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The Forest Of Ferns

🇺🇸Ekoes_Own_Galaxy
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Chapter 1 - Ch. 1 The Search For The Right Ending

With one final swipe of his pencil and one final swish of his pen, his sketch was complete. Perched on top of his boulder his knees bent up high. Sitting like a frog he sat next to, his slimy green friend sitting next to him unmoving. As round as marble but on frogs legs. The boy observed his work. Looking over the newly completed page of the well-worn leather-bound book. A well-loved book...

The whole book was filled with pages full of detail, of descriptions and sketches, its corners had a softened yellow look that could only come with age, a tear here and there and the ruff edges had withered away. The cover was scratched with a dripping stain on one corner, a lock that hooked to strap but the lock didn't lock, so he used a bit of string to tie it shut and thin strips of paper of all colors held and marked places, not just the top but on all sides of the book. Though the whole book was not what he was admiring.

He was quite proud of this piece. It was of the clearing he loved so much and the sunny boulder that he sat on. On that boulder, a picture of himself sat smiling at the warmth of the sun, sitting crosslegged with his frog friend sitting beside him, his chubby cheeks and all. A calming scene, a picture-perfect afternoon. It was in this very moment that there was not a toe out of place, nothing but tranquillity and solemn quiet. Not only had it been captured on the page but it still hung around him like the smell of sugar in a bakery. His mind drifted to the last two clean pages of which he thought he might write down some final thoughts, maybe a few notes, possibly something memorable for his future self... whatever it was that he finished it with, he was sure it would bring about a satisfying conclusion to his journal.

Stretching out his arms he laid down, then bringing back his stiff arms with his book still in his hands, he held it close to his heart. Soaking up the streaming sunshine that fell through a gap in the trees. It hit his face, the frog, and the edges of the boulder. It warmed him right down to the skin under his bones, breathing in the smell of the yellow pages in all their dusty glory. The frog's eye fell sideways at him looking, unblinking, the other staying where it was, set upon a dry and crusty looking stick bug as it inched up the tree.

The frog wasn't the smartest creature, not that he had ever flat out told the frog that it wasn't, for it was impolite to declare such an ill-mannered and crude thought. But they didn't need to speak to each other to know they were friends. He liked the frog and the frog liked him, and that's all there was to it. (Plus no matter how hard he tried he could not shake off the frog despite his original efforts too.) If he went into the forest, the frog would always come out from his hole under the porch stairs and join him on his adventures and expeditions. Then it would follow him home at the end of each day. It would crawl back into the hole and he would walk into his front door and they'd both of them were back home.

It was the third trip of being staked by his froggy friend that it had followed him all the way home. It saw the hole and practically rolled sideways toward it and got stuck in between the boards because he was to fat to fit.

The next day when he had left the house the frog was still there, stuck between the boards, looking up at him with such round eyes, a pathetic look. Wiggling its stubby legs, it let out an even sadder croak of what sounded like an old mule's last breath. That he had helped it out of the board and moved the board over a little out of the way so the frog could go in and see whatever it was he was so keen on seeing.

"Thank you." Said the frog in a deep throaty voice, and before he might have a chance to blink the frog was standing on two legs. With one webbed hand holding a shiny silvery pocket watch and wearing a button-up vest with a matching waistcoat. With all buttons straining and looking like they were about to burst. He fell back in shock watching the frog tucked the watch into his waistcoat pocket and pressed his fingers together in an almost thoughtful manner.

"I would invite you in but you are a trifle too big to fit through my front door... and if you can't fit through that then you can most certainly not fit in my house." Said the frog in a politely sarcastic voice and turned away from him. The hole was no longer a hole. But a small door made of what looked like the aged, inner bark from white pine. Carved into a pattern that eventually willowed out into what he thought looked like a dandelion or a pansy. The frog opened the door and looked back and stated.

"You should watch out for the bushes today. They might bite your ankles if you don't watch it, see? All so try to watch out for strangers, they'll drag you into having some ice tea with them. It being such a warm summer day, especially since it looks like luck isn't on your side... But it looks like my luck is getting better!" The frog laughed before closing the door behind him. The gust from the door blew him back. Sending him flipping over and over backward in a whirl, then coming down thud on the mossy ground on his head and slowly flopped painfully onto his back.

He opened his eyes. Laying there on the forest floor looking up it the canopy of leaves. He had been duped, bamboozled, tricked again by another dream. The frog stared down at him, its unreadable face seemed to have an amused look about it. It's one eye following his journal slide down the side of the boulder then it hit him squarely between the eyes. A dusty powder and shavings flew out of the book's pages as it tumbled. The spine of the book cracking as it struck him.

Yowling and clutching a paw to his bleeding nose, the book bounced once more off his chest, the book falling to hit the ground with a clunk as its spine snapped against the leather strip that held it shut. It's pages left open and quivering as it fell open.

Thanks for the help, he thought tartly, looking at the indifferent expression of the frog. His left eye swelling like he had been twacked by a thorny branch and his nose stung like he had taken a hit from a rock-filled snowball.

He rubbed his swollen eye tenderly and his free hand brought a cooling grasp over his nose. Then held it under his nose to try to catch as much blood as he could, for it was no longer a leak growing into a gushing waterfall. This was not what he wished to happen at the end of his glorious reign. To end his book in blood and to tell about his bewitched slumber of unseen treachery? No, this is not what he hoped to foresee in the future when he would look back at the end of his many adventures. How embarrassing if someone else were to read that piece at the after he had written it down his tales of traveling and observation. What a sour way for his journal to end, and yet he refused to allow it. For such an embarrassing ending could not be allowed to come about.

First things first, he should get himself cleaned up. Wiping his nose on his sleeve, he picked up the book, that had fallen open to the last time he might have missed a dangerous encounter. Barely glancing over it he snapped it closed and fumbled around on hand and knee for his pen and pencil. A special pen with a specially made traveling sealable cartage of ink and for his pencil, it had charcoal at one end and the lead at the other. Grumbling and snorting back a painful sneeze, he checked his pockets for his eraser, in the process finding a spare rag in his back pocket, a lucky bonus. He shoved it up his nose to try to stop the bleeding. Though it was a bit dirty some might say and it didn't help much. The blood still running across his upper lip.

Indeed for him, this was truly embarrassing... He felt a hot wash of shame fall over him. His ears and cheeks, plus his blood-soaked nose and chin made him almost as red his sweatshirt. Only his pale blue eyes (although his left eye was now nearly swollen shut) and his sun brunt white hair made him look like he wasn't just a red stain on the lush green landscape. Whatever it was he looked like, he was sure it was a sloppy, ugly mess of an eyesore.

He put the pen, pencil and eraser in the cover's spine and tied it shut with that little bit of red string. Perhaps instead of going home. He thought he might go wash his face in the stream. A nice change. If he went there he might come up with a good ending. Yes, he thought, he would search his mind for the right ending there...

After waiting a few minutes, If anything he thought that at least the stream wasn't that far off from the boulder and the idea of walking wouldn't be such a bad idea if his face didn't sting. His nose cringed, the smell of blood hung thick in his nostrils his back up against the rock. Moving his dirty rag to a cleaner corner and continually stuff it back up his nose while waiting for the bleeding to stop.

He had managed to get it to a light trickle. But it was taking every ounce of his very being to not rub his swollen eye and the frog stared at him from his feet. His shoelaces were within its main focus as it waited for an ant to crawl up them.

Some help you are, he thought, you probably pushed my journal off the boulder after me just for laughs too. The frog still eyeballed him with an seem to squint at him, its tongue shot after something, it lay there stuck to one unfortunate bug and his shoelace. Its eyes popped, it fell from underneath it, defeated. He couldn't help but laugh, it served the frog right. His laughing became less funny when the blood started to run in a gush from his nose. With a quick slap of pain between his eyes.

Grumbling he tipped his head forward. How could this much blood come out of ones nose, a soaked handkerchief's worth of blood at least... The book couldn't have hit him that hard, right? Well, it served him right for laughing. He thought bitterly, his headache wasn't going to wear off at this rate and he couldn't let blood keep dripping down his front like this. He would have to go wash his face, now... which was sooner rather than later. Maybe he shouldn't have waited so long for his nose to drain. Maybe if he tried to get up in one swift motion then maybe his headache wouldn't make him topple over.

It's worth a try. Rolling into a kneel to stand. Grabbing the frog, it's tongue rolled back into its head with a snap. Plus he snatch up the journal in one fowl swoop and took off in a slow jog. Wobbling steadily and head pounding, he moved where he thought was forward, without realizing he was walking in the wrong direction.