SHORT STORIES*

SHORT STORIES

Once upon a time there was a very small, very excitable, *very* imaginative — but slightly scared — button.

Every day, the button would work itself into a frenzy thinking about all of the fun things it would do outside of the button jar. It pressed itself up against the glass of the button jar and started dancing! It flung itself this way and that way thinking about how it would fly all over the world outside the jar that contained it on that shelf. The other buttons didn’t like getting jostled around this way and that while the imaginitive button was imagining. They’d say things like “Calm down!” “Quiet up!” “Stay still!” and still other, perhaps meaner, things to our friendly button. Eventually, by the end of each day, our button would give up on its dreams and just do nothing like the rest of the buttons in the button jar.

One day a small child assembled a staircase out of baskets, chairs, shoe boxes, and other items to climb up to the shelf where the button jar lived. The child reached up to the glass to push the jar out of the way. It was a teddy bear that the child was after that was behind the jar. But the child slipped! The child pulled down the bear in the long fall to the ground. The button jar tipped over and was in danger of rolling off of the ledge on which it rested. A fall could happen at any moment!

Because of that, our little button — paying attention unlike the others — decided to get out of the jar so as not to fall so far like the bear with button eyes had (those eyes always looked sad to our imaginative button). Our button scrambled out of the jar. It tried to warn the others “Come on! You’re going to fall! This isn’t a warning or a drill! Let’s go!” Alas, the other buttons responded like the always had by saying “Calm down!” “Quiet up!” “Stay still!” (along with other, much meaner, things).

Because of that, our imaginative button escaped from the jar. It pulled but one other button out before the jar went crashing down to the ground — shattering on impact — and leaving motionless buttons on the carpet far far below. Our button was very very scared.

Until finally, the button our imaginitive button had saved looked over and said “Thank you, I always thought you were fun, but I wasn’t allowed to talk to you at all. Thank you for saving me.” Our button didn’t know what to do. All of the sudden, the buttons on the floor far far below started to move. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” said our imaginitive button, “Do you trust me?” The other button said yes, and the started a Rube Goldberg-like decent involving magazines, bouncy balls, picture frames, metal wire, spider silk, and other amazing feats. The final decent was on a handkerchief, like a parachute, to the ground below. “You really are amazing.” Our imaginitive button thought about it for a moment, “I really am. I really truly am.” Everyone cheered.