Mom didn't like it when much at all when #Billy wandered. She called it wandering. He called it exploring. And he had to explore because the backyard was too small for a proper adventure and the woods at the end of their street were much bigger and better for that sort of thing. Mom didn't like it, but he'd be back before she was done with her meeting when she finally bothered looking up from her computer and out into the backyard. He had lots of time. So down the street he went and as though he had visited there a hundred times -- which he had, of course -- found the little dirt path that led into the dense bushes around the base of the towering trees. Into the wood he went without a care or a thought. Adventurers didn't worry about what their mothers thought. Billy liked dodging along the various animal trails cut through the thickets and it seemed like every time he visited the wood he found a new and unexpected path, often leading to a burrow or an interesting log or a water-logged patch in the forest full of bugs and frogs and mud. Today he chose his paths carefully, exploring, looking for some turn or chase he hadn't yet discovered. So he was surprised, as any nine year old boy would be, when he found something he absolutely did not expect to see in the middle of a neighbourhood #wood. He had not been walking carelessly along the #path, no, of course he knew better. Yet, even this caught him off his guard and he froze for what seemed a whole minute, eyes passing over the shapes and colours of his find. He had no words to describe it, and out of breath as he was having run as hard as he could back home he couldn't have got it past his lips if he did. He slammed the door behind him as he ran into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. He barely noticed his mom shouting over he muted video meeting to keep down the noise. He barely noticed anything at all as he buried his face into his pillow and began to cry.