But None to Be Found Just Yet

Remember the girl who was left behind? Let’s find out what she’s been up to lately.

It had been a long, dusty day traipsing along the side of this highway in the middle of nowhere. Her whistle had long since petered out. Perhaps it was time to take an inventory of her situation, she thought.

Yes. That was probably best.

A patch of shorter grass was just up ahead, and when she reached it, she plopped down on her behind to go through her pockets. She smoothed the grass even smoother and began laying out her life.

Her right front pocket was empty.

The first thing she pulled from her left front pocket was a particularly round rock that she had just picked up, maybe five minutes earlier. She inspected it anew, twisting and turning it to check for any more appealing attributes that she may or may not have noticed the first time she picked it up. It appeared to be the same. She placed the rock on the smooth spot that she’d made.

Next up was a Dentyne gum wrapper, sans Dentyne. Normally, she recalled, she jammed the gum wrappers into the crevice of the back seat of her (former) parents’ car, but for some reason, she had kept this one. She shook her head, unable to recall any sentimental value for this particular wrapper. Next to the rock it went, just in case the reason she’d kept it came back to her.

Underneath the gum wrapper, she discovered seventy-eight cents in various coin denominations. She stacked them in order of increasing diameter, and checked her back pockets.

Her left pocket was as empty as the right front, not even occupied by a stray chunk of denim lint, but her right pocket was slightly more lucrative. She smiled as she read over the grocery list that she had swiped from her (former) mother three days earlier. The woman had searched and searched for that list, and never suspected her darling little girl had possession of it.

She sighed at the memory, knowing that at the moment, she was no one’s darling little girl. It was time for that to change. She gathered her small pile of belongings up and carefully replaced them in her pockets before standing up and stretching.

She arched her back and decided that it was time to come to terms with her new situation.

“New parents, here I come! Get ready for your darling little Frannie to come home,” she called to the vast prairie stretching before her.

And she set off walking again, whistling with renewed vigor.

PP #40

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