Finding Casey by Jo-Ann Mapson Page A

didn’t rain, the time a pair of secret lovers laid down on the leaves to say goodbye, the way a rabbit blended in with the leaves, hiding, to avoid hunters. The palace guard’s job was to keep a lookout for danger, to fight if necessary, but he loved the princess as if she were his own daughter and it made his heart as soft as butter.
    He’d fought in wars, kept soldiers from untimely ends, and though they usually traveled on foot, he was an accomplished horseman. All that was in the past, however, and his job was to accompany the princess and keep her safe. The leaves she loved best came from maple trees.
    Leaves come in all shapes, but these maple leaves were shaped like hands, with five fingers, just like you have. Each finger had a vein that led to its stem so it could receive sap, which is like blood to trees. People say no two snowflakes are the same, and when it comes to leaves that’s true, too.
    Now a leaf collection is a delicate business. Each must be handled with care and preserved, or they’ll turn brown and crumble. That’s why the guard carried in his rucksack a heavy book. It had leather covers and was embroidered with silk. This book contained all the words ever spoken in the language of the kingdom. It was actually the keeper of language, so that no matter how much time went by, the book would always be there, to keep the language safe.
    One word in the book was
Acer japonicum.
It means “full moon maple.” Inside those three words there were secret words, like
mull
,
lamp
, and
moon
, and
ape
,
pear
, and
plea
. That is how trees talk to you. Secretly.
    It was the guard’s job to press the leaves between the pages of the heavy book as they went along. That way, whenever shewanted to, the princess could open the book and see each leaf, and using the words right there in the pages, she could make up a story.
    Some storytellers write down their stories and an artist draws pictures to go with it. The princess had pencils, paint, and paper in her room at the castle. Once she collected all the colors, she intended to write down the story, using the words she kept locked inside her head. I’ll bet you’re wondering how did they get inside her head. The same way as a dream. When you sleep, the story arrives, a dream with talking dogs or a moon with the face of an owl, all mixed up to make something so beautiful you can’t forget it. There were the five leaves she wanted and these are their names:
    Green leaf with golden spots.
    Golden leaf becoming orange.
    Orange leaf turning scarlet.
    Scarlet leaf turning to burgundy.
    That’s only four leaves, because I haven’t got to the last one. The rarest leaf was called Nearly Black Leaf with misshapen lobe. The same shape as your little ear. Even misshapen and torn leaves have stories. Turning colors was the second-best part of the leaves’ lives. First best was being collected by the princess. A lucky few were singled out for ironing. The guard knew how to heat up an iron and place the leaf between sheets of wax paper. Once pressed, they never lost their color, and they never dried out. This was the best fate of all, as far as the leaves were concerned. Ordinary people didn’t realize the leaves had feelings. They raked them up, stuffed them into bags, and even made bonfires with them. A bonfire is a great big fire out in the open. A good place for one is on a beach by the ocean.
    The more leaves the princess collected, the more pieces ofwax paper the guard used. Soon they were stacked up under her bed, spilling out of the dresser drawers, filling every closet. When you have too much, you go to the thrift store, but the princess was selfish. She loved every leaf, so she had a hard time giving any of them away. It’s hard for some people to give up pretty things, because sometimes pretty things are the only reason to keep going.
    The man nurse arrived with his gurney. “We’re ready for Aspen