Creative Word exercise results from last week:
A little girl with blonde pigtails sat crosslegged in a pool of sunlight, speaking to a green stuffed dragon who sat across from her on his favourite rock. “You want a story Griffy?” She asked, and waited while the dragon replied in the silent language of stuffed animals. “Ok,” She said, “Once upon a time -”
A hand clapped over her mouth, and she squeaked as her brother stopped her in mid sentence.
“Never, never say those words.” Joe whispered in her ear before he let go and continued to build a pyramid with his lego.
“Why not?” She asked crossly, one eyebrow arched in a way that said she wasn’t going to believe him, whatever he said. She folded her arms and readied herself to call mom if Joe said anything mean.
“Because you’ll call them. Fairytale creatures. When they hear that they come.” Joe said matter-of-factly. He had already gone back to building lego, biting his tongue between his teeth as he placed the final yellow piece on the top of a pyramid that stood nearly as tall as himself. He turned to look at her, his dark hair sticking up in short messy spikes. “You think that’s cool, but you won’t just get mermaids or pixies – you’ll get goblins and nasty things that will eat your bones.” His voice ended in a hiss.
“I don’t believe you.” The girl hid the shiver that ran up her back, stuck her tongue out at Joe before turning away to check to see if Griffy was still okay and hadn’t slid off his rock. Griffy was leaning forward as if he wanted to hear more about what Joe was saying, but he hadn’t fallen. She straightened him and made herself busy parsing out the chocolate chips she’d snuck from the cupboard between them, but as soon as Joe left the room she scrambled up and stuck her head out the open window and looked around the yard.
Everything looked the same. Her bike was leaning against the back fence and the ocean still lay beyond that, playing with the sand in the way that it did most sunny days. There was not even a hint of anything magical in the grass or the patch of earth that she’d helped mom turn into a garden yesterday. Disappointed, she nearly went back to her picnic with Griffy. Then she stopped. Looked over her shoulder to be sure that Joe was gone.
Just in case, she leaned farther out and whispered. “Once upon a time.”
Once Upon the Ink 
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