The Crocodile

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The Crocodile
By Wendy Morrow

Lucy ran down the street after her father. Her little curls bounced in the wind and her sunglasses slipped down her nose.” Daddy”, she called out. “Daddy wait, Daddy wait.” Her foot caught on a crack in the sidewalk and all at once she fell onto the dimpled concrete. Lucy screamed and lay on the pavement.

Her father turned and ran back to her. “Oh Lucy.” he cried and bent to pick her up. “Lucy, Lucy, poor little Lucy.”

“My knee” she sobbed and looked down through her tears at her injured knee, the blood was starting to come out in little droplets and the sight of it threw Lucy into even deeper, heaving sobs. She brought her knee up to her face and howled.

“My new shoe,” she wailed. “My cwoc, where is my cwoc?” Lucy struggled to get down and she looked all around. She had a little green sandal still attached to one foot but the other was bare. “Oh no,” she said. “I have to have my cwoc.” She fell into sadder sobs at the thought of the missing croc.

“Well,” her father said, “I guess we will have to find it, let’s look around and see if we can see your croc.”

“Where do you suppose a lost little croc would go? Would it go back to the swamp and look for its family?” he asked Lucy.

“No” Lucy said. “It is not a real crocodile.”

“Would it go to the zoo to look for the animals?” her father asked.

“No, it wouldn’t do that, it doesn’t know the way.” Lucy stopped gasping and cocked her head to one side and looked at her father.

“Do you think it went inside to have a sandwich?” her father kissed the tears on her cheek.

“Yes,” Lucy said, “that is what I wanted to tell you. We made lunch and I was calling you to come and get your sandwich.”

Lucy and her father began to look for Lucy's shoe, they looked on the grass, and on the road. They looked under the wagon and on the porch. They peered under the daisies in the flower bed and over the neighbour’s fence, but they couldn’t see the little shoe.

A little chickadee was watching them search for Lucy’s shoe. “Here sweetie, here’s your shoe” The little bird sang. “Here sweetie, here’s your shoe.”

Lucy and her father looked at the bird and then the bush. And there was Lucy's shoe, sitting on a branch like a little green flower.

“Well your shoe is sitting in the bush here waiting for you to find it.” Her father scooped her up and put her on his shoulders. He bent down and Lucy picked her shoe off the branch and her father put it on her foot.

“Now, you have matching crocs again.” He said.

Lucy smiled, and messed up her father’s hair as they went in for lunch.

She had forgotten about her knee.


Word count 374