Bakery Excerpt

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Sitting at the end of the driveway, almost patiently waiting for Gram and Grandad to get there, Mattie picked another interesting fossil out of the gravel. Her left pants pocket was already stuffed so full of them she couldn’t squeeze another one in there no matter how hard she tried.

Mattie turned that little fossil over and over in her hand, looking at all the curled shells stuck in it. She couldn’t quite decide if it was a keeper but there was definitely something she liked about it. Just as she was about to start a whole new fossil collection in her right pants pocket, some hummingbirds zipped by her head, their wings buzzing like they were giant bumblebees.

Mattie remembered her just before waking up dream, the one where some hummingbirds flew by her window singing and talking in their busy little voices. She wasn’t used to hummingbirds talking to her but she did like the idea. Mattie wondered if she could get them to stay still long enough for her to hear what they were saying. Right now though, the driveway stones were much more interesting than hummingbirds. Mattie ran her hands through the gravel again, looking for her next just right stone.

She picked up a nice round piece of black granite with big flecks of pink in it. It was smooth on the sides instead of sharp like some of the others. Mattie knew in an instant that this stone was special and it wanted to sit in the sun on her bedroom windowsill.

Gram and Grandad sure were taking a long time to get here. Mattie had been looking for stones and almost patiently waiting since right after that hummingbird dream woke her up. She looked down the road toward the west. No cars. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked to the east, even though she knew Gram and Grandad weren’t coming from that direction. Still no cars.

Gram and Grandad had been driving all over the place for three weeks, seeing all kinds of things Mattie had never seen before. One day they even sent a picture of the two of them standing beside a Redwood tree that was so big it would have taken at least twenty people to make a circle around its trunk. Mattie really wanted to meet that tree!

A little bit of Chapter 1

Bees and Other Folks