The Globe That Glows
Starring Ella, Sleepy Slime, Silly Baboon
Ella, Sleepy Slime, and Silly Baboon set off on a walk through the park to find a magical globe with a map inside that points the way to a secret treasure. Silly Baboon charges ahead and causes a muddy mishap, while Sleepy Slime keeps almost dozing off at every cozy-looking patch of grass. When they finally reach the glowing globe, its map leads them somewhere none of them expected, and the treasure turns out to be something only Ella's snack bag could unlock.
Ella stomped her little feet on the path and held up her orange backpack. "Snacks ARE packed!" she announced to no one in particular. Silly Baboon was already three steps ahead, spinning on one foot. "Globe! Globe! GLOBE!" he hollered, his red and yellow bandana whipping in the breeze. Sleepy Slime blinked one slow blink and yawned a yawn so wide his purple nightcap nearly slid off.
The map on the old sign at the park entrance showed one thing: a round golden circle, deep in the garden maze. "That is the globe!" said Ella, pressing her finger right on the circle. Silly Baboon squinted through his blue glasses. "Easy-peasy, I already know the way," he said, even though he had never once been inside the maze. Sleepy Slime found a soft patch of clover and slowly began to sink into it. "Mmm... cozy," he murmured, eyes already closing.
Silly Baboon bolted into the maze first. "LEFT! No, RIGHT! No, LEFT AGAIN!" he shouted, leaping over a puddle. He did not leap far enough. There was a magnificent SPLAT, and mud flew in every direction, speckling Ella's white lace top with dark brown dots. Ella looked down at her shirt. She looked up at Silly Baboon, dripping in the center of the puddle. "Silly Baboon," she said very quietly, "you did NOT look."
They backtracked to find Sleepy Slime, who had curled up against a hedge root and was snoring so softly it sounded like wind through grass. Ella crouched down and tapped his smooth teal side. "We need you," she said. Sleepy Slime opened one eye. "Mmm... need me?" He blinked at the puddle ahead, then at the mud dots on Ella's shirt. "Oh," he said, sitting up a little straighter. "Oh, okay then."
Sleepy Slime slid slowly along the base of the hedges, trailing one glossy side along the leaves. Wherever the leaves rustled and smelled like damp earth, he turned. Wherever they smelled dry and papery, he kept going. "This way," he said, so quietly they almost missed it. Silly Baboon opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He followed without a word, mud still dripping from the tip of his bandana.
At the very center of the maze sat a mossy stone pedestal, and on it glowed a round golden globe. The globe's surface shimmered and a thin map line lit up, curling like a vine from the maze to a small red dot just outside the garden wall. Ella pressed her nose against the glass. "That dot," she whispered, "is by the old oak tree." Silly Baboon grabbed her sleeve. "I KNOW that tree!" he said. "There is a hollow in it big enough to sit inside!"
They ran, they waddled, and they slowly oozed their way out of the maze and across the garden to the old oak tree. The hollow was there, just as Silly Baboon said. But inside, there was only a small wooden box with a tiny lock shaped exactly like a cracker. Ella unzipped her orange backpack. She reached past the apple slices, past the raisins, past the sticky dried-apricot smell, and pulled out one round, buttery cracker. It fit perfectly.
The box clicked open. Inside were three things: a tiny painted stone for Ella, a folded drawing of a hammock for Sleepy Slime, and a small badge shaped like a magnifying glass for Silly Baboon. Sleepy Slime pressed the hammock drawing against his chest and closed his eyes, his small smile a little wider than usual. Silly Baboon turned the badge over and over in his muddy fingers. "I looked," he said softly, mostly to himself, "eventually." Ella bit into her cracker — the one that had done its job — and got buttery crumbs all over her already mud-dotted shirt.
