Musical Interludes, Lost Wild Child

       I only spent a little time, when I was younger, on learning the instruments my brother and sister played, trumpet and clarinet. In my dream this morning I was trying to play the trumpet, but could not maintain the proper 'buzz' with my lips to make the sound ring true for any length of time. (I had never really progressed much past the bugle stage any way.)
       My ability with the clarinet was slightly better, and my sister was there to coach. I tried combining the trumpet buzz with the clarinet reed, resulting in a weird alien sound. I had somewhere found an electronic clarinet, in addition to the normal buttons and studs, it had a set of electric buttons that changed several of the sound characteristics. It still needed the reed mouthpiece to work properly, but seemed to be a little bit more forgiving than the traditional instrument. When I started playing with the various electronic settings my sister said "You're on your own here, I never had anything like that."
       I played around a bit, added some rhythm elements and a chanter like found on bagpipes. It was exciting, but I kept having trouble keeping the mouthpiece of the clarinet in front of my teeth, I kept pulling it in and chewing on it, making it nearly impossible to play correctly.

       In an other dream I woke up with a small kid curled up against my sleeping bag. I was camped in a forested area, a small stone bound fire was just embers a few feet from me. The kid was not someone I recognized, and seemed unnaturally small for the size of its head. I rummaged around in my bags for breakfast, pulling enough out for both of us. My pack was actually up a tree several yards away from where I was sleeping. I knew there were bears and wolves around.
       The kid woke up when I stoked the fire, making it large enough to cook with. (The watch fire was really to keep a low level of smoke going, to keep the animals away.) For a moment she looked like she was going to run away, she looked out into the forest, sighed and settled in, pulling the sleeping bag around her tattered and too small pink clothing. At one time it may have had a 'Hello Kitty' design on the bib of the overalls.
       I gave her some water and dried fruit. She ate, watching me with almost totally black eyes. I shared my bacon and eggs with her and had some orange juice (from concentrate) which she turned down.
       I spoke to her, but she never responded, except in that she would help when I mentioned I was going to do something, and seemed to listen intently, no matter what I said. When I picked up and broke camp, she helped roll up the bag, and then helped move the stones back down to the creek bed. She washed in the creek. I gave her one of my plaid shirts and she changed into it, rolling up the sleeves and wrapping the shirt around her twice. She used some of her previous clothing as a belt, a strip torn from her too short pink pants. I took the rest of her old clothing, wrung the muddy water out of it and put it in one of my spare bags, just in case someone might be able to use it to identify her later.
       I flipped open my phone, but only the GPS portion was working. (I wish I could remember the coordinates.) I plugged in the charger to the solar array on top of my backpack and set out to work my way uphill, hoping to come into range of a cell tower so I could call someone to come a get the girl.
       As we climbed the game trail to the top of a nearby hill, she invented a game where she would race along with my walking stick, jumping to the spot where I planted it, and then she would wait until I swung it forward again, running to catch up to me, and then leaping to the new spot. Every time she landed she would grab the walking stick and turn and smile at me. Her grip on the walking stick encouraging me forward a little faster. I found myself wondering how long she could keep that up. As I watched her run and jump I realized that she was older than I had initially thought, more like ten or eleven rather than six or seven. She was humming some sort of tune, I didn't recognize it at first, but then realized that it was "Happy Birthday" with lots of odd little flourishes and improvisations.
       I sang the birthday song to her, and then, to my surprise, she sang it back to me, again with lots of odd little improvisations and animal sound flourishes. Some of the animal sounds seemed to be echoed in the forest around us. I began to feel like we were being followed, or paced, really.
       We came to a part of the trail that led into an open meadow and the top of a hill. We were on the edge of a couple of acres that had been clear cut some time ago. There were small trees getting started amongst the ferns and grasses. She looked nervously at the forest edge and then followed me out into the meadow. She barked "Happy birthday" back out to the forest.
       There were echoing barks, and a couple of whines from the shadows of the forest. We had been followed, but I suspect from her behavior, they were friendly, almost a body guard. I believe the forest animals, wolves I suspected, had actually delivered her to me, and were keeping on eye on us to make sure nothing bad happened to her.
       I smiled and said "happy birthday." to the shadows in the forest. I tried to keep us as close to the edge of the forest as I could, taking a little bit of a longer path to reach the top of the hill. The girl didn't seem to mind. By the time we climbed up to the top of the hill I was able to make a cell call, and to give them my position. The local sheriff was sending a helicopter, although they seemed mystified because there were no reports of a lost little girl in the area. If it weren't for the bag of too small clothing, I would have been worried that her family might be lost out there, but I suspected that she was lost out here a very long time, at least three or four years.
       I pulled out my camping lights and began to charge them up (hand cranked), she sat and charged up the flashlight, then while playing with the dials discovered that it was a radio. She eagerly tuned it to a music station and began humming, and occasionally singing along with the music.