Shadows on the Silver Floor
A tiny, sharp tap-tap-tap echoed against the glass. Rosy sat up in her bed, her ears tingling. She slipped on her favorite leaky pink cardigan, stuffing a shiny pink button with a drawn-on smiley face deep into her pocket.
Could it be Ava? Ava had moved far away last week, but Rosy imagined her friend had secretly returned for a midnight game of hide-and-seek. "I will find you, Ava!" Rosy whispered, her heart skipping with sudden hope.
She tiptoed to her bedroom door and creaked it open. The house was wonderfully still, wrapped in giant blankets of silence. Rosy took a deep breath, stepping out into the unknown darkness of the long hallway.
Moonlight poured through the high windows, painting silver stripes across the floorboards. Right in the middle of a bright stripe, Rosy saw it. A small, perfectly round shadow. It looked exactly like a dark little button.
She bent down to touch it, but her fingers met only cool, flat wood. It was just a shadow. "A secret clue!" Rosy gasped. She looked ahead and saw another round shadow, and then another, stretching down the corridor.
Rosy crept forward, placing her bare feet carefully on each silver stripe. She felt like a secret agent on a very important mission. Step by quiet step, she followed the trail of mysterious button-shadows toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was a cavern of sleeping silver and deep blue. The refrigerator hummed a low, comforting song. Rosy stood at the entrance, her eyes scanning the dark kitchen for any sign of her faraway best friend.
The trail of shadows led straight to the glass sliding door. Outside, the night garden was full of waving leafy shapes. Rosy pressed her nose against the cool glass, searching the shadows for Ava's bright yellow jacket.
Suddenly, a soft plop landed on her bare toe. Rosy jumped back, startled. She looked down and saw a real, shiny pink button resting on her foot. She reached into her cardigan pocket, only to find a gaping hole.
Rosy burst into a quiet giggle. The mysterious clues weren't from Ava at all. They were her own buttons, escaping one by one through the hole in her leaky pink cardigan as she walked. The mystery was solved.
But her heart felt a little heavy. Ava wasn't hiding in the garden. Ava was still far away. Rosy sat down on the kitchen floor, holding the smiley-face button tightly in her hand, wishing her friend was there.
Just then, a familiar screen on the kitchen counter lit up with a bright ring. It was the family tablet, and Ava's face appeared on the screen, waving excitedly. Rosy scrambled up, her sadness vanishing instantly.
"I couldn't sleep!" Ava said through the speaker. "So I called to see if you were awake!" Rosy laughed and held up her smiley-face button to the camera. "I followed a trail of shadows looking for you!" she explained.
Ava held up a yellow button of her own, pressing it to her screen. Rosy pressed her pink button against her side of the glass. The two buttons matched perfectly, making a funny double-smiley face that made them both roar with laughter.
