‘Bucket of Sunlight’
A cold breeze blew back the petals of a wild-haired daisy, causing her to shriek with terror.
“My beautiful hair!” she screamed as she watched her orange petal hair fly away.
The grass shook with laughter, and the flowers giggled, but the air tasted of cold wind, and the soil was bitter. Sophie longed for a time when the ground was soft and warm under her roots and the sunlight was butterscotch sweet. She trotted down the sidewalk, trying to ignore the blades of grass that tittered as she passed.
“Baldy…” they whispered. “Baldy, baldy, baldy!”
Sophie hung her head and hurried along the path. I’ll show them, she thought. I’ll soon have the best hair in the world. In a secret pouch on her stem splish-splashed all the money that Sophie had in the world. With it, she would get her hair back.
Now, money in the flower world isn’t the same as the money to humans. Flower money is sweet butterscotch sunlight, and Sophie’s parents had given her one precious jar before they died.
“Use it to buy something truly valuable,” her mother had whispered.
“Well,” Sophie thought, “what could be more valuable than getting my hair back?”
She knew just the place. There was a wig shop in town that sold the best wigs in the world. Sophie hurried down the sidewalk, as she clutched her one precious jar of butterscotch sunlight.
All of a sudden, there it was. Rows and rows of bright shining petals gleamed in the shop window, whispering for her to enter. She burst into the shop, then spent the next five hours trying on the striped ones, the polka dotted ones and the bright blue ones. Finally, surrounded by a mountain of discarded wigs, she decided on the orange one with yellow polka dots.
“How much is this one?” asked Sophie, smiling brightly.
“That one is a great choice because it is on sale. It is only three jars of sweet butterscotch,” said the cashier cheerily.
“Three jars? I only have one!” said Sophie, her smile fading.
“Oh dear, that’s our cheapest one,” said the cashier, looking disapproving as she hurriedly replaced all her merchandise.
With her head bowed, Sophie trudged out the door. That was when she noticed a bright sky blue sign tacked to a somber gray wall that read “Hyacinth Jones, Fortune Teller. Knows All. Sees All.”
Upon entering she was greeted by an ancient daisy with kind blue eyes and magnificent hair.
“Why do you need my help?” she asked kindly.
“Can’t you tell? My hair…or maybe I should say my lack of hair.”
“It is the way of life, my child. Why have you no faith in nature?”
“What do you mean? Of course I have faith in nature.”
“Then trust that faith. For when the wind, the sun, the stars and the rain have their season, your hair will grow back more magnificent than before. And remember, there are some things that cannot be bought.”
This was not what Sophie had wanted to hear. Glumly she dragged her hopeless, bedraggled self down the gray cobblestone street. She just knew her glorious hair would never grow back.
And so Sophie waited. It was all she could do.
But sure enough, one sunlit day, while buttercups and tulips twirled in a ballet, Sophie remembered the kindly soothsayer and laughed, as her magnificent hair danced on the breeze.
