4th Week

All images and text copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

09.09.10

The girls rode into town, Sara bumping along on the bouncing beanbag and Maura trotting next to her chatting away.

“We should try the general store!” She said over the sound of the hooves and flopping bag. “There is always some good licorice that they sometime give you samples.  If your page isn’t in there we could try the main stables I guess, but the library is closed today so it wouldn’t be in there.”  She looked over at Sara who was holding on with both hands as the beanbag skipped from one side of the trial to the other like it was sniffing the flowers that grew along the edges. Maura’s little pony snorted as the red chair scooted across his path.

“W..w…well, m..m..maybe w..w..we s..s..should s..s..see w..w..where t..t..the w..w..wind i..i..is b..b..blowing!” Stammered Sara.

“That might be a good idea.” Maura allowed, “but the licorice is really good.”

They entered the edge of the little town and Sara looked to see all of the people walking up and down the street and the old timey buildings. “Cool.” Said Sara, she pointed to the building next to the General Store. “What is that?”

“The Boarding house? Why would you want to go there?”

“It is the tallest building in town, if we could get on the roof we can see all around.”

“It’s the tallest building, but not the tallest thing!” Maura pointed to a water tower that was peeking over the buildings on the other side of the street. “We could climb that and see, why, we could see forever!”  They headed over to the water tower, hitched the pony to the posts and Sara told the beanbag to stay in place before they started climbing to the top.

“Look!” Maura pointed to the landing around the edge of the water tower. “Is that a piece of paper?” There was a flicker of white at the edge of the railing, “Hurry!” They scurried up the wooden structure, Sara was a very good climber, and Maura was right behind her.  They climbed over the edge of the walkway as the wind picked up again, lifting the page off of the platform and out over the edge.

“I’ve got it!” Sara shouted and jumped over the railing and reaching out for the sheet, she could see the page, it looked it was a drawing of Ms. Robinson and her class, but the page was just out of her reach!

“Be Careful Sara!” But it was too late Sara had reached too far and her hand slipped from the railing and she fell from the top of the tower, the page underneath her as she plummeted toward the ground!  Before she could even make a sound she saw the beanbag dash to where she was falling!  The bag jumped the last few feet and Sara crashed into it, but it felt like she was falling all the way through it, but it was slowing her down!  Through the darkness she kept falling until she bumped into a hard cold floor.

“Great! Now where in the world am I?” She looked up and down the dark hallway, Maura was nowhere to be seen!

Third Week

All text and images copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

09.02.10

Sara stared at the little girl in front of her and down at the yellow book she had been reading about the family that lived in the little house.  “Are you sure your name is Maura?”

            “Yep.” Said the girl with a confident nod of her head, “and that is my Maw, and Paw, and my sister Kerry. We live in that medium house in the field.” She pointed to the house in the distance that Sara had seen earlier. “What’s your name and where did you come from?”

“Well...my name is Sara, and I am from...”Sara thought for a moment. “I came from far away.” She said finally.  “I have some of my stuff,” and the beanbag shook on the ground behind her.”but I really need that page that just flew away. It will help me to get back home.”

“I can help you find your page!” Maura offered brightly, “Maw, Paw! I am going to go with Sara to look for her page!”

“Sure thing Half Gallon!” Maura’s Paw called back.

“We need to get a horse and a wagon! C’mon!” The two girls went over to the barn and started collecting the tack and saddle for the horses.  They had just pulled down the second blanket when Sara noticed a red shadow at the door of the barn.  That silly beanbag had made its way to the barn and was peeking in on them.

“Is that yours?” Maura pointed at the beanbag that had rolled into the barn.

“Yesss.” Sara sighed. “That thing is why I am here.”  She told Maura all about reading in class and then falling through the bag.

“Well, we really need to find that page for you!” The girls got the saddle on one horse and had started the second when the beanbag started hopping up and down around Sara excitedly.  “It looks like it wants to help!” Exclaimed Maura, but Sara, who had experienced the silly beanbag once already wasn’t sure she trusted it quite yet.

“I don’t know....” But Maura was already getting the little wagon out and hooking it up to the beanbag.

“You can put all of your books in the wagon and I will ride alongside of you two into town.” The girls had decided to look in town for the page first, since that was the direction the wind was blowing.  Hurrying to finish they buckled the last strap down and Sara jumped onto the wagon while Maura scrambled up onto a little pony. “Come on!” They walked the pony out of the barn and the beanbag followed with the brown wagon with Sara and her books.  Everything was going just fine until they got to the edge of the property.  Sara looked at the wooden fence go by when she felt a sudden jerk on the reins.

“Whoa!” She cried and she was pulled suddenly from wagon and all of her books too! And she flew into the air, pulled by the reins still gripped tightly in her hands!

New Website

Below is our new website:

www.doodle-bags.com

I will still post new things to this blog, but will start to populate the website with more enduring stuff!

Bookmarks

All images copyright Michael Smith - Doodle Bag Productions

As a request from the original Sara I did a few bookmarks for her and her brother as well as a friend at school, these were the finals.