So this one time, Mary was walking in the woods and the music of the forest came upon her. She was stepping in the grass and feeling the crunch of the leaves under her feet – crunch crunch crunchy crunch crunch…her step in time with her heart beat. Her feet started shuffling the beat of the leaves and her body automatically picked it up and started moving.
It was so great, she felt like the forest was dancing with her, and she with the whole forest. Excited and lost in her dance, she picked a couple of her feet up higher and then higher, stomping them down for a big bass thump. And thump and a thump thump bump. Crunchy cruncha. Thumpy Crunch thumpa thump.
Now add a twist, a wiggle and a bend and Whoo! and Yeah! And that, my friend is how when you dance, the whole world dances with you.
Until…as she moved under the high rustling branches of an ancient chestnut tree, her middle foot raised so high and dropped witha… AAAAYYYII — something bit her!
Oww owowowweeee. Mary dropped down to the ground and pulled her sore bitten foot up to look close, and there were teeny tiny spines in her foot. Well what was that? Where did it come from? She carefully pulled out the spines and then started to investigate. What had bitten her? Where did those spines come from?
As she brushed the covering layer of chestnust leaves to the side, she saw an amazing thing! All these spiny little creatures hiding under the leaves. They looked so much like little baby monsters just starting to hatch.
She looked around. Where was the mamma? And I bet it hurt to lay those eggs…But no, they weren’t creatures. They didn’t answer her calls, didn’t move when she got near. Gingerly, she picked one up. No, not a creature. No babies here. It was some kind of magical wrapping, a treasure in a thorny hide. And it must be very valuable and sweet, for nature to have protected it so well with those spiky thorns!
Carefully, she brushed aside more leaves and so so gently, opened more chestnut burrs. Rolling the smooth silky nuts on her skin, she gathered a pocket full to bring back to the tribe. Someone there would know what to do with them!
And as she walked home, she thought to herself, “how wonderful to dance barefoot! True, there is the occasional thorn…but oh! the discoveries I make with my feet on the ground!”