Something In The Woods

I don't have many friends. There aren't many kids my age - and anyone close to me goes to school. My mom says school is a waste of time. She says it's for children who think they are too good to help their family. I do have one friend though. Their name is Arlo. In the morning I help father milk the goats and harvest crops, but mom wants me to help cook lunch so I never stay for long. After lunch Dad takes the horse into town - I always go to bed before he comes back. Mom doesn't like to be bothered until it's time for dinner, so Arlo and I go to play in the woods.

We like to play knights. We both have swords we found - mine is a tree branch as long as my arm. His is made of rocks and a lot bigger - He said he got it in a cave, but wouldn't show me where. We've built a castle from logs and branches. We made a bed with pine needles. Arlo is stronger than me, so I pretend to be a queen ordering around her knight to build the castle. It's like a second home - almost as big as my real one! I wish I could stay there forever, but I can't. If I come back too late, Mom yells at me and says I don't get dinner.

Today I woke up and my parents seemed upset. I thought maybe Dad made another friend Mom didn't like, but she wasn't making him sleep outside this time.

"There's something out there." she says

"It's just the wolves." he says. When I ask what they mean, Mom says to stop playing in the woods.

"Where will me and Arlo play, then?" I ask. Mom looks confused.

"Whose Arlo?"

I keep going down into the woods anyway, but I always come back earlier so Mom doesn't notice. I go to the castle, and this time Arlo says he wants to play a new game. He wants to play house. He says he'll be the dad and I'll be the daughter. I gather branches and twigs to build our new house while he clears the ground with his claws. He can smell how good the dirt is for planting crops. He says he can tell which ground is the safest. We build a house as tall as the trees - but only Arlo can reach. Sometimes he lets me on his back so I can help, but I get scared of being up so high.

I get cold when the sun starts to set, and the forest is always scary when it's dark. I tell Arlo I have to go home otherwise Mom will get angry at me. Last time I made Mom angry, Dad hit me for upsetting her, I tell him.

Arlo says he will go home later - he wants to make us clothes to play in.

The next morning when I wake up, Mom is angry anyway. Dad didn't come home last night and she says she has a lot of things to say to Miss Salzahar in town. She tells me to go play in the woods, tells me that Dad can do his own work today. I see her start drinking from her dinner bottle for breakfast when I leave. On the way down to the woods, the farm is quiet. I don't see any of our goats. I hear Arlo before I see him - he is plowing the garden, carrying a seed bag behind him. The house is bigger this time. It has a chimney, and it's walls are made from rock. Arlo has a jacket and a hat now. He had to poke holes in it to fit his horns, and the vest looks funny because he can only fit two arms through it. It looks a lot like dads. I tell him it looks nice on him.

Arlo says he made me a cloak. It's so big it drags on the ground. He says it's made from goat. I say I love goats. He says he knows.

We play all day long - we plant seeds, and chop trees for firewood. Arlo says we can make a fence tomorrow. When it gets dark, I go home. I thought I got lost on the way home, because when I see my house, I felt like I was still in the woods. The goats still weren't in their pen. It sounded like dad was home early, even though I couldn't see his horse.

When I got home, I saw Arlo. He was wearing my mothers apron, and was cooking dinner. When he talked, he sounded like my mom. He put dinner on the table and sat on either side of me - speaking in dad's voice too. I could only see one of him at a time, but I knew he was playing. He had done this trick before, and it always made me laugh.

My mom asked me how my day was, and I said Arlo and I started playing house.

"Arlo? What is he like?" she asked, cutting into her dinner roast. "He sounds like an interesting young man."