i thought i’d stop and say hello

“What’s this?” Yori asked, lifting the cloth animal off the shelf. Winnie had brought it home a few days before. Sieffre, she had called it. He looked over at Winnie and shook the animal. “Winnie? What’s Sieffre?”

“It’s a stuffed animal,” she said, with hardly a glance away from her work.

Yori scowled. He walked over to her desk and perched on the edge, still holding the little animal. “Winnie,” he asked. “Do all my questions bother you?”

Winnie looked up at him, blinking. Her cheeks flushed and she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. She sighed and looked back down at her work. “I have to get this done by tonight or I’ll miss the deadline.”

Yori nodded. “I’ll leave you to work then,” he said. Still carrying the animal, he hopped off the desk and padded out of the room. He slipped into the corridor. The child of Winnie’s neighbor was there, sitting on the top step.

“Hello,” he said, sitting beside the boy. He set the animal in his lap and frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Mom’s cleaning and I was in the way,” he said, shrugging. His gaze locked on the animal. “Where’d you get the giraffe?”

“It’s Winnie’s,” Yori said. He looked more closely at the animal. “It’s a giraffe? Is this what they really look like or is this pretend, like the cats with the giant heads?”

The boy blinked at him; then scowled. “They’ve got longer legs than that, really,” he said. “And they’re bigger than that, obviously.” His brows furrowed. “Why are out out here?”

“Winnie’s trying to work and my questions were bothering her,” Yori said. He shrugged, then. “I thought it best to stop interrupting her, so I came out here.” He looked at the boy and smiled. “You were here, so I thought I’d say hello.”

“I’ve got a book about giraffes,” the boy said. “Wanna see?”

Yori nodded. “Certainly,” he said. As he watched the boy disappear into his apartment, he wondered if he’d made a new friend. He hoped he had. This world was so strange to him. Having more friends meant he had other people he could talk to and learn more about the place he found himself in.

when a heart must go where it belongs

It was dark and cold and so very windy. I was alone. I was afraid. What would become of me? Was I doomed to waste away to nothing on the side of the road? The wind buffeted against me, tipping me this way and that. Cars went by occasionally, but none of them seemed to notice.

I never imagined someone would even notice me. Who knows how long I had be sitting beside that lonely road. Then I heard the patter of feet running along the pavement. “Hey,” a voice called over the wind.

A moment later, I was lifted off the cold pavement. The girl looked at me closely and scowled. “Why would someone leave you here?” she said. Sighing, she tucked me close and hurried back to her car.

“What is it?” another girl said. Then the girl who had rescued me climbed into the vehicle. She handed me to her passenger.

I was a little frightened. Had I been out so long that I was ruined? No! The girl snuggled me close. She called me sweet. I relaxed. Wherever we were going now, I was certain of one thing: It was home!

**

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