Sorry for the delay in publishing this! This is a story I collaborated on with an audience at the Milton-Freewater Public Library. I put an ending on it, but be sure to come up with alternatives:
Ridanna Taksvi is an average height for Tinytown Village; she is one inch tall, like most of her friends. Although she may be short in stature to us humans, Ridanna’s bravery was no less for it. In fact, little Miss Taksvi had a positively scandalous amount of courage.
“She’s always running off to some place or another,” her mother, the village dress-mender-and-maker, who was two inches tall, groaned. “The other day she walked two feet out of the village. Can you imagine that? TWO FEET!” Her underlings, who helped her find thread, all oohed and aaahed.
“That is quite terrible,” her secretary, Katisha, agreed.
“And as though that’s not enough, the other day she walked to the swamp all by herself! A girl of her age isn’t supposed to go to the swamp! It’s dangerous, all kinds of dragonflies about—and they say that even that huge beast, the guinea pig, has been sighted!”
“A guinea pig! My goodness!” Katisha said.
“I heard reports of a bullfrog,” the chief thread-finder, Miss Jenny, said importantly.
Little did the women know that as they spoke, Ridanna was creeping through Muddy Frogwater swamp on her hands and knees. She hacked away at vines with her trusty sword (it was an ancient needle that had apparently been dropped by giants) and ignored the cuts on her arms from nettles.
“I wonder when I’ll see that giant building they all talk about,” she said, flying over quicksand with her iridescent bluish pinkish wings. She flew for two feet before becoming utterly exhausted—it was the longest distance she had ever flown—before she heard a strange sound. It sounded like the screech of a wailing cicada.
What could the noise be? she thought. As she flew closer, the noise became louder. If it was a cicada, it would have to be nearby.
But barely a minute had passed before suddenly Ridanna saw an odd surface—it was red—and crashed into it with a sickening thunk.
Meanwhile, Ridanna’s mother was closing up the dress shop.
“I wonder where Ridanna’s got off to now,” she wondered out loud. She heard a great commotion outside and peeked out the window.
“Mrs. Taksvi! Mrs. Taksvi! Your daughter is missing—this time for an hour!” the local newsboy shouted.
“What?” Mrs. Taksvi shouted. “She’s never been gone that long—surely you’ve gotten it wrong—news media, you never can trust them…”
“No, ma’am,” the newsboy said subserviently, taking off his cap. “She’s missing. Some say for good. She was last seen in the swamp—”
“The SWAMP! I’ll fry her ears, that presumptuous guinea pig of daughter—”
“They say she was headed toward a Giant Building—”
“Oh mother-of-needles-and-thread…” Mrs. Taksvi said before fainting onto the floor.
Ridanna awoke and found herself lying next to a red brick wall. It was the tallest, widest brick wall she had ever seen in her life. She rolled over, her eyes hurting from all the red, and found herself looking at an even brighter building, a huge house--it was purple.
"Giants do use giant colors," she muttered, thinking it a very clever little phrase. The next moment she found herself lifted into the air on a very smelly--could it be a foot? There were ten huge toes and ten slightly filthy toe nails poking out from a sandal. A giant's foot! she thought, and hung on tightly.
Ridanna felt dizzy, her nails digging into the giant's foot, as the ground sped by before her eyes. That would have to be two feet--and then three--and then four--! To think she had come this far--it was too much.
"Some fly on my foot," she heard a booming female voice say, and felt herself being waved through the air. Luckily, Ridanna stayed on. She felt a sudden change in temperature, and looked up in wonder. She was inside the Giant Building.
"I think I'm going to faint," was the first thing Mrs. Taksvi said when she awoke.
"Don't worry, dear, I'm sure she'll turn up," Mr. Taksvi said reasurringly. He strongly doubted this, but he was a Magic Bullfrog-Beast Elixir salesman and used to making false claims reassuringly.
"Dad, is she really lost this time?" Pifreyinn, Ridanna's little brother, inquired skeptically.
"Is it another false alarm, maybe? I mean, have you checked the grain cellars and everything?" Pileyinn, commonly known as Piley, demanded.
"She has to be somewhere," Ridanna's older sister, Beatrishee, offered hopefully.
"Somewhere--could be anywhere!" Mrs. Taksvi moaned. "I knew I shouldn't have entrusted her to you! You and your babysitting--babylosing, more like--"
"Who's talking?" Beatrishee responded angrily with a flip of her sunstrand-highlighted hair. "Like you ever paid that much attention to Danna!"
"You and your repulsive rebellious ways! I've had enough of you--"
"That's enough!" Mr. Taksvi bellowed. As a salesman, he was also accustomed to using his loud voice to intimidating effect. The Taksvis cowered before him. "What we need is a search party. I've had enough of standing around and no action. We'll get Aunt Alefraeda--"
"Aunt Alefraeda?" the Taksvi siblings groaned in synchrony.
"Yes, your Great-Aunt Alefraeda, and her Great Big Dogs, the fierce Chihuahuas. Come on. We're Taksvis! We'll find Ridanna--somewhere!"
Ridanna found herself in a gargantuan room, her ears hurting from the noise and the transportation. Luckily for the little creature, her human host had taken a seat and Ridanna was able to hop off, sneak underneath some super-sized chairs, and fly unnoticed to what looked like a table. And there it was--that noise--even louder, so loud it made her ears cry out and wiggle of their own accord. (This was unheard of.) It was, she heard, and Ridanna savored this word--a violin.
But it was soon--too soon, Ridanna thought--that she heard another noise, and far less pleasant. For, coming from the outskirts of Muddy Frogwater Swamp, was the noise of a team of yipping, angry chihuahuas.
"Stupid girl," Great-Aunt Alefraeda said enthusiastically, munching animatedly on a shapeless, tasteless stick of hardened porridge. "Always knew she'd get off there somehow. Had to come sooner or later. She isn't getting any inheritance money from me. Nosiree."
The entire Taksvi family was riding in a cornhusk carriage, pulled by Great-Aunt Alefraeda's vicious chihuahua. Great-Aunt Alefraeda was herself rather vicious, and the tallest woman in all of Tinytown Village. She was so tall that her height could not be measured on a standard school ruler. Such height was required to deal with a chihuahua; indeed, such height was required to deal with the nettles and branches of Muddy Frogwater Swamp. The rest of the Taksvi family did not look so well. Beatrishee was an unhealthy shade of green, and Mrs. Taksvi was holding back vomit. Mr. Taksvi was trying to look brave and failing utterly. Pifreyinn and Pileyinn were enjoying themselves heartily, however.
"There's the Giant Building," Great-Aunt Alefraeda said grimly. "I 'spect our little Miss Taksvi is inside."
"Mother of needles-and-thread!" Mrs. Taksvi said, and for the second time that day, went into a full faint.
Ridanna, her heart heavy, flew out of the room--which, she saw with amazement, was with giant letters titled the Albee Room. She had had a wonderful adventure, but she knew her family was waiting outside. Or maybe not, as she felt a tug at her arm.
"Pifreyinn?" she knew without turning her head. She felt another tug, on her other arm.
"Pileyinn?" she smiled. "C'mon, I want to show you something." And, her two little brothers hanging eagerly on either arm, she flew back into the Albee Room.
THE END.
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