Ally to the rescue

"Mommy, Mommy. Come quick!" Greg burst through the front door open to let in a spring breeze.  "You have to help Wyatt. He's stuck in a tree."

Ally and her mother ran to Greg's side. He was smaller than most of the five-year-olds in the neighbourhood, and often slower to understand things.  "Where is Wyatt's mommy?"

"I knocked and knocked and knocked but she didn't answer."  Greg threw himself into his mother's arms and wailed.

"She's having a nap with Mr. Miller." Ally stepped into her sneakers and laced them up.  "I'll get Wyatt."

"Be careful, Ally."

She raced over to the park.  She could hear Mommy and Greg behind her.  It was reassuring to have an adult as backup but she would be fine. Ally had been climbing these trees for as  long as she could remember.

Not Wyatt, though. He wasn't much bigger than Greg. The two little pipsqueaks went everywhere together, looking out for each other. Last week, Wyatt the accident-prone little monkey had fallen off the merry-go-round and hurt his arm.

"Up here, Ally." The very scared voice of her brother's best friend drifted down from the top of the highest pine tree in the park.

"Don't worry, I'm coming to get you."  Ally scrambled up the tree bark then boosted herself to the lowest branch. How had Wyatt managed to get off the ground with a splint on one arm.  She climbed the tree,  hand over hand, foot over foot, branch to branch and asked herself that question over and over again.

"Hurry, Ally."  His voice was quieter than before, almost as if he was scared speaking would make the branches move.

"Can you move at all, Wyatt?" She climbed quickly, closer and closer.

"Noooo." His voice trailed off.  "I think the branch is gonna break."

"No, it's not, Wyatt."  Ally could see his skinny white legs wrapped around the branch above her.  "This tree is tough. Strong. Just like you."

"No, I heard it creeeaak," he whispered.

"Look at the cloud, Wyatt." Ally slowed to follow her own advice.  "Are they moving?"

"Nooo," his voice wavered. Poor kid was going to start crying any minute now and then how would she get him down?

"That's good. It means no wind.  Definitely not hurricane weather.  Right?"

"I wouldn't climb trees in a hurricane."

"That's a smart boy."  Ally pulled herself up level with Wyatt.  The hand on his good arm clung to a tiny sprig on the tree trunk above his head.  "Shimmy back towards the trunk."

His tiny bum wiggled until his back hit the tree.  "Good man, Wyatt. Now slowly stand up."

"I can't Ally.  I'll fall."

"Don't look down."  As soon as she said it, he did.  His lip quivered.

"Don't cry, Wyatt.  Look at me." She stepped around him and out onto the branch.  With one hand holding the branch above her, she held her other hand out to Wyatt.

"Take my hand, buddy." He shook his head.  "Let go of the tiny branch." He shook his head again and his eyes filled with tears.

"Okay."  She squatted down in front of him.  "Slowly lift your leg up and stretch it out in front of you.  I'll show you."

Ally dropped down so her butt landed on the tree branch then dangled her legs over the side. She scooted back a bit, further out onto the narrower part of the branch. Wyatt's eyes were huge and his lip trembled.

She slowly lifted one leg up and stretched it out on the branch.  Then lifted the other.  "C'mon.  You do it."

Wyatt  nodded then followed Ally's example. It took twenty times longer for him to do it than for her but all that mattered was his back against the tree and his legs in front of him.  "Do your legs tingle a little bit?"

He nodded.  Ally bent forward and rubbed some life back into his legs.  "That happens to me sometimes when I sit too long."

She reached up and grabbed a higher branch then pulled herself up.  "You can do it, Wyatt. Use that hand to pull yourself up."

He shook his head.

"Don't be scared. I'm right here. I can help you." She grabbed his elbow above the splint and held on. Not too tight, she didn't want to hurt him, but enough to steady him as he pulled himself up.  He clung to the tiny branch and did just that.

"Good job, Wyatt. Ready to climb down?"

"How?  I'm scared. What if I fall?"

"You won't fall.  I'm right here with you. Do you want to go first or do you want to follow me?"  Ally reached around him so that he was pinned between her and the trunk.  "How about we do it together. You put your feet where mine are."

It took a long time to reach the ground that way but they made it. There was a crowd waiting for them when their feet touched dirt.  All the kids cheered. Greg ran over and congratulated his friend on the adventure.

Ally's mom gave her a big hug. "That was a brave thing to do."

She hugged her mom back.  "I don't know how he got up that high only using one hand to climb."

"Not well."  Her mom laughed.  "It took three hands to climb down."

She turned and swept the two boys into the hug.  "What a good job you all did.  I'm so proud of all of you."

Greg wriggled free.  "Can we go play on the swings now?  I want to swing as high as Wyatt in the tree."

The two boys ran off, neither scarred by the climbing mishap.  "Boys!" Ally rolled her eyes and her mom laughed again.

"Girls will give you just as many sleepless nights, young lady."

Ally laughed, ran and tumbled forward into a carwheel.  "Ta-da!"

"Ta-da, indeed." But her mother smiled and sat on the bench to watch all of them play with their friends.  Wyatt's mom never did join them.

Surprise for Ally

After Daddy left for work, Mommy took Ally to the park. There were other Mommies there but her Mommy pushed Ally on the swing, so high she could touch the sky.  Then they climbed a tree and watched the Nelsons' dog chase a ball.  The dog had big floppy ears and a tail that swished the ground.  It always ran over when it saw Ally then flopped so she could rub it's belly.

"Now that I'm four, can we have a dog, Mommy?  I'll take very good care of him.  I will feed him and take him for walks and play fetch. I'll rub his belly and give him baths when he's stinky. I'll share my Mr. Bubbles with him."

Mommy laughed. "You are a big girl now, Ally."

"Does that mean I can get a puppy?"  Ally jumped off the branch and did a somersault just like the Bionic Woman.  She had a dog. A bionic dog with supergood hearing.  "He doesn't have to be bionic like Max.  I don't have six million pennies."

"We'll talk about it later when Daddy gets home.  He and I have a surprise for you."

The rest of the day was slow. Ally filled three colouring books, watched Sesame Street and took a nap and it still took FOREVER for Daddy to come home from work. Then it was supper time, her favourite mac and cheese with cut-up hot dogs, and Daddy talked about Mommy's day. "I hope you didn't overdo it, Helen."

Mommy rolled her eyes and Daddy laughed. He didn't like eye-rolling but tonight he seemed pretty happy.  He and Mommy laughed at every little thing.  Some times grown-ups were so silly.

After dinner, Mommy poured a big glass of Daddy's favourite beer. "No Magners for you," he said.

Mommy giggled then pulled Ally onto her lap on the couch. "Daddy and I want to talk with you about our big surprise. I hope you'll like it."

"I know you'll love it as much as we do, Chief."

"I knew it. We're getting a puppy." Ally hopped off her mom's lap and raced to her bedroom. She rooted through the toy chest until she found what she was looking for on the very bottom.

"He can sleep with Jerome."  Ally handed over the old stuffed giraffe.  "Just like I did when I was little."

"Oh, Ally."  Mommy held Jerome close to her chest and breathed deep. She choked.  "He's a bit old and dusty."

"That's very nice of you to share him."  Daddy lifted Ally up into his lap on the couch beside Mommy.  "We're not getting a puppy.  We're going to have a new baby brother or sister."

"But I want a puppy."  Ally's chin started to quiver. She wrinkled her nose to hold back the tears. She was four years old, not a baby. Everyone knew only babies cried.

"It. Will. Cry. All. The. Time. And. No. One. Will. Be. Able. To. Sleep." Ally hiccupped.

"It's okay, Chief.  It won't cry all the time. It needs to eat, too."

"Allen."

"We don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet. What am I supposed to call the baby?" Daddy hugged Ally.  "Babies grow pretty quickly and then you'll be able to do things together.  It will be better than having a puppy."

"Rusty."

"Pardon?"

"We can call the baby, Rusty, until we know its real name."  Ally sniffled.  "I was going to name the puppy Rusty."

"Aw, Chief, Rusty will be a good brother or sister. You'll be able to do lots more with this Rusty once it - he or she - gets older."

"Like catch and fetch?"

"Yes, and you'll be able climb trees with this Rusty.  Puppies aren't very good tree climbers."

"Do babies like to snuggle like puppies do?"

"Yes."

"Will I have to clean up after him like I would a puppy?"

"No, that's Mommy's job."

"Will Baby Rusty love me like Puppy Rusty would?"

"Of course."

Ally wrinkled her nose. Her eyes were wet again.  "Will you love Baby Rusty more than you love me?"

"Definitely not, Chief."  Daddy pulled Ally in tight for a bear hug. Mommy kissed the top of her head.

"Okay."  Ally snuggled in deep for a moment and enjoyed her parents' attention.

"Wizard of Oz is on tonight."  She wiggled free.  "Can we watch it?"

"Absolutely!"  Daddy crossed the room to turn on the television so it could warm up.

"Can we make jiffy pop?"  Ally ran to the kitchen pantry and pulled one off the shelf while Mommy laughed and followed her into the kitchen.

Later, Ally snuggled between her parents on the couch and watched Dorothy follow the yellow brick road.  Would there still  be room for her when Baby Rusty came to live with them?  Ally's friend Shelly said having a baby sister was the worst thing ever. She had to share her room, her toys, even her clothes.  Worst of all, Shelly's sister was allergic to animals.

Ally watched Toto prance along beside Dorothy.  Dorothy didn't have a brother or sister. She had the Cowardly Lion, the Tinman, Scarecrow and a little dog.  Ally would like to be more like Dorothy.

"Can we send the baby back if we don't like it and get a puppy?"

Her parents laughed so hard she didn't hear the wicked witch scream at the flying monkeys.  A dog would have been a nicer surprise.

Ally's brother

"Ready to meet your baby brother, Chief?"

Ally clutched the vase of blue daisies close to her chest and nodded at Daddy.

He pushed on the door to Mommy's hospital room then stopped in the open doorway to crouch down and stare her in the eyes.  "Mommy and I are very excited your baby brother is finally here."

Ally wanted to roll her eyes but didn't.  Daddy hated it when she did that. He said five year olds should behave like smart girls instead of smart alecks.  Besides, he was wearing his serious I-mean-business you-better-listen face.  He placed his big hands on her small shoulders.

"There will be some changes in our lives and how we do things but you'll always be my special Chief.  Ok?"  He looked in to her eyes and waited.

"Ok, Daddy.  Can I see him now?"

"Absolutely."  He her her hand in his and led her to the side of Mommy's bed.  Mommy's face was read and shiny and her hair stuck up in lots of different directions  but she looked happy. really really happy.  In her arms she held a long white bundle. "He looks like a pig in a blanket!"

Her parents laughed and the little hot dog opened his eyes.  They were blue! Just like Ally's and Mommy's eyes. Poor Daddy. His eyes were green like grass and his favourite football uniforms.

A little hand moved at the top of the blanket.  "Ten fingers and ten toes," Mommy announced.

Her baby brother turned his head towards Mommy's voice.

"Look how he tracks who's in the room."  Daddy chuckled.  "Do you want to hold him, Chief?"

Ally couldn't hold back a grin.  A baby brother was way better than a new doll.

"Be careful.  Hold his head.  Like this."  Daddy slid his arms beneath Ally's to help her support the baby's head.

Mommy gently lay him in her arms.  "Got him?"

Ally nodded.  Daddy pulled his arms away.

"I'm doing it! I'm holding my baby brother!"  Ally turned her head to look up at Daddy.

The baby squeaked like a little mouse and Ally dropped him. She stood there holding the blanket as he tumbled from her arms straight to the hard floor.  The heaviest part of him, his head, hit the floor with a wet thud.

Ally and Mommy both screamed.  The baby just lay there, quiet and not moving.

Ally covered her mouth with her hands and hiccupped until the screams stopped. Big tears filled her eyes and made it hard for her to see him.  She pretended she was a fort and the gate was closed. Nothing could get in or out. The screams and tears stopped.

A nurse ran in and scooped up the baby.  "What happened?"

Daddy used his Big Boss voice to explain the baby fell. He didn't tell her Ally dropped him.

"I have a pulse."The nurse took him from the room.

Mommy started to cry quietly, like she didn't want to make any noise.  Daddy held her by the shoulders. He didn't say everything would be okay.

Ally stood by the fort gates.  Afraid to move. Afraid to make a sound.  It was an accident but that didn't matter. She hiccupped back another scream.

Daddy held out his arms and Ally ran to her parents.  With his arms around both of his girls, he told Ally it wasn't her fault.  He didn't call her Chief.

But Ally knew he was wrong.  It was her fault.  Her baby brother was going to die and it was all her fault.

Both Robin Berkley and I wrote about brothers today, despite the fact that it wasn't one of our prompts.

String, glass and Bowie

Robin's entry in the challenge

Ally and her friends did cartwheels across the lawn while David Bowie sang about spiders from Mars on the stereo speakers her mom had blasting from the kitchen.  It was a weird song.  She tugged her pigtails out from her halter strap, took a few deep breaths and chilled at the edge of the front lawn.  Gymnastic practice was hard work even if it did look like fun. There wasn't a lot of traffic on the street below but still, it was safer to practice their moves towards the house and away from the hill.

Terry, Tracey and Tonia all did back flips.  It was strange not to have a name that started with a T but it wasn't the only reason she felt like an oddball in their group.  Ally's parents were still married to each other.  She only ever received one set of presents at Christmas and birthdays. No trips to Disney like Tonia took with her dad so he could tell her she was going to be a big sister thanks to her new mom.  No pony lessons like Tracey got from her mom and new dad when they moved out of the old neighbourhood. Terry's parental bribes were more along the lines of concert tickets and the latest albums for all of her favourite bands.  They'd replaced the Bay City Rollers three times because Ally and the 3 Ts wore it out.  S-A-T-U-R-

"C'mon, Ally, get the lead out!" Tonia called.

She shrugged before tucking herself into a ball like the raccoon she'd watched roll across their backyard the other  night. It was annoying the way her parents treated her like a little kid when she was 12 years old, practically a teenager.  Ally was going to pierce her ears for her thirteenth birthday, just like Tracey did when she turned twelve.Mom and Dad promised she could.  They said she'd been really patient with her brother Greg and all the attention he got because he was slow.  Terry's brother called him a retard.  Ally had punched him on the nose.

She'd been expelled for three days from school because she punched him on the playground during recess. If he had said at home she wouldn't have missed any school. Mom said she was disappointed that Ally felt the need to resort to violence.  Dad took her outside and told her was proud of the way she stood up for her baby brother.

Almost as if she had conjured him up by thinking about him, Greg ran onto the front lawn and tried to stand on his head. Of course he fell over. He was as co-ordinated as a piece of string.  If someone didn't put his body into the right position he fell over. A lot.   He followed the 3 Ts to the edge of the lawn at the top of the hill.  All stopped to tie up her shoe. It would hurt if she tripped over it while setting up a cartwheel.

"Look, Ally Bally Bee! I tumble just like you."  Greg dropped to the ground and started to roll, backward down the hill.

"No, Greg, stop!"Ally ran across the lawn but it was too late. He'd slipped over the side and was headed for the street.

Greg giggled like a madman.  Her friends screamed and Ally ran faster than she ever had before in her life.  Halfway down the hill, with every breath in stabbing her throat, Ally got in front of her little brother.   Momentum barreled him right into her legs and she fell too.

Blue sky, blue car, green grass. Blue sky, blue car, green grass.  They flipped past her vision faster and faster til it was just blue and green.  Everyone was screaming. She could hear them but had no way to stop.  Blue green bluegreen bluegreenblue.

She wrapped her body around Greg's and tucked him beneath her as they slid to a stop. The screech of tires filled her ears and she waited for the hot steel bumper to hit her.

Ally's arms shook as Greg struggled to break free.  If she could just keep him still, she'd be able to keep him safe.  She just needed to hold on.

Weird. She could taste the coppery strangeness of blood but she hadn't felt the car hit her.  Ally listened hard, tried to hear anything over her friends screaming.  Greg pounded on her arm.  "Let go, Ally!!! Let me go."

She smelled the older boy before she saw him. Incense and weed, her neighbour Doug always smelled like that. Her parents told him not to come around the house but sometimes he plunked himself in a lawn chair at the end of his driveway.

Ally opened her eyes.  The blue VW bug sat a good twenty feet away. No dents on the hood or the bumper. "Are you alright?" the driver asked.

She nodded and sucked in a breath. Jeez that hurt. Greg climbed out of her embrace.  "That was fun."

A gasp from the driver was followed by more horrified screams from the 3 Ts.  She looked Greg over head to toe. He looked alright. He waved his arms around recreating the cartwheel somersault free-for-all that had carried them down the hill.

Why was it so hard to breathe?  Ally looked down at herself. Nothing strange there. Man, her back hurt.  She twisted but the boy, a high school boy with long blond hair and the greenest eyes she'd ever seen, put his hand on her arm. "Don't move."

She shivered. A high school boy touched her.  Just on her arm. It was no big deal. But the 3 Ts were going to ask her lots of questions about how that felt. Jeez.  It hurt to breathe.  Her back felt funny. The boy looked like he was going to be sick.

"Don't move. You'll just make it worse."

"Make what worse?"

Greg stopped bouncing around her friends and came back to Ally's side.  "Ally Bally."  He squatted down to examine her closely.  "Why do you have a big piece of glass sticking out of your back?  mom said we should  never play near glass. Never. It could hurt you."

"Glass?" Black spots popped and hopped around Greg's head. That was bad. Really bad.

"Yeah, a great big piece of broken glass."

The driver nodded.  "Someone dumped a mirror into the ditch. You must have rolled onto the jagged piece when you came down the hill."

"Ally!"  Her mom pushed her way through the 3 Ts and shoved the driver aside.  Her face twisted then smoothed out into her serious Mom face.  "Terry, Tonia, Tracey, please take Greg back into the house. Everyone have a glass of milk. There are cookies on the counter. Please stay inside until Mr. Robbins or I come to get you. Please."

The spots were more like a lava lamp, just blooping up and down all over her vision.  Hmm, her back didn't hurt as much.  How big a piece of glass could it be anyway?

"I love you Ally Bally."  Her mom's voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel.

Everything was cold. Nothing hurt any more. Her last thought was of the mirror she'd tossed into the ditch the other day.  The mirror she'd smashed to bits.  Except for that one piece that reminded her of an icicle.

Bowie's voice drifted down the hill. "There's a starman, waiting in the sky."

Writing prompts update

Robin Berkley and I have decided to join forces to do the writing prompts twice a week and share with our combined readers. Anyone is welcome to join us. At the very least, I hope you'll be willing to toss a few words or phrases our way.

The schedule will be Monday - gather prompts for two sessions.
Wednesday and Friday post the results of all that creative brilliance.

The library's writing group does something similar with paintings. Artists and writers inspire each other. I'm not sure which comes first but the art that comes out of it, printed and painted, are beautiful.

Writing prompts don't take the place of novels but they do a great job of kickstarting the brain.  We like to make connections with even the most random of things.  These exercises embrace those connections. A paragraph can lead to a scene which can lead to a chapter.  Occasionally, they will inspire an entire novel.   Most books start from one idea.

So. Wednesday.  That's when you'll see what happens when you put tires, hockey, club, baking and ivy together.

Any other words you'd like to see us string together?