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

Sometimes Hate Is Greater Than Love

Aimi loved school. She loved to read. Books were her best friend both when she had nothing to do and had everything to do. Even though she was young, she was 'old school.' "The movie wasn't as good as the book," she often said the same way her dad said and her grandparents might have said.

"I wonder if they even had movies when my dad was a kid?" she wondered to herself with an audible chuckle.

Aimi loved libraries and bookstores and apps that gave her access to online libraries with 10s of thousands, or 100s of thousands of books. She loved to read fantasy and fanfiction. History was her favorite subject. And she loved words and exploring different idioms to try to express herself more clearly.

As much as Aimi loved words on pages or electronic devices, and to be sure she loved words more than ice cream or boba tea, she hated, despised, abhorred, was repulsed by .... Bugs, insects, invertebrates. She had no interest in Marvel comic superheroes ... especially Spiderman.

Yet, here she was following several groups of beetles in flying and swimming formation, to "God knows where" she said to herself, "To do God knows what."

Aimi rubbed one arm, then the other to try to smooth out the goose bumps she got from being with the insects. She was also cold. She wasn't sure which gave her goosebumps, the bugs or the drop in temperature, but she blamed the beetles out of principle.

Aimi felt herself going uphill though the incline was very slight. She verified the fact by watching the stream, now on her left, run in the opposite direction that she was headed. The stream ran quietly at times, then rushed a bit over rocks or pieces of a tree limb that protruded from the water. Her mind drifted to times she had gone white water rafting. She bent over and picked up a small broken twig and tossed in the water above the small rapids. Then imagined it was a small boat and she was riding its nose. Aimi saw something wooden that was certainly not a tree. The pieces were too smooth and the angles were too square. She could barely make out what it was.

She approached the pieces. "Gosh. They look like parts of a ..., but it can't be, but they look like they could be parts of a ....," she paused for a bit, "a chair?

"That could be a leg of a chair. And that could be a leg, too. Those could be cross pieces that hold the base together. But there are only two legs. And each is taller, or longer than I am tall. If it were a chair it had to be a pretty big one!" Aimi pondered. "How can these pieces be part of a chair? And if they are, how did, um, what are they doing way out here? And who sits in a chair that has a seat this high off the ground? Gives a different meaning to 'high chair,' she smirked.

There was a perfectly square section of chair that had four pieces of wood of equal length weaved together with straw. That is, if the straw had still been there. There was a hole in the square. Aimi determined this piece was the seat but the seat had been worn out. About 10 feet away she saw what might have been the back of the chair. She couldn't quite be sure because this piece was barely visible in the darkness around her and the only illumination she had came from via the moonbeams on her path. None of the beams were directly on any of the pieces of the broken chair.

In her head Aimi put the pieces of the broken chair together.

"Those legs are as tall as me. That seat is as wide as my outstretched arms. The back is taller than I am. If someone were to actually use this as a chair. They would have to be a ...." she stopped talking out loud.

Aimi finished her thoughts in a whisper, " ... they would have to be a giant."

Lime and cherry formations stopped moving forward and buzzed in place to each side. The naval fleet leading the way in the creek in front of her paused as well and swam in place.

"If they think I am a giant," Aimi sad looking at her new friends, "I wonder what they think of someone, er, something big enough to sit in this broken hunk of furniture."

"I wish my dad were here. He'd know what to think and do. But if it weren't for him, I wouldn't even be in this predicament. Well maybe I would. It was my idea to come to camp. Or was it his? How did I let him talk me into it? Why did I agree? Aarrggh!! What do I do when I get all these conflicting thoughts like this?" Aimi rambled on and on.

"Can any of you guys tell me?"

The two formations resumed flying in the pointed direction of the 'V' formed by the flotilla in the creek.

As the ground began to level off Aimi found herself and her military armada leaving the dense forest they had just come through. They came to the edge of an open field.

The fleet of beetles that had guided Aimi crawled up the incline on the creekside leaving behind the same sort of tracks that Aimi saw in the sand. The ground was harder and the tracks weren't as deep. But they didn't was away either. The beetles encircled Aimi creating a protective shield. Aimi didn't realize at first that the beetle groups were working together to protect her.

"Thank you guys! Daddy says, 'Sometimes we don't realize we have been shown a kindness until it's too late to show appreciation.' Let me be sure to say 'Thank you' for saving my life. I don't know how you did it. And I guess it doesn't really matter. I am grateful to be here to just wonder how. Thanks!"

"Still I am curious as to how you did it," she finished in a voice just above a whisper.

The flying formations landed, one on a large boulder a bit smaller than Aimi was tall, and to her right. The other formation landed on the ground just outside the circle.

Aimi scanned the field quickly to the left, then right then with an involuntary-like jolt her eyes were drawn back to the near middle. What she saw there in the middle of the field caused the beetles to cease all movement and for her to freeze in her tracks.