A girl and her dog....

There once was a  girl who grew up in a loving family. She spent Christmases making gingerbread men in the warm light of her mothers kitchen. She would look out  into the ice encrusted world with wonder, her eyes marveling at  the icicles glistening in the dying winter sun. Her days were spent mostly alone--but not really. Winters were filled with sledding with her dog  with a canister of cookies and hot chocolate. Summers were filled with fishing and long hikes in the deep woods near her home. She loved lying in the sun at the beach, even tough she got sun burnt swimming with the pin fish in the cool water. However, it was the forest where she felt she truly belonged, along with her dog and the ancient trees and spirits that lived there.

 One day an odd thing happened, the girl was walking with her dog  along the forest path when she was stopped by an odd looking mushroom that grew right in the middle of her path. It  seemed bigger then the rest and its colors seemed to pulsate against the mid-summer sun. The dog sniffed it curiously but stopped when she heard a rustling sound coming from it;s base. To both the girl and dog's astonishment, a tiny green light emerged from the mushroom and rose from the ground, until it was staring directly into the girls eyes.
" I came to warn you "  said a voice from the small entity,  " I came to warn you that one day this will all change and you will grow up".  " What does it mean to grow up?" The girl asked in an innocent voice, for her days seemed long and full of contentment. The green fairy laughed, it rang high and shrill and seemed to echo to the tall ancient trees, who stood in silence listening.  " It means little girl, that one day you will wake up and everything you once loved  will change. Time will speed up and your shoes will no longer fit your feet". It paused for a moment. "Oh and your teeth will fall out".  The girl cringed at this and grew angry. " I'm not sure why fairies like you have to be so mean and make up horrible story's like that" she replied. And with that, she left the woods trail for her home as dusk drew near, the smell of wood smoke burning her lungs.

Soon after, as the sun set and the blue moon awoke from the mountains, the girl, lulled from a warm meal and  heat of the friendly fire, forgot all about the incident that had occurred in the forest and drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

Then a peculiar thing happened.

 Although no one could predict when the exact timing was, the date or even the year, the girl did in fact,  grow up.

It all started when she bit into an apple one morning and her front tooth came out. Although it felt nice to get money from the tooth fairy  instead of a warning, time like a curse, seemed to have sped up after the incident.
Summer days were spent doing more chores and less daydreaming and winter nights were filled with homework. Crayons were replaced with calculators as " logic" and  "practical thinking"  she was told, was supposed to prepare her for the "real world".  "If this is what the real world is like" she thought sadly, "Then I want the old one back". But as hard as she tried she was no match for father time, and as time drew on, much of her old world became a distant memory.