13 DREAM HIKE

"That's it!" I shouted as I rocketed out of bed the next morning. Poor Sassafras flew into the air and landed at my feet with big wide eyes. All of his fur was fluffed out to the max. "Oh, sorry, buddy!" I gave him a gentle pet. "This new bonnet worked just like my Thinking Goggles. I had a dream, and I think I figured out what I've been missing. At least, sort of. Let's go get Mom!" I burst into the kitchen to find Dad making pancakes and Mom setting the table.

"Any thoughts come to you as you slept?" asked Mom. "Yes!" I cheered. "I dreamed we were all hiking in the forest, and I found some really cool lichen that looked like dragon scales." "Oh, I love that kind of lichen," Dad chimed in. "It's my favorite kind." I nodded. "Anyway, Mom you were telling me in my dream how lichen is special. How it's really two things working together, right? A fungus and, uh, a…?" "Alga," Mom added.

"Right. And you said it's a special relationship because the alga makes food by photosynthesis—like a plant, right? And it shares some of that food with the fungus. And the fungus is like the house that the alga lives in? And it shares water and vitamin-stuff with the alga?" "Good memory!" Mom said as she gave me two pancakes. "So, I was thinking about that, uh…" I glanced at Dad, "story we were talking about yesterday with the bips and the roses. That maybe it was sort of like the lichen—where the bips give the roses something, and the roses give the bips something. And I was thinking the bips give the roses a boost of sunlight with their, um, burps?" Dad raised an eyebrow at me. "Burping bips?" He started laughing. "You two definitely have fantastic imaginations!" Mom winked at me. "Yes, we do! And Zoey, I think you could be right. What do you think the roses give the bips, though?" "Right. That's where I'm stuck." I sighed dramatically.

"Can I help tell the story?" Dad asked, and Mom and I nodded. "In that case, obviously the roses could contribute their smell. I mean, who doesn't love the scent of roses?" Dad chuckled. "If I were a bip, I'd definitely make my home on a delicious-smelling rose." Smell! I hadn't tried a smell experiment yet— maybe there was something super tiny in good smells that helped the bips grow! "Dad, you're a genius!" I shouted and jumped up and started toward the barn.

Dad patted my chair. "Zoey, you might want to finish your breakfast before you go off and play." "Oh, right." I sat down and ate the rest of my pancakes as I thought about the smell experiment. I could try vanilla and chocolate and orange and rose, of course. We had vanilla extract and cocoa powder in the kitchen cabinet. I looked around the kitchen and spotted oranges on the counter. But what about roses? "OH NOOOO," I groaned. Dad put a hand to my forehead. "Are you feeling OK, sweetie? You're acting kind of strange this morning." "Sorry, Dad. I'm, uh, running a pretend experiment in the barn with the bips, and I wanted to try your idea of the rose smell with them, but we don't have any roses in the forest yet, and I don't know how to make a rose scent with stuff from our house." Dad looked over at Mom. "Didn't someone give you rose oil as a gift a few years ago?" "That's right!" Mom said. She ate her last bite of pancake and stood up. "I'll go get the bottle for you right now."

In no time at all, I headed out to the barn with Sassafras and my arms full of supplies to run a scent experiment.