How hard could it be to find a pink house in the woods?

Well, it turned out to be harder than I expected.

To begin with, it was dark and I could not see where I was going. And there were trees everywhere and tall grass and mean bushes. Also, it was unnecessarily windy.

Something was flying over my head, and I do not think it was a bird.

Under the best of circumstances, I have never been able to tell one direction from another. And these were not the best of circumstances.

I kept hoping that Clarence would appear and lead me to the pink house and to Burke Allen. In the story of Pinocchio, Pinocchio is lost and walking through the woods and a blind cat and a lame fox come along and tell him a lot of lies.

I made up my mind that I was not going to listen to anyone who told me lies.

Of course, thinking about lies made me think about Granny.

That is, I thought about the woman who I had once believed to be my granny, even though she was absolutely no relation of mine.

I can tell you one thing: whoever she was, she was certainly a big old liar!

I was never ever going to speak to her again, and I hoped that she remained toothless until the end of time.

Oh, I was mad.

And also, I was lost.

And then I fell into a hole.

It was not a deep hole. And that was fortunate. But it was deep enough to make me lose my balance and fall to the ground and drop the letter and the bologna sandwiches.

I stood up. My ankle hurt. So I went back down on my hands and knees, and I crawled around in the dark woods looking for the letter and the sandwiches.

And because it was dark, it was hard to find anything.

And my goodness, I was lonely. I almost wished that a blind cat and a lame fox would show up, even if they were just going to tell me lies. It would be nice to have some company.

I crawled around some more and found both bologna sandwiches. That was a good thing.

But I could not find the letter. The wind had taken it away. It was gone, gone, gone.

Just like Granny.

I started to cry.

I cried and cried. But since who knew what was going to happen next (I certainly had no idea) and since it seemed like a good idea to keep my strength up in such a dark and windy world, I ate one bologna sandwich, and then I ate the other one.

I cried the whole time I ate them.

Both sandwiches were very good.

Imagine Granny lying to me about bologna!

She should have put something in her letter apologizing for all the lies she had told me — including the lies about bologna.

And then I remembered that Granny was not my granny and that I had lost the letter informing me of that fact.

I stood up, but it still hurt to stand on my ankle, so I went back down on my hands and knees and I crawled over the ground looking for the stupid letter. I started to cry harder and louder. It was very hard to breathe, and everything smelled like bologna and a little bit like orange cheese.

The world was so dark! I don’t know that I had ever before encountered such darkness.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when a bright light shone out of the darkness and a voice said, “What in the Sam Hill?”

I stared into the light. I said, “I am looking for a letter and a pink house and a boy named Burke Allen.”

And then I fainted.

The next thing I remember is being carried.

I smelled something sweet.

I said, “What is that smell?”

A man’s voice answered me. He said, “That’s cake, darling.”

I liked that answer very much. I think that “cake” is a very good word in general and that people should use it as an answer to questions more often.

“Darling” is a nice word, too.

The cake smell got stronger and sweeter, and then I saw the pink house. And I was so happy that I must have passed out again.

Just from sheer joy.