Envy & Evil

Twig Troubles

Before her plan could be carried out, Belle first had to find herself a twig. The second part of her brilliant idea popped into her head. Mimicking the idea, Belle “popped” over to the other side of the room where the door was. Before she exited, she warned Parker to stay in his spot and not to leave. Parker, of course, paid no attention to Belle; he was too focused on his own task. Once she was satisfied that Parker had no intentions of leaving, Belle crept outside. She took a few steps back to examine exactly how tall her tree was. She couldn’t see the top, which concerned her a bit, but she went to climbing anyway. As she rose higher into the air, she muttered, “Wow, this is unattractive. I’m getting all dirty. Good thing Parker is still safely inside and can’t see me.”

Once Belle felt that she was at a suitable height, she started examining the branches around her. After a bit of deliberation, she decided that the branch on her right probably had the best chance of giving her a useful twig. She crawled out the end of the branch hoping to confirm her beliefs. After a few minutes of inching along, she started to become discouraged. She began to worry that she would not find that perfect stick. “It’s too late to back out now. I’m too far from the trunk. Please let there be a good stick out on the edge,” she prayed silently. Upon further inspection of the last few inches of the branch, she noticed that there was no possible way she would find a good twig.

Just as she was going to analyze the situation further, Belle slipped and fell. She flailed her arms, hoping to find something to save her. Luckily, she made sure that she didn’t attempt to exploit the bottom branch. If she could just pass a lower branch on her descent, she might be able to save herself.

She fell.

And fell.

And fell.

And … grasped something in her hand. She swung from the object for a moment, willing it to continue holding her weight. When she became certain that she was fully supported, she peeked through her eyelids to determine what broke her fall. She gasped when she realized what it was.

The perfect stick! Belle climbed to the edge of the tendril that was still attached to the branch of the tree. She then pulled herself up onto the branch so she could dislocate the stick and go back inside. She tugged and tugged and tugged, but it wouldn’t budge. She became frustrated and started to mumble under her breath. “Come on, you stupid thing! I need you!”

Finally, the stick gave out and cracked off into her hand. For the first time since just before she fell, she looked down to determine how high up she was. To her surprise, she was only a few feet off the ground. She weighed the options – jumping down or attempting to climb with something in her hand – and decided to just jump down. Besides, climbing would most likely just get her even dirtier. She refused that option because she had to look good for Parker when she went back inside.

The short drop gave Belle just enough time to squeal, “Weeee!” It was a short exclamation, and more of a dramatic exhale than anything, but it was fun to Belle. Once she landed safely on the ground, she decided to look at herself. After seeing the dirt on her body and how wrinkled her dress was, she determined that she needed to clean up before returning indoors. She smoothed her dress back down, dusted her knees off, and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She walked over to the pond on the other side of the tree she was just climbing and looked down to inspect herself. “Ah, yes. Much better.” Happy with herself, she decided that she could finally walk back inside.