Tiny Heart

By Mark

Imagine that you woke up and discovered that you were only 6 inches tall! How did this happen? Is it just possible that you've always been this way? If you really are six inches tall, how will you fit in the giant-size world you now find yourself in? It is a mystery that the tiny young woman must solve. With the help of a shy but kindhearted young man, she will not only learn the truth about her past, but perhaps about her future, as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640796560

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Tiny

Heart

Mark & Nadia Schaper

ISBN 978-1-64079-655-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64079-656-0 (Digital)

Copyright © 2017 by Mark and Gardenia Schaper

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to our family and friends whom we love very much…

and to those who hold on tight to their dreams and often ask what if or why not.

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good.

Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Psalm 34 : 8 (NKJV)

Ayoung woman’s eyes flickered and then they slowly opened. She had no way of knowing she was about to enter her own personal never-never land, but it would be every bit as real as her French-tipped nails.

All she remembered was being so sleepy that she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Had she actually fallen asleep? She didn’t know for sure. Now she was here, but where was here? She didn’t feel any different, and yet somehow she knew things were different, radically different. She stood up and walked towards the railing of the boat she was now standing on. But, why would she even be on a boat?

She looked down at the sand below. It was only a few feet down, and she landed quite easily. With hesitant steps she began to move forward, her eyes widening with every step she took. Why was everything suddenly so big all around her? Had everything she now saw suddenly become bigger or had she somehow shrunk? She’d heard of shrunken heads, but a shrunken body?

Oh my God… where am I? she wondered. Her head was spinning trying to make sense of it all. She was just dreaming. That was it. It had to be it. A dream. Just a crazy dream.

She pinched herself on the arm to see if she really was dreaming. Owwww! That hurts! she yelped.

One thing was certain, though. She could tell that the sun would be setting soon, and she would be out here, wherever here was, alone in the darkness. The thought terrified her.

Have to find a place to spend the night, she thought to herself. She noticed a bright orange pail lying in the grass and headed for it.

That might work, she thought. Just be safe for tonight, and figure out all this craziness tomorrow… and if it’s just a dream, I probably won’t even remember any of it.

She climbed up the embankment and walked through the grass. Was she in a park? In a stretch of woods? She couldn’t say. Why was this pail large enough for her to easily hide under it was another question that would have to go unanswered.

Then she heard a quite familiar sound, yet now terrifying to her. A dog’s bark. It was shrill and loud, and it was heading very quickly straight towards her.

Fear hit her as hard as a twenty-foot wave off of one of the California coast’s many legendary beaches. She screamed at the top of her lungs and ran for the orange pail. She could hear the dog’s steady footfalls on the ground. Coming closer… closer… Would she make it to safety in time? A foot away from the pail, she launched herself into the air, sliding headlong across the surface of the grass right up to the edge of the pail itself. In a heartbeat, she had somehow managed to flip it over, and she stood shaking inside of it. Her heart pounded with the rhythm of a thousand tiny hammers.

Outside, the dog circled the orange pail suspiciously. She could hear him breathing heavily from his chase, and it sounded as if she were directly inside a wind tunnel.

"Please…just go away!" she whispered.

Her salvation came in the unexpected form of a young boy’s commanding voice, Jackson! Time ta’ go, boy!

She pressed her ear against the side of the pail. Was the dog leaving? Or was he waiting just outside… waiting for her to step out completely unprotected?

Silence, unbearable silence. A minute passed. The longest minute of her life.

Summoning up the courage that she never knew she had, she lifted the pail’s edge just a tiny crack. No dog paws were anywhere to be seen. A feeling of incredible relief raced over her.

Have to know for sure, she whispered and lifted the edge a little bit higher. No Fangs of Doom were waiting there to rip her to shreds… Jackson was gone!

She lowered the edge of the pail once more. She thought for a moment, assessing her situation as crazy as it was. She decided that this was as good a place as any to spend the night. It would protect her if it decided to rain, and hopefully the night animals would show no interest in it, as well. She’d had more than enough excitement for the moment.

She considered herself to be a very strong, self-sufficient young woman. Definitely not the praying kind, but, alone in the dark on this night, she prayed with everything she had in her and hoped that someone was listening.

Twenty-three-year-old Ted Darby was not a native to the city of Charleston, South Carolina, but he had quickly adapted to the aptly named Jewel of the South. With its seemingly perfect, year-round weather, friendly locals, and great food, it was easy to see why it had been a favorite destination of travelers from all over the world for many years. It literally had a little something for everyone.

He had actually grown up in the snowy climes of the northeast, which, when one was very young, was a winter wonderland of magical proportions. However, when one reached the age of employment and had to drive to work every day over often treacherous snow-covered roads, it became something far different. To be fair, many still fully enjoyed all that the wintry season offered, but some like Ted were drawn to places where the sun perpetually shone in powder-blue skies above.

It was at the beginning of his senior year that he had seriously begun to think about where he would be headed after his graduation from high school. He had toyed with the idea of college, but also wondered if it would be better to gain some real-world experience, and make some actual money. At the frenzied rate that the world was changing each and every day, would the knowledge that he gained in college just as quickly become obsolete?

After thinking long and hard on this, he had finally decided to approach his best friend in high school, Rico Rodriguez, with an idea. It started with both of them escaping from the cold and finding a much warmer part of the country to live in. That part of it had been an easy sell, as Rico was certainly no fan of being cold for some six months out of the year. The next part of the plan was for them to start an advertising company together. A while back, they had come to the mutual conclusion that, at seemingly any point in time, anywhere in the world, someone was in the act of buying or selling something. There was very little reason to believe that would be changing anytime soon.

The idea