The Marshmallow Mountain Expedition

The Marshmallow Mountain Expedition LettersLetter.com

13:28

Lina had packed her backpack three times.

First: snacks. Second: more snacks. Third: the flashlight she always forgot until the last second.

“Why are you bringing a spoon?” her little brother, Jay, asked, squinting like he’d discovered a suspicious crime.

“Because,” Lina said, clicking the lid onto her canteen, “if you find something delicious, you don’t poke it with your fingers like a raccoon.”

Jay took offense anyway. “Raccoons are smart.”

“Smart and sticky,” Lina said.

On the kitchen table sat the official map of the expedition: a crayon drawing Grandma Nita had made on the back of a grocery receipt. It showed a mountain shaped like a puffed-up marshmallow, with a tiny flag at the top and a warning written in wobbly letters:

DO NOT CLIMB AFTER SUNSET. THE MOUNTAIN GETS SOFT.

Grandma Nita slid two scarves across the table like she was dealing secret cards. “Wind-proof,” she announced.

“They’re… fuzzy,” Jay said.

“Fuzzy is a kind of wind-proof,” Grandma said. “Also, it makes you look heroic in photographs. Even if there is no photographer. The universe is always watching.”

Lina tried to laugh, but it came out like a small cough. The truth was, she’d been feeling a tight knot behind her ribs all week. It was the sort of knot that showed up when you wanted something badly but also worried you’d ruin it.

Because Lina wanted to be the kind of kid who could lead an expedition.

Not the kind who tripped over tree roots, got hungry too fast, and cried in a way that made her cheeks sting.

Jay tugged on his socks. “When do we go?”

“Now,” Lina said.

Grandma Nita pressed a little tin into Lina’s palm. “Emergency marshmallows,” she said. “Not for eating. For thinking.”

“Thinking?” Lina repeated.

Grandma’s eyes twinkled. “You’ll see.”

Outside, the day was bright and cold. The sky looked clean, like it had been scrubbed. Lina and Jay followed the path behind Grandma’s house, where the pine trees leaned close together as if whispering. Their needles smelled sharp and green.

“Marshmallow Mountain isn’t on any real map,” Jay said, hopping from stone to stone.

“It’s on Grandma’s map,” Lina answered.

“That’s a real map,” Jay said, pleased with his logic.

The forest trail narrowed, then opened into a clearing with a hill that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Lina stopped so fast her backpack thunked against her shoulders.

The hill was white. Not snow-white. Dessert-white. It rose in smooth curves, as if someone had taken a giant marshmallow and set it down gently on the earth.

“Whoa,” Jay whispered.

At the base stood a sign, carved from a fallen log:

MARSHMALLOW MOUNTAIN

Under that, another warning:

CLIMB KINDLY. THE MOUNTAIN REMEMBERS.

Lina swallowed. The knot behind her ribs tightened. Mountains were supposed to be rock. Rock didn’t remember.

Jay pressed a finger to the surface and yanked it back. “It’s warm,” he said, like the mountain had breathed on him.

“Don’t lick it,” Lina warned automatically.

“I wasn’t going to!” Jay paused. “Maybe just a tiny lick.”

“No.” Lina pulled out Grandma’s map. The crayon trail zigzagged up the mountain and ended at the flag.

At the bottom corner, Grandma had drawn a small doodle of a candle.

Lina frowned. “What’s that mean?”

Jay pointed to the sky. The sun, already low, sat like a sleepy orange on the edge of the trees.

“Oh,” Lina said.

They had time pressure.

“Okay,” Lina told herself quietly. “We climb now. We get the flag. We come back before sunset. Easy.”

“It’s not easy,” Jay said, because Jay had the kind of honesty that was inconvenient.

Lina gave him a look.

Jay shrugged. “It’s a mountain. Made of… whatever that is. It could be slippery. Or… chewy.”

Chewy. Lina’s imagination immediately produced a horrible picture of getting stuck halfway up like a bug in syrup.

She put her boot on the mountain.

It sank.

Not a lot. Just enough to feel like stepping on a mattress that didn’t trust you.

“Okay,” Lina said again, a little higher. “We take small steps.”

They climbed.

Each footstep made a soft, sighy sound, like the mountain was exhaling. Lina tried not to think about a mountain that breathed.

Halfway up, the slope steepened. The marshmallow surface stretched under Lina’s boots. It didn’t tear, but it gave.

Jay slipped, arms windmilling.

Lina lunged, grabbed his scarf, and both of them sank down together.

For a second, Lina’s stomach dropped. She felt the mountain swallow her boots, her knees—like being hugged by something too sticky.

Jay squealed. “It’s eating us!”

“It’s not eating us,” Lina said, even though a part of her wasn’t fully convinced.

She tugged, but the marshmallow held.

The knot behind her ribs turned into a hot sting.

“What if we can’t get out?” Jay whispered, suddenly small.

Lina opened her mouth to say something brave.

Nothing came.

Her eyes prickled.

She hated that. She hated being the kid who cried. She hated that crying made her sound like she’d already lost.

Jay looked at her face, and his lower lip trembled too. “Lina?”

Lina remembered the little tin in her pocket.

Emergency marshmallows. Not for eating. For thinking.

She snapped it open.

Inside were three tiny marshmallows, each stamped with a different shape: a star, a spiral, and a small flag.

Lina stared. Her hands were sticky from the mountain. The marshmallows stuck to her fingertips. Everything stuck.

She felt the urge to toss the whole tin and yell at the world.

Instead, she held one marshmallow up, the star one.

“Okay,” she said, talking to herself as much as Jay. “If the mountain remembers… then it probably remembers how we’re acting.”

Jay sniffed. “I’m acting like a trapped noodle.”

Lina almost laughed, which surprised her.

She pressed the star marshmallow against the surface beside her knee.

It melted in, and the marshmallow around her boot loosened—just a little, like the mountain had softened its grip.

Lina’s heart thudded.

“Did you see that?”

Jay’s eyes widened. “It likes the star.”

“Or it likes… something else,” Lina said.

She looked at the spiral marshmallow.

“Maybe,” she said slowly, “it wants us to… try again. But not by yanking and panicking.”

Jay stared at the spiral. “So… we wiggle?”

“Maybe we spiral.” Lina took a breath. “Like… gentle twists.”

She pressed the spiral marshmallow into the mountain on the other side.

Then she and Jay rotated their knees and ankles in small circles, like stirring soup with their legs.

It was ridiculous.

It was also working.

The marshmallow released them in slow, polite sighs.

Jay popped free first and flopped onto his back, laughing like he’d escaped a monster made of dessert.

Lina crawled out, breathless, hair stuck to her forehead.

For a moment, she wanted to collapse and cry from relief.

Instead, she sat up and said, “We’re okay.”

Her voice sounded steadier than she felt.

Jay rolled over, grinning. “You’re kind of… good at this.”

The knot behind Lina’s ribs loosened, the tiniest bit.

They climbed again, but differently.

Lina didn’t stomp. She placed her feet like she was stepping onto someone’s sleeping cat.

Jay didn’t race. He held the map, tongue poking out in concentration.

Near the top, the air smelled like toasted sugar. The wind tugged at their fuzzy scarves, making them flap like little flags.

The sun slid lower.

“Time!” Lina said.

They reached the summit as the first orange stripe touched the treetops.

At the very top was a real flagpole, thin as a straw. A tiny white flag fluttered, embroidered with a golden thread that spelled:

CLIMB KINDLY.

Lina touched it, and the marshmallow beneath her feet firmed up, as if the mountain was proud.

Jay pointed down. “Look!”

A path had appeared—little dents forming a gentle staircase in the marshmallow surface.

“It’s helping us,” Lina breathed.

They hurried down, but the steps held them, steady and springy.

At the base, the mountain looked the same as before: smooth, quiet, warm.

Except now there were two small footprints pressed into it, like a signature.

Jay patted the surface. “Thanks,” he said, feeling silly but saying it anyway.

Lina pulled out the last marshmallow from the tin—the one with the tiny flag.

She hesitated.

Then she pressed it into the mountain right at the bottom.

The surface puffed up a little, like a pleased smile.

As they walked back through the clearing, Lina glanced over her shoulder.

Marshmallow Mountain was already fading into the evening light, becoming just a hill again.

“Do you think it’ll be there tomorrow?” Jay asked.

Lina thought about the way it had held them when they panicked, and released them when they slowed down.

“I think it shows up when you need it,” she said.

Jay nodded like this made perfect sense. “So… basically, it’s like Grandma.”

Lina laughed, and this time it came out warm.

Back at the house, Grandma Nita was waiting on the porch with two mugs of cocoa.

“You made it before sunset,” Grandma said.

Jay saluted with his scarf. “We climbed kindly.”

Grandma’s smile was soft. “And did the mountain remember you?”

Lina looked at her sticky hands, her scuffed boots, the little dents of marshmallow on her knees.

She thought about how bravery hadn’t been a loud, shining thing. It had been a small choice, made over and over, even while feeling scared.

“Yes,” Lina said. “It remembered.”

Grandma handed her a mug. “Good,” she said. “Because you’ll remember, too.”

Lina took a sip. The cocoa was hot and sweet, and somewhere far away, in a clearing under pine trees, a mountain that wasn’t always there probably settled into the dark with a satisfied, marshmallowy sigh.

And Lina, for the first time in a while, felt ready for whatever showed up next.

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The LettersLetter "Free Bedtime Stories Club" Team