Once upon a time in a town not too far from most, lived a little girl named Calla and her loyal dog Rusty. Calla and Rusty loved playing together in the yard outside their little green house. The yard wasn’t too big or too small it was just right.
It had lovely flowers in pots that Calla helped her mom to plant and tend with her own bumblebee water can. On one side of the yard, underneath the apple trees was a little playhouse and a swing set where Calla and her baby sister India played after dinner on long summer nights. Calla loved to play on her play set, doing flips and tricks while Rusty hunted through the yard looking for sticks and such to chew on.
One night after dinner, Calla and Rusty were playing in their yard kicking around the new pink soccer ball Calla’s mom had given her earlier that day. It was starting to get late. But since it was summer, and the air was starting to cool off, Calla’s Mom said that she and Rusty could kick the ball for a few more minutes while she gave the baby India a bath. Her mom also said they weren’t allowed to leave to yard, and Calla was to be a big girl and help her watch Rusty.
Meanwhile, Calla’s Dad was beginning to notice the air was different that evening. There was a storm brewing, but this one felt strange. Something was just not right about it.
Calla adores her Dad. She loves to play in his big dark shop. He keeps a bin full of old tools and wood for her to play with when she is in there. They make wonderful and magical things with her tools. Just like the jewelry box they made for her Mom last Christmas out of leftover wood from their wood floor in the house. Calla and her Dad knew how much her Mom loved their house, so to make it out of the wood floor was a very special sentiment her Dad had said.
Calla’s Dad had no idea she and Rusty were playing in the front yard. He thought they were inside taking a nighttime bath. He began to close things up. First, he put the family cars in the garage. He made sure all of the windows were rolled up on the work trucks and the door was locked on the tool trailer. He checked the barn to see if everything was where it should be. He worked quickly, because he sensed the storm was moving in fast.
Back in the front yard, Calla and Rusty were still playing with the pink soccer ball. When all of a sudden, out of the corner of his eye Rusty spied a bunny and took off running after it. Now Rusty is still a puppy, and he doesn’t always listen. Especially when he has a chance to chase a bunny. Calla tried yelling for Rusty. But he didn’t come. She knew she wasn’t supposed to leave the yard. She also knew that it was her job to take care of Rusty, and that if she didn’t her Mom might get mad. She too noticed the the wind had picked up. But she had to find Rusty. So she went running after him.
Calla found Rusty down by the old chicken coop on the other side of the property. Rusty had chased the bunny underneath the coop and was digging to try and get to it. It was beginning to rain and Calla couldn’t get Rusty to listen or leave the silly bunny alone. She knew they were too far from the house to make it back before the really bad weather came down. So she picked up Rusty and used the old key hanging by the door to unlock it and let themselves in. Inside, the old coop smelled musty, and it wasn’t the cleanest. It hadn’t been used in many years for chickens, but it was dry. Calla looked around at her surroundings. There was leftover furniture that someone had stored among the old chicken feeders, and broken tools and pots stashed in a corner.
She looked outside the window. There was hail starting to hit the side of the old coop, and thunder shook the little building each time it boomed. Calla had never heard such a thing and started to get scared. She climbed up on one of the old couches and snuggled close into Rusty’s fur. Her Mom always told her that whenever she was scared to close her eyes and think about happy things and she would feel better. Calla shut her eyes and thought back to a few moments before when she was playing in the yard with Rusty and her new pink soccer ball. She thought about all of the baby bunnies that lived in her yard and how cute they were despite eating all of Dad’s nice green grass. The next thing Calla heard was silence. As soon as the storm had come it, it had gone out, or so it seemed.
Calla slowly opened her eyes. She was surrounded by bright clean white walls, and was no longer sitting on a dusty couch, but on a clean bail of straw. In the corner of the room Rusty was busy lapping up some water out of a funny looking container. When all of a sudden a chicken popped its head out of a little box and said to Calla, “now just what kind of chicken are you?”
To be continued………
