Anna Marie should have never eaten her grandmother’s cookies.

If Anna Marie was a smart child, like her parents and teachers believed her to be, she would have gone to the Gardening Club after school with her friend Christine.  If Anna Marie was a smart child, she would have gone straight home after finding out the Gardening Club was cancelled, and done homework or practiced piano or something like that.  If Anna Marie was smart a smart child, she would have invited Christine over to eat chips and watch reality TV they weren’t supposed to see while prank calling boys in the sixth grade PTA phonebook her mom kept by the giant whiteboard that ran their family.

Anna Marie was a very smart child, in fact.  Too smart.  And way too stubborn and independent for  her own good.  That’s why, instead of doing any of the the things she was supposed to be doing or could be doing, she found herself waving goodbye to Christine at her mother’s car and hopping into the trolley that rolled downtown.

She got off at Whitemore Street, the historic area all the tourists drooled over, and strolled past the rows of Victorian mansions built by early German immigrants.  When she reached a pale blue and white cottage surrounded by a white picket fence, she grinned.  She always loved coming to her grandmother’s, to the tiny cottage that looked like a dollhouse, nestled among bursts of colorful flowers and towering oak trees perfect for climbing or reading a good book under.

Skipping down the cobblestone walk, she pulled the front door open and shouted, “Oma!  I’m here!”

Schnitzel, her grandmother’s Dauchsand, greeted her with a series of sniffs and licks.  Otherwise, the house hummed with silence.

“Oma?” she shouted again.  Anna Marie dropped her bag in the hallway and stepped into the kitchen.  There, in the center of the counter, lay a plate full of chocolate chip cookies, Anna Marie’s favorite.  Next to it lay a note:

Anna Marie,

Don’t eat these!  They’re for a special friend.  I’ll make you your own batch when I return.  Just went to Mrs. Holland’s to deliver the rest of these–be back in a bit!

Oma

Anna Marie frowned.  Mrs. Holland was a crotchety old woman who gossiped too much and smelled like cabbage.  She did not deserve Oma’s chocolate chip cookies.

It didn’t even occur to her to wonder how Oma knew she was coming, when she should have been at the Gardening Club.

Scratching Snitzel’s head absently, her stomach began to growl.  As her mind rewound through her day, she realized she had skipped lunch.  The cafeteria’s idea of sloppy joes both terrified and intrigued her.

Her stomach’s protests became louder, hunger stabbing her middle in insistent jabs.  Her mouth watering, she eyed the cookies.  With a sigh, she turned away and opened her grandmother’s cabinets. Wrinkling her nose, she perused the contents.

“Crackers, sausage, cheeses, smoked fish,” she muttered, making a face.  She opened up another cabinet and gagged.  “Veggies and fruit.”   Pulling open the refrigerator, she scowled as she peered at contents of the tupperware inside.  “Casseroles, cabbage soup, kolaches, sweet rolls, pudding, vegetable soup…”  She stuck out her tongue.  “Why can’t Oma eat normal food, like peanut butter and jelly and hot dogs?”

Schnitzel panted in response.  He knew the word sausage and knew the object of his affection resided in the cabinet Anna Marie had opened.  Wagging his tail hopefully, he watched her every move.

Grumbling under her breath, Anna Marie clutched her yowling stomach as she stared at the plate of cookies.  Even across the kitchen, she could smell the warm sugary goodness.

“Surely she won’t miss one cookie,” she murmured to Schnitzel as much as herself.  “Just one cookie…”  She took a step closer to the plate.  Snitzel looked hopefully at the cabinet.

“And it’ll take her at least thirty minutes to make more…” Anna Marie reasoned, taking another step.  “And there’s no telling how long she’ll be at Mrs. Hollands.”  Another step away from the sausage stuffed cabinet.  Schnitzel whined.

“Just one or two…” Anna Marie murmured, stepping to the counter and reaching toward the plate.  “Just enough to hold me over.”

Schnitzel gave up hope and lay down on the floor, his tail thumping the cabinet.

Picking up a cookie, she took a bite and closed her eyes in bliss.  The warm sugary and buttery goodness with the thick chocolate chips melted on her tongue.  Swallowing, she picked up another cookie.

“Just one more,” she told Schnitzel.  He whined, wishing she’d return to the cabinet with sausage.

One more became two more, which became three more, which became four…

Before Anna Marie knew it, she was staring down at a empty plate with chocolate and crumb smeared fingers.

And she was floating a foot off the floor.

Licking her fingers, she lifted her feet gingerly.  They simply floated up, not touching the ground nor the sky.  She jumped up, her fingers touching the ceiling.  Instead of slamming into the tile floor, she slowly floated down, hovering above it.  She took a few steps forward, surprised to find it was just like walking on really soft carpet.  Taking a deep breath, she ran a few steps and leaped forward.  Instead of flying, as she had hoped, she simply slammed into the side wall, rattling the ancient photographs that dotted it.

Strolling about the house and climbing the stairs without really touching them, she returned to the kitchen and paced.  Snitzel’s heart race and his tail thumped the cabinet. Absently, she opened up the cabinets (now that she could properly reach them without climbing) and pulled out a can of sausage, setting it on the ground for him.  She tried to sit at the kitchen table, but she floated above it and it just felt too odd.

“I suppose there’s nothing to do but wait until Oma gets back,” she told Schnitzel, twirling in the air as she wondered about the kitchen.  Sleepy with a belly full of sausage, Schnitzel barked in agreement.

Anna Marie didn’t know who the cookies had been intended for, and she didn’t know how her grandmother knew she was coming.

The only thing she knew was she should have never eaten the entire plate of cookies.

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  We have a week full of whimsy coming up!