Buttermilk Read online

  Buttermilk

  A Serendipity Book

  By:

  Stephen Cosgrove

  Illustrated by:

  Robin James

  Stephen stuff: http://www.stephencosgrove.com

  Robin stuff: http://www.artistreegallery.com

  For ancillary rights information: [email protected]

  For publishing rights: [email protected]

  Copyright © 2013 Stephen Cosgrove, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Originally copyrighted © 1988 by Price Stern Sloan, Inc.

  3105 Locan Avenue Clovis, California 93619

  Dedicated to the best of the best — my granddaughters, Jessie Rae Cosgrove, and Lauren and Evelyn Paine. I simply like dedicating books to them.

  Stephen/Grm’Pa

  Contents

  Farther than far…

  There lived in the Thicket…

  One of the bunnies…

  Late one day,…

  As she hopped along…

  If at all possible Buttermilk…

  She was really…

  With her heart pounding…

  …a voice called out…

  The very next morning…

  They rounded the path…

  They hipped and hopped…

  “Poppa, I am so dumb!”…

  Safe little buttermilk…

  Buttermilk is a simple…

  Farther than far, in the middle of the Crystal Sea, was a beautiful island called Serendipity.

  On this magical island, was a place simply called the Thicket. It was protected by a massive wall of flowers and ferns.

  The Thicket was a beautiful place of wispy fog filled with gentle dreams and streams flowing with wishes and wants.

  There lived in the Thicket many delightful creatures. None was as delightful as the bunnies whose fur was as fluffy as dandelion down and with eyes like shiny black lumps of coal.

  Their noses would twitch at the slightest breeze that rattled the trees as they sniffed about looking for friend or foe.

  Sure that all was safe, they would hop on their way on large thumping feet down paths covered in needles from the Velvet Pines.

  One of the bunnies was an absolute delight with fur the color of cream speckled with large golden splotches.

  Her ears were pert and perky as they twitched this way and that listening to the wind as it whispered through the Velvet Pines.

  Her name was Buttermilk.

  She spent her days hopping about as rabbits are wont to do.

  Late one day, as the sun was setting low and the shadows were getting longer, Buttermilk realized that she had wandered far away from the safety of the Thicket.

  With a nervous look from side to side, she began hopping home. With every hop she hopped she remembered all the scary stories the older bunnies told of the very scary creatures that lived outside the Thicket.

  The faster she hopped the longer the shadows became until she found herself wrapped in what her imagination had made a very frightening place indeed.

  As she hopped along she kept looking over her shoulder sure that a ghost or a goblin was chasing right behind. Nervously she hopped around a corner in the path and there stood the most ferocious dragon she had ever seen. It was also the only dragon she had ever seen which made it even scarier still.

  The creature stood at least nine feet tall with scales of green that fluttered as the dragon breathed. Its wings were furled like giant sails as it towered above the frightened bunny. Suddenly, wings began to flap making the most frightening of sounds.

  “Lordy! Lordy! Lordy! Get moving, feet! Don’t wait for me, save yourself!” she cried.

  And run she did like she had never run before.

  If at all possible Buttermilk was now even more scared than before. She hopped wildly down the velvety path in the ever-creeping darkness.

  She jumped over a rotting log and screeched to a stop. At the edge of the path was a more than monstrous bear hunched waiting for an unsuspecting bunny to come along. The bear’s teeth began to chatter in excited anticipation of a bushy, bundle of baby Buttermilk bunny breakfast.

  Her feet, thumping like two pumping pistons, churned up the needles as she raced down the path.

  She was really moving now and nothing would have stopped her escape from the forest to her den — except for the witch.

  What a horrible, horrible sight: red glowing eyes and a fluttering sound of her horrible creaking limbs. The witch’s hideous head swiveled from side to side looking for a bunny to munch as it moaned, “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!”

  Running faster than fast, Buttermilk outran her shadow down the forest path.

  With her heart pounding in her ears, Buttermilk dashed through the Thicket and down into the hole that was her home. She skittered through twisted, darkened tunnels and jumped into bed. She pulled the quilt up over her head and scrunched her face into her pollen pillow.

  Her heart thumping in her ears Buttermilk tried desperately to fall asleep but to no avail. She could still hear the rustling of the monsters in the forest outside.

  If all wasn’t bad enough, moments later she heard the shuffling of feet just outside her door.

  “Screep! Thunk! Screep! Thunk!”

  The horrible sound of a monsters’ footsteps echoed through the burrow.

  And then…

  …a voice called out.

  “Buttermilk? Are you okay?” asked her father in his gentle, foggy voice. “I heard you come in, but you didn’t stop for supper or say goodnight to your mother and me.”

  Buttermilk leaped from her bed and into the big furry arms of her father’s embrace. “Oh, Poppa!” she cried. “They were horrible, all the monsters of shadow and night. There was a witch and a bear and a dragon of fright.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” gently crooned her father as he rocked her in his arms. “Tomorrow in the light we’ll find your monsters of fright and banish them forever. For now close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  He hummed a gentle lullaby and stayed with her until she was fast asleep.

  The very next morning, the dew still damp and dripping, Buttermilk and her father hopped down the path. Floppy step by floppy step they moved up the path until they came to the place where Buttermilk had seen the witch.

  They looked and looked and listened too for the creaking limbs and the cry, “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” But all they found was a baby owl that cried softly, “Who? Who? Who?”

  “See,” said her father, “when you find your nighttime monsters in the light they aren’t filled with fear or fright.”

  Buttermilk scrunched up her nose and said, “Well, maybe the witch was just an owl, but just wait until I show you the bear.” And off they hopped down the path in the morning mist.

  They rounded the path to the spot where she had seen the bear the night before, but there was nothing there. Instead, there was overgrown hump of a stump with mushrooms growing in great profusion.

  “A bushy, bundle of baby Buttermilk bunny breakfast?,” chuckled her father.

  “But Poppa,” she said, “I heard his teeth chattering.” Then, as if by cue, a tiny striped chipmunk appeared chittering and chattering at the both of them.

  “Well,” sighed Buttermilk, “maybe the witch was really an owl and the bear was only a stump, but just wait until I show you the dragon.”

  Nervously, she hopped ahead, her father shuffling behind.

  They hipped and hopped until they came to the place where Buttermilk had been scared by the dragon.

  But, instead of a dragon, they found a beautiful
weeping willow tree dripping with butterflies that fluttered in the wind and a flock of birds chirping in morning’s delight.

  “Poppa, I am so dumb!” mumbled Buttermilk as she twisted and turned her foot in the path, a tear trickling from her eye. “I shouldn’t have been so scared.”

  “No,” said her father in the gentlest of ways, “you’re not dumb. For everything seems a little darker and scarier at night. Even I’m sometimes scared of things in the dark. Just remember that daylight is bright and will always chase away the worst of your nighttime fears.”

  With that, he wiped away her tears and arm in arm they hopped back to the Thicket.

  Safe little buttermilk in flowers deep dreaming sweet dreams while she’s fast asleep.

  More to this story at BookPop.com

  Buttermilk is a simple story about being afraid of the dark. It is a subject I often visit because as a child the dark scared the fuzz out of me. I slept in a room with my two older brothers who in order to torment me would pretend to fall asleep leaving me alone to stare into shadows deep. I have a fertile imagination that has served me well in my career, but at times, it can be my fearful folly.

 

 

  Stephen Cosgrove, Buttermilk

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