Rabbit Trails

Saturday Morning

Eva is a busy-body. At the first thought of sitting still or boredom, she is outside looking for anything that is interesting. In the past and too often, she has found stray animals. Of course, she is always sure they are in dire need of assistance. Thus, she is constantly trying to bring every cat, dog, or turtle home. The problem is… that her mom is crazy about keeping the house clean and she is never happy about shedding fur or stinky things. As a result, no matter how hard Eva tries to keep things clean, her mom can’t relax when things are messy.
As a solution to keep Eva busy, her mom arranged for Eva to volunteer time at the pet store nearby. A friend of the family, Philip Marshall, owns the store and lets Eva help socialize and care for the store animals. Mr. Marshall gets free help and Eva loves playing with all kinds of animals. In addition, Eva’s mom is pleased to have a cleaner house. It’s a triple win!
The pet store opens at 10:00 every morning, but Sundays when it is closed. Today is Saturday! Because there is no school on Saturdays and she is always eager to have something to do, Saturdays are the hardest day to wait for the store to open. She dresses, eats and makes her way to the playground that is half-way to the store.
Walking upon the top of the curb, she envisions she is a mysterious circus acrobat from a foreign land. She is balancing on a tight-wire, performing for fantastically large, applauding crowds. Once she arrives at the playground, her acrobat show ends. She jumps down from the curb, raises a hand high in the air and loudly exclaims, “Ta-Da!”
At the base of the maple tree, several maple “helicopter” seeds are ripe for the scooping. With a swift fling in the air, a handful of tan-winged maple seeds float and spin downward in a magical cloud around her.

Changing games to be a super-agent, she quickly grabs two fistfuls of seeds, serving as anti-venom to save the world. With vigor and great skill, she makes her escape from the evil scientist by running up the slide. Darting across the bridge to the opposite platform, she releases the cure to the world. Right at the end of her victory, during her joyous celebration, appears a boy named Kaleb.
Reality smashes the fun, for Kaleb is the school bully. She is counting the seconds under her breath until he insults her. “Three, four,” and he opens his mouth.
“It’s raining. It’s pouring. You are so BORING!” he comments while seeing the shower of maple seeds fall from the top of the playground set.
She is thinking, “He is getting quicker… I didn’t even get to five this time.” Although she responds, “Hi. I should go. I can’t be late to the store.”
Kaleb grunts of nasty satisfaction as he takes control of the tire swing, watching Eva leave.