Fiona’s Vacation Den

Fiona checked her packing list. She had everything she needed for three weeks at her family’s vacation den at Sprained Ankle Stream. She tossed her bag over her back, humming to herself as she pushed a rock over to the entrance to her underground room. She rubbed her paws on the dry earth.

It was the second day of a surprise break at Foresthood School. A heat wave was going to take, most likely, three weeks away from everyone’s work and school. Fiona’s family was going to head to Sprained Ankle Stream for the entire time. It would be the first time Fiona had gone for summer.

Normally, the second winter began and school ended, Fiona’s family would leave their den and walk along a path in the forest to get to the stream. In spring, summer and fall, it was filled with rushing water, however in winter it was frozen over. They’d follow the stream all the way into a place where there was a tiny shallow pond that the stream went through, and it had big rocks with moss and grass growing on them. Under many of them, there were holes going a little ways under the earth, and they were always damp but still strong and sturdy. Most of these were vacation dens, owned and rented, but a few were real homes people lived in year-round, even when the stream was filled with water.

One of them was the fox family’s own. It had been dug by a fox unlike most of the others which had been made by moles. It was well-suited to what they wanted because of this.

Fiona’s bed was made of wet moss, seaweed, and twigs. At her normal den, the bed was made of dirt. She was very proud of it-she had collected, fluffed and laid out the dirt herself, and added daisies sometimes, which usually lasted two weeks.

However, she loved her vacation bed because of the cool seaweed and fluffy wet moss, and how the twigs around it made it look like a bird’s nest. Since it was summer they would need to wring out and soak the seaweed daily so it didn’t dry out-which sounded kind of fun. She had a wet rock to dab at the moss before bed every night too. But she had important matters to tend to.

“Can I see Dolly?” She asked her mom, who was restocking their kitchen with chicken at the moment. “Of course.” Her mom replied. “Tell her mother dinner’s at ours tonight.”

“Do we have anything besides chicken?”

“I packed acorns, maple leaves, oak leaves-dang it, the roasted acorns are burnt-well, we still have raw-and, um, some fresh grass.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

Fiona walked carefully to Dolly’s den. The rocks were easy to trip on-there was a reason it was called Sprained Ankle Stream. She waded through the pond all the way to a moss-covered rock hanging, slanted, over the water. Fiona went inside, walking through the water into a hole carved into the earth by the edge of the pond. There were big rock platforms hanging over the water. Dolly was curled on top of one, reading a book.

“FIONA!” She yelped.

“DOLLY!” Fiona yelled back, grinning.

Dolly helped her onto the rock. “Whatcha reading?” Fiona asked her.

“Hide and Seek: A Guide to The Hidden Art by Dillion Daryl Deer.” Dolly said, holding it out to her. “I should have known,” Fiona laughed. She called out to Dolly’s mom: “My mom says dinner‘s at ours tonight.”

“Do you have anything besides chicken?”

“Raw acorns-we burned the roast ones-maple leaves, oak leaves, and fresh grass.”

“Lovely. We’ll be over there by evening.”

Fiona nodded and turned back to Dolly. “What should we do today?”

”Wanna play Roll On A Log?”

“I love that game!” Fiona said. She jumped off of Dolly’s platform. Dolly followed. They found a long tree branch that was not too thin to break, but not too thick to make the game easy. Then they got a thick but short branch. They placed the long one on two rocks about twelve feet apart. It was hanging over about four feet of water because this was one of the deeper sections of the pond.

They placed the short branch at the start. “You can go first,” Fiona said with a smile.

“You can.” Dolly said firmly.

“You.”

“You.”

“You.”

“You.”

“Fine!” Fiona said. She gulped and sat on the log.

“One..” Dolly said. “Two…two and a half….”

“DOLLY!”

“Three! Let’s go!” She pushed Fiona down the log. For the first two feet or so, the log was wobbly but okay. By the third foot, Fiona was falling off. She jumped back on again and again, trying not to collapse. She was so close-only a few more feet!-when she fell into the water. It felt amazing toe be dunked in water when it was as hot as that!

She came up for air and climbed back on the rock. She and Dolly pulled the thick log out of the water. “Your turn, Dolly,” Fiona grinned. Dolly climbed on. Fiona counted to three and pushed her across.

Dolly fell off about halfway through. They did the game over and over again, and no one got across-but then again, getting across was not the point of the game. They continued until dinner-with a few breaks of course. Dolly’s mom called them in for dinner. “Head to Fiona’s den,” Dolly’s mom said.

They went into Fiona’s den. For dinner Fiona’s mom had made the deer plates of maple leaves and raw acorns, and for the foxes the same but with sliced chicken as well. It was very good.

Fiona and Dolly brought all the rocks they were using as plates to a place in the pond where a trickle of water was steadily filling it up. They cleaned the rocks and put them back. “We should go stargazing,” Fiona said. They went to the top of Fiona’s den, which was covered in moss. They waited there until night.

As they waited they talked. Next year they would not be in the same class. Fiona was nine and Dolly was seven. Rachel the Rabbit’s class was ages 7-9. Next year Dolly would be eight and Fiona would be ten. They wouldn’t be in the same class until Fiona was twelve and Dolly was ten. That would be in three years! After that they would go to schools in Port Jervis. Ones that HUMANS went to! They talked about this a lot.

Then the stars started to show. They were beautiful. Fiona loved her vacation den.