13

Daisy pinched her cheeks as she sat on the bench- waiting,~ and waiting. She stared at the large screen that showed the different colour markers & points of the various train routes. ‘‘Where was the train she needed to head back home?’’ She thought to herself.

Just as she got ready to close her eyes for a short nap, she heard the familiar sound of the train moving on the tracks and the sound of the powerful engine. Her heart beat fast. She did not want to miss her train!

She rose to her feet & quickly grabbed her luggage. The train came to a halt and she soon heard the conductor shout: ‘‘Get on ‘board!’’

Daisy dashed toward the train & hopped on. She slowly moved along the side of the path next to the reserved seats. Once she found a spot to seat past the reserved section, she crashed onto the leather seat. She was ready to sleep all the way to her final destination.

The sudden break on the tracks startled Daisy. She looked around wondering how long she’d been in dreamland.

Without even trying to ask where she was, Daisy decided to grab her luggage from the bottom of her seat— ready to disembark the train.

She managed to carefully use the steps & hop onto the sandy ground. Daisy heard the crunch of something below her feet. She looked down and spotted fragments of something brighly glowing in the sand.

Daisy bent down to examine the materials in the sand a bit closer. With her free hand, she picked up a tiny piece of the material to take an even much closer look.

She gasped. Was this the precious stone that she had heard stories about from her parents when she was a kid? She shook her head. That was not right. Her home town was not known to have such resources.

Daisy dropped the precious stone & wiped her hand on her ankle length pleated skirt. She stopped to really take a better look around her. The moment she did, she dropped to her knees and she shook her head: ‘‘What town is this?’’

She began to panic and turned around to see if the train was not too far away. But the train was gone. Well, actually there were no train tracks anywhere she tried to peer.

Daisy squinted her eyes and waved her free hand in the air. She couldn’t see a thing. This place wherever she was had such thick fog.

The only thing that she could spot from where she was were some lights. She scurried toward them.

When she was near the lights, the fog started to clear. Her eyes came to view a town with creatures that were all seemed to be busy. She spotted a toad wearing a giant yellow coat by a stand. The toad croaked & bellowed: ‘‘Why are all the oranges gone? Who bought the last ones?’’

Was this some kind of open market? She stood and blinked her eyes in awe. This was probably not real. She closed her eyes & counted backwards from 34 to 1. (That was how far she could manage to count backwards, for now).

She was about to finish counting backwards when she heard another croak & bellow: ‘‘You whatever you are~ don’t just stand there with your eyes closed! Did you buy the last oranges?’’

Daisy opened her eyes and blinked again. She pointed to herself, & looked to her left and right. The toad hopped toward her. She wanted to run, but it seemed as if her legs were not ready to do that.

The toad stared at Daisy as soon as he was right in front of her. She cleared her throat ready to speak..the toad interrupted her- ‘‘Oh my...You’re a human. What are you doing in our town? Go back to your own realm!’’

Daisy could not understand what that meant. Had she traveled here by some kind of magic? Then it came back to her in a flash, she had not paid attention when she boarded the train.

She reached into her bag & found what her train ticket. Daisy’s hand trembled. On her ticket the route number was: 13. The train she needed to take was route 31. How did make such a silly mistake of purchasing the wrong ticket route?

The toad watched Daisy. She looked as if she had heard news that someone was sick. Daisy stared at the toad & quietly asked: ‘‘How do I get back home?’’

#13 (C) 15.08.2021