Sunlight on the Steps

Daylight... bright and golden! Cutting right through the yellow basement hum, a warm beam slanted across the concrete floor. An exit from my cardboard maze! I trotted past the last towering stack of boxes and stretched my long arms toward the bottom of the wooden staircase. Reach, pull... oof! My skinny elbow bumped the wooden riser with a hollow knock, but my yellow fingers hooked firmly around the smooth banister spindle. Right beside my foot on the first step lay a shiny brass skeleton key, cool and heavy. I tucked it into my pouch—clink!—and sat high on the step, blinking happily into the sunny path upstairs.