Let’s begin.
Starlight the unicorn found a white leaf beside her home tree.
Then she looked again.
The leaf was green. The white part was snow.
“Gigi!” she called when they met later. “Everything has a hat!”
Gigi the giraffe looked over Sunmeadow Valley. Snow lay on the mixed woods, the open grass and the low branches of the acacias. Across the brook, the Enchanted Glade wore the same soft white covering.
“Even the stones,” Gigi said.
“Especially the stones. They look very surprised.”
Gigi's mother, Mara, had brought them to a small meadow near home. On one side stood a long wooden fence. On another grew a thick line of bushes. A red gate and a great oak marked the ends.
Mama set their snack basket beneath a sheltered tree beside the gate.
“We'll stay inside this meadow,” she said. “You can follow the little path to the oak and back. Keep me in sight.”
Starlight knew the path. They had walked it yesterday, when the ground was brown and the sky was gray.
Today it seemed to have disappeared.
Gigi bent her long neck toward a faint dip in the snow.
“It starts here.”
They walked a short way, leaving neat hoofprints behind them.
Starlight stopped to inspect one.
“Mine looks like a tiny bowl.”
Gigi looked at her own print. Its two sides were easy to see.
“Mine looks like two tiny bowls.”
“More room for berries.”
“Very cold berries.”
They laughed and continued toward the oak.
At a low bush, Gigi turned left.
Starlight turned right.
They both stopped.
“The path goes this way,” Gigi said.
“It went around the bush yesterday,” Starlight replied.
“On this side.”
“On the other side.”
Snow had smoothed the ground between them. Neither side looked much like a path.
Gigi raised her head. She could see Mama by the red gate. The oak stood ahead. Between them lay several white humps that might be grass or roots.
“I remember going left,” Gigi said. “We could try a little farther.”
Starlight looked back at their hoofprints.
A breeze had already dusted the smallest ones with snow.
“I don't want to keep guessing.”
Gigi glanced at the oak again. It was close enough to look easy.
Then she looked at the ground.
“I can't see the firm part.”
She stayed beside Starlight and called to Mama.
“We found two ways around the bush! Could you help us check?”
Mama looked up at once.
“Stay there. I'm coming.”
Starlight let out a small breath.
“I thought being tall meant you could see the path.”
“I can see the tree,” Gigi said. “I can't see through snow.”
“That would be useful.”
“So would a tree that came over here.”
Mama arrived along their clear tracks. She knew the meadow well. With a hoof, she brushed a little snow from beside the bush.
A flat stone edge appeared.
“Here's the path,” she said. “It bends around this side.”
Starlight had remembered the bend correctly. But farther on, she had forgotten a second turn.
Gigi had remembered that one.
“Our memories fit different pieces,” Starlight said.
“Let's check both pieces,” Mama replied.
Together they traced the short route from the bush to the oak. Mama checked each patch before the girls followed. The walking surface was firm, with no slippery patch to cross.
At the oak, Gigi looked back.
The red gate was easy to see. Their last turn was not.
“We could forget it going home.”
“Could we mark it?” Starlight asked.
Mama nodded. “Choose something we can see from both directions. I'll help you place it beside the path.”
Gigi found a broad brown leaf caught in the oak's lower branches. She lifted it with her lips and set it at the turn.
It looked splendid against the snow.
Then the breeze came back.
The leaf flipped over, skated across the path and landed on Starlight's nose.
Starlight stood very still.
“I found the turn.”
Gigi laughed. Mama lifted the leaf away.
“Perhaps something heavier.”
Beside the sheltered tree was a small pile of short fallen sticks. Mama brought a few over. They were thick enough to stand out against the white ground.
The girls helped her lay two together beside the turn, with one pointing back toward the gate. Nothing sharp stood up, and nothing lay across the walking space.
Gigi stepped along the checked path toward the oak.
“I can see them from here.”
Starlight looked from the other direction.
“So can I.”
They tried the next marker beside a tuft of tall grass.
Gigi could see it easily. Starlight couldn't.
“The grass is in front of it,” she said.
Gigi lowered her long neck until her eyes were closer to Starlight's.
The sticks disappeared behind the snowy tuft.
“Oh. They looked very clear from up there.”
Mama moved them a little farther along the same firm edge.
Starlight checked again.
“Now I can see both ends.”
“And they're still beside the turn,” Gigi said.
They checked from the return direction too. This time the marker worked for both friends.
Then Mama walked back to the gate while the friends waited together at the oak.
“Ready to try the way back?” she called.
“Ready,” Gigi answered.
Starlight took one step, then paused.
“What happens if more snow covers the sticks?”
Gigi looked at Mama.
“Then we stop and ask again.”
Mama nodded. “These help us today. They don't make a path safe in every kind of weather.”
They followed the checked route slowly. At the bush, Starlight spotted their chunky marker. Gigi pointed out the stone edge Mama had uncovered.
Two clues agreed.
Around the second bend, the sheltered tree came into view.
The snack basket was waiting beneath it.
“We found the berries,” Gigi said.
“We followed the path,” Starlight corrected.
“That too.”
Mama had brought a folded mat to keep their snack off the snow. They settled beside her, sheltered from the breeze.
Starlight looked toward the oak.
“Yesterday I thought I knew every turn.”
“Yesterday we could see the ground,” Gigi said.
A little lump of snow slipped from the shelter tree and dropped beside the basket.
Starlight looked up.
“That tree is taking its hat off.”
Gigi stretched toward a low branch. She paused before touching it.
“Should I?”
Starlight glanced at the snow piled above Gigi's nose.
“No.”
Gigi lowered her head.
“Good checking.”
They both giggled, and Mama passed the berries.
When the basket was empty, Gigi looked toward the white meadow.
“What do you think our next adventure will be?” Gigi asked.
Starlight smiled.
“I don’t know… but whatever happens, I’m ready!”