It has long been foretold that this journey would begin with a step. And so it did. Madeline stepped on the faded, dusty welcome mat, which happened to look upside-down the way she was coming out of the door.
"This feels strange," She said to herself. She felt it would be pleasant to have someone to talk to as she went on this journey, so she talked to herself. (The wind happened to be talking too. She just couldn't understand it at the time. It said something to the affect of, "The earth's current flow of molecules has afforded you a brief kiss on the cheek.") She smiled with the gust of wind, and with a sudden breeze of movement, she was on her way to school.
"Baby, you're going to be great one day. I know it." She liked the way those words sounded when she spoke them into the lofty air. Her pink sneakers danced over small shadows in the pavement. Her knots and strings danced with her as she continued, "I am a song that hasn't been written down yet." (It happened to be mostly in the key of B-flat Minor.) She let out a sole laugh to herself.
Madeline always found things to be quite strange. She often thought about eyes. (Eyes calculate physics in a way that our brain can only process when it's not thinking about it. Take a basket ball and bounce it off the ground. Then, watch the ball bounce without moving your head. Your eyes can predict the weight, gravity, and eventual path of the ball in a matter of seconds. Your eyes can also maintain contact with the ball as it hits potential obstacles. This was always amazing to Madeline, but she never knew how to say it. She, instead, let her jaw hang in wonder at what her eyes could do.) Then, she started singing about it.
I like watching trains.
I like watching space.
I even like watching your face.
She wasn't the best singer in the fourth grade, but she had a lot of love in her voice. She always thought her heart was rather musical, but at the time she hadn't learned the word 'whimsical', which was the more accurate adjective in the case of Madeline.
* * *
"Madeline! Are you humming that melody again?" The teacher's question snapped her out of her daze. She didn't realize that she was in the classroom already.
"Yes, Ms. Green."
"Can you please save this for Friday? We're in the middle of a lesson, but I would love for you to teach us this melody during show and tell."
"Yes." Ms. Green was nice enough, she thought. She wouldn't go rogue and start disobeying the teacher just yet. She drifted off into a thought of a school-wide rebellion, which would be led by her and a few of her cats. Focus, she thought, I have to focus.
"--what do you think the meaning of this story is?" The teacher's questions were clear in her mind, but she her story was just about to start getting more interesting, especially since Chub and Bernie were not going to like her putting off the mutiny, she thought.
"This feels strange," She said to herself. She felt it would be pleasant to have someone to talk to as she went on this journey, so she talked to herself. (The wind happened to be talking too. She just couldn't understand it at the time. It said something to the affect of, "The earth's current flow of molecules has afforded you a brief kiss on the cheek.") She smiled with the gust of wind, and with a sudden breeze of movement, she was on her way to school.
"Baby, you're going to be great one day. I know it." She liked the way those words sounded when she spoke them into the lofty air. Her pink sneakers danced over small shadows in the pavement. Her knots and strings danced with her as she continued, "I am a song that hasn't been written down yet." (It happened to be mostly in the key of B-flat Minor.) She let out a sole laugh to herself.
Madeline always found things to be quite strange. She often thought about eyes. (Eyes calculate physics in a way that our brain can only process when it's not thinking about it. Take a basket ball and bounce it off the ground. Then, watch the ball bounce without moving your head. Your eyes can predict the weight, gravity, and eventual path of the ball in a matter of seconds. Your eyes can also maintain contact with the ball as it hits potential obstacles. This was always amazing to Madeline, but she never knew how to say it. She, instead, let her jaw hang in wonder at what her eyes could do.) Then, she started singing about it.
I like watching trains.
I like watching space.
I even like watching your face.
She wasn't the best singer in the fourth grade, but she had a lot of love in her voice. She always thought her heart was rather musical, but at the time she hadn't learned the word 'whimsical', which was the more accurate adjective in the case of Madeline.
* * *
"Madeline! Are you humming that melody again?" The teacher's question snapped her out of her daze. She didn't realize that she was in the classroom already.
"Yes, Ms. Green."
"Can you please save this for Friday? We're in the middle of a lesson, but I would love for you to teach us this melody during show and tell."
"Yes." Ms. Green was nice enough, she thought. She wouldn't go rogue and start disobeying the teacher just yet. She drifted off into a thought of a school-wide rebellion, which would be led by her and a few of her cats. Focus, she thought, I have to focus.
"--what do you think the meaning of this story is?" The teacher's questions were clear in her mind, but she her story was just about to start getting more interesting, especially since Chub and Bernie were not going to like her putting off the mutiny, she thought.