The Two Towns

Fullbright was excited when his family moved to the town of Goldenville, which had just been built. Fullbright’s favorite thing to do was to dig, and he had never lived somewhere before where he was allowed to dig so much. There wasn’t a whole lot to dig up in Goldenville, but sometimes he could find some interesting rocks and things when he dug in the forests that were nearby.

The closest forest was right next to Goldenville, just past the furthest houses. It wasn’t the best place for digging because the undergrowth was so thick and prickly that nobody could get inside of it. But sometimes Fullbright dug around at the very edge of that forest. That’s what he was doing on the day when he dug up a small statue of a cricket. It was the most interesting thing that he had ever dug up, so he was very excited.

He was more excited when, as soon as he picked the cricket up, he couldn’t see the forest anymore. He suddenly found that he was sitting right next to a dusty road, with a whole town beyond it. It was as if Goldenville and this other town were one town. Oddly, this town seemed to be just about as new as his own town was.

He carefully put the stone cricket into his pocket and started to walk through this new town. A lot of people looked at him curiously, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was a stranger or because he was dressed very differently than these people. But, nobody spoke to him.

When he reached the other end of this new town, Fullbright found a girl who looked like she was close to his age. She was digging.

“Do you like to dig for things?” asked Fullbright. “I do.”

“Yes,” said the girl, looking up at him and smiling. “It’s my favorite thing to do.”

“My name is Fullbright, and I come from a town called Goldenville,” said Fullbright.

“My name is Dove,” said the girl. “And this town is called Fieldton. Is Goldenville close to Fieldton? I’ve never heard anybody mention Goldenville before.”

“Oh, yes, it is very close,” said Fullbright. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

He led Dove back through Fieldton, until he had reached the road that was close to where he found the cricket statue. Then she grabbed onto his arm and stopped him.

“Those are very sharp prickles,” she said, pointing to a spot in the air that Fullbright supposed was where the forest barrier was.

“Goldenville is just beyond that,” said Fullbright. “Here, touch this cricket statue that I dug up.”

He held the stone cricket in his hand, and Dove curiously touched it with one finger. Then she looked up in surprise.

“Where is the forest?” she asked.

“It’s not there when you’re touching the cricket,” said Fullbright.

Suddenly the stone cricket started to wiggle. It wiggled out from under Dove’s finger, and then it hopped onto the ground, and slowly changed its shape and became bigger until it was a young-looking grown-up man who was holding a shovel. “Thank you for rescuing me!” said the man.

Fullbright heard a lot of excited talking all around him, and when he looked around, he found that many people in both towns were looking curiously at the other town. The forest had completely disappeared. It was the most exciting thing to ever happen to any of them.

“Who are you?” asked Fullbright and Dove, after they had introduced themselves to the man.

“I am the wizard Argyle,” said the man. “About a week ago, I had just moved to the town of Goldenville, and I decided to dig around a bit next to the strangely prickly undergrowth in the forest just next to the town. But then I dug up an old spell that somebody had buried, which seemed to have created the prickly forest. Before I knew it, I was a stone cricket statue underneath a few inches of dirt.”

“Oh, do you like to dig?” asked Dove and Fullbright, excited.

“Oh, yes,” said Wizard Argyle. “It is my favorite thing to do. But before I do any more digging, I mean to search the area thoroughly to make sure that there are no more buried spells.”

So the towns of Goldenville and Fieldton became one town, which they called Golden Field. It took quite a while for everybody to get used to it, but they eventually came to like having two different choices of how to dress, and they also liked no longer having a nearby forest that was impossible to go through.

And after the Wizard Argyle made sure that there was no more buried magic, he and Dove and Fullbright had a great time digging around together and finding interesting rocks and things.

But none of them ever again dug up anything more interesting than a rock.