The Forest Between Us
My name’s Gilly, but you won’t see it again in this diary. I don’t like writing it down or saying it out loud unless I have to. Here’s why: two days before I was born, Mom told Dad she wanted to name me Gilly. Dad had another name in mind. They argued and didn’t speak for those two days. Mom got so upset, she went into labor early—two months early. And that’s how I ended up with her name choice.
Mom says I’m making it up (I do make up lots of stories, to be fair) and that her being sad and me being born early aren’t connected. But I don’t buy it. I also think Dad, who lives on the other side of the forest, about a night’s walk from our house, still doesn’t like my name.
Mom won’t tell me what name Dad wanted to give me, not even a hint. I could promise to water every single flower in our garden for a hundred hearts on Orti (that’s our tangerine tree), and she’d still keep it a secret.
Because she doesn’t tell me, and because I think about Dad every day—pretty much the whole time it takes the sun to drop from the sky—I came up with another name for myself. It’s not really a secret, but no one else knows it. It’s the kind of sweet name I bet Dad would’ve picked for me.
One day, I’ll see Dad again. I’ll tell him the new name I came up with, and he’ll smile. The argument he had with Mom will be over, and everything in our forest will feel right again. I hope that day comes soon.
And sometimes I wonder—what if the new name I came up with is the exact same one Dad had in mind all these years? Wouldn’t that be the most incredible surprise?
I need to tell you more about me and my life. You already know my name, that I have a few secrets, and that we have a special tangerine tree in our backyard covered in little hearts I carved myself. You also know my family can switch from super happy to super sad in no time. But there’s a lot more to my story than that, and I capture it all in my diary.
I write in it every day (it’s just a plain notebook with drawings of animals and plants I’ve doodled on the cover). I don’t write too much, though, because I’m convinced my pencils have tiny souls, and they need breaks, or else they snap—kind of like some people I know. So, between entries, I draw animals or flowers or sometimes just leave a little blank space.
One day, when the time feels right and Orti drops all its tangerines, I’m going to turn my diary into a real book. I’ll edit and proofread it (two fancy words Mom taught me—she likes to write too) and split the entries into short chapters, about 683 words each. I’ll pick 683 because it’s my lucky number. Once, I tried counting all the tangerines on Orti’s branches, but a squirrel came to sit with me. We ended up playing a staring game, trying not to laugh. I won, but I completely lost track of my count. After that, we both decided to call it 683.
I think the book will need about fifty chapters, because real books always have chapters, and I want my notebook diaries to feel like a real book more than anything. I don’t know who will read it—maybe kids my age, their parents, or even grandparents. And if they have any witches in their family, I really hope they’ll read it too!
When I turn my diary into a book, I’ll make sure this very page goes right at the beginning, where it belongs—even though I’m writing it long after most of the notebook is filled. That’s part of what Mom calls the magic of editing. But enough about that for now. I think my pencil needs a break for today.
