Being Mommy

The day after Cecilia, Grandpa, and Ty returned from Corsilon, Cecilia’s mother gave her wonderful news!

“Sweetie, your grandpa and I had a talk, and we decided that he’s going to help us watch you in the afternoons for awhile.” Mom had so many things to keep her busy, she was happy that Grandpa wanted to spend more time with Cecilia.

And Cecilia was delighted! She knew exactly what that meant – more time in Rettel!

“Cool!” was about all Cecilia could think to say. Her mom smiled and gave her a big hug.

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The very next day Cecilia went to Grandpa’s house to spend the afternoon, but she knew she wouldn’t really be at Grandpa’s house. She would be in Rettel!

They had their usual cup of cocoa and a little chit-chat before lying down for a nap.

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When she woke up, Cecilia opened her eyes, sat up, and looked around. They were lying in a place that looked almost so normal, she wondered if they were even in Rettel.

They were in a meadow, lying in soft green grass.  She could see trees surrounding the meadow, and they too looked like normal trees she saw at the park near her house. The sky above was blue, just like at home.

The one thing that was different were the butterflies.

Everywhere she looked, hundreds of butterflies flitted here and there across the meadow. They landed on the grass, flew through the air, some of them even seemed to be talking to each other! She could hear tiny voices echoing through the meadow, and little bits of laughter coming from everywhere. It made her smile, just looking and listening to all the butterflies.

The butterflies were all different colors too! There were red ones, blue ones, green ones, yellow ones, every color she could think of – there were butterflies that color!

Just then a bright purple butterfly flew up and fluttered in front of her. Although it’s voice was soft, she could just make out the words.

“Hi!” the butterfly said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Cecilia. What’s your name?” she asked back.

“Nice to meet you Cecilia! We don’t have names. There are just so many of us, it would be impossible to remember them all!” the butterfly said with a giggle. “You can call us all Butterfly, that’s what most everyone does!”

“Okay, Butterfly,” Cecilia said. “Nice to meet you too. Where am I?”

“Oh! This is Danseen! You’ve never been here before, have you?” the butterfly asked.

“No, this is my first time,” she answered.

“Well welcome! And I have a question for you.”

Cecilia wondered what the little butterfly might ask her. “Alright, what’s that?”

“What’s better than a butterfly that talks?” the butterfly asked her.

Cecilia thought about it for a moment. These were the cutest little butterflies she’d ever seen, and it was so neat that they could talk, she couldn’t think of anything better. “I don’t know!” Cecilia finally answered.

“A butterfly that tells jokes!” the butterfly said with a laugh. And with that, she flew away into the great cloud of butterflies in the meadow.

Cecilia laughed too. The little butterfly had told her a joke about butterflies telling jokes! That was pretty funny!

Her laughter woke Ty and Grandpa, who up until now had still been sleeping near her.

“Grandpa, we’re in Danseen!” Cecilia said with a big smile. She remembered Grandpa mentioning Danseen before. He had said he had a friend here, a fish named Kin. A fish that liked to tell jokes. She thought she understood why now.

“That’s right, we are!” Grandpa said. “Danseen is a wonderful place. This land is always full of laughter. All the laughter here helps to keep all the lands in Rettel happy,” Grandpa explained.

That seemed like the coolest thing Cecilia had ever heard! She loved to smile and laugh, and she noticed that when she was anywhere in Rettel, she was always happy. Danseen must be part of the reason why!

She had a question for Grandpa. “Grandpa,” she asked, “I see all these butterflies here, and one even told me a joke! But usually we have to walk through a door to get to a land and see the creatures in it. Is there a front door here?”

Grandpa smiled. “Of course there’s a front door. But this is Danseen, land of laughter, so in order to get in, you have to tell a joke… a knock-knock joke!”

“A knock-knock joke?” Cecilia asked, laughing.

“Well what better way to get through a front door than by knocking!” Grandpa answered. “Give it a try. Do you know any knock-knock jokes?”

Cecilia thought for a minute. She’d heard plenty of them, but she needed to think hard and try to remember one. Then she remembered one. “Okay, I got one!”

“Alright, make sure you speak up, so all the butterflies can hear you,” Grandpa said.

Cecilia cleared her throat. Ty, who had landed on her shoulder after waking up a few moments ago, giggled from the gentle shaking of her shoulder when she did it.

Speaking loudly and as clearly as she could, she said “Knock knock!”

Suddenly, all of the butterflies in the field came together in front of them. They formed a large solid circle, like the doors she had seen in the other lands she had visited, but there was no opening, just a solid circle of butterflies.

As soon as they had all come together into the circle, she could hear them all say at the same time “Who’s there?”

Although the one butterfly’s voice had been faint and a bit hard to hear, when they all spoke at once, it sounded just as loud as she did!

She giggled at the sight of so many butterflies fluttering around in the circle, answering her knock-knock joke.

Quickly she answered “Boo.”

The butterflies responded. “Boo who?” they all asked at once.

“You don’t have to cry, it’s just me!” Cecilia answered, laughing.

The butterflies all laughed at the same time, and then the circle slowly spread out, forming an opening in the middle, and kept spreading out, making the circle bigger, until the opening in the middle was large enough for her, Grandpa, and Ty to fit through.

Cecilia looked over at Grandpa with a smile. He laughed and said “Good joke! That was perfect! Now lets get going!”

They walked through the front door made of butterflies. Cecilia turned around and looked, but the butterflies were nowhere to be seen, just like the other front doors in Rettel. She was about to be sad that they were gone, but then she remembered where she was – the land of laughter! She smiled because she knew that even though she couldn’t see the butterflies anymore, there were still there, having fun and telling each other jokes.

Grandpa led her and Ty out of the meadow and toward the forest of green trees. As they came up to the first tree, again she wondered if these leaves were ticklish or not.

“Grandpa, are the leaves here ticklish?” she asked.

Grandpa laughed. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”

She walked up to the nearest tree, and reached out to touch the leaves. Instead of pulling back like the trees in Ancilon had, the branches of the tree stretched out toward her, and the leaves began to tickle HER! She laughed and quickly jumped back out of the reach of the tree.

Grandpa laughed even harder.

Ty flew up to the tree and was having fun watching the tree try to tickle him. Just as the leaves were about to reach him, he would fly just out of reach. Even though the tree wasn’t able to tickle him, he was laughing anyway, having so much fun!

“Grandpa, how are we going to get through this forest with all these tickling trees?!” Cecilia asked through her laughter.

“Well honey, the best way to do it is to run. There is nothing on the ground to trip you, so just follow me, okay?” he said.

Cecilia loved to run! “Okay, sounds good!” she said, her laughter finally subsiding.

“I’m going to fly over, if you don’t mind,” Ty said with a smile. Cecilia thought about asking Ty to grow bigger and let them ride on him up and over the forest, but she really did love to run, and was excited by the idea of outrunning the tickling branches of the trees.

“Ready? Set? Go!” Grandpa said and took off! Cecilia ran right behind him through the forest. She could see the trees reaching out for them, and once in awhile a leaf or two would brush across her, but never enough to tickle her. Grandpa was right about the ground. There was nothing there to trip them, just soft green grass under the canopy of trees.

After about a minute they reached the other side of the forest. They both fell down in the grass, laughing hysterically. Ty flew down to where they were with a smile on his face. “You two can run pretty fast! Those trees didn’t stand a chance,” he said.

Cecilia and Grandpa both sat up in the grass and caught their breaths. Cecilia looked over at Grandpa. She was so happy to see him laughing and smiling like this. She didn’t think she had ever seen him happier than he had been since they started going to Rettel together.

They were in a new meadow with the same green grass and blue sky. But she could smell something different in the air here. It was sweet and smelled like vanilla to her. She got up and looked out into the distance, and could see a great ocean beyond the meadow! It didn’t look like any ocean she had ever seen though because the water was a bright magenta color, somewhere between pink and purple!

The beach at the edge of the ocean had soft white sand, and she thought maybe the sand was what she was smelling, because it looked like vanilla to her.

“Is it the sand I smell Grandpa?” Cecilia asked.

“You got it, sweetie. You remember I told you about my friend Kin, the fish?” Grandpa said.

“Yes, I do,” she answered.

“Well, let’s take a walk and see if we can find him. I’d love for you to meet him!” Grandpa smiled, got up, and began walking toward the vanilla beach.

The grass and the ground was soft under her feet, and when they reached the beach, the sand was even softer, almost like powder! The vanilla smell was even stronger here, and made her hungry.

“Are we going to eat soon, Grandpa?” she asked.

“Yes, are we?” Ty added, making Cecilia giggle a little bit.

“Yes, we will very soon.” Grandpa answered. “In fact, all we need are some cups and plates!”

Cecilia wondered where they were going to find cups and plates, but she figured Grandpa knew what he was talking about since he had been here before.

As they walked along the beach they finally came to a spot where a river ran into the ocean. The water in the river was also a magenta color. At this spot there was also a picnic table just on the other side of the river. She could see cups and plates set out there. Grandpa sure was smart – he always knew just where to go!

He led them up the riverbank for about a minute, and she finally saw some stepping stones making their way across the river. Grandpa walked on the stepping stones and crossed to the other side of the river, and Cecilia followed right behind. They walked back down to where the river met the ocean, and sat at the picnic table.

Grandpa took two cups and walked over to the river, filling up the cups with brightly colored water. He set them on the picnic table.

“Have a drink!” he said, and took a sip from one of the cups. Cecilia figured if Grandpa could drink the water, then it must be safe. She picked up the other cup and took a drink. It tasted just like raspberries!

Grandpa got up again and took two plates over to the sand and scooped up some of the sand, putting a pile of it on each plate. He walked back to the table and sat down. He put one plate in front of Cecilia, and took the other plate and scooped a little of the sand into his mouth.

Cecilia wasn’t sure about this one. Sand didn’t sound like a fun thing to eat. But she was hungry, and the sand sure did smell good. She scooped a little up with her hand and placed it on her tongue.

And then the sand did an interesting thing.

It sort of melted onto her tongue, turning into a delicious vanilla pudding! It tasted so good, she scooped up an even bigger chunk of the sand and put it in her mouth. Again, pudding!

“Ty, you really have to try this. Wow!” Cecilia said in between bites.

Ty flew over to her and tasted a little bit of the sand. His eyes lit up and he immediately asked Grandpa to go get him a plate of the sand. Grandpa did, and the three of them sat at the picnic table for awhile. They ate the vanilla sand-pudding and drank the raspberry water and told jokes they had heard before.  They laughed and enjoyed a nice meal.

The breeze still smelled strongly of vanilla, and the bright blue sky stayed bright. It looked as though it would never be nighttime here in Danseen. This didn’t bother Cecilia though, because she knew she still had to meet Kin, and she didn’t want to have to leave here before she met him!