A CHILD’S TALE FROM CARMEL

I have a guest author today, Danica’s Shoes, two small suede “Dora Mary Janes”.

When I arrive in Carmel this time and let myself in the cottage, I hear a tapping noise. The shoes are on the dining table tapping their toes impatiently. It appears they have a story to tell me and this is the way they tell it.

“Danica brought us to Carmel. When it is time to go home, we hide under the bed and are left.

The women who clean the house find us , dust us off and put us on a shelf for FOREVER.

 This is boring, so one morning we decide to hop down. We put on our favorite socks, the ones with the bows on the back, and head to the kitchen.

We get our plate and find a muffin and a pluot to eat for breakfast. 

We put on one of our  Dora movies but can not get interested

 So we go out to the Garden.

And knock at the door of a tiny house but no one is home to play.

 We get our sand bucket and decide to go to the beach.

The street seems too busy so we take the small paths we find as we go along.

Some are mossy.

One has a Toad House, thank goodness he was not home! We hate toads.

Other paths have flowers

Or interesting stones. 

This one has pretty petals on it and we can hear the ocean.

It is a long walk but we finally arrive at the beach stairs.

We pass a dog just finishing his walk.

This is so much better than the shelf. People notice us and ask what we are doing and seem to understand we are just here to have a good time.

We forgot how hard it is to walk in the sand but on we go .

There it is! The Beach!

We go down to stick our toes in the foaming surf and are almost swept away. The water feels fresh and cold.

It is time to go home but the stairs are steep. We remember that the last time we were here Danica’s daddy carried us up.

 

At the top of the stairs we rest a bit and admire the view.

We see a lost yellow shovel and almost take it with us until we remember Danica’s favorite color is pink.

We visit with some “Hello Kitty” flip-flops

Sit on a bench.

And look at the pretty shells on the paths.

On the way home we cut through some back yards . One has this spider!!!

And one has lots of toys. 

We are really getting tired so we stop at a blue bench and swing our feet for a while.

We cut through some hidden courtyards. 

They all seem to have dog dishes

And we begin to miss our dog at home. She is big and lets us play on her.

A dog named Hudson spots us as we look in the door of his  shop and sees how worried we are. He invites us in and holds us gently in his big paws. We feel better after we talk with him. 

So we press on. We are so tired when we finally reach our house 

That we collapse on the porch and take off our socks.

Boy! What a story we will have to tell Danica when she comes back to get us.”

Many thanks to the shoes for sharing their adventure with us. The story does have a happy ending. The shoes are reunited with Danica, but never forget their trip to Carmel.