Chapter 1

Dwayne And Greg

The bell rang, sending feelings of scariness through the playground. They pierced through my thin, green skin. I tried to stretch out of my spot in the ground. I had to move before the kids came trampling to the playground, running right towards me and all of my best friends. 

“How about we work together to stretch each other out?” Dwayne screamed. 

It was a big risk because if we pulled ourselves out of the ground then we would have to find water and more nutrients, but we all agreed and started by stretching my blade so that I could be free first.

Thump, thump, thump. The stampede of kids came closer. I jumped up and down in my spot a couple of times. 

They finally got me out. “Yay, I’m free!” I screamed. It felt so weird and confusing to be out of the ground. But I felt happy too!

Now we could work on getting Greg out. 

“Come on,” yelled all of my friends around me. “We have to do this faster!” And then the wind came, which helped get us closer to rescuing Greg from the hard ground. 

“There is a kid running right towards us!” Dwayne said. The kid was not just running at them. But at me! There it was, the foot about to step on me!!  What should I do! I tried even harder to stretch my friend out from his hole. 

Finally, we got him and the rest of us out. I was about to start dancing, but we had to get away before the kids came and stepped on us. 

As I jumped awkwardly across the field, I saw the kids in the other direction. I just kept on running. Greg was in front of me, jumping really fast and everybody else was behind us. 

We all hid under the mulch to have a rest. I felt like I never wanted to go back home. Being out of the ground was the most amazing thing! After a while, we started running again. This time I was in the front. And I made sure I was in the front, the whole time. After I hopped for what felt like a thousand hours, we finally got to the chapel. It was even better than I had imagined it would be up close. The steps leading up to the chapel were huge. My friends and I started looking around inside for the perfect spot to live. The ceilings were so high. They felt 10,000 feet tall. We could hop around here for days and never see the end of it. 

I jumped over to Greg. “Do you want to live in my spot with me?”

“Where is your spot that you will live in?”

I walked him over to a chair in the back corner and showed him around, but there was one problem. “This tiny spot right here is a—Oh no!” I screamed. “What just happened!”

The lights had turned off. I did not know what to say to my friends. So I just shouted out. “Hey everybody, don’t worry! It will be okay, we can find a way out of this,” I yelled.

When I looked back at Greg, he was not there! Oh no! What should I do? This was really starting to feel scary. Greg announced, “Hey guys! I can fix this!” Just then, the lights turned back on! 

“Yay! Yay!” everybody screamed. Greg saved the day. Everybody was circling around him with pride. I was so proud of him too. I gave him a huge high-blade and then moved on to the little place that I would live, maybe with Greg. Greg is my best friend now. 

When I got to my new tiny spot, I noticed that it needed a little bit of a clean up. I picked up a feather and started cleaning up, asking Greg to help me.

“All I need help with is this little spot right here.” I pointed to a candy bar wrapper and some dust. 

“Yes, but I am not going to do all of the work,” Greg said.

“Fine.”

As I worked, I thought about all of the adventures that we had gone through to get here and how hard it was. I missed home a little and wished I could be back there, but I couldn’t go yet. We had just gotten to the chapel and we needed time to rest. 

“Dwayne!” Someone screamed in my ear. It was from Greg. I had been daydreaming and stopped cleaning up. He was just reminding me that I had to do some of the work too. 

“Ok,” I said. After a little while, I was worn out. I figured we would need some water and soil, so I told the group I would be right back. 

I was out for way longer than I thought I would be and it was dark way faster than I imagined. It was quickly dark and scary. Bats were squeaking and looking at me with bright yellow eyes. I was freaked out, so I turned around and headed back to the chapel with the soil and water for my friends. After a while, I was so lost, but the next thing I knew I had bumped into Greg. He was trying to find me. We headed back to the chapel!  

Once inside, I gathered my friends around me. I wanted to tell them what I had been thinking about.

“I think we should go back home to our original spots. Think about how hard it will be for us to get water and soil every day.” 

They all agreed. We immediately headed out of the chapel and back to the playground area that we called home. I felt brave and happy to be going back, but also lucky to have had a chance to move, jump around, and go on an adventure.