Change is the nature of nature,' she read. 'For example, stars expand as they grow older. They grow from a star, to a red super-giant, to a supernova. When a massive star explodes at the end of its life, the explosion dispenses different elements-helium, carbon, oxygen, iron, nickel-across the universe, scattering starduest. That stardust now makes up the planets, including ours.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Change Earth Elements Nature Planets Stars Supernova

He saw the kind of beauty yellow flowers have growing over a carpet of dead leaves. The beauty of cracks forming a mosaic in a dry riverbed, of emerald-green algae at the base of a seawall, of a broken shard from a blue bottle. The beauty of a window smudged with tiny prints. The beauty of wild weeds.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Algae Beauty Bottle Flowers Leaves Mosaic Riverbed Seawall Shard Weeds

It's like a nesting doll of imagination! It's like a painting of a painting! It's like the wind catching a chill from the wind, or a wave taking a dip in the ocean. It's like reading a novel that merely describes another novel. It's like music tapping its foot to a tune and saying 'Oh! I love this song!

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Doll Imagination Music Novel Painting Reading Song Tune Wind

Jacques wants a pancake shaped like Mozart's Symphony No. 40! In G minor!

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas G Minor Mozart Music Pancake Symphony

The missions were always changing- sometimes collecting jars of rain, paper bags of hiccups, adopting lost moonbeams and folding them into cake batter. Or perhaps investigating glittering slug trails left in the moonlight, finding the owners of abandoned buttons, or playing the sousaphone for caterpillars still in their cocoons.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Abandoned Buttons Adopting Caterpillars Collect Hiccups Imagination Jars Missions Moonbeams Cake Batter Moonlight Paper Bags Rain Slug Trails Sousaphone

The fort.Where the pair stored their painted scenes and books of made-up languages, their two-man band, and the tiny matchbox bed plus accessories that they made in case, someday, their experiments in the world of shrinking finally panned out.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Band Books Experiments Imagination Languages Matchbox Bed Painted Scenes

Sometimes imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Imagination Problems

things like how to tell the age of a tree, the dances of the moon and tides, and the names of the clouds-like cumulonimbus and nimbosttratus-that sounded lie magic spells on his tongue.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Age Clouds Dances Magic Moon Name Science Spells Tide Tree

Cloud root beer floats and moon grilled cheeses. But their favorite food is stardust.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Cloud Favorite Food Grilled Cheese Moon Root Beer Stardust

They are forever looking into the nooks and crannies of a thing, whatever the thing may be. Always up very early or very late, going for rides on the backs of whales who deliver the mail; waking up covered in a secret language of hums; writing about the hobbies of feathers; changing shape like a cloud; howling at the moon; being a radioactive night-light in the dark; being a life raft on an ocean of alphabet soup; being great-hearted; being selfless; believing in tall tales, doodlebugs, and doohickeys. Believing. Believing in themselves. Believing in you.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Alphabet Soup Believing Cloud Crannies Dark Deliver Doodlebugs Doohickeys Feathers Great Hearted Hobbies Howling Hum Life Raft Mail Moon Nooks Ocean Radioactive Secret Language Selfless Shape Tall Tales Whales You

Found in trees. Sometimes also in old silent movie theaters, seaside zoos, magic shops, hat shops, time-travel shops, topiary gardents, cowboy boots, castle turrets, comet museums, dog pounds, mermaid ponds, dragon lairs, library stacks (the ones in the back), piles of leaves, piles of pancakes, the belly of a fiddle, the bell of a flower, or in the company of wild herds of typewriters. But mostly in trees.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Bell Books Castle Turrents Comet Museums Cowboy Boots Dogs Dragon Lairs Fiddle Flower Hat Shops Leaves Library Magic Shops Mermaid Ponds Pancakes Seaside Silent Movies Theaters Time Travel Shops Topiary Gardents Trees Typewriters Zoos

Where mermaids live looks a bit like your pool.' said Bernard. 'Except they build houses out of whale bones and the wreckage of sunken ships. They play chess with seahorses. They wear capes of fish scales and sleep on beds made from seaweed.'As we listened, I thought I heard a slight splashing from the far end of the pool.'At night,' Bernard continued, 'they turn on an electric eel for a night-light, and they light a fire, and the smoke goes up a chimney made from coral.''Wait a minute,' interupted Zoe, clearly immersed in Bernard's description. 'If they live underwater, how could they have a fire?''You should ask them,' said Bernard.Zoe and I open our eyes.Now, look, I know the light was just playing tricks on us. And I know we'd all probably inhaled too much sequin glue. But for the briefest moment, the blue of Zoe's pool gave way to deeper, darker aqua-colored water. The few plants and rocks were replaced with a lagoon and a waterfall where several mermaids lounged half in the water, half in the sun. They splashed and dove, their laughter making the same sound as the water.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Aqua Capes Chess Coral Electric Eel Fish Scales Lagoon Mermaids Pool Seahorses Seaweed Sunken Ships Water Waterfall Whale Bones Wreckage

You rarely know, in the moment, when it's the last time you'll do something. Most of the time, the whole thing just sneaks away in the night, never to be seen or heard from again, not even sending back so much as a postcard to say hello.

~ Michelle Cuevas

Michelle Cuevas Away Last Leaving Missing Moment Postcard Sneaks