Seven Sweet-Fern Leaves
Plip. Plop. Plip. Rory heard the warm rain land on the big ferns. He walked beside the stream with his basket under his arm. Inside lay seven sweet-fern leaves, picked one at a time all afternoon. They smelled like honey and pepper and rain. Tonight he would lay them in a row and sleep on them. Nothing in the whole valley smelled better than that. A long-necked dinosaur stood drinking at the water, grey as a hill.
Rory walked around her soft grey feet. The long-neck lifted her head to chew a branch. Her tail swung the way long-neck tails do, slow and wide. It brushed the basket right out of Rory's arms. Seven sweet-fern leaves went into the stream. They spun once, then floated away around the bend. The long-neck chewed and chewed. She had not seen him at all. Rory stood in the warm rain with empty hands.
Something hot climbed up inside his chest. It went into his arms and made them stiff. It went into his feet and made them stamp the mud. That was not fair. He had picked those leaves all day. He wanted to shout at the water and the tail and the rain. His throat felt tight and small. Rory sat down hard on a patch of warm moss and put his hands flat on it.
The moss was soft. The rain was warm on the back of his neck. Rory took a long breath in through his nose. The valley smelled of wet stone and green leaves and mud. He let the breath out, slower than he took it in. Slow in, slow out, like the warm rain. He did it again. The hot feeling did not go away, but it got smaller, the way a fire gets smaller.
Rory stood up and walked to the slow bend in the stream. Here the water turned in a circle before going on. Anything that floated came here first. He crouched down with his basket. One sweet-fern leaf came drifting round, green and shining. He lifted it out. It smelled like honey and pepper. Six more were out there somewhere in the water. The stream would not hurry, and Rory could not make it.
So he waited and watched instead. A small frog sat on a stone with its throat going in and out. Warm rain filled a deep footprint beside his knee, drip by drip. A beetle walked up a fern and down again. The second leaf arrived, turning in a slow circle. The third came stuck to a twig. Rory peeled it off gently and laid it in the basket. Slow in, slow out, like the warm rain.
The fourth leaf took a long time. Steam lifted off the warm stones while he waited. The fifth came quickly after it, then the sixth, side by side like two little boats. Six leaves in the basket, dark and sweet. Rory looked up the stream for the seventh. Nothing came. He breathed in the smell of mud and rain and counted frogs. The sky went from grey to soft pink above the ferns.
Then he saw it. The seventh leaf was caught on a reed, just out of reach. If he grabbed, his hand would push it further away. So Rory held still and watched it tug and tug at the reed. The water pulled. The leaf slid loose. It floated right into his open hand, and it smelled best of all. He put it in the basket with the others. Seven.
Rory laid the seven leaves in a row under a tall fern. He lay down on them. Honey and pepper and rain rose up all around him. The long-neck was asleep now, grey as a hill in the dark. One glow-beetle sat on a frond above his head, small and gold. Slow in, slow out, like the warm rain. The glow-beetle's light blinked once, and then went out.