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mother and father arrived at Mary's house, she was so jumpy that she could barely be contained in her car seat. Rose's mother also thought she could feel Rose's feet poking her through her seat in the car. "That's not possible," she whispered to her husband Henry. "Rose can not have grown so much that her feet are poking me in the back of my seat. It can't be her new shoes reaching all that way into my seat back."

"What are you whispering about," said Henry. "Why are you looking so strangely at Rose? What's going on back there? Just about that time the Packrackers pulled up in front of Mary's house. Rose jumped up out of her car seat and stumbled to the front door. "What's the matter, what's going on," said Mr. Packracker. "Why is Rose walking so funny, she's absolutely stumbling up to the door and look, her head is almost at the same level as that tall bush beside the front door?"

Rose banged on the front door and called loudly, "Mary, Mary, please come out, I have a surprise for you. You won't believe it until you see it." Mary opened the door and almost fell over Rose who was falling into the house. "Mary, look at me now, I've grown so much that I am taller than you. I know you are jealous of me now."

Mary jumped back and started to cry. "Rose what has happened? You look awful. I don't know what it is, but you seem to have grown longer legs but the rest of you is the same." Mary's mother, Belinda Joanna Peaquant Jones came running up to the door and said, "what's all this racket about at my door, what's going on? Oh, dear, I see what's going on. Something terrible has happened to Rose." Indeed, something terrible had happened to Rose. Rose had wished herself so much taller, so much taller indeed that she now stood four and a half feet tall. But the bad part was that it was all in her knees.

Rose cried all the way home ... again. She felt terrible and didn't know what to do. She said to her mother and father, "I must think about this being taller, for I now have the most horrible legs and that's no fun at all. Maybe, just maybe I don't have to be taller than Mary Tealily Thumbelina Jones to play shoo fly shoo. Maybe, just maybe my own tallness is just right too."

"Rose," said her mother, "I think you are right. It's not about your tallness or lack. To play with your cousin Mary Tealily Thumbelina Jones all you have to be is you. Just that quickly she didn't feel Rose's feet in her seat back anymore and Rose had stopped crying.

"Mother and father," said Rose, "let's go back to my cousin Mary's house for now I really do feel like playing shoo fly shoo and I think now that it's ok to just be me too."

Learn more about this author, Barbara Combs Williams.
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