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Besides our great series, Tillyville brings you stories about wacky witches, battling bugs, funnybone fairy tales, historic women inventors, and many others . . . every Sunday!
A Place in the Sun by John Mohler Jr.
A delicious meal. The snake licked her mouth and wound her way toward her burrow beside the apple tree. There was one thing she needed now.
Lazily, she crawled through moist grass. Perhaps too lazy, because something didn't smell right.
Fingers wrapped around her body, lifting her from the ground. She found herself staring at the gigantic white-and-brown eyes of a human child, a little girl. The snake waved her tongue in greeting, for she meant the child no harm. There was only one thing that the snake needed right now.
Eeee! screamed the little girl, who flung the surprised snake.
The snake darted away, while another child, a boy, ran after her. The grass was as tall as a bird's wing, hiding her greenish-brown body. She raced in a zigzag, hoping the boy would not catch her.
But her skin tensed--she sensed something wrong.
She felt a dog behind her, outpacing the boy. The dog's muscles flexed, its jaws snapped, its breath beat hot on her tail. In its growl, it threatened to snap her body in two.
At the last desperate moment, the snake twisted in a new direction. A gray wooden fence towered overhead--she slithered between the pickets to safety, leaving the dog howling in the background.
Now the snake was lost. She followed the length of the fence. Up ahead towered a knobby pair of trees. She wriggled between them, seeking out some shade.
Ahhh! cried a gardener, when the snake emerged from between his shoes.
The snake was every bit as startled as the gardener, and hurtled quickly past. The point of the gardener's shovel sliced into the ground, barely missing her tail.
The snake hid under a tomato bush. The gardener kicked it aside. The snake circled behind a pepper plant. The gardener stomped it flat.
The snake hid in the sprawling leaves of a pumpkin plant. Her breath came short and fast. The angry gardener was out there somewhere. She wasn't trying to ruin his garden; no, there was only one thing she needed now, and it wasn't that. She poked her tongue out from the leaves, and dared a peek.
Ah-ha! the gardener exclaimed. The snake sprinted between his legs, the flat of his shovel crushing her former hiding spot, scattering clods of dirt in all directions. The man tumbled backwards, while the snake crawled to safety through the rabbit fence enclosing the garden.
The snake turned a circle, searching for the apple tree. So confused was she that she did not even sense--
The snake rose into the sky. The breezes tickled her skin. The green grass fell further away. It took a few moments to realize she was in the clutches of a prairie hawk.
After all her efforts, she had no intention of becoming a meal for this sharp-beaked bird. No, there was only one thing she needed now. She drew herself up, and chomped the bird's leg.
Shree! screamed the brown bird, and the snake found herself twisting to the earth.
The snake landed in the top-most branches of a tree. She spun and dropped to the next branch, and rolled down another, over and over, through the lush green leaves of the tree.
She
found herself at her burrow beside the apple tree. She
Copyright 2003 John Mohler Jr. Art by Dave and Holly
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stretched on the dark
soil, warm with sunshine. Here was the only thing she needed now.
A place in the sun.Subscribe - Sample Stories - Current Newsletter - FAQ - Store - Home - Contact