can come here just to be together when the times get rough." The shadows from the whispering trees behind the children played across the girl's face, melting in with the freckles, giving her a magical air. Her bright hair lay spilled across the dark earth, seeming to glow where the sunlight touched it with its ever-shifting fingers. She clutched her full berry basket to her chest.

Storymakers: A Creative Challenge for Young Writers, is a program inviting students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades living in Washington State and British Columbia, Canada, to submit their own original creative writing pieces.