Ozette's Destiny (7 page)

“But I thank you kindly for the most delicious lunch,” she said, hugging her friend and hoping she hadn’t hurt his feelings. She paused at the door. “Oliver,” she said, holding his hand in her paws, “I care about you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Please forget these potions.”

Oliver averted his eyes as he hugged her back.

As she headed into the forest, Ozette didn’t hear him whisper, “You’ll see, Ozette. I’ll show you that it can be fun.”

The rest of the day passed quietly, and Ozette was up early the next morning. She was lounging on a limb, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her back and counting how many species of flowers she could see without turning her head.

Deep in thought, she was busily making up names for the newly blooming wildflowers.

“Yellow Deedledots…Blue Starbrights…Fairybreaths,” she recited.

She was feeling most content when a brilliant blue butterfly landed on her right ear. Then it was dancing on her nose, making it itch. When she tried to shoo it away with her paw, she heard laughter. Familiar laughter. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the butterfly. More laughter. Puzzled, she looked closer at the creature.

“Don’t you recognize me?” it giggled.

“What? Who are you? Your voice sounds familiar.”

The butterfly hovered over her head. “It’s me. Oliver!”

Ozette clapped a paw to her mouth in disbelief!

Oliver did a few dips and swirls, then landed again on Ozette’s nose. “This is such fun, Ozette! Do you have any idea how delicious it is to sip nectar? And flitting here and there is such fun. These wings are much stronger than my elf ones! Don’t you think I am so handsome?” He was so excited he hardly took a breath between all his words.

Ozette nodded cautiously. “Uh huh. So, when will you be an elf again?” she asked.

“I took it around sunrise, so it should be wearing off soon,” he said. “See you later. Wheeeee!” And off he fluttered.

If Ozette were honest, she would have admitted that she was just a little envious. She thought back to her skydiving experience, and what a thrill it had been.

But she forced her thoughts away from such silliness. No potions for her! The Spring Fling was coming up, and she couldn’t risk doing something foolish. She was going to be a queen, after all.

She slept fitfully that night. Oliver’s question, “Don’t you ever long to be something other than what you are?” kept lingering in her mind.

She loved being a squirrel. She loved scampering through the treetops and having a fluffy tail to groom, even though Oliver teased her that it looked like a bottle brush.

Still, Oliver was having such fun. All night, the thought flitted around in her mind like a tempting little blue butterfly.

Ozette was up at first light. After carefully grooming herself, she headed to Oliver’s cottage to make sure her friend was all right.

“Ozette,” he said, opening the door and yawning. He was clad in sky blue boxer shorts embroidered with fire-breathing dragons, and his short, dark curly hair was in disarray over his elfin ears.He obviously had not been awake long.

“Have some breakfast with an elf-turned-butterfly-turned-elf-again,” he said, laughing.

Ozette smiled sheepishly. All of her worries had been for nothing.

While they enjoyed a light breakfast, Oliver regaled her with his experiences as a butterfly, including the delicious nectar he had sipped and the beautiful flowers he had visited.

“Come on, Ozette! You’ve never seen anything like an up-close look at these flowery gems. So intricate and colorful! You would love it! It will be an enchanting experience for you!” He could tell Ozette was weakening.

“Well…I suppose…if it’s just for a few hours…it might be sort of fun,” she mused. “But I would still be afraid that I wouldn’t turn back into a squirrel.” She poured a second cup of lemon balm tea and daintily munched an acorn croquette.

“But look at me!” he twirled around. “I’m back and the better for it. Now which would you like to try first – hummingbird or cardinal?”

Ozette started to shake her head but a distant memory flitted into her squirrelly mind. She was a mere babe, just getting her first fur, and her eyes were still closed. Her grandmother, The Divine Miss Piddlewinks, was holding her on her knee.

“Ozette, never forget this,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “There are old squirrels and there are bold squirrels. But there are no old, bold squirrels. Sometimes, my precious one, you must choose. Being prudent is usually wise, but never let fear keep you from experiencing the delicious opportunities life will offer you.”

She then kissed Ozette with a brief lick on the nose, a special sign of affection she gave only to her granddaughter.

Ozette gulped as her vision cleared and she saw Oliver looking at her expectantly. Was this one of those delicious opportunities?

“Hmm,” she said, picking up the vials from the table. Cardinals were certainly striking with their brilliant red plumage, but Ozette loved the way hummingbirds flitted from flower to flower, and their shimmering feathers glistened in the sun. “If I were to do this,” she said, “I would want to be a hummingbird.”

“Great choice, Ozette,” Oliver said. “If you take this now, I can watch you change.”

“Oliver, I still don’t know if I want to do this. I love being a squirrel!”

“It’s only for a short time, Ozette. Think of the stories you can tell your friends.”

Like all squirrels, Ozette was sometimes prone to rash decisions.

“OK!” she said excitedly. “But please check on me later to make sure I return to being a squirrel again. Promise?”

Oliver clapped his hand over his heart. “Promise!”

Ozette uncapped the vial and looked at the pale green potion. She sniffed it. It smelled like strawberries. She took a deep breath and drank the liquid.

“Let’s head outside,” Oliver said as he led Ozette into the garden.

She was already feeling a little strange.

“Oliver,” she said, her voice more of a soft squeak than her usual chitter. “I feel weird. And I don’t think it’s a good weird, either.”

Ozette started changing before Oliver’s eyes. Her white fur slowly dissolved and became glimmering green feathers, with touches of vivid scarlet at her throat. Tiny wings sprouted on her back, and a long, thin beak replaced her mouth and nose. She stood there on the ground, flapping her little wings.

“That’s it, Ozette! You’re a hummingbird! See those flowers over there?” he asked, pointing toward a sea of red. “Try those.”

Ozette flapped her wings vigorously. She rose ever so slowly at first, then flew faster and faster as she gained confidence. Her wings were flapping eighty times a second. She flew in great circles, dipping, flitting, diving and even flying upside down, which made her a little dizzy.

She waved a wing at Oliver and headed deeper into the garden, where she hovered over a brilliant scarlet flower and, using her minuscule grooved tongue, lapped the sweet nectar from the bloom. Oliver had been right about the delicious nectar. Each kind of flower had such a unique taste.

“Yum!” Ozette’s taste buds felt like they were exploding as she sampled the nectar from a different deep pink trumpet-shaped flower. “Sort of a raspberry burst with violet undertones.”

She flitted through the woods, stopping every few minutes to sip more nectar. She thought squirrels ate often, but she had never been this hungry before. She wondered how these birds ever had time to do important things like planting acorns, going rafting or adventuring. Then she remembered that she had never seen hummingbirds do any of these things and she was grateful to really be a squirrel.

As she flew over the pond, she saw a group of elves in swimsuits gathering for a late morning swim. She recognized Oliver, Mateo and Barnaby as, one by one, they dove into the pond. She tried to get Oliver’s attention by hovering overhead, but he didn’t notice her and dove into the pond, splashing cold water high into the air. With his lithe body, he had proven to be a natural swimmer, and Ozette was happy to see what great progress he had made.

She shook off the cold splash and flew over to a patch of wildflowers to greedily sip more nectar as she watched the elves have fun. Just then Mateo did a belly flop into the pond. Ozette laughed, but it came out as a little squeaking noise that no one heard but her.

Next she flew to where she had planted the golden acorn, making sure the ground around the tiny sprout was still moist.

She squinted at the sun and sighed happily as she figured that she still had some time to enjoy before she returned back to her squirrelly self. Up ahead, she saw a field blanketed with red flowers she didn’t recognize and zipped toward it.

Boing! Suddenly Ozette was stopped mid-flight. What had happened?

She tried unsuccessfully to flap her wings. They were stuck. She also felt like her face and eyes were covered with a gauzy veil. She tried to balance herself on her little birdie feet, but could barely move them either.

She was stuck, for sure…but in what?

Suddenly she heard a deep voice from behind. “A hummingbird, how delicious! Shall we eat it here or save it for the Spring Fling?”

Alarmed, she wiggled her head around until she found a small hole in the gauze to peek out of. And then almost wished she hadn’t as she found herself eye-to-eye with two of the biggest, hairiest, black spiders she had ever seen. She’d gotten caught in a spider’s web! She gulped. She had never heard of spiders eating a hummingbird, but there was a first time for everything.

She tried to open her beak to speak, but it was stuck in the web. Slowly, ever so slowly, she managed to pry open her beak enough to say, “Please don’t eat me. I’m not really a hummingbird, I’m a – ”

“Hear that, Gertie! It says it isn’t a hummingbird. It must think we spiders have webs for brains. I know a hummingbird when I see one, and I see one now!” she said.

Ozette drew in a breath, terrified.

“Abigail, the poor thing is scared enough without you taunting her,” said the other spider, coming closer to Ozette. “Don’t worry dear, we don’t eat hummingbirds. Although they might be tasty come to think of it. Just be glad we aren’t praying mantises. Yes, indeedy. Be mighty glad.”

“I’m Gertie,” she said putting two of her eight arms on what Ozette guessed would be her hips.

“I’m Ozette, and I’m really a white squirrel.”

The spiders laughed hysterically. This made the web vibrate so violently, Ozette thought she might become ill.

“Oh. A delusional hummingbird. It thinks it’s the squirrel who will be our queen,” said Abigail, making a fake crown with two of her arms and twirling around.

They chuckled some more, making Ozette feel even punier.

“It’s true. I took one of Oliver the elf’s magic potions, and it transformed me into a hummingbird for just a few hours. If I stay here much longer, I’ll turn back into a squirrel. You’ll see. But I’ll probably starve to death before that.”

Truthfully, Ozette was becoming more and more anxious the longer she was trapped in the web. How could she convince them she really was a squirrel?

Perhaps flattery would get her out of this, er, sticky situation.

“Do you know the talented spiders who wove the web that Baby Fiona the squirrel used for her parachute? It was beautifully crafted. Why, it was the finest parachute I’ve ever seen,” Ozette said, not mentioning it was the only parachute she had ever seen.

“Sure, that would be my Cousin Spinnette and my Aunt Webina,” said Gertie. “You’ve seen the parachute?”

“Baby Fiona, who also is a squirrel, is a good friend of mine,” Ozette said, emphasizing the word squirrel. “She showed it to me and even let me skydive with it. It’s true!” she said, seeing their skepticism.

“Well, I think folks ought to be content being exactly what they were created to be. A skydiving squirrel. Just how foolish is that?” Gertie said, poking the hummingbird’s beak with one of her legs.

Suddenly, Ozette felt strange. Her beak was tingling, and her wings were twittering. Her little birdie feet felt heavy. “Oh oh,” she squeaked, as she watched her hummingbird body slowly morph back into a squirrel.

Gertie and Abigail looked on in horror, their beady spider eyes growing huge as saucers, as they watched their web slowly torn apart by this white creature that was gradually emerging.