His Dogness

This is an excerpt from a chapter book that I set aside:

Sparkle Girl was lying on her back looking at clouds when the hawk that lived in the neighborhood flew over.

Just behind him came three crows in hot pursuit. Sparkle Girl didn’t understand why the hawk didn’t just turn around and chase them. He was bigger and more powerful.

The birds flew over the house next door and disappeared to the east.
Seeing the hawk and crows fly over got Sparkle Girl thinking again about how much fun it would be to be able to fly. She wasn’t particularly interested in being a bird, though.

For starters, birds ate stuff that Sparkle Girl couldn’t imagine eating. A hawk would probably think that a mole was a tasty treat. And, as nasty as that would be, at least it would be fresh. Sparkle Girl had seen crows in the street picking at a ‘possum that somebody had run over who knew when?

Yuck.

No, the best way to be able to fly would be to be to become a fairy. She wasn’t sure what they ate but she knew it had to be something tastier than road-kill ‘possum. Plus, Sparkle Girl thought, fairies undoubtedly got to wear cute outfits. Not that Sparkle Girl had ever seen a fairy’s outfit in real life. But she was sure that whatever a fairy wore, it would be something quite flattering.

Yes, being a fairy would definitely be the way to go.

Sparkle Girl thought about fairies a lot. She even went so far as to leave them notes at night wishing them well. She also put out such treats as honey-drop soup and peppermint tea. In the morning, she would find a note from the fairies and a small piece of polished glass or some other beautiful gift.

Fairies probably ate things like nectar and berries, too, she thought. Sparkle Girl liked berries, especially blueberries, a lot. Their next-door neighbor Scotty had several blueberry bushes growing in her yard, and she had invited Sparkle Girl to pick them whenever she wanted.

They were delicious.

Once, Scotty had said something to Sparkle Girl about how, whenever she went out to pick ripe blueberries, she found that the birds had gotten there first and Sparkle Girl had to confess that she was the one eating the ripe blueberries.

Sparkle Girl was thinking about how happy she would be when blueberry season came around next year when Doobins came out of the house. He walked over, looked down on Sparkle Girl lying in the grass and said, “I’m going across the street to Mr. Chundy’s Magic Mart. You want to come?”

“Sure,” said Sparkle Girl.