Once upon a time, there was a tiny little girl named Marie. She loved exploring, in fact, every day she would set off into the woods by her house and discover secrets and mysteries and hiding places. This worried her parents a great deal, because Marie was an incredibly tiny girl. They tried to forbid Marie to stop exploring, but she kicked and screamed and cried and sulked for 4 days straight. They let her go exploring again, but on one condition: Marie's grandpa, Hogarth, had to come with her. Marie was less than pleased about this, because her grandpa was getting old, and she thought he would slow her down and lecture her and tell her to be more ladylike and say other granpa-like things. But she loved exploring more than anything, so she agreed. They set out the next day. Grandpa Hogarth had his cane, and Marie was driving herself CRAZY walking slow enough to stay with him. Grandpa Hogarth didn't say much until they came to a large old tree. He stopped and looked at that tree with such focused concentration that Marie got kind of worried, "Grandpa Hogarth, are you okay?" said Marie. He was silent for a moment, so Marie began to wonder if she should ask again, but then he spoke. "This tree was where I first met your grandmother," he said. "She was an explorer like you, and tiny too. I had come out here to pick some barbafruit for my family, and-" Marie interrupted and said, "Barbafruit? What in the world is that?" Grandpa Hogarth sighed and said, "Not too many trees grow them too much anymore, but they're the best darn fruit you'll ever try. Anyway, I came up to this here tree, and I was climbing up it to pick some barbafruit, and I saw this tiny little girl sitting on a branch way up high. I asked her what she was doing there and she told me that she was wondering if she sat there long enough, the tree would grow bark all over her and she'd grow leaves and be part of it. I fell in love with her right on the spot, and I said, 'I hope you don't really intend to stay up there your whole life, because I'd like you to come down and marry me.' She thought about it for awhile and said, 'I just met you. How do I know that once I give up and come down, you won't get up and leave me?' I told her I'd do anything to prove my love, and she thought long and hard until she said, 'Make me a barbafruit pie once every week, and each week, put new flavoring in it. If you can make me a barbafruit pie that tastes like exploring the woods and finding secrets and mysteries and hiding places, and being in love, then I'll come down and marry you.' I started once away making the pies. I tried everything, from cinnamon to ginger to basil, and every time I brought a pie up for her to taste it, she said it didn't taste right. For 12 straight weeks I made pies that didn't meet her expectations. The 13th week, I had been in my kitchen for almost a whole day, and I was so frusturated because I had no idea what the secret ingredient was, and I really wanted to find out so that she would come down from her tree and marry me. I started to cry, right over my batch of barbafruit, so all the tears fell into my almost-made pie. I cried for a very long time, and the whole time I thought about how much I loved that tree girl. When I was finished, I didn't have the spirit to finish the pie, so I just went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, my mom said, 'Hogarth, I saw your unfinished pie last night, so I finished it up for you.' I didn't have any other pie to bring to her, so I just brought her the plain one. And to my surprise, she tried it and a huge smile spread across her face. 'This is it,' she said, 'this tastes like all those things.' And she came down from the tree with me and we were married. On our wedding night she asked what the secret ingredient was, and I said, 'Love.'" Marie was shocked, she had never heard Grandpa Hogarth talk that much. He looked pretty exhausted, too. He sat down, leaned against the tree, and fell asleep. Marie leaned against the tree and fell asleep too, and right before she shut her eyes, she looked up and saw a single fruit growing in the old tree, a fruit that looked like secrets and mysteries and hiding places and love. THE END.
THE END.
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you rock. :)
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