Notebook for Fantastical Observations (14 page)

Finally, cold and sleepy, I crept back to bed. As my eyes closed, my blurred vision seemed to turn the bright, flitting creatures into city lights. With that familiar sight in mind, I slipped off into sleep.

I don’t know what those things were, but I haven’t had any trouble sleeping out in the country since I saw them.

—Juan G.

ANALYSIS: Sprites sometimes take up residence in trees. This appears to be a rare sighting of these tiny faeries.

—H. B. & T. D.

Sometimes at night, I hear this creature:

Here’s what else I know about it:

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

Ideas I have before I fall asleep:

1.                                                            

2.                                                            

3.                                                            

4.                                                            

5.                                                            

6.                                                            

7.                                                            

8.                                                            

9.                                                            

10.                                                          

11.                                                          

12.                                                          

13.                                                          

A dream I have over and over:

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

Commonly known as faeries, sprites look like a mix of humans, insects, and plants. A poem about a sprite that lives in the country:

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

A poem about a sprite that lives in the city:

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

The view from my window:

The view from my window with a seeing stone:

This is what I would look like if I were a sprite:

This would be my sprite family:

He recalled something about people losing their way, even really close to home. . . .

FROM
B
OOK
3: L
UCINDA’S
S
ECRET

When I was about twelve, I stayed at my friend Rob’s place longer than I should have. We’d been reading comics and making up new superheroes, like Monkey Man and Booger Boy, until we laughed so hard that chocolate milk shot out my nose and made me choke. When I looked at my watch, I realized I’d completely lost track of time and was going to be way late for dinner no matter what I did, but I thought that maybe there was a way I could avoid getting seriously punished.

There was this farm between Rob’s house and my house and it was supposed to be haunted. My grandma told me that back in her day the family was pretty prosperous, but during the Depression the people who lived there wouldn’t share any of their food, even with kids who came begging. A couple of years later, the whole family got sick and died, one right after another. For a while,
after that, there was a guy who tried to keep horses on the farm, but they always got spooked, jumped over the fence, and galloped all around my backyard and the neighborhood. Seriously. I used to sink my hands in the prints their hooves made in the mud. But, by the time I was coming home from Rob’s, no one lived on the farm.

I figured that our parents told us the property was haunted to keep us from playing there, because it was overgrown and split by a fastmoving river. Even though the place creeped me out and I usually avoided it, my plan was to cut through and run all the way home. If it worked, I would be late enough to get a lecture, but not so late that I’d get grounded.