Sora Stegosaurus collected yellow leaves. She liked their shapes: tiny fans, long fingers, and one that looked like a boat.
At sunset, she spread them along the path to show her friends. The low sun shone through them. Every leaf glowed gold.
‘We could make a golden path all the way to the pond,’ said Brin.
They worked until the sun slipped behind the trees. Suddenly their path looked brown.
Brin brought more leaves. Sora tried turning them over. Nothing made them glow.
‘Perhaps we chose the wrong ones,’ Brin said.
Grandpa walked past on his way home. Sora showed him the boat-shaped leaf.
‘It was bright before.’
Grandpa held it toward the last strip of sunlight. Its edges shone again.
‘Same leaf,’ he said. ‘Different light.’
Sora looked down the path. In the dim evening, she could still see the shapes she loved. The fans lay beside the fingers. The little boat pointed toward home.
‘Let’s leave them for the morning,’ she said.
They weighed the corners down with small stones so the breeze would not scatter them. Then they followed their leaf-covered path back through the trees.
Sora did not know whether tomorrow’s sunlight would make every leaf golden. It might be cloudy. Some leaves might curl.
But Brin had promised to come and look with her.
Sora thought that was a good reason to leave the path waiting.
