I'm afraid Kathy has lit a spark in me. I wrote this short story this morning after seeing this photograph. I hope you enjoy it. I enjoyed writing it.


"Sshhh!!" I cautioned as we made out way through the thick underbrush of the forest. "You'll scare them away!"

"Oh sshh yourself." She replied. "Scare who away? There's no one around for a hundred miles!"

Nancy was my big sister you see, and not accustomed to being told what to do by me, here little brother. In fact, Nancy is 3 1/2 years older than me and never lets me forget it. Nancy is also the oldest of the five children in our family, and quite accustomed to being in charge of us in our parents absence.

At the moment she glared at me with her big brown eyes while pushing her brown bangs from her forehead. "I don't know why I let you talk me into this escapade in the first place." She said. Nancy liked using big words like escapade. She was almost 14 years old after all.

"Kenny. How many times do I have to tell you? There is no such thing as little people!"

"There is too," I countered. "You just wait and see."

We continued to walk through the forest to the place where I had seen the little people's house. Walking in the forest was easy for me because I spent a great deal of time here after school and on weekends. I was at home amongst the ash and birch and elder trees native to the Northern Minnesota region where we lived. It was nothing for me to step over the fallen trees and across the soggy streams. One winter I got in trouble for putting a hole in my rubber boots kicking at the ice on a stream.

"How much further?" Nancy complained. "My arms are starting to itch."

"It's just a ways more." I replied.

Girls don't seem to like it in the forest as much as I do. Sally Johnson down the street came out here with me once. She didn't like it much either. She ran home crying after I tried to kiss her under the big buckeye tree that one time. I got a swat from my dad over that one!

Bruce Anderson comes out here with me. We built a fort in a secret place near the old iron ore mine. We don't take girls out there. They're not allowed. We tried smoking at the fort once. We didn't have a cigarette so we lit a paper straw from his mom's restaurant on fire with some matches I took from my house. I took a big gulp of that smoke and thought I would cough my lungs right out of my chest. Bruce laughed and laughed until he fell over onto the floor. Bruce wouldn't try it after that.

"I've gone far enough." Nancy said.

I turned around to see her standing with her hands folded across her chest. I could see mud on the knees of her corduroy pants. She must have fallen somewhere along the trail. "It's creepy out here." Becky Peterson said the same thing once.

"Just a little bit farther." I said. "I promise."

"That's what you said an hour ago. Where is this place?" She demanded.

We hadn't been walking for an hour. Nancy likes to exaggerate.

When we got to the spot, we laid behind a fallen ginkgo tree. A caterpillar was making it's way across the limb in front of me. The forest floor was cool and damp, with a mixture of dirt, and ferns, and various types of ivy. Rays of sunlight cut through the umbrella of trees illuminating the area in front of us. Robins and bluebirds squawked and darted across the sky.

There in the clearing in front of us was the little people's house. It was cut into the base of a huge elm tree. Two windows, offset in height, could be seen facing us. To the right of the windows was a small door that stood open, emitting a warm glow from inside. Five little steps led from the door to the ground.

I turned to look at Nancy and saw that her eyes were as big as saucers. "How did you find this," she sputtered. "Are there really little people living in there?"

As I began to answer her, I heard the sound of someone coming to the door from inside the little peoples house. I turned back to the little people's house and stared in anticipation. Then I felt someone pushing on my shoulder. I turned to my right and found my dad's big hand nudging me awake.

"Kenny, it's time to get up for school."