The Tale of the Rainy Afternoon

Illustration by Kami  Age:  6  Paris, TN
Mrs. Natalie's Childcare

          Xavier the frog sat on his favorite lily pad taking his afternoon snooze.  Suddenly a drop of water hit him between the eyes.  Then another hit him in the middle of the back.  Soon it was raining.

            Xavier jumped off the lily pad and onto the shore.  Even though he didn’t mind being in the water, he didn’t like sitting out in the rain.  It was annoying to be constantly dripped on.  He began to search for some shelter from the rain.

            As he made his way down the path away from the pond, he ran into Hayden the turtle.  Actually he ran into Hayden’s shell because Hayden had pulled his head and legs inside to get away from the rain.

            “Excuse me, Hayden,” said Xavier.  “I didn’t mean to run over you.”

            Hayden barely poked his head out of his shell.  “That’s okay.  Sometimes it’s hard to see my shell when it’s raining.”

            “I wish I had a shell to crawl into when it rains,” said Xavier.  “It must be nice not having to search for shelter every time it rains.”

            “It is nice to take my shelter with me wherever I go,” said Hayden, “especially since it takes me so long to get anywhere.”

            “Well, I need to find somewhere to get out of this rain.  See you later, Hayden,” said Xavier as he jumped on down the path.

            “Bye, Xavier,” Hayden’s voice echoed as he pulled his head back into his shell.

            Soon Xavier came to the clearing where he and his friends normally played.  Off to the side in the tall grass, Xavier saw a place where the tall grass overlapped making a grass cave.  Inside the cave was Emerson the dragonfly.

            Xavier hopped over to the cave.  “Hey, Emerson, this is a cool cave you have here.  The rain doesn’t even drip in here at all.”

            “I know,” said Emerson, “I found this when it started to rain.  Maybe we can pretend to be pirates looking for treasure.”

            Just then the friends heard Audra the duck waddling up the path.  Soon she came over to the cave, but there wasn’t enough room for all of her.  She stuck her head inside and left her back out in the rain.

            “Sorry, Audra, but this cave isn’t big enough for all three of us,” apologized Emerson.

            “It’s okay,” explained Audra. “As long as I can stick my head inside out of the rain, I’m fine because the rain just runs off my back.  I hate the rain hitting me in the face.  Did I hear something about pirates?”

            For the rest of that rainy afternoon, the three friends stayed in their cave and had many grand adventures as pirates in search of lost treasure.