[box ue-content=””]As the moon goes to bed, the sun comes up. And here we meet a sleepy pup, Who was walking through G-ville one bright sunny day, Then saw The Villager and decided to stay.[/box]
Strrrrrrrrretch! Yaaaaaaaawn! Doodle Dog lazily rolled over onto his back and reached his furry paws up toward the bright blue sky before wrapping himself back into a fuzzy ball curled up at the base of the grassy knoll. The purple and orange and pink flowers surrounded him as he slept, but Doodle Dog paid no mind to them as he continued to snooze. As the warm sun rose over the knoll, glistening in the dew drops on the thousands of tiny soft blades making the green carpet, Doodle Dog flopped sideways and stretched again. He slowly opened one eye to peek at the morning, but immediately decided the morning would come whether he was awake enough to see it or not and closed his eye again.
One of the colorful butterflies floating from flower to flower and blade of grass to blade of grass came nearer and nearer to the sleeping floppy-eared puppy with every flower and blade of grass it touched. Soon the butterfly was so close to Doodle Dog that it landed on Doodle Dog’s nose, as lightly as a soft wisp of wind. The breeze made by the butterfly’s tiny wings gently woke up the snoozing Doodle Dog and he again opened one eye and this time the other one too. Hello, new friend! Doodle Dog looked at the beautiful blues and purples on the butterfly’s wings, the colors the same as if the butterfly was simply a piece of the morning sky that had dropped down to the earth.
As Doodle Dog stretched his legs and his paws and shook his floppy ears and the rest of himself awake, the butterfly caught a ride on a quick gust of wind going by and started floating off in the direction of the grassy knoll. Doodle Dog scampered after the butterfly, curious about where the compact colorful creature might see fit to spend the day.
The floppy-eared puppy followed the butterfly past the grassy knoll and through the meadow, weaving through blades of grass, stems of flowers and lots and lots of bushes and brambles short and tall, until they came to the sidewalk that would lead through the neighborhood between where the grassy knoll and all its creatures lived and the main part of town where all the stores and shopkeepers lived. Some of the creatures that lived in the neighborhood were out enjoying the spring weather: cats and dogs were taking naps on sunny porches, children were playing in their yards with bright toys as colorful as the flowers on the knoll, and the bigger humans were in their driveways doing the usual chores that warm weather brings.
Doodle Dog noticed the cats and dogs and children and bigger humans, but he didn’t have a chance to greet them as he continued to follow the butterfly as it traveled on the wind, sometimes floating, sometimes zipping through the air as the breeze changed its path.
Just up ahead, a man was washing his car, the blue paint all shiny and clean reflecting the sun like the clear lake with its sparkling waves that Doodle Dog liked to splash in when the weather turned from warm spring to hot summer. The man was rinsing his car with a garden hose, and the water sprayed out into a giant fan over the car, the driveway and the sidewalk where Doodle Dog and the butterfly were wandering. Doodle Dog dashed through the wet sprinkles, the droplets dampening his fur, and the butterfly flitted through the spraying dew drops, landing on one watery bead and then the next as they made a temporary glistening rainbow over the sidewalk. Doodle Dog shook his wet fur and continued along, chasing the butterfly as it meandered through the air.
Not too far down the sidewalk, a lady was standing on her porch shaking a rug back and forth over the railing. A cloud of powdery dirt made the air over her front yard brown with whatever dust bunnies had been hiding in her rug, and the dust bunnies hopped all the way over the porch, the grass and the sidewalk where Doodle Dog and the butterfly were wandering. ACHOO! Some of the dust bunnies stuck to the water droplets on Doodle Dog’s coat, but he shook his dusty fur and continued along, chasing the butterfly as it meandered through the air.
At the last house before the pair would make it into town, it appeared someone had recently mown their yard. The lawn was nice and neat with even lines cut from one end to the next. Rows of freshly planted flowers added nice and neat strips of color matching the lines of grass. But on the edges of the yard, mounds of grass clippings were piled nice and neat. Nice and neat, that is, until a gust of wind carrying a colorful little butterfly breezed through, picking up the grass clippings and scattering them over the flowers, the mown lines and the sidewalk where a floppy-eared puppy was wandering after his new fluttery friend. The butterfly floated from flying blade of grass to flying blade of grass, but as Doodle Dog tried to race away from them, he found himself plopping right into another pile of clippings in his path. With his fur already wet and dusty, it was now very, very green and grassy. But no matter… Doodle Dog picked himself up and continued to follow the butterfly flitting from flower to flower and blade of grass to blade of grass, this spiky green ball with floppy ears and furry green paws leaving a trail of drips on the sidewalk, dust in the air behind him, and pieces of clipped grass wafting out onto the path in front of him!
