Once upon a time there was a little girl called Maurene. She was small and sweet and felt she was rather alone in the world. One day, when she was walking around aimlessly, smelling the flowers and following foxes, she lost her way and forgot how to get home. No one was there to help. She was alone. A little girl in a big world. She first went to the forest to see if she could find anyone to help her. Perhaps she would have found someone, but it was night time by now and all the world was at home with their families or already asleep.

When she was in the forest, but couldn’t find anyone to help and then realised she couldn’t get out anymore. That was a problem for her, as her house was on the other side of the lake and it was dark, so that she could hardly see anything anymore. Suddenly she heard an owl hooting from above and she shrugged in fear and ran away, down a long lane, to where she realised her brother lived. There in the distance, she could recognise his small cottage. It was neat, with a thatched roof and smoke coming out of the chimney. Not many people knew he lived there. Only her sister, mother and a couple of his friends who lived in the village. By now she had run far enough to make her way out of the forest and ran into a large cornfield. She hardly reached the top of the wheat with her head, but dashed through parting it violently on each side with her arms and occasionally stumbled over wheat that lay on the ground. Then she saw the opening and there was the cottage. Large and proud in front of her. She immediately swung open the door to see who was inside, yet to her bewilderment, there sat an old man with a grey beard and glasses on an armchair. He was reading a book and looked up surprised as soon as he saw little Maurene standing there, wet and shiny from the damp cornfield. She waited for him to speak, yet he said nothing. Instead, she pulled a small wooden chair over to him and sat down in front of him. Pause. Maurene opened her mouth to say something, after gasping deeply, yet realised the man had done the same at exactly the same time. They promptly both closed their mouths and stared back at each other. Pause. ” – You know why you have come, do you? Young woman?”, the old man said in a quiet, solemn voice. “Yes – ” said the girl. “I was looking for my brother! He lives here!”. “Ahh… yes” said the white-bearded man, “No, he does not live here anymore. I live here instead. He moved away a long time ago.” Maurene seemed a little confused and certainly expressed this in her face. “I gather you did not know that?” the man asked. “No, I visited him only last week. We sat right here and drank tea together”. “Ohh no. That is not so, my child; I have lived here for 25 years and am getting very old now.”

He certainly did seem a very, very old kind of man. In fact, in the dim light and only the little lamp from the reading table to their side lighting the room, she could hardly tell exactly how old he was. Maurene had certainly never seen a man who was so old in her whole life.

Suddenly a bell rang and both girl and old man turned around in confusion to see where the noise was coming from. Next thing they knew the whole room starting spinning round. The man and girl rose from their chairs and floated upwards within the spiral of light that was forming and were taken around and around by the wave of energy, when the whole room went completely dark…

And then Sammy saw sunlight flooding into his eyes through the bright, morning window. The sound of the ringing became clearer and he instinctively spread out his arm to hit the alarm clock lying on the small table beside him. He sat and rubbed his eyes slowly, as he remembered the darkness of his dream; that he really was still here, here in his little cottage!

The End