Gwen's Odd Ball Day

The long lazy days of summer have finally arrived.
The bright rays of the sun had warmed the earth and with
the help of the gentle summer rain, the crops and
trees are growing and bearing ripe fruits and vegetables.
Everything is as it should be Gwen thought as she sat
under the big willow tree on the bank of the pond. The
summer heat had warmed the little pond just enough that
it felt refreshing and cool when she dangled her
toes into the water. This was a perfect place to
just sit and daydream! That was one of Gwens’ favorite
pass times. She thought about all sorts of things
sitting there under “her tree”.

Gwen decided that maybe she would gather some of the
smooth colored stones that were laying around the pond.
She liked the shiny ones best. She liked the way they
sparkled in the sunlight. “Boy, those would be perfect
for my collection!” Gwen had a lot of collections.
She collected stones and shells and pieces
of colored glass and sticks and strings. Actually,
she collected almost anything that you could imagine.
“You just never know when you’ll need one of these!”
That was what she would tell her friends when they
taunted her for being such an odd ball.
Oddball? What the heck is an oddball she wondered?

When she had a nice little pile of pretty rocks, she
made a carrier out of her skirt and off she went toward
her house. First Gwen carried the stones into the kitchen.
She took each one in turn and held them under the
running water in her moms kitchen sink. When they were
all done, she took them back out to the porch and put
them in a tidy row for the bright sun to dry them off.
She sat sipping a glass of lemonade and waited.
She waited until the stones were dry and warm.
She waited until she thought they had absorbed
all of the suns energy that they wanted.

Gwen carefully gathered her new stones and carried them
off into her bedroom. In the corner her mommy had put an
old round table that she had found in the
rafters of their barn. It was just right for Gwen’s rocks
and things. Gwen placed her stones oh so carefully
in a circle right around the edge of her table.
Right around the small piles of shells and strings
and shiny colored glass. No matter how she placed them,
she always ended up with one extra stone.
It was always the same stone too. It just didn’t look right,
no matter where in the circle she placed it.
“Hmmmmmm, I guess you’re just an odd ball
like me,” Gwen said.

“That is kinda weird.” The very same thing happened the
other day when she had picked up all of those twigs from
under the apple tree. No matter how she stacked them,
there was always that one that just didn’t fit.
She walked over and picked up the extra twig.
“I don’t know why you don’t fit into the stack?
You are a fine strong piece of wood! A twig that would
make any tree proud!” And what about that piece
of silver cord? The one that kept floating off of
the table and landing on the floor. That was a bit
odd too she had to admit. Gwen gathered up
her oddball stone, and the twig, and finally
that piece of cord that was on the floor again.
She went to ask her mom what made them different than
the others. She wanted to know why they
just didn’t seem to fit into the collections.

She went into the kitchen and found mom and aunt Star
busy washing the vegetables that they had just picked.
She didn’t want to interrupt them so she went on out
to the barn to look for her daddy. Nope! He wasn’t there.
Then all of a sudden,she heard a tap, tap, tap coming
from the workshop. “That’s where he is.Probably
making something grand for our little house.”

Gwen went to the door and peered inside.
Just as she thought, there was her daddy
working on a new wooden top for the old altar that
they kept in the den. It was coming along nicely Gwen
thought. The carvings were beautiful!
Moons and stars and pentacles and the most
wonderful dragon right in the center. Oh, she couldn’t
wait until it was finished! Daddy had out
done himself this time.

When he saw Gwen at the door, he stopped working. He
grinned at her and asked what she had brought for
him. “Well, you see daddy, these things are oddballs!”
“Oddballs? Where in goddess name did you pick up
that word?” he asked. “Gwen sat down and explained.
“Some of my friends say that when something is
different or don’t fit in, that it’s an oddball.
These things are the same as the
others but they still don’t fit.
Like me daddy, I’m almost like my friends,
but they still call me an oddball.”