Let us hold hands and pretend we never existed.

I never ever want to go home. But I could never focus in a place with such lovely surroundings... But then again, why do I need to focus?

School stresses me out way to much. It starts so soon!! Which is really bad. Way to soon! I don't like being worried. Stupid school...

Hmm. Today, I went on a walk into the forest. It's always so wonderful! And then I went down to the lake with my brother and then we walked back. :) And now I'm just waiting for dinner to be done.

So. I'm going to share with you a story that I wrote in the fall/winter of last year. :) Because I don't really know what else to write. I must warn you, it is kind of long...

One day in the forest, a little boy, Kyle, and his big brother, Erik, were playing tag. Erik was chasing Kyle, and one of them accidently stepped on, and smashed a mushroom while playing their game. The boys didn’t even notice, and kept playing burning all their excessive energy, that they had gained while locked up at school all day. When the sun began to set, their mother called from the edge of the forest, telling them to come home for dinner. They hurried off home, as to not make their mother mad, leaving the smashed mushroom right in the middle of the path.

Later in the evening, the friends of the unfortunate mushroom, the one who had been smashed during the day, decided that the mushrooms of the forest needed to have a meeting. When darkness fell, all the mushrooms met up in their secret cottage by the big willow tree, where meetings were held. They discussed the lack of appreciation they had received from the two boys that day, and from many time before, and decided that they were going to plan a week for mushroom appreciation. The mushroom leader, Caption Sir Joseph of Chanterelles, went up to the front of the crowd and started to speak,
"I, as the leader of our civilization, must say that I am terribly appalled by the act of those two young boys, and the constant lack of appreciation for us mushrooms. And I think that we very much need to have this week of Appreciation. But because it is very late and some of you have children to put to bed, I shall make this meeting short. We'll continue later planning the week of appreciation"
The mushrooms all clapped and cheered, everyone loved him; he was the best leader they'd ever had. Caption Sir Joseph continued,
"Tomorrow when the boys come to our forest, they will find a million mushrooms where they usually play; mushrooms of every color. They will be too amazed to step on you and will turn around. Don't fear, I know this will work."
The crowed started to hope, but also fear, and he continued,
"And tomorrow we will meet at 14:00, here in the village to continue panning the upcoming week."
The mushrooms left after that. Sir Joseph walked to the river to think and come up with more ideas for the Mushroom Appreciation Week.

The next day the two young boys, Erik and Kyle, came to the forest again to play tag, but when they got to the place where they played every day, a crowd of new mushrooms had grown overnight. They were everywhere! The boys couldn’t take even one step without smashing a mushroom. The two boys were amazed; the mushrooms were the prettiest mushrooms they had ever seen, all colors and designs and sizes and shapes! They’d feel awful if they killed even just one of these incredible mushrooms. They decided to go play in a different place. Kyle was very sad they couldn’t play in their favorite spot but Erik told him it was for the better, and the game wouldn’t be any less fun. They would find a much better place Erik told Kyle while they walked towards the edge of the forest. As the boys left the mushrooms were filled with relief, because they weren’t confident that the boys would care enough to not step on them.

Later at 14:00, the mushrooms were gathering by the secret willow village. One mushroom named Annika, she was the prettiest of all, came to the meeting in tears. She was a very tall mushroom, with a perfectly round, pearly white stem, and a deep redish purple color flawlessly painted on her cap, but now she was drooping with sadness. No one knew why she was crying and she couldn’t get the words to speak. All the mushrooms feared that something awful had happened, they didn’t know what though, and anxiety grew within them. Finally, the tallest mushroom, Pelle came to assist. He was the same type as Annika, only slightly taller, his cap was a brownish red, and his stem was dirtied with mud. When he was close enough, he saw she had a brown wet leaf stuck to her perfectly colored cap. Pelle gladly plucked off the horrid leaf and she conjured up the confidence to tell her story.
"I was just hopping to our village, when..."
she took a breath and looked up into the trees,
"a squirrel threw down this big ugly leaf right onto my cap."
The other mushrooms were astounded at the rudeness of the squirrel, but they had never been the greatest friends with the squirrels. Annika, finally free of tears, told the group of mushrooms under the willow, that the week of Mushroom Appreciation was going to need to be much bigger than planned if they wanted to make any sort of impact on the outside world. She then suggested,
"We have to get the entire forest involved."
She looked hopeful at the big task in front of them. Sir Joseph hopped over to Annika and gave her a hug of comfort and then he looked over to Pelle and told him that is was very kind of him to help Annika with her issue. Joseph then looked to the whole crowd and said
"I think that what Annika has told us, is a very good point. We need the whole forest to know about how unappreciated we feel. For the next two days, I would be very glad if you all could go around and tell everyone about the Mushroom Appreciation Week."
The crowd gladly agreed to help raise awareness in the forest. Then Sir Joseph wished them good luck and hoped he too could tell as many creatures as possible. For the next two days, the mushrooms hopped around the forest spreading the news about the upcoming event that was being planned.
By the river, under a beautiful weeping willow tree, lived a mushroom named Jacob of the Smoke-Mushroom. He was known by the mushrooms for two things; being an incredibly talented architect, and being very grumpy. He had built almost every single house in the town. Once he had a beautiful wife and two small children, but that was a long time ago before mushrooms lived in an organized society. His wife had died, and after that his kids left because they couldn’t stand to be around his misery. He was a very lonely angry man, and there was not one thing other then architecture that he could be content with. He thought it was very stupid of the mushrooms to be planning a week for mushroom appreciation.
"No one cares about stupid mushrooms! We are so insignificant; it’s so stupid the Sir Joseph and the rest of them think that it’s going to change anything,"
Jacob thought to himself out loud. Outside of his house, a few little mushrooms were playing Leap Mushroom. They overheard his cynical thoughts and hopped quickly home to tell their parents.

"Mama! Mama!"
cried one of the little mushrooms.
"Yes dear? Don’t shout so loud, you’ll harm your voice or my hearing,"
the mother replied, she was very busy telling everyone about the Mushroom Appreciation Week.
"Mama! You know that old man, who builds everyone’s houses? He was saying that mushrooms are stupid and that this isn’t gonna help! Mama! That’s bad..."
the child looked very worried, and the mother knew it wasn’t good, but Jacob wouldn’t cause too much trouble... at least she hopped...

When Caption Sir Joseph of Chanterelles heard of the news he knew it was serious, and something needed to be done very quickly. It was his best friend, Peter of Chanterelles, who had told him Joseph recalled the conversation.
"Hi umm... Joseph, something is happening. Something very bad."
Peter, his best friend, said nervously.
"Peter! Tell me!"
he had said rather annoyed, he didn’t have time for Peters habit to avoid bad news. Peter quickly spat out the words,
"Well... it’s the squirrels. They want to put a stop to our planning. They’ve gathered a huge group and they are planning and killing you! And anyone who won’t follow their lead!"
Joseph had known that the squirrels wouldn’t be happy, but he didn’t think they’d be so drastic. Joseph called an emergency meeting, even though not everyone would hear of the news, he needed to do something quick.

When the emergency meeting began, there was not one happy face. All were full of worry. The news of the squirrel mob had spread quickly, like a wild fire in the dry summer. Joseph went to the front of the group and told them that they could not try to put up a fight, the squirrels were too strong.
"Grab all the valuables and hide," he told them.
He knew that many of them would be angry to hear his coward act, but he also knew they didn’t stand a chance. He quickly ended the meeting and tried to help everyone hide.
It was just after sunset when the squirrels finally left. Many bodies of mushrooms could be seen on the pathways. Peter and his family were helping all those injured and telling the others it was safe to come out. Never before in the history of mushrooms had such a massacre occurred. Jacob came into the city for the first time on his own accord. Everywhere he saw his work trampled, all the houses he had built were broken. Perhaps only a few remained. But he was more concerned about his two kids. He hadn’t spoken to them in years but when he heard of the attack he felt a very strong need to see them and make sure they were alive. He knew where they lived because he had built the houses many years ago for them. When he got to the place where they both lived he thought they must’ve died. Nothing but squirrel footprints was left. He was devastated and he sat down right where he had never been to visit and cried.

A small group of mushrooms had gathered at the center of the city. Peter told everyone who was capable to try to find others in need, report those who didn’t make it to his wife (who was recording the deaths), and take those injured to his children, who were studying to become doctors. No one was happy, they all just looked around them seeing faces they had seen before in the store or as children or somewhere in the town, laying lifeless on the ground. They all knew they had to pull it together nevertheless.

Around the time of sunrise, 53 mushrooms had been declared dead, 73 injured, and 47 missing. Peter’s family had gotten help from many of the other doctors that were okay and basically all the people who weren’t hurt were trying to help out as well. During all this craziness, no one had seen Caption Sir Joseph. Peter was very worried that the squirrels had succeeded in their plan to kill him, but he knew he had to keep calm and do what his best friend would have done if he hasn’t missing. Peter decided to hold a meeting at midday, until then he would try to get the word out about the meeting and search for Joseph.

By noon, Peter still hadn’t found Sir Joseph, and Peter was worrying more than he had ever before. The Mushroom Appreciation Week was not going to happen if things kept going the way they were. Everyone was worried. Everyone knew someone who had either gone missing, was seriously injured, or had died. Jacob, who was looking for his children heard about the meeting and decided to show up in case they might be there. When he got there he noticed how few people were there, but most of all he noticed that Peter was speaking, not Caption Sir Joseph. He knew something must be up; Peter had spoken before to the Mushrooms, but never after a disaster and never without Sir Joseph right next to him. Even though Jacob didn’t like Sir Joseph he knew that he was needed and could help, otherwise chaos would break out. Jacob was known in the town, and generally well-respected. When he stood up next to Peter in front of the crowd and whispered, the crowd grew with curiosity. Peter was telling the mushrooms about all the missing, injured, and dead mushrooms, and to report to his family if they found anyone else, when Jacob walked up to him and whispered in his ear,
"Where is Caption Sir Joseph?"
Peter knew that he couldn’t hide his worries from Jacob, but he had to try to look calm for the rest of the mushrooms who were already worried enough.

Peter and Jacob met at Jacob’s home, which was still intact because he lived far away from the city. Jacob told Peter that he would try to help him until they knew what happened to Sir Joseph, if he would help him find his children. Jacob said,
"If you find either; Anna of Smoke-Mushrooms, or Sam of Smoke-Mushrooms, please tell me. They are my kids, and even though I haven’t seen them for a long time, I need to know they are okay, and help them through this. I want to try to be a good father to them."
Peter recognized one of the names, Anna. He has seen it on one of the lists, but he didn’t want to worry or upset Jacob so he replied with,
"Okay, of course. I will help you and you can help me. Now I will go check the lists for that name and ask anyone who might know how to find them."
With that Peter left and said as he was leaving that he would be back by sunset to tell his results.

Just before sunset a knock came on Jacob’s door. He opened to meet Peter. Peter then told him that his daughter Anna was on the list of the injured, but his son was not on any list. It had been 24 hours since the attack, so Jacob knew it was a small chance that Sam would be added to one of the lists. He hoped Sam was just fine, and he just didn’t think that his father would care. Peter said Anna was at the center town hospital, and that he would go with Jacob to find her. When they reached the hospital they found Anna almost immediately. She wasn’t as bad as some, and she was going to be fine, but she would have to stay at the hospital for a while. Jacob asked one of Peter’s sons when Anna would be able to leave, the boy replied,
"Your daughter Anna should be able to leave by tomorrow afternoon, Jacob."
He was very glad to hear this and he told his daughter that he would come meet her tomorrow afternoon and she could stay at his house since hers was no longer intact.

When Caption Sir Joseph of Chanterelles was helping all those before the attack, he was taken by one of the squirrels. His first thought was, ‘I’m going to die.’ The squirrel picked him up and ran off, Joseph hit his head when the squirrel picked him up and blacked out. When Joseph woke up, he was on top of a tree surrounded by angry looking squirrels. Joseph looked for ways to escape but he could see none that would work. He then asked the squirrels why they’d taken him, one of them said,
"We do not approve of you mushrooms parading around the forest asking for appreciation when you don’t give anyone else any appreciation... You grow on our trees and kill them so we don’t have any homes! How dare you ask for appreciation!"
Joseph had never known that the squirrels felt this way; he knew they didn’t like mushrooms but he never knew why. He felt awful for being so selfish as to not think of how the squirrels felt. Jacob said in a forgiving tone,
"I’m so sorry that you feel this way. I never knew you had homes in those trees. I’m very sorry; this seems to be just a big misunderstanding."
The same squirrel that had spoken before, now spoke with less harshness,
"I’m not sure I believe you, but I think we can work something out. We will declare a few of our trees for you to grow on, if you don’t take any other trees. If you do kill a tree without permission we will attack, otherwise maybe we can become friends."
Joseph was relieved,
"Yes, of course. I would love to have a new friendship with the squirrels. Would you please take me back to my home, and I will sort everything out?"
One of the squirrels nodded, then picked him up and ran down the tree, headed to the mushroom city....
THE END!

Haha... Yay. :)
One day, if I ever get around to it I'll draw pictures to go along with it!

Anyways. Goodbye.
Spread the smiles.
Let the earth fix your broken soul, or let it strengthen your heart.