Saving Dariana

Free Preview “Is there food anywhere?” she asked the fairies when they stopped to rest. They were on a hillside in a field of white fluttering flowers. Suddenly, all the flowers floated into the air, and she realized they weren’t flowers at all. They moved together as one, like a lovely ballet. Lindy was in a trance watching them sway this way and that, one group weaving around another with graceful swirling movements. It was a magnificent, fluttering dance in the sky. Suddenly, she found herself among the swirling flowers and was exhilarated when she looked down at her body and saw that she was a pretty white flower herself. She floated and danced and swirled with the other flowers for a long time until finally, she drifted back to earth. “Wow!” Lindy whispered when she started to feel like herself again. “Did you see that?” Bene and Frederick were sleeping peacefully with big smiles on their faces. “Wow!” she said again because right in front of her was a picnic lunch of berries, nuts, and some strange kind of bread. There was also a pitcher of what looked like lime cool aid, then, grape, then cherry, then orange. It was fizzy and bubbly and Lindy laughed with delight. “Boy! Everything is always changing colors here.” She grabbed the pitcher and gulped a long swallow. It was sweet and bubbly. The strange soda quenched her thirst and made her heart happy. She could feel the bubbles all the way to her toes, and all the way to her nose. She drank more and more until the pitcher was empty. Her heart felt like it would explode with happiness, and her belly felt like it would explode with bubbles. Suddenly she opened her mouth and let out the longest, most colorful burp in the history of burps. The sound woke Bene and Frederick who jumped up and danced around in the pink, green, and lavender bubbles that floated in a cloud around their picnic spot. Lindy joined the fairies in a laughing fit that made her side hurt and tears roll down her face. She lay panting and sputtering little bursts of merriment until she felt as loose as a rag doll. Her eyes started to close because she was getting very sleepy. “Not yet!” hollered Bene, “look at these yummy nuts.”