A story...
Frank did not like her name. It was a boy’s name and yet her parents had given it to her just the same. Sometimes the others would tease her about having a boy’s name and it would bother Frank a little. But Frank never stayed bothered for long. She could not afford to stay bothered for long, she had a responsibility. And so she did not spend much time playing with the others. When Frank played outside she would play alone. When Frank played inside she would play alone. But when Frank did anything, she would have Bandy with her.
Bandy was the most precious thing in the whole world. Frank’s father had given her Bandy to take care of before he left and had promised that one day he would come back for it. As he had leaned way down to her and placed the large red square of fabric in her hands he had impressed on her the lofty significance of the trinket. Her father said that when he was a young boy his father had given Bandy to him, and he had taken Bandy on all of his adventures as a child. Her father said that Bandy was very special, and very important to him. He could not trust Bandy to just anyone, so he left Bandy with Frank. With that said he had hugged Frank and kissed her forehead and left. Frank was still waiting for her father to come and get Bandy.
Frank’s room was on the very top floor of her big house. She had a great big window which she loved to look out of at night. Outside her window she had a little balcony. Her mother never liked her sitting out on her balcony and so she kept Frank’s window locked. But one day while playing with some of her father’s old things in the attic she found a small iron key. Frank could tell that the key was precious. It had a certain heaviness to it that meant it was very important. It is a very commonly known fact that important things, no matter how small, weigh just a little more than what they seem they should. Frank quickly discovered that this key locked and unlocked the big window in her room. Not wanting to lose this secret privilege she told no one about the key, but kept it at all times around her neck, held by a piece of red yarn.
Eventually sitting on her little balcony late at night became one of her favorite things to do. There on her balcony, so high up, she could look out over the vastness of the forest behind her house. Sometimes she would steal away during the day with her father’s old tape measure and sit on her little balcony at night. She would ease out the metal strip, inch by inch, pressing the unlock button briefly and pulling a little more out, pushing it out into the night sky. She would pull more and more out until she had several feet of the metal strip quivering in her hands, pointing straight up to the moon. She would inch some more out slowly, the rest of the strip swaying gently above her head, slowly extending higher and higher. Her neck was bent straight back, her eyes gazing up the precarious strip of metal tape. Her jaw was wide open as if she’d forgotten to close it she was focused so intently on her task. She pushed the unlock button and eased another inch or so out, the little metal tape climbing directly towards the moon. She thought the moon was charming, and the closer and closer she came to reaching her metal tape up and poking it, the more it seemed to grin and wink at her. Her metal tape grew ever higher. It swayed and leaned softly, reaching up peacefully like a single bamboo chute, reaching higher and higher from its misty forest ceiling. Her tape would be very high now. She had so much of it up there that she had to hold her hands very far apart, with one as far up on the tape as her arms could reach to support it all as it peacefully leaned in the nighttime breeze. Her head far back she looked straight up the tape measure as it reached up precariously, far past the shingles of the roof above her. She looked straight up the tape measure and directly at the moon, she imagined that if she could just inch out a little more she could touch it. That is she could unless it did not want to be touched, in which case it would lazily float to the side a little, like a water chestnut in a bowl of soup floats away from her spoon.
But just as it seemed her tape measure was almost long enough. Just as it lightly swayed so close to the moon its weight would become too much and in a loud SNAP that startled Frank and shook the whole balcony the tape would fall harshly limp and land against the roof below at a funny angle. Having broken the silence of the night and of the peaceful hanging moon Frank, startled, would slam her thumb against the button and all that tape which had risen boldly into the sky would quickly rush up the side of the house to her little balcony. It would fly sloppily into its little box in Frank’s shaking hands. Each night Frank would quietly unlock her window and try to reach the moon. And each night she would seem to reach a little bit higher. Each night a little bit closer. And each night just as the moon seemed like it was about to quiver and float to one side to avoid the tape it would give. And each night the SNAP would sound a little louder than the night before. And each night she would sigh and wrap Bandy around her shoulders and go inside, careful to lock the window back before crawling into bed and going to sleep.