Lilah loved her new gumboots. They were black with white stripes. She used to have pink ones but black is way cooler. Everyone says so. She was on a hunt for puddles. Her daddy's farm had tons of puddles and she had already splashed in a hundred hundred of them. She was going to set a world record. Lilah made her way past the barn and towards the orchard, splashing in puddles all the way. She loved the apple orchard, it was like her own personal forest. Her daddy called her a little princess but Lilah felt more like a queen. And the farm was her kingdom. Just as Lilah reached her forest, the rain started to fall much harder and suddenly she couldn't see. She turned to go back to the house but couldn't tell which way was which anymore. That's when she heard it. A loud crack. And Lilah knew. She was a queen. And queens had enemies. So she ran. Lilah ran through the forest, splashing throught what must have been hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of puddles, but she didn't care about that anymore. She still couldn't see very well and kept almost crashing into trees. But she didn't stop running. That is until she tripped and fell down a small hill.
Lilah decided not to get up right away. She may be a queen, but she was a sore queen. When she finally raised her head she realised she'd fallen right in front of a puddle. A really really big puddle. And standing, frozen mid-stomp, in the middle of the giant puddle, was a boy. The queen looked at the boy and the boy looked at the queen. The boy lowered his foot.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm Lilah," she said. "Who are you?"
"Danny," the boy said.
"What are you doing on my farm?" the queen asked.
"What are you doing on mine?" he replied.
The queen looked around and realised he was right: this was not her kingdom. "I was running," she said. "And then I fell..."
"Why were you running?"
Lilah looked back at the boy and said simply "I'm a queen."
The boy, Danny, said "Well I'm a king."
"Really, then why do you have purple gumboots?"
"They're my sister's," he said with a grimace. "Mine have holes in them so mum made me wear these."
"You look weird. Mine are much cooler," Lilah stated with pride.
"Why are you only wearing one shoe?" Danny asked.
Lilah realised he was right. Again. She had lost one of her cool new black gumboots with white stripes. She felt herself start to cry but quickly turned her head so the boy wouldn't see. A queen does not cry in front of boys. She quickly got up and, her bare foot sinking into the mud, started to climb up the hill and back towards her kingdom. To her surprise, Danny started to follow her.
"What are you doing?"
"Helping you find your shoe of course."
"I don't need your help. I'm a queen."
"I know. But mum says it's very important to help your friends. Even if they don't ask for it. That way they know you care."
"Are we friends?"
"Well, yeah."
"Oh. Ok."
