“I’m
hungry!” Lucy announced.
Jennifer
the sitter smiled over the top of her book.
“But
Lucy, we had lunch,” she said.
Lucy’s
mouth watered thinking about the extra-crunchy peanut butter, the tart
raspberry jelly and cold grape juice.
“That
was HOURS ago,” Lucy explained grumpily, scratching her dog Buttons behind his
ears.
Jennifer sat up straighter and asked,
“Well, what about our snack in the garden?”
Lucy had to smile as she
remembered. She and Jennifer had played
a guessing game while Buttons chased butterflies around the tulips and Lucy
slurped on an icy, grape Popsicle, all sticky, sweet and pointy to the very
end.
“That was fun, but I’m hungry now!”
Lucy moaned, rolling on the floor while Buttons tried to lick her nose.
“Well,” said Jennifer, “your parents
will be home before too long, but maybe we could have a picnic.”
Lucy jumped up and clapped her
hands
“An imaginary picnic,” finished
Jennifer.
Lucy sat back down with a plop and a
scowl.
“It
will be fun!’ Jennifer said. “We can
have it wherever we want!”
Lucy
looked up. “In a boat?” she asked.
“Sure,” said Jennifer
Lucy
sat up. “Under the snow?” she said. “Brrrr”, Jennifer shivered.
Lucy
jumped up. “On the moon?” she
whispered. “Wow!” gasped Jennifer.
Lucy thought for a moment as she shook hands
with Buttons.
“On
a cloud“ Lucy decided.
“A big fluffy cloud floating over the ocean, with
birds and dolphins playing all around us! “
Jennifer
clapped and Lucy continued.
“We
would feed the dolphins tiny silver fish and Buttons
could have a whole bowl of potato chips just for him!”
Button’s
ears perked up when he heard “chips”, but Lucy kept on going.
“Flowers
would grow right out of the cloud and we could eat all we could pick.”
“Some
would taste sweet and melt in our mouths while others would snap and crunch so
loud we would have to cover our ears!”
“Mmmm,” said Jennifer hugging Buttons.
Lucy
laughed and went on.
“Fairy ladies would bring us drops of root
beer in tea cups so tiny the fairies would buzz all around us trying to keep
them filled!”
“And there would be a meatball!”
“The biggest meatball ever!” said
Jennifer.
Button’s tail started wagging whenever he
heard the word “meatball.”
“Yeah,” Lucy cheered! “It would be so big a dragon would have to
fly it right to our cloud.
A giant toothpick would help us climb
up to the top where we would eat with our hands while the dragon used his claws
to cut off pieces as big as cars before tossing them into his mouth!”
“Once the meatball was all gone, we
would dip our hands into the cloud for dessert and pull out fistfuls that
tasted like different flavors of ice cream!”
“Then the dragon would fly off, his
belly all big and round, and we would have to say good bye to the dolphins
before our cloud flew us home!”
While Jennifer clapped and Buttons
jumped, Lucy plopped into the big leather chair exhausted from her adventure.
Just then, Mommy and Daddy walked
through the front door carrying bags and boxes that smelled very good!
“Dinner time!” they announced.
Everyone went outside to set the
table.
There was corn on the cob, bright red
tomatoes, strawberry lemonade, Lucy’s favorite tiny meatballs and much more.
Lucy looked over all that wonderful
food and listened to Jennifer tell her parents all about their day and watched
Buttons sneak a potato chip from the table and smelled the flowers and saw the
butterflies and she thought, “This might be as good as the imaginary picnic.”
“But I do miss the dolphins!”