Under the Sidewalk

here is a story I wrote called Under the Sidewalk:


 

Under the sidewalk

the crack

Jon sat on the road side. He was nine. His mother and father had died in a house fire. His hopes of finding money or an orphanage were fading away. All he had left were his old, dirty clothing, a few coins and a blanket to keep warm.

He walked past a bakery and smelled the wonderful smells coming from it, knowing that all the food in there was way to expensive for him.

He walked past a candy store. He went in, then he walked up to the first shelf he saw and grabbed the first chocolate he saw and checked the price. It was 25 cents, and guess what! He had 50 cents! So he got another chocolate to, then he one of the chocolates very fast.

That evening he noticed a small crack in the sidewalk. It had warm air and complete silence coming from it. Jon put his face against it. He loved the warm air on his face. Just then he noticed he was wasting time! The concrete seemed very crumbly near the crack and he thought that if he found the right rock he could break the concrete, go under the sidewalk, and see what was under there (but of course he would block the crack after)! So he went in search of a rock. He searched in a gutter beside the road, but did not find any rocks that where even nearly big enough then he searched in the community garden. But still, no good sized rocks, So he went to search in the forest on the other side of the road. Sure enough, a few minutes later he arrived at the crack again carrying a perfect sized rock, and started to break the sidewalk with it.

The Meadow

As Jon hit the side walk, tiny bits of concrete crumbled away, into the dark, and very mysterious, hole.

It seemed like it had taken forever, but finally he got a big enough hole.

All he could see was darkness, for miles, and at the very end a tiny dot of light, a very tiny one, and by darkness, I mean pitch black! So at first Jon was not so sure about going in the hole, but as the night got more cold, he decided the hole was much warmer than outside, even if it meant being in the pitch black, it would be better than sleeping on concrete in the cold. So he hopped in the hole.

There where rungs on every one of the four sides of the hole, and he did not like the feeling of falling, so he grabbed onto one of the rungs, and started to climb up. The rungs led to a spiral staircase. He started to climb op the staircase. As he climbed he counted the stairs “one...five...eleven...fifteen...” until he got to the eighteenth stair, and on the eighteenth stair he found a note. The note said “hello my friend. At last we meet again. I am Asio, the king of the darkness, there is a switch in your brain to turn on the light.”. Jon did not understand! A switch in his brain to turn on the light? he kept on walking.

Fifteen steps up, he found another note! This one said “think and get ideas!” so Jon sat on the steps and thought about what the notes might have meant, and sure enough, he got an idea! And sure enough in one minute he was a tiny (indeed tiny! Only two inches tall I mean!) person lying in the most gigantic and amazing meadow! How did he get there? He thought! How did he get tiny? He thought, and it turned the switch on in his brain, and it is true, every one is just a small person in a giant world! Even you! Even me!

The meadow had lots of huge flowers, and there were gigantic wild horses running around!

Jon was a little bit scared, and a little bit happy, but most of all excited and in a whirl!

The first thing that happened was that he almost got stepped on by a horse, then a big wind came and shot him across the field, right into a big tree! Next, when he thought it was over, he got picked up by a huge raven and dropped on top of the tallest tree in the meadow. It was like it was all planned out! One thing after the other! And he barely had time to think about this because a few minutes after he had landed on the tree, a big eagle picked him up, and dropped him on the head of one of the horses. Jon realized that riding a horse was quite fun, and because of this, he did not pay any attention to the light, and when he finally fell off the horse, it was pitch black. And since he could not see, he had to feel his way through the grass until he found a buttercup. He started to climb up the buttercup, but about half way up, he slipped, and fell of the other side, and into a hole, and down, down, down, down, and...plop! He was on the ground, but it was still quite dark, so he went to sleep.

A Dream

That night, Jon had a dream. In his dream he was staying in an B&B called the Blueberry B&B. The B&B was meant for small people and he had found it behind a tree in the forest next to the meadow. He thought that because he was small, he would be aloud to stay there, and he was right that he was aloud to stay there, and he did stay there.

The owner of the B&B was a newt, the food server for the B&B was a caterpillar, and the cleaner was a rat. Because he was dreaming, he did not think it was a weird B&B, or even an interesting one, and for this reason he did not watch out in the night, and he got robbed by the rat.

A New Home

When Jon woke up, he looked around him, everything was very silent. The only thing that Jon could hear was the wind in the grass. The horses were not out, there were no bugs loudly munching on leaves.

Jon found a bunch of sticks in the hole and a hammer and some nails. He quickly built a ladder out of sticks and nails, and climbed out of the hole.

The grass was wet from dew. Jon cupped his hands around a drop of water, and drank it.

Jon decided that he would venture into the woods and try to find a good place to stay.

After a while of walking, he found a small, waterproof, and dry fort that someone had made. Jon ran back to his old hole and got his hammer and the remaining nails. When he got back to the fort he hammered it all together so it would be extra strong. He made himself a bed out of needles and twigs. He gathered rocks to make a fire pit. He made a seat by the fire, and started off on a hunt for caterpillars.

Food

Even though Jon was very good at finding caterpillars, (he was good at finding caterpillars because he had practiced it in the days when the only things he could do where wander around the forest next to the road and sit on the sidewalk) this was a different type of forest than at home and he could not seem to find any, so Jon decided to empty his pockets and see whats inside them, he often kept useful things in his pockets. Inside his pockets he found the pocket guide to living outside, a Swiss-army-knife, a pine needle, and a flower pot. The pine needle he thought would be just perfect for a spear, the guide for every day advice, the Swiss-army-knife for cutting twigs for the fire, and the flower pot for planting some food.

The wind

Jon suddenly remembered how he got here! By digging at a crack on the sidewalk! Then he longed to be back home, with his parents, though he knew it was impossible, something inside him told him the same old words that he had said when he was younger, nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible.

He went to bed, and when he woke up, he was back on the stair that said “think and get ideas” he sat there stunned for a minute, and then, a passage way began to open up on the other side of him. He stepped in as he stepped in the wind lifted him an inch of the ground and he flew through the tunnel.

Back home

as he flew, he became younger, suddenly he was shot through the tunnel, and there he was standing in his bedroom two months younger! His mother was kissing him good night, then his mother went to bed. As soon as his mother and father where asleep, he snuck into their bedroom and blew out the candle his parents had accidentally left burning, then he went back to his own bed and went to sleep.