Can't go home.

This was very unfortunate. Unfortunate indeed. Her mom warned her that a moment like this would come but she did not believe her. She absolutely would not be admitting that it had happened so soon. How could she? 

Macy was small for her age, a good centimeter shorter than all of her friends. She wasn’t as “filled out” as they were either. Her mother reassured her that she would catch up with everyone else in the next year or two and positive that by the time she was an adult no one would be able to tell that she had been such a little thing. Macy hated it. She hated all of the comparisons and encouragement just the same. It did not make her feel better. She did not understand why this was the lot she had been given in life. She hated that she was slower and smaller and she just wanted to feel normal. She just wanted to fit in.

Despite the fact that it would not fit well at all, Macy had begged her mom to let her buy the newest outer shell available. It was the rainy season and her old gear was out of style. It was light brown with lighter brown stripes. So thin and worn you could almost see through it. She hadn't grown fast enough to actually outgrow it yet, but Macy didn’t care. This new one was expensive. Macy cleared out her entire savings. She promised she would wear it with everything. She would wear it every day if that would prove that she hadn’t made a mistake spending everything she had saved. Honestly, there wasn't really a choice in that, wearing it every day. She had to wear something every day and because she was so determined to wear the new and more mature looking one, she destroyed the other one. Took herself right to the edge of the garden and buried it so deep in the compost pile even the farmer's curious little boy wouldn’t be able to dig it out again. 

And here is where her trouble began. Macy had taken her new gear off. She left it under a particularly leafy bush on a dare. Oh why had she taken it off? The others weren’t taking theirs off but they told her it would give her an advantage. They were racing together. It was a short race. Just out and back, one lap around the salt flats. They convinced her that if she shed the outer layer, she would be lighter and be able to keep up, plus she wouldn't get tripped up and risk falling into the flats. Last year someone fell into the flats and didn't come back out. 

So Macy raced. She raced hard. For once in her life she was ahead of the crowd. She was winning and feeling triumphant until she rounded the bend. Everyone was in front of her.

What?

 If everyone was in front of her, who was behind her? She swiveled her gaze behind her. There was no one. All of the focus and determination had blinded Macy and now she could see that they were laughing at her. They were yelling and screaming but she couldn't hear them. None of them had even started the race with her! Everyone was gone by the time Macy returned to the bushes. Tracks lead in different directions scattering a dozen ways, more. And where was her new shell? Where could she even begin looking? 

Ashamed, Macy set off following the first set of tracks toward the barn. The work was slow going. Macy wanted to keep her eyes open. She looked high and low and saw no trace of what she was searching for. Dejected, she backtracked to where the other trails all started, fanning out like some sort of grotesque starburst on the ground. She picked another trail in the dirt headed in a different direction, again looking everywhere. She couldn't take her mind off her gear. It was brown with green and white stripes, the edges of it were a deep cream color, it was beautiful and she was so proud of it but it did not exactly stick out against the landscape. She turned around and headed back to the scene of her embarrassment. This was taking forever. Night was starting to fall. Macy was getting desperate. She could not go home without it. Her parents would be furious. She was getting furious. If she ever found out who took her belongings, she would make them pay. First, she would never take it off again, but second, she would make them pay. 

Macy stayed out all night. The light of the moon barely lit up the trails as one by one she followed them each to their end and then back to their beginnings with nothing to show for her efforts. She could cry for the sadness of it all, the futility. She just wanted to fit in with the others. To be as snappy looking, and grown as they were. Why were they so mean? She thought they were her friends. At least a little bit. What did they have to gain or prove by taking her things? Is that what it meant to be grown? Macy didn’t think she wanted any part of that. 

The sun began to inch up over the horizon. Macy paused. She was so sore and so tired. Her eyes ached from straining into the night. Her foot ached from constantly moving. Her heart ached because she had come back with nothing after all that work. Hanging her head, Macy decided that it was time to go home. Her parents were probably worried sick about her being out all night. She would definitely be in trouble. First though, she had to make a stop at the compost pile. As terrible as it was, she had to dig her old gear out. She really did have to wear something. 

Just as Macy turned to head toward the compost pile, resigned to her fate, something fell out of the tree over her head. It landed in the grass with a soft thud and rolled in a lopsided way toward her. She looked up. Sitting on the branch above her head was the naughtiest baby raccoon on the farm. He chittered a naughty raccoon laugh and scrambled up the trunk of the tree and into a hollow near a low hanging branch. 

Turning slowly to her left, Macy saw that the thing that had fallen out of the tree was her shell. The raccoon must have thrown it down at her. It was here, though very far out of reach and definitively out of eyesight, the entire time. Relief washed over her. She rushed, as much as a snail can rush to her beautiful shell which really didn’t look any worse for wear than when she had taken it off a half a day before! She slipped into its oversized deep brown swirls with a heart full of gratitude and an idea occurred to her. Though the others must have tried to play a trick on her, they also must have seen the baby raccoon hiding in the tree! They were forced to scatter so that they would not be his midday snack! That must have been what they were yelling about! Of course they were trying to warn her! When the baby came down from the tree, he saw Macys shell and took it back up the tree. But Macys shell was empty. There would be no snack for the mischievous raccoon. So he dropped the empty shell back to the ground. 

Macy shrugged herself deeper into her shell for a moment, grateful that it was oversized. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she slowly emerged back out again. First poking one eye and then the other out. Daylight was coming faster now. Soon other snails would be out in the dew looking to grab a bite of a rotting tomato or one of the last marigold leaves. She really did need to get home to her parents.