The young girl with freckles crept forward carefully, eyes shining with anticipation as she crawled through the lush vegetation. Her heart beat fast when she reached the edge of the valley, brushing aside one last fern until she had a bird's eye view of the life in the river basin before her. Her eyes grew to the size of baseballs as she finally caught sight of the animals that were the very reason for her perilous journey: unicorns.
Her small hands trembled with delight, and she seated herself on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley of the unicorns. She reached carefully into the front pocket of her purple overalls, and withdrew a pad of paper and an green crayon.
Her tongue protruded from the gap where one of her front teeth used to be as she concentrated on immortalizing the sight before her in colored wax. Several minutes and three crumpled sketches later, the girl laid down her crayon and held up her drawing for inspection. Eyeing it critically, she scrunched up her face before breaking into a broad grin.
"Perfect!" She pronounced, folding the page carefully and placing it back into her pocket with the notebook and crayon.
She got to her feet eagerly, and turned back the way she'd come with a bounce in her step. She pursed her lips to whistle, but when no sound came out, she closed her mouth and hummed cheerfully instead.
Fighting through grass and ferns, she eventually came to a tall hedge that stretched seemingly endlessly in either direction. Undeterred, she turned to follow it, still humming merrily to herself. It wasn't long before she came to a small gap in the foliage, and sank to her knees beside it with a satisfied grin.
"Here it is!" She announced to no one in particular before placing her hands on the ground and squirming eagerly into the hole. The greenery was so thick that the leaves choked out the sunlight entirely and formed a sort of tunnel within the hedge. Unconcerned, she wiggled forward, eventually emerging on the other side.
She giggled delightedly, burying her hands in the fluffy white powder coating the ground.
"Snow!" She squealed, flopping down and enthusiastically waving her limbs to carve an angel into the frozen ground.
Still laughing, she sprang up, scooping up handfuls of snow and throwing it into the air, only to shriek with glee and cold as it rained down on her again. Eventually, she started forward once more, shuffling her feet to form a trail in the fresh powder. She crested a small ridge and was about to begin her descent when she heard a disgruntled squawk from behind her.
She turned to see a short, squat bird waddling in her direction, flapping its wings uselessly against its tuxedoed breast.
"A penguin!" She gasped, mouth gaping at the sight of this odd little bird.
The penguin sauntered up to her, blinking rapidly as it stared at her with its head cocked to one side. Abruptly, it squawked once more, and threw itself down the hill, gliding smoothly along the snow on its stomach until it reached the end of the ice and plopped into the ocean a short distance away.
The green eyed girl turned around again to see a long line of penguins eyeing her curiously as they shuffled toward the hill in the track that she had made with her feet. She giggled with delight, plopping herself down in the snow and pulling out her notebook again, this time selecting a blue crayon.
The crayon moved furiously against the paper as penguin after penguin disappeared into the ocean before her.
With a self-satisfied nod, and an emphatic "Just right!", She once again tucked the paper and crayon into her pocket. The last penguin slid past, and then the girl gave a shout of joy and threw herself down after it.
She closed her eyes as the wind whipped through her hair, and her smile widened with each passing second. She picked up speed, sliding faster and faster down the hill until it felt like she was flying, and then suddenly the ground dropped away from beneath her and she opened her eyes to find that she was!
She soared over the ocean with outstretched arms, studying the water that churned with frolicking birds until it grew too small to see, and she found herself speeding through the stars.
"Hello, Moon!" She called as she approached, and laughed to hear her own greeting echoing back to her in the emptiness of space.
Her feet landed softly in the dust of the moon, and he tilted her head back to admire the stars. Almost of their own accord, her fingers found the thick pad of paper and a yellow crayon, and she sat to capture proof of her latest adventure.
She had just moved to safely store away her artwork when she heard a distant voice calling her name.
"Amelia!"
Eagerly, she got to her feet and launched herself once more into space.
"Amelia, it's time for dinner!" the voice announced as she neared Earth.
"Coming, Mama!" She answered, swooping beneath the clouds to finally land in a small, fenced-in backyard belonging to an even smaller suburban bungalow.
A tired looking woman with shoulder length blonde hair appeared at the back door, a smile transforming her face as she looked down at her daughter. "So what did you all see today?" she asked her daughter.
Amelia leapt forward, almost tripping over the large cardboard box she had so carefully labelled Imagination Station as she ran toward her mother. "I met unicorns, Mama!" She shouted, brandishing her drawings as she raced to her side. "And me and some penguins went sliding in the snow! And I went to the moon!"
Her mother took the drawings, ushering her daughter inside and carefully admiring each page before crossing to a refrigerator that was nearly covered with crayon artwork, and adding them to the collage.
"That's wonderful, Amelia," she told her, helping her onto her chair before taking her seat at their worn table.
"Tomorrow, I'm gonna drive a race-car!" Amelia announced, bouncing up and down in her chair. "You can come with me Mama, if you promise to wear your seatbelt!"
She laughed, and ruffled Amelia's red hair fondly. "You know Amelia," she told her, "I just might do that."
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