The hot sun glared in my eyes, as it beat down on my t-shirt clad back. Sand and minced rock glittered beneath my bare feet, I felt like I was walking on burning coals.
“C’mon Midget!” My cousin yelled I saw the dark crown of his head disappearing as he climbed down the slight slope that lead back to the ranch where Roger and Aunt Lydia were impatiently waiting for us.
“My name’s not Midget!” I growled to myself, my cousin was two years older, a few itty-bitty inches taller, with no right to call me ‘midget!”
I drug my feet grouchily in the fine gravel, this was my favorite place on the entire ranch, and I called it the quarry. Whenever I managed to escape the house, and my dreadful aunt Lydia I always somehow found myself there. Something about the place was wonderful, I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but something was definitely compelling to return. I felt as if invisible strings pulled me there, in my mind I fancied that perhaps there was buried treasure, or some wonderful clue to a baffling mystery of some bandit and his gang.
Carelessly wandering in the general direction of the ranch, I stubbed by toe on a strangely uniform shaped rock.
“Ouch!” I bit my lip to keep from crying, I didn’t want Chris to see me like that he’d call me a cry- baby.
Looking down, I saw that my toe was bleeding, I crouched and looked at it closer, it stung miserably, especially, when a nonchalant breeze puffed by, scattering dust, and I’m sure most of it landed on my toe.
But when I saw that stone, I forgot all about my throbbing big toe. The rock was no bigger than a baseball, but flatter, more like a miniature football, it was very smooth as if it had been polished recently, and what appeared to me to be tiny colorful gemstones were flecked evenly across the face of shining stone.
The beautiful stone transfixed me it was awesome! I reached down to pick it up, something was entrancing about it, something inside me knew I should.
The moment my hand touched the smooth rock, a feeling rather like what I thought having soda in my veins would be like, pumped through me. I jumped back, and dropped the rock, but something, something, made me want to pick it up one more, and take it with me.
“Miggy!” I heard Roger call. Roger was my other cousin, six years younger than me, and a ton nicer than his brother.
“Fine! I’m coming!” I grumbled.
“Oh, and Mother says she won’t have you bringing rocks in the house” Chris mimicked his mothers voice, “Now tell that impossible girl, there will be no rocks in this house!”
I bit my lip again, even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I knew he was still on the porch, I could hear his foot tapping, trying to provoke my temper.
I sighed, but I had to keep the rock, but I knew it was no use arguing. I made up my mind, to get it tomorrow in the morning while the boys were still sleeping soundly, and while the watchdog Craig was enjoying his early morning snooze after being awake the better part of the night.
The sun was setting, and the sky was filled with gold and rose hues. To my surprise the flecks of gems, on the stone glowed, with a light of its own.
“Goodnight” I whispered to the quarry, and glowing stone, as I climbed over the rocky ridge and tramped down the well-worn path back to the ranch.
