Same Time Tomorrow

A story about friendship, adventure, and the magic of a meadow. (With and w/out similes)

Same Time Tomorrow

(With similes ~2900 words)

***

         Grace liked waiting.
         Most grown-ups didn't understand that.
         They always seemed to think waiting was the empty space before something important happened. Waiting in line. Waiting for dinner. Waiting for Christmas morning, when the dark outside the windows felt different from ordinary dark.
         They hurried through waiting as if it were something to survive.
         Grace knew better.
         Waiting was where adventures began.

***

         She had been coming to the meadow for as long as she could remember.
         Not every day. Only once in a while.
         The meadow was always there when she arrived, exactly as she had left it. The same wide sky. The same grass that rose above her head in great swaying columns. The same winding paths that curved between flowers as thick as ancient trees.
         She had never needed a map.
         The meadow didn't require one.
         She knew this place the way she knew her own bedroom, without thinking, without looking, simply by being there.

***

         That was why she climbed the biggest mushroom every time.
         It stood at the center of the meadow like a lighthouse, its broad redcap spotted with little white specks that were the size of Grace's hand. The stem was smooth and pale. She had climbed it so many times that she knew exactly where to put her feet, here, then here, then a little sideways where the stem curved and she could reach the top.
         From up there, she could see nearly everything.
         The blades of grass below swayed like tall green trees in the wind. Dewdrops clung to their tips, each one a tiny world of sky and color that trembled and caught the light and almost but never quite let go. A network of paths wove through the grass in every direction, each one an invitation to adventure. Somewhere to the east, or what felt like east, a cluster of purple flowers rose high enough that their petals brushed the passing clouds.
         Grace looked upward.
         A breeze moved across the cap of the mushroom, soft and unhurried.
         She closed her eyes.
         It smelled like warm sunshine. She wasn't sure sunshine had a smell, but if it did, this would be it.
         She sat cross-legged and folded her hands in her lap and let herself be still.

***

         Far below, a ladybug lumbered between the roots of the grass.
         It was very nearly the size of a puppy, its shell so glossy and red that it looked like something that ought to be sitting on a shelf instead of climbing over pebbles. Grace watched it heave itself over a stone that was taller than she was. It paused at the top considering the landscape on the other side.
         Grace waved.
         The ladybug didn't wave back.
         Ladybugs were usually very busy.
         A bee floated past overhead, moving like someone who knew exactly where they were going. It was enormous and warm-looking, its body so thick with pollen that it seemed miraculous it could fly at all. Grace could feel the hum of its wings in her chest like a very small drumbeat. It circled once around the mushroom, maybe curious, maybe just being polite. Then drifted away into a field of tiny blue flowers that reached nearly to her shoulders when she stood.
         "I wonder where you're going," she said quietly.
         Probably somewhere important.
         Bees always looked important.

***

         She lay back on the smooth cap of the mushroom and watched the clouds.
         They moved in no particular hurry, drifting across the blue the way thoughts drifted when you weren't trying to think anything. One cloud looked like a turtle, its head stretched out as if looking at something interesting. A third was trying to be a rabbit, though it kept changing its mind about the ears.
         Clouds changed their minds a lot.
         Grace didn't mind. She changed her mind about things too.
         She was watching a cloud that couldn't seem to decide between being a fish or a shoe when she heard it faint at first.
         A laugh.
         Carried on the wind like something it had found and decided to share.
         Grace sat up so quickly she nearly slipped. She caught herself with both hands and scrambled to the edge of the mushroom cap, leaning forward.
         Two small hands appeared over the edge.
         Then a round face, slightly out of breath.
         Then a pair of small brown ears.
         "There you are," Grace said.
         Her friend pulled himself up and over the edge and collapsed onto the mushroom cap, breathing hard and grinning at the sky.
         "I had to go the long way," he said. "There was a beetle who needed help."
         "What kind of help?"
         He sat up and dusted imaginary dirt from his knees, which he always did after climbing anything. "He was on his back. You know how they get." He demonstrated briefly with his arms, waving them helplessly in the air. "Couldn't flip himself over."
         "Did you help him?"
         "Of course."
         "What did he do?"
         Her friend thought about this. "He walked away very quickly in the other direction. I think he was embarrassed."
         Grace laughed.
         Her friend smiled as though this explained everything.
         It probably did.

***

         He walked to the edge beside her and looked out across the meadow, and for a moment they simply stood together in the way that people who know each other very well can stand in the same silence without it feeling empty.
         "It looks different today," he said.
         Grace tilted her head.
         It did.
         The dandelions had opened.
         There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, scattered across the far end of the meadow. The yellow flowers were gone. In their place were soft white puffballs that looked as if they were waiting for the wind. They swayed together in the breeze, all leaning the same way, like they were listening to a secret.
         "I've never seen so many," she said.
         "Neither have I," her friend said.
         They watched for a while. The seeds trembled at the tips of their stalks, each one straining very slightly upward, waiting for exactly the right wind.
         "What do you think they're waiting for?" her friend asked.
         Grace studied them carefully. The way they tilted. The way the seeds shivered but didn't quite let go.
         "I think," she said, "they're waiting for someone to say goodbye."
         Her friend looked at her.
         "I've never thought about that."
         "If you're going to fly away," Grace said reasonably, "it seems polite to say goodbye first."
         Her friend considered this for a long moment. He had the very good quality of thinking about things instead of just answering them.
         "Then we should go," he said finally. "So we can say goodbye to them."
         Grace smiled.
         "That's exactly what I was thinking."

***

         She slid off the mushroom first, landing in the soft moss below. The moss was cool and springy, like landing on something that was glad to catch you.
         Her friend jumped after her, landed sideways, steadied himself.
         They set off into the grass.

***

         The meadow was different at grass level.
         Up on the mushroom, it spread out in every direction like a picture you could point. Down here, it was a world unto itself. The grass rose on all sides in great green columns, their blades overlapping overhead in patterns of light and shadow that shifted as the wind moved. The ground was soft and sweet, threaded through with tiny clovers and smaller flowers that had no names Grace knew, though she thought they probably deserved one.
         They walked along one of the familiar paths toward the stream, toward the dandelion field.
         "Hear that?" her friend said.
         Grace listened.
         Water.
         Not far. A bright, busy sound, the kind water made when it was moving quickly over small stones and finding it very entertaining.
         "The stream," she said.
         "It sounds higher than last time."
         "Maybe it rained somewhere." She paused. "Somewhere that isn't here."
         "Can it rain somewhere that isn't here?"
         Grace thought about it. "I think weather can do anything it wants. It doesn't ask permission."
         Her friend nodded, satisfied with this, and they followed the sound around the curve of the path until the grass thinned and the stream appeared.

***

         It wasn't very wide, no wider than a garden path, but it was much too wide to jump across. The water sparkled as it hurried over little rocks. Grace could see clear to the bottom where smooth pebbles rested in all different colors. A tiny water bug skated across the top without sinking, and something small and silver darted between the rocks before she could get a good look at it.
         "I wonder what that was," she whispered.
         The stream had no bridge.
         It never did.
         That was part of it.
         "We could go around," her friend offered, in the tone of someone who did not really want to go around.
         Grace was already studying the grass on the near bank. A single blade arched across the water, bowing down on the other side in a long, graceful curve, its tip resting in the muddy bank like it had been placed there on purpose.
         "We could go across," she said.
         Her friend peered at the blade of grass. "It's very bendy."
         "That's why it works." She stepped onto it carefully, arms out for balance.
         The blade of grass bent under her feet.
         Grace held out her arms and took another careful step. The stream gurgled below her, close enough to make her toes curl.
         "Don't look down," she whispered. She looked anyway. The water sparkled around the rocks, hurrying past beneath her feet.
         One more step. Then another. She hopped onto the other side and grinned. Turned around.
         Her friend was already on the grass blade, moving more cautiously, arms very wide, expression very focused.
         The grass dipped lower for him. The water touched his feet.
         He made a nervous sound.
         "Keep moving," Grace said.
         He kept moving. He stepped onto the bank beside her, looked down at his damp feet, and then looked up with a grin saying wet feet had been worth it.
         "We could do that again," he said.
         "After," Grace said. "We have dandelions to tell goodbye to."

***

         They found the snail shell first.
         It sat at the edge of the grass, half-hidden by a fold of clover. The opening was easily wide enough for both of them to step through side by side.
         Grace stepped inside and looked up.
         Inside, the shell curled upward like a giant staircase that never seemed to end. Light peeked through a little hole at the top, making the walls glow softly. They were smooth beneath Grace's fingers and smelled like damp dirt after a rain.
         "It's bigger inside," she said.
         "It's like a castle," her friend said, turning slowly in the center.
         "Or a lighthouse," Grace said, looking up.
         "Can it be both?"
         "I think so." She ran a hand along the wall. The surface was cool and slightly ridged under her fingers. "I think it used to belong to someone very old. Someone who had seen a lot of mornings."
         Her friend was quiet for a moment, which was what he did when he was thinking seriously about something.
         "Do you think they're sad it's empty now?" he asked.
         Grace considered. "I think," she said, "that old things are glad when someone comes to visit. Even for a little while."
         He nodded. "Then we should stay for a minute."
         So they did.
         They sat in the center of the snail shell and listened to the wind finding its way around the opening, and the distant sound of the stream, and farther away still, something that might have been the hum of the bees.
         It was a very good kind of quiet.

***

         The dandelion field was everything Grace had hoped it would be.
         She stood at the edge of it and forgot, for a moment, to say anything at all.
         Up close, the dandelions were even prettier than they had looked from the mushroom. Every yellow flower had turned into a soft white puffball. They filled the meadow, bobbing gently in the breeze. Grace wanted to blow on every single one.
         She reached out and cupped one in both hands, very carefully, without touching it.
         She could feel the air move through her fingers.
         "Ready?" her friend said quietly, coming to stand beside her.
         She nodded.
         She brought her cupped hands close to her mouth and breathed, very gently.
         The seeds let go.
         She blew as gently as she could.
         At first, nothing happened.
         Then one tiny seed floated away.
         Another followed.
         Soon they were all dancing in the breeze, drifting higher and higher until Grace couldn't tell where the dandelion ended and the sky began.
         Grace watched until she couldn't see them anymore.
         "Goodbye," she said.
         Not to the seeds exactly.
         To the going.
         Her friend said nothing. He knew that sometimes words didn't need saying.

***

         They stayed in the field for a long time after that, moving between the stalks, saying goodbye to the ones that were ready and leaving the ones that weren't. It felt important not to rush it. Some seeds needed more time. Some places needed a longer goodbye.
         The sunshine was changing. It wasn't as bright as before. Everything around them glowed warm and golden, and Grace knew the day was getting late.
         Grace's friend was lying on his back in the grass, watching the sky through the thin curtain of dandelion stalks.
         "I think I could stay here forever," he said.
         Grace lay back beside him.
         The sky was still blue, but it wasn't the bright morning blue anymore. It had turned softer, and the sunshine was warm on Grace's face.
         "You say that every time," she told him.
         "I mean it every time."
         "I know," she said. "Me too."
         A cloud that looked very much like a whale drifted past, slow pulling a smaller cloud behind it maybe its baby.
         Or possibly a hat.
         It was hard to say.

***

         She sat up.
         The dandelion field was quieter now. The seeds that had been ready had gone. The stalks that remained held their last few patiently, not rushing.
         Her friend sat up beside her.
         They looked at each other.
         "Not yet," he said. He wasn't asking. He knew the answer.
         "Not yet," she agreed. "But almost."
         He nodded. He had the very good quality of understanding things without needing them explained.
         They stood, and brushed themselves off, and walked back the way they had come.

***

         They crossed the stream again, much faster this time. Halfway across, Grace stopped for just a second and looked down. The water sparkled around the little rocks, making dancing patterns in the sunshine.
         "Come on," her friend called.
         "I'm coming!"
         She hurried the rest of the way across.
         She thought she might like to be water sometimes.
         Just for a little while.
         Her friend waited for her on the other side.
         Together they walked back through the tall grass. Grace didn't feel like talking. Neither did he. Sometimes the best walks were the quiet ones.

***

         The mushroom was exactly where they'd left it.
         Grace put her hand against the smooth stem and looked up at it. She wasn't going to climb back up. She could feel, the way she sometimes could, that there wasn't quite enough time for that.
         But she wanted to say goodbye to it too.
         "Same time tomorrow?" her friend asked.
         She looked at him.
         He was looking at her with his steady, unhurried expression, the one that said he already knew the answer but liked to hear her say it anyway.
         "Same time tomorrow," she said.
         He smiled.
         She gave him a quick hug.
         "Same time tomorrow," she said. He smiled.
         The warm golden light wrapped around her, and Grace closed her eyes.

***

         The ceiling of her bedroom was white.
         Morning sunshine spilled across Grace's quilt.
         A bird sang outside her window. Downstairs, she could hear breakfast and the quiet sounds of the house waking up.
         She lay still for a moment.
         The meadow was still close, she could almost smell it, that bright warm sunshine smell, there at the edge of being awake.
         She turned her head.
         He was right where she'd left him.
         Propped against her pillow with his brown ears slightly crooked and his small round belly and the expression on his sewn face that had always looked, to her, like someone who had just come back from somewhere very good and was still thinking about it.
         Grace picked him up.
         She held him for a moment with both arms.
         Then she lifted him up so she could look at him properly.
         "Thank you. For the beetle. And the stream. And for saying goodbye to the dandelions with me."
         He didn't say anything, of course.
         But then, he didn't need to.
         She already knew everything he would have said.
         Grace tucked him under her arm and pushed back the quilt and put her feet on the floor. The house smelled like breakfast. The bird outside was still saying its one persistent thing.
         She stood up.
         And before she left the room, she turned back and set him carefully against the pillow just so, with his ears straight and his face pointed toward the window, where the morning light was still coming in warm and steady and gold.
         "Same time tomorrow," she said.
         And went to start her day.
 

Same Time Tomorrow

(With fewer similes ~2500 words)

***

         Grace liked waiting.
         Most grown-ups didn't understand that.
         They thought waiting was the empty space before something important happened. Waiting in line. Waiting for dinner. Waiting for Christmas morning, when the dark outside the windows felt different from ordinary dark.
         They hurried through it. They wanted it over.
         Grace knew better.
         Waiting was where adventures began.

***

         She had been coming to the meadow for as long as she could remember.
         Not every day. Only once in a while.
         The meadow was always there when she arrived, exactly as she had left it. The same wide sky. The same grass rising above her head in great columns. The same winding paths curving between flowers taller than she was.
         She had never needed a map.
         The meadow didn't require one.
         She knew this place without thinking, without looking, simply by being there.

***

         That was why she climbed the biggest mushroom every time.
         It stood at the center of the meadow like a lighthouse, its cap broad and red, spotted with white specks the size of Grace's hand. The stem was smooth and pale. She had climbed it so many times that she knew exactly where to put her feet, here, then here, then a little sideways where the stem curved and she could reach the top.
         From up there, she could see nearly everything.
         The grass below moved in the wind, blade over blade. Dewdrops clung to the tips, trembling, catching the light, almost but never quite letting go. Paths ran through the grass in every direction. To the east, a cluster of purple flowers rose high enough to touch the passing clouds.
         Grace looked upward.
         A breeze moved across the mushroom cap.
         She closed her eyes.
         The air was warm, and a little sweet. She didn't know what to call the smell, but she liked it.
         She sat cross-legged and folded her hands in her lap and let herself be still.

***

         Far below, a ladybug moved between the roots of the grass.
         It was nearly the size of a puppy, its shell red and glossy. Grace watched it climb over a stone taller than she was. It paused at the top, then went on down the other side.
         Grace waved.
         The ladybug didn't wave back.
         Ladybugs were busy.
         A bee flew past overhead, in a straight line. It was large, its body heavy with pollen. Grace could feel the hum of its wings in her chest. It circled once around the mushroom, then drifted into a field of blue flowers that reached nearly to her shoulders when she stood.
          I wonder where you're going, she said quietly.
         Probably somewhere important.
         Bees always looked important.

***

         She lay back on the mushroom cap and watched the clouds.
         They drifted across the blue the way thoughts drift when you aren't trying to think anything. One cloud looked like a turtle, its head stretched out as if looking at something interesting. A third was trying to be a rabbit, though it kept changing its mind about the ears.
         Clouds changed their minds a lot.
         Grace didn't mind. She changed her mind about things too.
         She was watching a cloud that couldn't seem to decide between being a fish or a shoe when she heard it. Faint at first.
         A laugh.
         Carried on the wind.
         Grace sat up so quickly she nearly slipped. She caught herself with both hands and scrambled to the edge of the mushroom cap, leaning forward.
         Two small hands appeared over the edge.
         Then a round face, out of breath.
         Then a pair of small brown ears.
         For half a second, Grace almost didn't know him. Then she did.
          There you are, Grace said.
         Her friend pulled himself up and over the edge and collapsed onto the mushroom cap, breathing hard and grinning at the sky.
          I had to go the long way, he said. There was a beetle who needed help.
          What kind of help?
         He sat up and dusted imaginary dirt from his knees, which he always did after climbing anything. He was on his back. You know how they get. He waved his arms in the air. Couldn't flip himself over.
          Did you help him?
          Of course.
          What did he do?
         Her friend thought about this. He walked away fast, in the other direction. I think he was embarrassed.
         Grace laughed.
         Her friend smiled, pleased with himself.
         It probably was that simple.

***

         He walked to the edge beside her and looked out across the meadow, and for a moment they stood together without needing to say anything.
          It looks different today, he said.
         Grace tilted her head.
         It did.
         The dandelions had opened.
         There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, scattered across the far end of the meadow. The yellow flowers were gone. In their place were white puffballs. They swayed together in the breeze, all leaning the same way.
          I've never seen so many, she said.
          Neither have I, her friend said.
         They watched for a while. The seeds trembled at the tips of their stalks, each one leaning slightly upward.
          What do you think they're waiting for? her friend asked.
         Grace studied them carefully. The way they tilted. The way the seeds shivered but didn't let go.
          I think, she said, they're waiting for someone to say goodbye.
         Her friend looked at her.
          I've never thought about that.
          If you're going to fly away, Grace said, it seems polite to say goodbye first.
         Her friend thought about this for a long moment. He liked to think about things instead of just answering them.
          Then we should go, he said finally. So we can say goodbye to them.
         Grace smiled.
          That's exactly what I was thinking.

***

         She slid off the mushroom first, landing in the moss below. The moss was cool and gave slightly under her feet.
         Her friend jumped after her, landed sideways, steadied himself.
         They set off into the grass.

***

         The meadow was different at grass level.
         Up on the mushroom, she could see the whole shape of it at once. Down here, it was its own world. The grass rose on all sides in great columns, the blades overlapping overhead in shifting light and shadow. The ground was soft, threaded with clovers and small flowers Grace didn't know the names of.
         They walked along one of the familiar paths toward the stream, toward the dandelion field.
          Hear that? her friend said.
         Grace listened.
         Water.
         Not far. A bright, quick sound, water moving over small stones.
          The stream, she said.
          It sounds higher than last time.
          Maybe it rained somewhere. She paused. Somewhere that isn't here.
          Can it rain somewhere that isn't here?
         Grace thought about it. I think weather can do anything it wants. It doesn't ask permission.
         Her friend nodded, satisfied, and they followed the sound around the curve of the path until the grass thinned and the stream appeared. ***          It wasn't very wide, no wider than a garden path, but too wide to jump across. The water moved fast over small rocks. Grace could see clear to the bottom, where smooth pebbles lay in different colors. A water bug crossed the top without sinking, and something small and silver darted between the rocks before she could get a good look.
          I wonder what that was, she whispered.
         The stream had no bridge.
         It never did.
         That was part of it.
          We could go around, her friend offered, in a tone that meant he didn't want to.
         Grace was already studying the grass on the near bank. A single blade arched across the water, its tip resting in the mud on the other side.
          We could go across, she said.
         Her friend peered at the blade of grass. It's very bendy.
          That's why it works. She stepped onto it carefully, arms out for balance.
         The blade bent under her feet.
         Grace took another careful step. The stream ran below her, close enough to make her toes curl.
          Don't look down, she whispered. She looked anyway. The water moved fast around the rocks, beneath her feet.
         One more step. Then another. She hopped onto the other side and grinned. Turned around.
         Her friend was already on the grass blade, moving slower, arms wide, watching his feet.
         The grass dipped lower under his weight. The water touched his feet.
         He made a small sound.
          Keep moving, Grace said.
         He kept moving. He stepped onto the bank beside her, looked down at his wet feet, then up, grinning.
          We could do that again, he said.
          After, Grace said. We have dandelions to tell goodbye to.

***

         They found the snail shell first.
         It sat at the edge of the grass, half-hidden by a clover leaf. The opening was wide enough for both of them to step through side by side.
         Grace stepped inside and looked up.
         Inside, the shell curled upward, and light came through a hole at the top, so the walls glowed. They were smooth under her fingers and smelled of wet dirt after rain.
          It's bigger inside, she said.
          It's like a castle, her friend said, turning slowly in the center.
          Or a lighthouse, Grace said, looking up.
          Can it be both?
          I think so. She ran a hand along the wall. It was cool and slightly ridged under her fingers. I think it used to belong to someone very old. Someone who'd seen a lot of mornings.
         Her friend was quiet for a moment, which was what he did when he was thinking seriously about something.
          Do you think they're sad it's empty now? he asked.
         Grace considered. I think, she said, that old things are glad when someone comes to visit. Even for a little while.
         He nodded. Then we should stay for a minute.
         So they did.
         They sat in the center of the snail shell and listened. The wind moved around the opening. Farther off, the stream. Farther still, maybe the bees.
         It was a good kind of quiet.

***

         The dandelion field was everything Grace had hoped it would be.
         She stood at the edge of it and forgot, for a moment, to say anything at all.
         Up close, the dandelions were even prettier than they had looked from the mushroom. Every yellow flower had turned into a white puffball. They filled the meadow, moving gently in the breeze. Grace wanted to blow on every one.
         She reached out and cupped one in both hands, carefully, without touching it.
         She could feel the air move through her fingers.
          Ready? her friend said quietly, coming to stand beside her.
         She nodded.
         She brought her cupped hands close to her mouth and breathed out, gently.
         The seeds let go.
         She blew again, as gently as she could.
         At first, nothing happened.
         Then one seed floated away.
         Another followed.
         Soon they were all moving in the breeze, drifting higher until Grace couldn't tell where the dandelion ended and the sky began.
         Grace watched until she couldn't see them anymore.
          Goodbye, she said.
         Not to the seeds exactly.
         To letting them go.
         Her friend said nothing. He knew that sometimes words didn't need saying.

***

         They stayed in the field for a long time after that, moving between the stalks, saying goodbye to the ones that were ready and leaving the ones that weren't. It felt important not to rush it. Some seeds needed more time. Some places needed a longer goodbye.
         The sunshine was changing. It wasn't as bright as before. Everything around them glowed warm. It was getting late.
         Grace's friend was lying on his back in the grass, watching the sky through the dandelion stalks.
          I think I could stay here forever, he said.
         Grace lay back beside him.
         The sky was still blue, but it wasn't the bright morning blue anymore. It had turned softer, and the sunshine was warm on Grace's face.
         For a moment, Grace wasn't sure tomorrow would come the way it always had. She didn't say so.
          You say that every time, she told him.
          I mean it every time.
          I know, she said. Me too.
         A cloud that looked like a whale drifted past, trailing a smaller one behind it.
         It was hard to say what the smaller one was.

***

         She sat up.
         The dandelion field was quieter now. The seeds that had been ready were gone. The stalks that remained still held a few.
         Her friend sat up beside her.
         They looked at each other.
          Not yet, he said. He wasn't asking. He knew the answer.
          Not yet, she agreed. But almost.
         He nodded. He understood things without needing them explained.
         They stood, brushed themselves off, and walked back the way they had come.

***

         They crossed the stream again, faster this time. Halfway across, Grace stopped for a second and looked down. The water moved around the small rocks in the sunlight.
          Come on, her friend called.
          I'm coming!
         She hurried the rest of the way across.
         She thought she might like to be water sometimes.
         Just for a little while.
         Her friend waited for her on the other side.
         Together they walked back through the tall grass. Grace didn't feel like talking. Neither did he. Sometimes the best walks were the quiet ones.

***

         The mushroom was exactly where they'd left it.
         Grace put her hand against the smooth stem and looked up at it. She wasn't going to climb back up. She could feel, the way she sometimes could, that there wasn't quite enough time for that.
         But she wanted to say goodbye to it too.
          Same time tomorrow? her friend asked.
         She looked at him.
         He was looking at her with a steady, unhurried expression, the one that said he already knew the answer but liked to hear her say it anyway.
         He smiled.
         She gave him a quick hug.
          Same time tomorrow, she said. He smiled.
         The evening light settled around her, and Grace closed her eyes.

***

         The ceiling of her bedroom was white.
         Morning light lay across Grace's quilt.
         A bird sang outside her window. Downstairs, she could hear breakfast being made.
         She lay still for a moment.
         The meadow was still close. She could almost smell it, that warm sunshine smell, in the moment just before she was fully awake.
         She turned her head.
         He was right where she'd left him.
         Propped against her pillow with his brown ears slightly crooked, his small round belly, and the same thoughtful look on his sewn face he always had after a good day.
         Grace picked him up.
         She held him for a moment with both arms.
         Then she lifted him up so she could look at him properly.
          Thank you. For the beetle. And the stream. And for saying goodbye to the dandelions with me.
         He didn't say anything, of course.
         But then, he didn't need to.
         She already knew everything he would have said.
         Grace tucked him under her arm and pushed back the quilt and put her feet on the floor. The house smelled of breakfast. The bird outside kept singing its one persistent song.
         She stood up.
         And before she left the room, she turned back and set him carefully against the pillow, just so, with his ears straight and his face toward the window, where the morning light was warm and steady and gold.
          Same time tomorrow, she said.
         And went to start her day.