“Aw, look at her little flower!”
“Aw, her little snout!” Anne and I were obsessing over Peony all the time. She was so tiny, small enough to live in my room for the time being.
“You know, we should probably get back to the stones.” Anne commented after a couple days.
“Yeah, I guess, also-” I began. Peony interrupted me with a squeal.
“Awww!” We cooed. Peony had our undivided attention. Almost.
“Kate-”
“I know, the stones.” I sighed. I set Peony down in her little pen. Anne and I built it almost completely by ourselves. It was pretty big, and had a little house filled with hay for Peony to sleep in. It also had a little tiny feeding trough (she would eat almost anything, so we gave her mostly vegetables, but also some of our dinner leftovers) and a water bowl. She loved it.
“Good girl, Peony.” I smiled. “Okay, stones.” Anne had found a good hiding place in my room. Under my bed, we dug a small hole and put the stones in. We then covered it with a box full of random stuff. My parents never look under my bed. They say it is ‘too messy to deal with’. Fine by me.
Anne reached under my bed and pulled the box out. I went under and grabbed all the stones, and our rings we had stuck under there too.
“Make sure there’s all of them.” Anne told me. I counted all of them.
“Two red, two orange, two yellow, two green, two purple, and two blue rings.” I confirmed.
“Okay, let’s make them all into rings. Then we’ll each have...one, two, three...six rings that will make us float each!” Anne declared.
“Okay, hopefully the other colors will fit in the bands…” I muttered.
“And hopefully they’ll make us float too.” Anne added. I divided the stones, so we each had one of each color, and we each had a blue ring.
“Okay, red’s in….orange….yellow…Anne, you good?” I said each color stone aloud as I stuck them in.
“So far, so good.” Anne reassured. “Green...purple...maybe? Okay, purple. Done.”
“Me too.” I replied. “Which color should we try first?”
“Um, let’s do blue first, to make sure it still works.” Anne decided.
“Good idea.” I nodded. “One, two, three!” We each slipped a ring on our index finger. We started to rise off the bed.
“Woah!” Anne was moving around like she was swimming, but she got nowhere.
“Ack!” I flipped upside down.
“Girls?” My mom’s voice was near the door. “Are you all right? Do you need me?”
“NO!”
“What?”
“I mean, no thanks, Mom! Peony just jumped out of my arms and is running around the room.” I lied. “Don’t open the door or she might run out!” Peony looked at me, tilting her head. She squeaked.
“Okay, make sure she gets back in her pen.” My mom’s voice sounded farther away. “Hey, dear?”
“Okay, she’s gone.” I pulled my ring off my finger and fell onto the bed. Anne stayed in the air. I reached over and picked Peony up.
“Hey, girl!” She snuggled against me. “Aw, thanks for that squeal. You really helped us out! Good piggy!” Peony looked at me with her big brown eyes. She is perfect.
“Hey, should we try the other-hey look! I can control where I go now!” Anne exclaimed. I looked up to see Anne running around the ceiling, then floating down and up.
“Woah, Anne! How’d you do that?”
“You just...I just….I don’t know.” Anne thought about this. “You just kind of will it to happen.” I set Peony down in her pen and grabbed my ring. I slipped it on. I floated up.
“Woah, this still feels so weird...so unnatural.” I tried Anne’s technique, just willing myself to move around and moved my arms and legs. I shot across the room.
“Wooo!” I tried not to giggle, but the flying was so much fun, a loud, long laugh slipped out. Anne and I were laughing as we zoomed around.
“We’ll do the other stones later.” I decided as I stood upside down on the ceiling. “We should practice the flyyyyying! Oh hey, now we can walk up walls, and go on ceilings!”
“I bet we can easily climb, or walk up trees!” Anne exclaimed. We both got an idea.
“Treeeee hoooouuuse!” We shouted, laughing.
“Let’s totally work on that tomorrow!” I cheered. “Then we can test the other stones in there, without being disturbed.”
“Where will we get the wood?” Anne wondered.
“Uh-”
“Honey, we’re leaving!” My mom announced, but didn’t open the door. “They just knocked down a few buildings, so now people can collect extra wood! We’re getting a bunch for you so you can make more homes and pens for Peony!”
Anne and I exchanged happy glances.
“We aren’t using it for Peony, are we?” I grinned.
“Nope!” Anne laughed.