A PHOTO?
The next morning we woke up early to the sounds of the birds in the forest. I held my breath, slowly unzipped the tent door, and stepped out.
The plants were still there. They were still huge. There were still a few new closed flowers. And there were a ton of glowing seed pods lying on the ground near each plant.
I let out a big sigh of relief.
Mom came out of the tent, and we cuddled together, eating some warm oatmeal while we watched the beautiful rainbow show of the new seed pods.
“So … we have to leave them all here, right? I mean, this is where they belong. So it’s what’s best?”
Mom nodded. “I know it’s hard to leave them. Now that we know where the plants grow, though, we can come camp again sometime soon. Maybe even bring your dad?”
“That’s true. I bet Dad would love it here, even if he can’t see the fweeps or the beautiful plants.”
“And there’s one other thing you could do to make saying goodbye a little easier.”
I raised one of my eyebrows.
“Check in the backpack toward the bottom.”
I ran over and dug through the backpack. My hand closed around … my camera!
“Yessss! Thank you, Mom!” I knelt down to get a close-up photo of a rainbow seed pod that had already fallen on the ground.
“How about I take your photo with one, sweetie?”
“Oooh! That would be even cooler!”
Sassafras let out a long and fussy meow, and Pip humphed.
“Sorry, guys! Of course you should be in the photo.” Pip leaped onto my head and I snuggled up to Sassafras.
“Say cheese!” Mom said. Sassafras purred, and Pip and I grinned at the camera.
When we got home, I went straight to my room and added the photo to my science journal. Sassafras, Pip, and I looked frozen in time in the photo, but the seed pod glowed out from the photo in rainbow colors. “Coooooool,” I breathed.
Just opposite the shimmering rainbow photo was a blank page, ready and waiting for whoever we would meet next.
