From my kids’ book LittleTown (available as a Kindle eBook for only 99 cents and as a printed book on Amazon):
HOW CAN YOU FLY IF YOU ARE BLIND?
It was only when you looked at little Vola's face that you saw the difference.
The other flying squirrels had large bright dark eyes that hinted at fun and laughter and love.
There was no light in Vola's eyes: they were scarred and lifeless.
She had just been born when a bright flash of lightning had sizzled through the sky and hit the tree in which little Vola and her Mother lay sleeping.
She had just been born when a bright flash of lightning had sizzled through the sky and hit the tree in which little Vola and her Mother lay sleeping.
The lightning bolt had exploded among the branches with a terrible crack, setting them alight from top to bottom.
Vola's mother had run from the flames, trying to find a place where the flames did not burn.
But there was none.
Out into space Vola's mother glided
The hot flames licked at her furry coat, setting it on fire. She knew there was only one thing to do to save the little daughter clinging to her back.
She had to jump, even though her fur was now burning.
So little Vola's mother had thrown herself off the top of the tall tree.
Out into space she had glided, a little trail of smoke following her as she swooped down towards the ground and to safety.
But it was too much for her small body.
The pain of the fire was too much for her small heart, and ten feet above the ground life had fled away from Vola's mother, up into the sky, and she had fallen.
Her little daughter had fallen with her, tiny hands holding onto fur until they had struck the ground.
Vola had bounced away from her mother's body and rolled over and over onto the hard rocks.
Her eyes struck a small rock, and from that day on the little flying squirrel had never seen the world in which she lived.
She walked in the darkness of blindness through the forests and woods, knowing the world by smell and touch but not by sight.
And one day she had terrified the LittleTowners by not being where she usually was in the early morning. She loved to walk, and was absolutely fearless. Seeing no danger, she feared none, and would go anywhere her nose pointed.
The LittleTowners usually watched over her, but that day she had slipped away on her own and wandered onto the snowy riverbank to listen to the faraway chuckle of the waters as they moved beneath the ice that had covered the river.
Soon the snow had chilled her toes and forced her up the nearest tree, into a warm little hole where she had drifted off to sleep.
It did not take the LittleTowners long to discover that she was missing.
It was Timid Timmy who found her paw prints in the snow, leading to the river.
Vola's tracks led towards the river
They stood on the river bank and stared at her footprints which went down the steep bank and onto the ice and ... disappeared.
They could not see the little tracks she had made as she climbed the tall old tree searching for a warm spot for her cold toes.
All they saw were the little paw prints going onto the ice, and beyond them, in the middle of the river, a hole in the ice.
Drowned, said TammyQ softly
Inside the hole the cold waters moved swiftly past, chuckling.
For a long time nobody said anything, and then Uco spoke, the tears of his love for his little sister choking his voice.
"She must have gone on the ice."
He sobbed, his little chest rising and falling.
"She's dead. Little Vola's dead."
"Drowned," said TammyQ softly. "Stolen by the water."
"She has gone to join her dear mother in that great big forest in the sky," whispered Ms Jackrabbit, sniffing into her paws.
Lots of seeds, said Oliver the pocket mouse
"There's no lightning there in that forest," murmured Oliver the pocket mouse. "Just trees and nuts and seeds.
