Emma Pov:
It was early in the morning. I knew dad wasn't awake yet. It was pretty easy to creep past his bedroom. He had never been a light sleeper. Soon I was out in the cold air, enjoying the morning like I should.
Little droplets of dew slid down the heads of mushrooms, I was free. I didn't know if the caterpillars were awake, of if they even slept at all. They would most likely tell dad if they saw me. But it gave me comfort at the fact that even if they were to inform dad about my breaking of rules, they would say it in riddle.
The caterpillars are like that, no matter what the question is; they can find a way to confuse you. I sometimes like to talk with them, but I always end up lost in their conversations. I trotted over to their general area. Maybe I could catch them sleeping. How do they sleep? For the longest time I couldn't figure out how they sat!
I weaved my way through the crowd of smaller mushrooms. That was funny. Some of the stems looked dirtier then usual. They had a sort of black sheet of dust on it. The dust smelled funny, I pinched my nose. As I walked deeper into the forest of mushrooms, the dust became blacker and darker. I touched the mushroom to see if it was actually dust, or just some sort of disease. The black dust came away on my hand. The deeper I ventured into the cluster of black mushrooms, the greater the smell became, my face became hot, and the tips of mushroom tops were scorched. I soon saw it. What I have thought would be there, but mostly didn't believe that it would actually happen here. Fire. A big one. It only had little sparks bursting here, but I knew that it had to be bigger somewhere else. I dodged the collapsing stems of ablaze mushrooms, and wandered ever deeper into the fiery garden. My face became hotter, and the disgusting smell filled my nostrils. I saw more of the fire, but I had absolutely no idea how it started. Then it hit me. What about the caterpillars? I looked in every corner for a sign that the caterpillars were still there. I couldn't find them. Maybe they were hiding; I would have to fish them out.
I thought of a golden tray of tarty-tarts. I thought about al the different flavors that would be on the tray. I even went as far as to think up a little design of the gold. My tray popped into existence. Tarty-tarts and all. I have this weird power that whenever I think of something; it appears in front of me. It is quite easy. But it always has to be an object. If I wanted to make dad talk only backwards, it wouldn't happen.
The smell of the tarty-tarts made me almost want to take one myself. Nothing happened. I created a fan that spread the scent to overtake the dreadful smell of burning. I slowly saw Blue come out from behind a burning stem. This was the first time he wasn't smoking.
"What is it?" he asked lazily as he stuffed the contents of the tray into his mouth.
"Where are the others?" I asked. They didn't appear.
"They're gone." He said. "They decided to go somewhere else. Lucky me."
"What happened here?" I asked.
"Redd." He replied.
"The mushrooms are black, not red." I said.
He laughed and slithered out of sight. With my tray.
I ran home. Dad was probably up by now. He was out looking for me.
"Emma, what are you doing? You're supposed to wait for me to wake up!"
"Dad! There's a fire!" I practically yelled.
"Fire? Where?" he said.
I lead him to the place where the mushrooms were black, past the small spark area, and closer to the main flame.
"Did you do this?" he asked angrily.
He can be pretty scary sometimes.
"No."
"Do you know how it happened?" he asked.
"No, but Blue said something about the color red."
He made a terrified face.
"Redd is here?" He screamed.
"No! The mushrooms are black!" I said annoyed.
"How did Redd find us? Well I suppose she had been here before," Dad was frantic.
This made no sense.
"What's red?" I asked.
"We've got to get out of here! Redd could be on our tails this very moment!"
He took hold of my arm and we ran back to the house. Our house is basically a mushroom with windows carved into it. He went around the back of the house to where we kept an old wagon. We haven't used it in a while. He flung me into the back of the wagon and hit our Spirit-Dane to move. He didn't even look back as he repeatedly hit the poor animal. I did though. As we rode away into the mushroom forest, I saw more traces that the fire was moving, and it would soon devour our home.
