Lost in Everland - The Bougainvillea Garden

Chapter 1: Sunrise

It was a lovely Sunday morning, the sun against the East skyline casting bright orange god rays from the tips of the pine trees in the forest, blades of grass glistening in the morning dew, and the pleasant smell of flowers in this wonderful summer weather just made me smile. 

Daisies, Daffodils, Marigolds, English roses, Peonies, and Pansies bloomed vibrantly against the white oak wood fence bordering our house. 

It was a two-story wood-lined cabin-like house, it had white-bordered windows with painted glass and ivory stone pillars with patterns of flora carved in and marshy green moss growing from the ground. It was an old mansion, but it held up surprisingly well and in great condition.

There in the corner of the house amidst the Roseberry bushes stuck out a little snout covered in dirt,

"Felice!", I called, and out of the bushes jumped the most amazing and joyful creature to enter my life. His long white fur swayed to the rhythm of his little trot He came over and gave me a small warm and welcoming lick in the face. It was his way of saying hello. 

Felice has always been my best friend ever since I was seven, I can remember it as it was yesterday, my dad brought him home wrapped in a huge messy blanket when he found him alone on the road while he was on his way home. He was very playful and obedient so we've been the best of friends ever since. 

I never really had the chance nor the intention to make friends with other kids, maybe it's because we spent most of our time away from cities and places with a lot of people. 

My father is a biologist who studies various exotic plants, animals, and all sorts of bugs and mushrooms. He has a whole collection of beetles bottled up in jars of preservatives, labeled and neatly stacked on shelves according to their species. And some specimens of rare forest plants dried and neatly kept in piles of books containing detailed information on them. 

It was like a whole museum full of wonders which were hidden in the secret study that he spends most of his time in, it's kept locked up whenever he's not around because he says that it's dangerous to interact with nature with unidentified properties. 

But he does let me in occasionally when he finds something amazing. 

Like that one time, he found an extremely rare butterfly that had beautiful blue wings with black borders that had a shiny silver decal and had the ability to create mini lightning sparks with its antennas. 

Or that time when he found a mushroom that would make this beautiful orange glow and rain down tiny glowing particles like fairy dust which also turned out to be a bit poisonous and gave dad an allergic reaction that made him swell up like a balloon. 

Mom always says, 

"You've got to be more careful with these plants and stuff honey, you don't know when one of these things might be poisonous. You might catch some nasty disease which probably has no cure yet...", she would go on and on about how it might one day turn my dad into a forest mushroom. 

I am very much like my dad, I like to play around in the backyard and maintain the garden, go hunting for extravagant wildlife in the forest, and I even have my own secret museum in which I store all the plants and insects that I bring back from the forest. It's much smaller than dad's but I still love it very much.

"Ollie, hurry up and come in or your food will get cold!", my mom called me in for tea. She makes the best strawberry cream waffles in the whole world; it's my favorite snack. Mom makes them every week, but I could never get enough of them. 

I hurried back to the kitchen, Felice at my heels, I went inside but then I heard a weird scraping sound. It was Felice scraping the door in his frantic efforts to get inside and eat mom's strawberry cream waffles. He still has trouble going through the doggy door, so he just keeps scraping and barking at the door until someone comes to his service. 

We sat down at the table. The most delightful smell of freshly baked strawberry cream waffles filled the room. Mom carried a tray full of steaming waffles to the table. I can tell Felice was excited but as always, he behaved himself like an elegant royal prince. 

"Honey, come down here. The food is ready.", mom called dad. 

The house smelled of vanilla, butter, milk, fresh-baked waffles, and all other things that smelled like tea at home. 

Our mouths watered as we impatiently waited for dad to come down. We all sat at the kitchen table, Felice laid down at my feet, mom and dad were on the other side of the table. We dug into the pile of waffles until we were so full that we thought we were about to explode. 

They tasted as good as ever. The waffles tasted like something that drew you out of this world and onto a magical cloud of cotton candy and warm breezes. Felice was full too apparently as he was laying down on the carpet fast asleep.

I crawled my way up the stairs to my room, I was so full from eating all those waffles all I needed now was a good nap.

This is my first time writing a book so any feedback would be awesome. And also don't think about dolphins! ( now you are thinking about dolphins ) Have a good day! -Winter