suffer the little kiddos

Here's a snippet from my kiddo story "Constance and Her Constellations." It would be ill-advised to disclose too much of the plot in this forum. It is enough to know that Constance and her dog are trying to help their friend Doodle Doo, the weather vane, get unstuck from the roof.

Constance and Rabbit head for the wide-open field to wait for night. They sit on the blanket and eat from the pail. Little by little, the day grows darker. Smidge by smidge, the sun drops behind the trees. At last, as the remaining light drains from the sky, Constance spots a brilliant star. She becomes very excited and Rabbit howls and jumps up in the air like maybe he can reach it.

“Name it, name it,” Rabbit says. “What will you name it?”

“But it’s just the one,” says Constance, “and we need a whole constellation.”

Rabbit humphs and sighs.

Just then, a pair of silver, glowing eyes appears in the distance, low to the ground and coming towards them. Rabbit growls. Constance tries to be brave but it’s hard to be brave in the face of something so strange.

All they can do is wait. A narrow face takes shape around the eyes. Next, the body and tail of a mega-fat rat appear.

“It’s a ‘possum!” Constance says with disgust.

“Yeah, it’s a ‘possum,” Rabbit repeats though he had never heard of such a thing.

The huge rodent keeps waddling towards them. When it reaches them, it stops and twitches its nose, like it’s sniffing for a place to sink its long teeth.

“What do you want?” asks Constance.

“Yeah, what do you want?” repeats you-know-who.

“Patience little girl, patience grumpy dog,” speaks the ‘possum. Its voice is wise and soft. Constance had expected mean and raspy. “When darkness grows, the rest will follow. And that, by the way, is Sirius.”

“What is serious?” Constance asks.

“Not serious like important, Sirius like the brightest star in the sky.”

“Oh yeah . . . Sirius, of course. I thought you said serious,” says Rabbit, nodding knowingly.

“Now seriously, I must know what the point is Mister . . . Mister . . .” Constance does not know what to call the ‘possum.

“Mister Nonce, if you please,” the wise ‘possum says.

“I do please,” replies Constance, “and I am Constance and this lop-eared dog is Rabbit. We are hunting starflies so our friend Doodle Doo can get down from the roof.”

Mister Nonce seems to grin. Come to mention it, he has seemed to grin since he waddled into view. “In that case, you’ll need a passel.”