Reading the Dice

Story 2: Whimsy wants an apple

Dice Roll: frowny face, turtle, tree, apple, lightbulb, parachute, lightning, padlock, wand

One day, Whimsy the turtle was in the mood for apples. Normally, she was content with her regular turtle food, but apples were one of her favorite treats, and sometimes the want for one hit her hard and she just had to have an apple.

She crawled out of her home and wandered over to the apple tree, eyes scanning the ground. She craned her neck, peering around the tall grass, seeking that perfect sweet treat.

Her face fell as she completed her circuit around the tree; no apples had fallen to the ground. She looked up to where the tantalizing fruit hung, gazing at the ripe, juicy fruit as it hung far above her head, well out of reach. She sighed sadly and leaned against the tree, wishing she could climb like her friend Gadara, the squirrel.

Unfortunately, her squirrel friend was out of town visiting friends, so Whimsy couldn't call on her friend to knock down a few apples for her.

She trudged away from the tree, hanging her head, as she returned to her home on the bank of the creek. She picked up a book, determined to distract herself from her unfed craving, but she couldn't focus on the story. Putting the book down, she turned on her t.v. and flipped through the channels, stopping finally on the channel that played her favorite game shows and grabbed her needles and yarn.

She threw down the tangled mass of yarn in disgust; her desire for the sweet, juicy apples far above her head made her drop stitches and her knitting had become a knotted mess. She turned off the television and went back outside.

Jumping into the creek, she swam around, paddling hard against the current; once she was upstream, she turned back to face downstream and let the creek carry her back to her house. As she caught sight of her home, the apple tree towering overhead caught her gaze and she stared hard at the hanging fruit, the bright red skin glinting teasingly in the sunlight.

Sighing, she decided desperate times call for desperate measures. She crawled out of the water and walked around her home to her toolshed. She stared hard at the padlock holding the shed door closed. The key to the lock had gone missing years ago. Luckily, as an apprentice under Madam Whisper Feathers, she knew a few useful tricks.

Whimsy pulled out her magic wand and muttered the unlock spell as she tapped the tip of the wand against the padlock. A spark of light jumped from the wand into the keyhole. The padlock jumped open with a loud click.

Whimsy quickly went into her shed, turning on the light, then stopping to let her eyes adjust to the brightness of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Her black beady eyes swept over the contents of her shed, seeking to find something that may be useful in her quest: kite, shovel, rake, kayak, paddle, hammer, saw, screwdriver, wrench, rope, tent, parachute, snowshoes, snorkel...

Outside, the breeze rustled the grasses and the bright sunlight faded. The tapping of raindrops played a staccato melody on the metal roof of her shed.

She stared at the heaped items in her shed as the breeze gusted stronger, throwing the tips of the grasses against the walls of her shed, making a shushing sound that temporarily drowned out the sound of the rain.

The wind blowing against her legs and tail gave her an idea. She grabbed the parachute and rope and hurried outside, looking up at the darkening sky. Lightning flashed, turning the apple tree's leaves bright green and the falling rain into flashes of silver. In the following darkness, Whimsy blinked against the rain running in her eyes and, clutching her parachute and rope close against the buffeting wind, walked toward the tree.

She tied the ends of the rope to the strings of the parachute, careful to keep the two sets of parachute strings tied to different ends of the rope. The parachute caught the wind, filling and billowing, edges flapping as it strained against the rope. She held on tight, fighting to finish securing her knots before the wind took the parachute to the sky.

Keeping the rope around her back, she released the parachute, watching as it tore upward with the wind. She grabbed the rope—one end in each hand—and practiced pulling on one side, then the other, making the parachute swoop and dive, like a giant kite.

She let the rope slowly unravel from its coil, sending the parachute higher, the flashes of lightning revealing the parachute's progress as it moved higher, up toward the higher branches of the tree.

Finally, as the rain ran into her eyes, the lightning flashed brightly and she saw her parachute was behind an apple. She grinned and pulled first one end of the rope, then the other, maneuvering the flying cloth until it came up behind the apple and she crossed her ropes, pulling it tight, so the parachute wrapped around the apple.

She gave both ends of the rope a hard yank and suddenly the ropes were slack. Both apple and parachute plummeted to the ground with the rain.

Grinning gleefully, she used the rope and parachute to haul her treasure into her home, so she could enjoy the sweet treat out of the cold and wind.

She may not be able to climb, but she still managed to get the fruit, using a little imagination.