Pre-Onward One-Shots

Forest Fun

Chapter 6: Forest Fun

Barley: 8

Ian: 5

Ian and Barley were lying down with their backs on the green grass in the backyard, their arms placed behind their head and their eyes fixed on the blue, cloudy sky. They were hunting for cloud shapes, something they would do when bored of being cooped up inside the house. Today was a sunny but windy day. Autumn had started not too long ago, and the boys were starting to notice the change of seasons. The most riveting event in the season to them was Halloween, meaning they would get to dress up in costumes and eat delicious sweets. The holiday was approaching, and the two could not be happier.

"Ooh! I can see a rabbit!" Barley pointed his finger to a cloud shaped like the animal.

"I can see a car!" little Ian yelled out.

The older brother examined the fluffy cloud closely, squinting his eyes. "Yeah, that does look like one!"

"Geez, I wonder what it's like to be on a cloud," Ian said.

"It would feel pretty cool, amazing even!" Barley said.

Ian smiled and stared at another cloud, envisioning himself relaxing on it. He could stay on there for hours with his brother unless his mother would tell him to clean his room or some other boring stuff like that.

"Barley? How come all clouds have to stay in the sky?" he then asked. "Why don't some just come to the ground?"

"Beats me. I guess they are just made that way. They can't come down," Barley replied.

"Oh. Well, if one were to, I would totally lie on it!"

"Me too."

Out of thin air, the crisp autumn breeze swept through the young boys. The wind was apparently resurfacing for the past several days due to the season. Feeling this breeze, Ian shivered with his arms crossed.

"Brr! It's getting cold out here!" he exclaimed.

"Yep. It's one of the things about fall." Barley rubbed his little brother's back, aiming to keep him warm.

"And the leaves falling, too!" Ian smiled.

Barley nodded. "We can ask Mom if we can go to the pumpkin patch."

"Oh, I love that place!"

"We have to get the biggest pumpkin in there!" Ian told his older brother.

"Bigger than a watermelon perhaps!"

Ian was already getting impatient. The thought of a humongous pumpkin being larger than a watermelon was striking to him. He didn't know if the pumpkin patch would have that kind of pumpkin, but he wanted to at least see. He grabbed Barley's hand.

"Come on! Let's go tell Mommy!" he said with excitement.

The two boys ran inside the house.

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Laurel sighed as she organized her scattered files from work. She just tidied her bed and did the laundry. At the moment, she was organizing her scattered files, rearranging them in groups and stacking them. The mother intended to do this chore earlier this week, but she was just so busy working around the clock that it was pushed into the very back of her mind. Just then, her ears picked up to the sounds of her children's feet. She looked up to see her two boys standing right in front of her with huge smiles on their faces. Laurel cracked a smile; whenever they were happy, she was happy.