Each night, my daughter asks me to tell her a story. She often starts the story giving me the characters and some of the plot, but I have to do the rest. Some of these stories are interesting enough for me to drop up here (see the full collection).

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Flora who went to a birthday party. She had a great time as she played games, sang songs and had some birthday cake. Every guest got to take home a balloon, and she was so excited to tell her special friend about the party.

When she got home, she ran to the backyard, for underneath the red berries of a hawthorne bush was a tiny house with a tiny red door where her friend, Flower, lived.

Flora tapped on the door with one finger until the door opened. Flower’s hair was sort of messy as she yawned and stretched.

“Hello Flora,” she said, “I was taking a little afternoon nap. What’s that?”

“It’s my balloon, I got it at a birthday party.” Flora then told her all about the party and the cake and the presents. “And that is how I got this balloon. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes, it is nice. But for it to be truly wonderful, it would have to be a lot bigger, don’t you think?”

Flora was surprised and said, “It’s bigger than you!” But then Flora realized what her friend was hinting at. “Can you make it bigger?”

Her little friend winked, “I can certainly try. Let me fetch my wand.” With a click flick of the wand the balloon started to grow. It got bigger and bigger and bigger!

The balloon started to rise into the air tugging at Flora’s arm.

“Don’t let it go, Flora!” the little fairy said as the balloon started to lift the little girl off the ground. Flora started to go higher and higher and higher! Soon she was higher than the bushes and then she was higher than the house and then she was higher than the trees.

She started to giggle as she looked down at her house that now looked like the dollhouse in her room. The cars looked like toys too. And the people looked like little bugs.

“Now this is wonderful!” she shouted back down to her friend who was now to small to be seen. She started to wonder how she was going to get back down when a large black raven flew by. He thought that the balloon was the largest, floating cherry he had ever seen and tried to take a bite.

“Oh please, don’t bite my ba….” but it was too late. POP! The balloon burst and Flora started to fall… down, down, down. But the balloon string, which she still hung on to, got caught in the branches of a birch tree.

She dangled there for a few seconds wondering how she was going to get down when the raven flew over and landed on a branch. “I’m tewa’bee saw’wy ‘bout bweakin’ you bawwoon,” he said.

“That’s ok. But how am I going to get down from here?” she asked.

“Easy. Cwimb on,” he replied. So Flora grabbed hold of a branch and climbed onto the back of the raven. The raven spread his wings and jumped off the branch and started to fly.

“Wow,” she thought, “I’ve flown twice today!” The raven flew down to the ground and let her get off. “Thanks for the ride, Mr. Raven,” she called up after him as he took off looking for more normal-sized cherries.

“Looks like Flower went back inside to finish her nap,” she said as she skipped inside her house to tell her Daddy all about her wonderful day.