Kidy
Something is odd today, little one. It is not sadness. It is not anger. It is not hunger either. Your chest just feels heavy, as if you were carrying a full backpack, only there is no backpack. A small grey cloud hangs above your head and goes wherever you go. When someone asks what is wrong, you only shrug, and that makes it worse.
'I've got this,' says Grow, and squeezes his eyes shut like a guesser. 'Anger!' You shake your head. 'Hunger!' Shake. 'Sadness? Sleepiness? Socks that are too big?' Shake, shake, shake. Grow tries nine more times and misses all nine. Then he sits down in the grass and lets his ears droop. 'All right. I don't know.' 'Me neither,' you say. And that is the first thing all day that is not a miss.
Grow thinks. 'If it has no name, maybe it has a picture. What is it like?' That is an easier question, somehow. You look at the cloud, then at your feet, then up again. 'Like when your sock bunches up inside your shoe,' you say, 'and you can't fix it, and you have to keep walking anyway.' Grow's eyes go wide. 'AH. THAT.' And up above, the first drop falls out of the cloud.
Then another. Then a lot at once, warm rain drumming on your shoulders and slowly lowering them, away from your ears. Afterwards the cloud is smaller. Not gone, just smaller, and that is allowed. 'I was handing you names,' says Grow, shaking the drops off his nose. 'What you needed was a picture.'
Where the rain fell, the grass is darker and softer, and that is the best place to sit. You both sit down in it and say nothing for a while. 'So, little one,' Grow asks, 'did we grow a little today?' You did. 'Here is your little grow for tomorrow,' says Grow. 'When you feel some kind of way and don't know which, don't hunt for the name. Say what it is like.' See you tomorrow, little one.