The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

If Butterflies Could Talk

Roci yawned. She raised her arms and reached for the skies. Then bent over to touch her toes with hands together, one on top of the other. Left foot first, then right.

"I can't tell if I am sleepy or bored. They feel the same to me.

"How about you? Aren't you tired? I mean, are you part hummingbird? Or what? Maybe you are not a butterfly after all, but are a humming-fly. Or a butter bird. How clever of me to be able to make up such funny names. Not everyone can do that you know. I am actually pretty smart. I can name all of the stages of metamorphosis. I can tell you how you became you. Can you tell me how I became me? I know what they told me at my Bible school but I'll have to examine it more closely when I get older, I think." Roci rambled.

Ota paid no attention.

"You know, Ota. We are not getting any higher up. The creek is right there. How are we going to get back up to the top if we don't start climbing at some point?"

Ota hopped just far enough that Roci could see her perched on a branch but not losing sight of the beautiful creature in the darkness.

"You know. Come to think of it, I might just be out of mind following this stupid bug," Roci said to herself this time. "In my critical thinking class I took earlier this summer in summer school, they taught us to ..." she interrupted her own train of thought, "We learned how to make lists of pros and cons and come to a rational decision on which strategy to follow. I have been doing that in my head. I can do things in my head, you know. I am pretty good at it. Anyway ...I am not going to follow you any more. I am going up the hill, not along this creek anymore."

Roci turned abruptly, grabbed a branch and pulled herself up one big step on the steep side of the creek. She allowed her foot to stand on a tree stump or perhaps a rock stuck in the side of the hill, she couldn't tell. She stood up and reached for another branch a bit higher. The branch broke off, Roci slipped and tumbled back down the side of the hill and landed alongside the creek just managing to not get wet.

"Well, that didn't work. Lemme try again. In my business class we were taught to not give up."

Ota just watched ... a bit mystified perhaps at this silly girl thinking she knew the hills and valleys and the way out in this giant forest better than she did. If, that is, butterflies were thinking animals.

A few more steps alongside the creek, Roci saw a bigger branch protruding from the side of the hill.

"This looks better," she boasted as she reached out once again to pull herself up to the branch. The branch was indeed big, big enough perhaps for her to sit on, which she did while smiling to herself at her accomplishment, hoping secretly that Ota would notice.

"Seriously. Why do I care what a butterfly thinks of me? Yeesh!!"

In order to reach higher, Roci started to stand up on the branch where she was perched. The heel of her left blue sneaker got caught in a fork in the branch and came off! She bent down and to her back to reach for the shoe but instead poked it with her finger dislodging it and sending the sneaker back down the hill.

"No!!!" She screamed.

"Roci!!??" A voice came out of the darkness.

The voice startled Roci but before she could reply she slipped and went tumbling over backwards off the branch and rolled back down the hill, ripping a hole in her favorite pair of jeans and slicing into her leg deep enough to cause a trickle of blood. This time, however, she landed partially in the creek getting muck all over the left arm sleeve of her unicorn hoodie.

"Did that butterfly say something? Or was that .... ?" Before finishing she let out a moan and threw her head backwards unintentionally dipping her ponytail and the back of her head in the creek as well.

Not thinking clearly, she quickly rolled over ... the wrong way ... and found herself lying face down in the creek, drenched from head to toe and only her backside dry.

"Arrrghhhh!!!"

Roci did a modified push up, her knees bent and her arms straight. Her face and torso raised out of the water. Ota landed on a rock nearby but out of the stream. Roci couldn't help but notice.

"Who do you think you are? My mother? Have you come to tell me what I did wrong ...... again. Tell me what I should be doing ....... Again! Tell me to do a real push up instead of a modified one? I can you know. Of course, I can. But the muck ... Oh!! Why am I trying to explain myself to a glorified insect?"

Roci lowered her voice as deep as she could to do her best mom-voice impersonation.

"You'll appreciate what I am telling you when you grow up ...

"You'll be sorry if you don't practice more ...

"You'd better study harder if you want to get a good job, marry the right person, make enough money ... blah, blah, yada, yada, woof woof?"

Roci spun to step out of the creek, slipped again, this time her feet flying out in front of her and causing her to land in the sitting position ... in the creek .... again.

"Okay, Mom, er, Ota. You win. I'll follow you ... for now.

"By the way Ota? Was that you who spo ...?" before she finished saying spoke she realized how stupid her question sounded and stopped.

"But, I know I heard a voice," Roci said to herself. "I know I heard a voice. Which way, mom?" she asked without catching herself this time.

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