Fourteen-year-old Alexis cautiously approached the little lump of fluff that was, strangely, moving all by itself. As the little thing wiggled, she was reminded of a bobble-head souvenir she had obtained in Oklahoma on a family trip.
Alexis wasn't the most wonderful of people. In fact, she was ridiculed wherever people who knew her were. She had no friends, and over the years had closed herself up into a tight little flint ball. She did very little talking to anyone, at least not deliberately. You see, Alexis had embarrassing disabilities that caused others to see her as either a psycho or a freak.
For one, she had dyslexia, and had extreme difficulty reading anything. She had seen numerous psychologists and nothing had helped.
There's another, too. One more. Stutter. St-tt-s-s-stut-stut-t-er. No need to go into much detail.
Alexis was very smart, but she would never admit it. She never passed any of the tests while she was at school, not because she didn't know the answer, but because she couldn't write out the answer in a way that the teachers would ever understand her. She would finish her test with the school counselor half the time, who would talk to her as if she had Down Syndrome. I was humiliating, to say the least.
As she looked down at the Puffball, she felt the weirdest kind of connection between herself and it. It was trapped in it's own little world of helplessness, as was she, trying to break free but failing miserably. Miserable. She reached a hand out and the Puffball suddenly stopped twitching. She hesitated. Could it see her? No matter, it couldn't hurt her. She picked up the Puffball, and brought it closer to her face. It had a furry texture, and it was very soft. The more she looked, the more she was convinced that it was indeed alive. She turned around and stalked off to her room.
When she walked in, a breeze caressed her face and the Puffball, almost eagerly, lifted off her hand and began floating feather-like towards the window. She leaped forward and caught the Puffball and closed the window. Was it her, or did the Puffball's fur just droop? Oh, well, she thought. I have a friend. I have someone I can share my pain with.
"Dd-do you ever f-ffff-f-eeel lone-lonely?" She inquired tediously. She hadn't actually said anything in a long time, nothing except to growl or huff at something or someone.
She looked at the Puffball once more, and then set it in an old matchbox on her dresser. Safe. She walked out of her room.
The Puffball, contained most cruelly in such a small box, wailed desperately for help. It had, after all, developed it's voice box at last. It cried out to the small, confined world of the bedroom for several hours in it's small, helpless voice of what was still in infancy. It screamed for relief, it crooned for freedom once more, and it wept for the comfort of the breeze in it's downy coat.
In response, more Puffballs were. Very strange, I know, but that's the way it is. They came about in the same way our little prisoner.
A stranger thing, all of the Puffballs that came to be now were all from the seeds of one other dandelion. They were the ones responding, and put off a scent that attracted flies, bees, beetles, and every other flying insect small enough to fit inside a dandelion's seeds.
Alexis stormed back into her room, having had an argument with her mom. Another moment for speaking intelligible words out loud in weeks.
She sat on her bed and stared at the wall. She happened to glance at the window. The frame was crowded with little scraps of fur! She simply gawked for a moment, then hurriedly went to the latch and flung open the window. Almost hesitantly, the puffballs drifted inside. After coming inside a certain amount, they angled their lazy flight towards the dresser where her own Puffball remained stuck in a matchbox.
Alexis watched, dumbstruck, as the puffballs latched themselves onto her friend and carefully lifted it out of the container. The wafted back to the window, more and more making contact with the ever-growing Puffball. By the time the thing went out of the window, the individual puffballs had all joined the large one. The fur became seamless, and the first Giant Puffball was.
Alexis looked on this, her friend enveloped and mutated. She was angry that the other puffballs had taken her friend, hurt that they didn't even acknowledge that she was there. She walked to the window and leaned out. Biting her lip, she wished she could fly away as free as the Giant Puffball.
She sat there. She had been sitting there for the past hour and a half. She sat thinking, wishing, braiding her hair, and staring off into space.
She had never realized it before, but that hair she was braiding was extremely pretty. This Puffball that had come into her life was making her think. Their common traits were making her look at herself in a way she hadn't in years. Her hair was a radiant platinum blond, with natural dark streaks at the roots. Her tall, thin body had all the right curves, with a very nice, slightly rosy complexion that miraculously never got a sunburned. She was, actually, incredibly beautiful. People never noticed these things, of course, they only noticed her stutter. The first time she had moved, in sixth grade, she had received much attention for her looks. One young man in particular, a notorious jock, decided he wanted to talk to her, and, after hearing her stutter, said a hasty goodbye just two minutes into the conversation. Another boy, not so cute, had showed her compassion. He also had dyslexia, and they suffered through that particular handicap together–-that is, until he moved. She had been alone ever since, with a reputation as a freak.
She un-braided her hair and started over. Occasionally glancing hopefully out of the window for the Giant Puffball. She wished more and more that she could simply leave this place. She needed her freedom, somewhere she could be herself without fear of persecution. The only place that didn't count was a private school her mom had a brochure for for "special" children.
She could never stand that kind of humiliation.
Alexis finally stopped braiding and snapped the rope-like plait of hair closed with a rubber band. After a moment's thought, she reached across her bed for her iPod, and turned up the speakers. She lay back in her bed and closed her eyes. She began a silent chant that slipped into the rhythm of the song she was listening to, Ta-a-ake me...awa-a-ay....Ta-a-ake me...awa-a-ay....Over and over and over again. She seemed to drift off into sleep, but her little phrase continued repeating over and over in her head.
She woke up again with a splitting headache, her music still blaring in her ears. She hurriedly switched the iPod off, and lay back down, wishing the throbbing would go away. Take me away, but leave the pain behind...she thought. She groaned and rolled onto her side. She opened her eyes to a window blocked by a roundish wall of fur. It didn't quite register at first what she was looking at, but when she finally realized that the Giant Puffball was back, she could hardly restrain the peal of almost hysterical laughter she felt bubbling up inside her. She leaped over to the window and flung it open. Without a second thought, she dove out the window and almost missed the tuft of loose fur the Giant Puffball seemed to offer her. Regardless of how silky and smooth the fluff felt in her palm, she got a surprisingly secure grip on contact.
She was airborne, just dangling there. That only lasted a moment. Before she could recover her breath from the shock of suddenly being fifty feet up in the air with no thing solid holding her up, she was rocketing upward with what seemed like no control. In about five seconds, the suburban community she had resided in for the past two years was merely a smudge in her vision which took but a moment to wipe away. She looked up, and the clouds were close enogh to touch. She reached out, and snagged a handful. It melted away in her fingers, and dripped down her arm. She laughed now, a high, melodic laugh that had not been heard in fourteen years. With a whumph the puffball carried her through a cloud and up onto the top surface.
She couldn't believe her eyes she was standing on a cloud in what seemed to be a city. The city was glowing brightly and the fluttering breeze carried the playful shrieks and laughter of children playing. The wind whispered something in her ear. It sounded like a welcome. Filled with a new sensation, sheer joy, she leaped forward and fell into the downy mist of the cloud's surface. She rolled around, feeling the coolness caress her face.
Thump.
She opened her eyes, and looked around, confused. The joy she had felt a moment ago melted away, only to be replaced by anguish as she realized she was still in her own room, surrounded still by the junk piled around her. How could her mind do this to her? Broken-hearted, she curled up onto the floor where she fell on her bed. She pulled the iPod earphones out, which were still in. Ears ringing, she began to cry. Something else which hadn't happened in fourteen years.
