13 CAMPING!

CHAPTER 13 CAMPING! I held my breath as I opened the barn door the next morning. "Oh, thank goodness! They are OK, Sassafras. Oh, and look! The flowers are closed again. Mom is on to something with that whole nighttime pollinator thing." Sassafras meowed in agreement. "Do you think the pollinator will be some kind of giant magical moth? I loooove moths!" Sassafras chattered excitedly. "ARGH! No eating the pollinators, Sassafras." I gave each plant its six teaspoons of water, and then Pip hopped in through the open barn door. "Everyone ready for the hike?" Pip asked. "Wait, where's your mom?" I explained about our discovery the night before and bounced up and down a little when I got to the

part about getting to camp overnight at the bog. "Pleeeeease say you'll come camp with us?" Sassafras bumped Pip gently with his head. "Ohhh, all right, you two. I'll go." "Mom says we should meet back here at one o'clock." "One o'clock it is!" Pip declared. "I just have to hop home and pack." Sassafras and I spent the morning inside setting up more pea plant experiments. In all the excitement about the magical plant, I'd forgotten about the colored leaves experiments I wanted to start. At long last, it was time to leave. Mom, Sassafras, and I arrived at the barn to find Pip wearing a tiny frog-sized backpack. "Ready to go!" he announced and hopped up onto my mom's head. Mom laughed. "I'll carry the frog and the backpack and one of the plants. Can you carry the other plant, Zoey? And Sassafras, you can walk?" We set off on our long, long, long hike. It was really tiring having to carry a large plant AND hike.

I was trying hard not to be too grumbly… and not being too successful… when Mom finally declared that we'd arrived. I carefully set down the plant in the shade and took a look around. The bog looked really cool, but I didn't see any plants that looked like ours. I squished my fingers in some soil I found in the shade, though. "This squishes just right, Mom. Should we plant them or should we leave them in the pots until we know for sure this is the right

place?" Mom sat down and sighed. "Well, they're getting too big for their pots as it is. I don't know of any other bogs nearby, so let's just be hopeful and try planting them here." I dug a big juicy hole in the sandy and mucky bog soil. I closed my eyes and whispered a wish that this was the right place and the right thing to do. Then I gently removed the first magical plant from the pot and placed it in the bog. I squished the soggy soil back around the roots. Once it was solidly in the hole, the plant grew almost instantly about an inch in every direction. "Did you see that?" Pip yelped. "I did!" Mom exclaimed. "I think that's a promising sign! Let's keep our fingers crossed." I planted the second plant, and it did the same little growth spurt, then nothing. Mom handed me a bottle of water to clean my hands, and we settled down for an early dinner. After all that hiking and plant carrying, I was starving.

Sassafras chattered hungrily, and I patted his head. "Remember—no eating moths or any other buggy creature that might be the magical plant pollinator." Sassafras meowed in agreement, and I opened a can of tuna to the sound of rumbly cat purrs. Pip hopped off into the forest to find a froggy snack. After we'd eaten, we just sat and stared at the plants. The sun was starting to think about setting. I was hoping once it was dark out, the flowers would bloom again and the pollinators would be able to follow the flower scent to find the magical plants. "Waiting can be kind of boring, I know," said Mom. "So I thought I'd bring a little something." She dropped a bag of marshmallows on my lap. I perked up. "S'mores? YES!!!!!"

We roasted marshmallows as the sun finally set. "Do you think we'll ever see baby Marshmallow again?" I asked. "Well, I'm sure he's hardly a baby anymore. And dragons tend to just stick with each other. They don't often interact with humans. You were pretty lucky to get to meet him. He was the first baby dragon I'd ever met, and I've been helping at the barn for most of my life." I sighed. "Yeah, that makes sense."