Mom was right, as usual.

I clung to the leaf with my sticky glue while the storm raged, but the twig broke off in the wild wind, which flew us to goodness-knows-where.

The place was smelly and when trucks of garbage came winding up the hill near to me, I was shocked to realise that the wind had dropped me on top of a dump. I love the smell of green leaves, but not rotting ones! I had to get out of there fast. Suddenly I was lifted into the air again - this time by a strange machine that took me together with some finer sand. I was dropped into a truck and driven to a building site. Whew! Was I lucky! Most of the contents of that truck were lowered into a hole in the earth as a filler, but I landed up in a builder's pail of water. Because I couldn't swim, I immediately let out a wail: "There's a snail in your pail!" The builder seemed surprised as he gazed into his bucket. His rough hand gently lifted me out and put me into his pocket. I hated it there. I was getting hotter and hotter, but there seemed no point in climbing out onto the building site.

At the end of the day, the builder went home and gave me to his little child. "Here you are my boy! How about taking this to school for 'show and tell?' " The boy was happy, and he placed me on a leaf in a little box. The following day we went to school and, sure enough, he showed me to his teacher and talked about me. He said something about 'slimy', which I didn't like. The teacher just smiled, and spoke about how easily my shell could be broken. She told the children to never harm helpless creatures. I was insulted by that remark too, but let it pass.

At the end of the school day, while the little boy was looking for his pencil on the floor, a classmate quickly took me from the box and put me in his pocket. (You know how jealous children can be!) This time we rode in a bus for a long, long time, until we reached his home.

"I'm back! Yes, I'm back!" I screamed, recognising the creeper on the fence. Billy put me down, and all the fragrances I was used to wafted around the garden. I even smelled the leaves of the particular tree I had climbed on the day of the storm.

I had reached home thanks to a a lot of luck, a kind builder, his gentle son and the son's classmate who loved me so much that he surreptitiously stole me.

I was very happy to be back, but I'll never climb up trees again. Mom was right, as usual.