Journee's Journey Read online



  Journee’s Journey

  Copyright 2017 Allen Grose

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Sneak Peak of Journee's Journey Book Two

  About Allen Grose

  Other books by Allen Grose

  Connect with Allen Grose

  Chapter One

  Today had been a very eventful one for Journee. She had her dream birthday party, played with all her friends, and got all the toys she had asked for. The one gift she loved the most was the one she didn’t even ask for. Journee never knew her grandma even owned the half-moon shaped earrings she gave her. As pretty as the shiny blue earrings were, it was the story that her Grandma told her that really excited her. Journee’s eyes grew extra big as she listened to her grandma tell her how her earrings were magical and that once she went to bed, her dreams would always take her to a magical land.

  With this gift, Grandma only asked for two things in return from Journee. The first, which would be hard, but Journee wasn’t allowed to tell anyone of these powers because this would cost Journee her ability to use the earrings. Once the owner of the earrings speaks of the secret the earrings carry, they then take new ownership to the person that was told of the magical powers. The second thing Journee was asked to do was very simple, Grandma wanted Journee to tell her two friends Aniya and Daesin “Hi” once Journee went to sleep and drifted off into her magical adventures. “Who’s that?” Journee asked with joy in her voice making her Grandma laugh. Well Journee, they have been my friend for 50 years. I met them when my mother gave the earrings to me. Now since your father was my only child, I’m giving them to you. Taking a second to calm her sadness, Grandma smiled before letting Journee know that Aniya would always want to go on adventures into the magical forest. She told Journee how Daesin would always find ways to get them out of tight spots, so she could trust his plans most of the time, but also letting Journee know she would have great times with them.

  Journee thought about her Grandma’s words all day as she played with her friends. She wanted so badly to tell everyone about her wonderful earrings, but not wanting to lose them she kept her great secret to herself. The day quickly passed by and now bedtime had finally arrived. Journee was more than ready to close her eyes and fall asleep and just as quick she was forced to cover her eyes to block out the bright sunshine.

  After a few blinks, Journee’s eyes finally took a good look around and what she saw filled her body with more excitement than it had ever felt before. All around her she saw colorful treehouses hanging way up high in the air. Kids ran all around laughing and playing. The sun seemed to shine brighter here and even the birds chirped happy tunes. Journee began to make her way down to the path leading to the treehouse village filled with happy kids, but her journey was stopped by an overjoyed big brown dog who was running at her with his tail wagging super-fast.

  “No, no boy!” Journee yelled just as he jumped on her and started licking her face bringing a big laugh from Journee as she started playing with the happy dog. Between the dogs loud barking and his hard breathing, Journee heard a little girl’s voice yelling, “No Charlie!” causing the dog to look up. Now able to move freely Journee saw the little girl running up the path. “I’m sorry about Charlie, he just loves playing, but it’s nice to finally meet you Journee, your Grandma has told me all about you. I’m Aniya by the way.” Standing to her feet, Journee shook Aniya’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you too, and I’m so ready to get to know about you.” Journee took in everything about Aniya, Her dark black hair that stopped right above her shoulders, down to her round face and pink glasses. Journee loved Aniya’s shiny brown skin and pink pj’s.

  Now that she took a better look around, she saw everyone had on pj’s. From the top of the hill she could see everything, the loud river to her right was filled with kids swimming and playing. Behind them Journee could see a forest unlike any she had ever seen before because the trees here had faces and seemed to be talking to each other. The brightest colored birds flew in and out of the trees. Grandma was right, this place is magical. Pulling her eyes from the forest to see Aniya smiling at her, “Pretty, right?” Aniya asked as she turned and started making her way down the dirt path. “It’s so beautiful!” Journee said with awe on her face as she followed Aniya. “We can introduce you to everyone later, but I would like you to meet Daesin first. He’s my watch partner.” Aniya said twisting her head to see Journee. As she walked past a family of white squirrels. “Oh yes, I’d love to meet him too! My Grandma asked me to tell the both of you hi” Journee said as they made their way to the end of the path.

  “Well you won’t have to wait much longer.” Aniya laughed as she pointed to a lite skinned boy sliding down from one of the tree houses. Journee loved his blue Mohawk and blue pj’s. “Hey Aniya!” Daesin said as he walked up to them. “You must be Journee” he said sticking out his hand to shake hers. “Yes, that’s me.” Journee laughed again as they shook hands. Turning to Aniya, Daesin’s face took on a more serious look. “Jacob says that Riley the Fox and Tommy the Troll are having an argument and we have to take care of it. They’re at the lake now”

  “Umm who is Jacob?” Journee asked with a confused look. “Oh Journee, I’m sorry.” Daesin laughed. “We are the watchers, we overlook the magical forest and help solve problems to keep the peace, Oh and Jacob is our leader.” “Oh okay,” Journee said as she looked back at the forest. “Well then we better get going,” Aniya said as she made her way to the big loud river. Thankful there was a big bridge to cross the river, Journee followed the two as they made their way to the big wooden bridge. The noise from the Watchers who were playing was much louder once they made it to the bridge.

  “Once we make it to the forest, you have to be extra nice to the Trees because they don’t like mean things. In order to get past, we must be polite so they will open our path to the lake,” Aniya said as they came to the other side of the river. “So what happens if you’re mean?” Journee asked even though she would never be mean. “Let’s just say since the trees move and form your needed path being mean won’t turn out good.” Aniya whispered as they came up on the talking trees. “Good afternoon magical trees” Daesin said. All the talking stopped and a nice smile came to all the hard bark faces. “Good day Daesin and company,” the oldest tree spoke back. “If you don’t mind, we would like to get to the main lake.” Daesin said. “Not a problem at all my good man.” The old tree spoke and to Journee’s amazement, all the trees moved out of the way to form a path for them to enter. Taking a better look at the two, Journee asked, “So how old are you guys?” Laughing, Aniya looked back at Journee and said “Well I am 230 years old and Daesin is 217 years old, we just stay like this and pointed to her 7 year old body.” “That’s really cool” Journee said filled with joy just as she heard a voice call out. “Purple and blue I see you, I see three, but none see me.” This was followed by a high pitched laugh. “Umm, what was that?” Journee asked looking as hard as she could into the trees. “Oh that’s just a blendable” Aniya said still walking, but went on explaining because she saw confusion on Journee’s face. “They’re elves that can blend into anything and spend all day telling jokes and they can hide if they don’t want to be seen. They’re harmless so no worries.” That made Journee feel better and she relaxed just as she started hearing fussing then quickly saw the two owners of the noise.

  “This is not 10 ears of corn Riley” The older Troll yelled at the fox who was unlike any other fox Journee had ever seen because he was standing and walking like her and even had clothes on. “Mr. Tommy, what’s g
oing on here?” Daesin asked the orange troll. “Well Riley and I made a deal for 8 of my blue tipped fish for 10 ears of his corn, but I’m sure he doesn’t have 10 ears of corn in his basket.” Looking from the fox’s basket of corn to the troll’s basket of fish, Journee knew she could solve their problem. “I do believe I can help” Journee said to both of them as she took the fish and corn. “Okay, so if Riley owes you 10 ears of corn all we have to do is lay out the corn and count how many is there” Journee said as she laid all the corn on the ground. “Let’s see you have 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 pieces of corn” Journee said to Riley the fox. “Now all we have to do is find out how much more ears of corn you owe Tommy. Let’s do a trick my mommy showed me” Journee said holding up her hands. “If you have 8 ears of corn but need 10 then all you have to do is count my fingers, But we can count up to the amount of corn we have first” Journee said as she started lowering one finger with each number she counted until she got to 8. “Okay, now I have 2 extra fingers up which means Tommy is owed 2 more ears of corn.”

  “Wow Journee that was good solving skills” Aniya said with a huge smile. “Yeah, good job! You’re going to be just as good as your Grandma” Daesin said with pride in his voice. “Well I feel awful now” Riley said with his head down. “It’s ok Riley, no one is perfect. Here’s your fish and I can wait for the other 2 ears of corn” Tommy said as he passed Riley the fish and started picking up his corn. “Well I guess our job here is done” Aniya laughed.

  Just as Aniya laughed she saw Journee’s earrings turn red. “Oh Journee, it’s already time for you to wake up. Your earrings are red now which means our time together is coming to an end, so until next time my friend.” As Aniya’s words hit Journee she felt herself wake up and everything in the magical forest started to fade away. It was her mama’s voice that woke her because it was Journee’s first day of school. Sitting up in the bed, Journee rubbed her eyes and felt kind of sad she was no longer with Aniya and Daesin, but knowing she would see them again the next time she closed her eyes to sleep made her happy. Journee jumped out of her bed and rushed to get dressed for her first day of school.