Aliens, Critters, and Dinosaurs

The Snowdrops

A girl's trip to pick up a hamburger for her brother turns into an adventure.

The Snowdrops

I was eating a piece of apple pie, walking along the side of the road when I almost stepped on some snowdrops, blooming as if it were spring. What a goose I would have been if I’d mashed them, I said to myself, as I peered down.

“What are doing?” asked a dog, panting as if it were the middle of August.

His big, clumsy paws were just about to crush the snowdrops. I yelled, “Stop!”

The dog woofed at me in surprise. That attracted a passing pigeon, which swooped down to inspect our actions. “Did you find something to eat?” it questioned.

“Wha … wha …t’s going on?” I stuttered.

“She found some flowers,” the dog told the pigeon.

“Meow,” said an old tabby, springing for the bird’s tail.

“Stop that!” demanded the pigeon, slapping the cat with its tail feathers.

“Meow,” the cat replied and sat down to lick her dignity back.

I sat down, too. I was feeling faint. The dog rested on his haunches, the cat licked her whiskers, and the pigeon stared at me. I tossed the bird a bite of apple pie, which it gobbled right up.

“Arf,” said the dog. So I tossed him a bite, too.

It must be the heat, I thought to myself as I frantically fanned my face.

“That’s very discourteous, you know,” said the cat, pointing her nose into the air.

That did it. I dropped the apple pie and checked my forehead for fever.

“I don’t eat such things, but it is only common courtesy to offer me a bite, you know,” the cat said, staring at me with huge, green eyes.

“Animals don’t talk,” I said. “I’m imagining this.”

“I’ve never been someone’s imagination before. Does it hurt?” asked the pigeon.

“Woof, woof, woof,” said the dog, laughing.

I thought it was very rude when the cat joined in. I suppose the pigeon would have laughed at me, too, but it was busy pecking at my fallen pie.

“Ok. Maybe it's something I ate. Maybe, I’m coming down with food poisoning,” I said out loud, still fanning my forehead.

“Maybe you just have humanitus,” said the dog with another series of woofs.

The cat thought that was so funny, she rolled on the ground, laughing. I noticed she rolled herself in the direction of the pigeon. I started to warn the bird, but it pecked one more time at the pie and then flitted up to the stop sign where it perched, glaring down at the cat.

“All right. I know this is crazy. Animals can’t talk, and I’m imagining all this, but tell me anyway. What is humanitus?” I asked.

“Really, and you people are supposed to be so smart,” said the cat with a dainty yawn.

She sat up to give herself a leisurely bath. She started with her paws, soaking them until they were damp sponges. Then she mopped her whiskers, face, and chin. Of course, that required several remoistenings as she completed her cleaning routine, but I had to admit, she seemed quite skilled and meticulous.

The dog, taking advantage of the pigeon’s escape to safety, meanwhile finished up the remnants of pie. Then he sat down to lick his chops, slathering slightly as he eyed the bag I was carrying with my brother's lunch.

“I’d better get going,” I said, slapping the foot that had ungraciously decided to fall asleep while I was sitting on it.

“Aren’t you going to take those snow flowers?” asked the dog.

“Snowdrops,” I corrected him without thinking about the fact that I was once again having a conversation with an animal.

“Are they edible?” the dog asked, dripping saliva down into the center of the delicate, little white flowers.

“No,” I cried out. “Back away from them. Don’t you know how rare it is to see snowdrops in the wintertime?”

The pigeon swooped down to take another peek. “They look just like flowers to me,” it said before it soared up out of the cat’s reach.

The cat was flapping her tail forcefully against the sidewalk. The stripe made her tail look like an angry snake, writhing in the dust.

“Christy! What are you doing?”

I turned to greet Shannon, one of the girls from my dance team. We traded self-insults about our outfits and hair, spent a moment discussing our last practice, and then she quizzed me about what I’d been doing on the corner for the last five minutes.

I showed Shannon the snowdrops. She didn’t seem overly impressed, but she did make a big deal over the "cute" dog and cat. (Of course, I left it up to them as to whether they’d speak to her or not. I sure wasn’t volunteering anything about talking animals.)

The cat purred, and the dog licked Shannon’s face. The pigeon, perched atop the stop sign, didn’t say a word, not even in Pigeon, so I shrugged my shoulders and went on my way.

My brother was grumpy because it had taken me so long to get back to the house. He had to take a handful of fries, a huge bite of burger – which, of course, meant about half of it – and gulp down the chocolate milkshake before he got around to thanking me.

But before I’d reached the front door, he’d finished eating. He tossed me the garbage and called out, “Hey, anything happening downtown?”

I started to mention the snowdrops, but my brother wouldn’t have been interested, so I just shook my head, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Ah, you know Madison. Nothing ever happens here.”

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