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The restaurant game, played with leaves
for props, leads Melika to an artful mission:
protecting the forest against a false spring.
children's story
32 pgs
hardcover
minimum bid:
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Marketing - Readings and the audio release by the author will help sales.
Illustration - Barbara Joyce Robinson, Leslie Baker, or an illustrator of the publisher's choosing are all possibilities. At present, no illustrations exist.
Packaging - Firefall Literary, an arm of Firefallmedia, can finalize the design of the book, in consultation with the publisher.
Publication Date - Spring, Fall, or any season.
Delivery Date - On auction, or two weeks after contract.
Page One (of 16 of text)
Melika cried. She’d lost her lucky leaf. Did a slug eat it? Did the wind take it? Did a hawk need it for a nest?
She knew she’d been showing off the leaf too much, but she’d never seen one prettier. It had patches of bright green, deep black and gold, and streaks of rusting purple. The underside was white and feathery. All the colors of the forest floor fit neatly in her hand. An inch long and shaped like an arrowhead, the leaf had pointed where to go, when Melika had to guess.
For two weeks, she’d carried the leaf in her darkest deepest softest pocket, so that it wouldn’t crack or fade, but now there was no leaf at all. Looking, not seeing, Melika wandered the schoolyard, crying so hard she bumped against a redwood tree.
Then she remembered. She’d lent the leaf for the restaurant game.
Lester and the girls were still playing, using a bench as a serving counter. On it were piles of dry leaves and seeds, wrapped in paper towels and ready to sell. Melika’s leaf, on the center plate, had made the food seem real before.
“Chocolates?” Sara asked, offering chips of bark.
“Aftermints?” Erin asked, pushing forward the eucalyptus pods.
“Angelfish?” Lester asked, holding out the palest leaves.
Melika’s leaf wasn’t among them. It wasn’t anywhere near. Did it find its way back into the forest without her?
“Some of the leaves flew into the creek,” Lester said, “They didn’t want to get eaten.”
Melika dried her eyes, slid down the bank, and went looking.
The stream trickled across the root ends of the redwood trees. Very few leaves floated in the shallow lazy water. Melika turned over this leaf, then that. She searched the trees: nearby were only evergreen needles now. Still she kept going. She was allowed to wander in the forest after lunch. Getting lost was almost impossible. Melika knew that the tall trees formed a grove surrounded by roads, one that led home, the other to the shopping center.
Chilled, aching and wet, she came to the post-office bridge. Faraway the bell rang....
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