Paperclips

   We are following the story of a little, winged boy named Shaun, who is maybe about six or seven years of age. His best friend is a girl named Beatrice, whom has a lovely rack of antlers upon her head, decorated with flowers of the rainbow.
   Shaun had come to Beatrice's home for the evening, as his mother had become very ill over the weekend. His older brother named Max had went off to college four years ago, and yet Shaun doesn't remember he ever had a brother. Max would never see his younger brother, as he would go off to become a talented lawyer with fame across the globe.
   The boy, once it was nearly night time, and Beatrice's mother had told him to go home, had flown down the street two blocks before feeling his wings grow sore, so he continued down the street walking. When he came home, he delivered a peck to his sick mother laying in bed, telling her how much fun he had with Beatrice for the evening.
   He told her how her rubber ducky kept sliding across the table, how their father baked cookies and their mother cooked bacon, and how they played tag for hours.
   He told her about how his wings grew sore and lost feathers on his way home. He felt real bad about it.
   Shaun's mother sat up in her bed, with a sickly, stifled cough. Shaun had no idea she was sick. He always thought she was thirsty, so he would always bring back water bottles from Beatrice's home.
   Sit on the bed, please, Shaun's mother asked, and so Shaun did so.
   Shaun's mother plucked some of the feathers from her nearly barren wings, shaped like a lovely eagle's, and sowed her own magnificent feathers into Shaun's wings, smiling.
   Given, she was very poor. Max had to pay for college himself, using up Shaun's allowance for help. Too poor to have someone else fix his wing, and too poor to go to the hospital for being ill.
   Shaun didn't care how pale, thin, or ugly his mother was, she was still beautiful, and still his hero.
   Has Shaun happily skipped off, flapping his wings, Shaun's mother rested back on the bed, laying on her side, with her barren wings set out behind her, only three or four feathers left on them, the largest ones.
   Shaun had flown off with a box of paperclips, to the town of amazing people.
   He landed, skipping to the trading booth outside one of the retail stores. The booth was managed by a girl that was twelve or thirteen. Shaun set his box of paperclips on the counter, grinning happily as she gave him a soap dish in return.
   He then flew, flew as fast as he could, past his house, to Beatrice's, knocking on the door on the next day, after coming home to sleep.
   He gave Beatrice the soap dish, so her rubber ducky wouldn't slip and slide away.
   Smiling, she brushed her hair out of her face, ecstatic. But she had already traded her rubber ducky for a matchbox, for Shaun to put his paperclips in.
   The two walked back to town when the sun was highest in the sky, carrying their matchbox and soap dish in one hand, holding hands in the other, chattering happily as they walked up to the trading booth owned by the twelve or thirteen year old girl. They set what they had on the table, they got a small water bottle in return.
   They walked all the way back to Shaun's unlocked house, walking to the bedroom and walking besides the bed. The girl with the antlers and the boy with the wings were both pleasant sights to see for Shaun's sick mother, who sat up.
   Her hair was messy, her face was wet and pale, as if she had a terrible dream.
   The two gave her the water bottle, chattering happily. Smiling, the mother asked them to go back to Beatrice's house. She spread her completely bare wings, with no more feathers to give.
   So the two left.
   When they went back to Beatrice's house, the two told the parents all about the sickly mother, and how they gave her the water. They seemed shocked. Asking Shaun to live with them for a bit, he of course agreed. Beatrice's parents had paid for the complete visit to the hospital for Shaun's mother, sending her there to get well.
   Around evening time, the two best friends set off to the park, watching the sun go down over the hills together.
The end.