THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WELL

Chapter 2 – page 7

Granma decided to look around and see what else the fairies had flown in for breakfast … if there was anything "substantial" like bacon, ham and eggs . . . "Well, I’ll be shucky durn" says Granma. "just think of something and there it is!" Right in front of her and just out of da Muff’s reach was a platter of something yellow with lumps in it … looked like an egg omelette. "Julio," said Granma, "why don’t you just taste this here to see what it is."

Julio opened wide and in went the spoon … and out came the stuff! "Eweewweeee! It’s mushrooms and eggs!" "Great!" says Granma and begins to chow down. Underneath the eggs was a big thick slice of ham-like meat. hhhmmmmm She jabbed it her fork and stabbed it with a sharp pine needle like knife. No blood came out; it was pink like ham. So over the teeth and over the tongue and down the hatch it went. Not bad ! Not bad at all! She knew it wasn’t ham. She left a little bit and scraped it off for Muff. What would some mushrooms, a caterpillar and a bunch of fairies do with a pig? After a cup of something like steaming apple cider, Granma, Julio and da Muff got up and wandered around the big mushroom. It was kinda like a palace compared to all the other mushrooms outside, so that’s what they decided to call it : Mushroom Palace.

They now saw daggers on the wall, swords and shields hanging up; bronze, silver and gold. There were carvings on the inside walls, some that looked like fat knightly mushrooms on horses, of all things. In the corner of the room stood an old tree limb with real armor hanging on it. "My, my" says Granma, "This is a reeeeal palace. Wonder who the king is? Can’t be King Cat, the caterpillar, can it?" Julio just did his wowweee in awe imitation kind of whistle. Muff was behind them wondering what was going on. Granma and Julio decided to nose their way to the back of the mushroom to see where the caterpillar had gone.

Behold, what to their dazzling eyes did they see, pray tell? A prince, a King, or a man of some kind asleep in a hammock stretched out between two trees. The mushroom ’back yard’ was much airier and lighter than the entrance was. Sunlight was streaming down all over the place and they could see the sun rising high in the orange sky above the trees. Well now, there were two suns. One was yellow and the other white. The sky was swirled like an ice cream sherbert, orange, peach & white, fading away to a deeper red towards the horizon. They could just catch a glimpse of the tippy tops of the some pink and white mountains in the distance.