She had been watching them for several minutes when she spotted an elephant. It was a magnificent elephant, with enormous ears, a curling trunk, and four sturdy legs. Ginger watched as it lumbered across the sky, its trunk stretching farther and farther until it looked as though it might reach down and pluck a leaf from the tallest tree. Then a little breeze came along, and the elephant's trunk disappeared.

"Well, that was rude," Ginger said.

She shifted on the bench and searched for another animal. Before long, she found a rabbit with enormous ears, a duck with its beak wide open, and something that might have been a rhinoceros, although it could just as easily have been a potato. Ginger decided it was a rhinoceros. Potatoes weren't nearly as interesting.

Then something remarkable happened. A long, thin cloud drifted toward the rabbit, and the two shapes began to join together. Within moments, the rabbit had grown an enormous tail and what appeared to be wings.

"A flying rabbit!" Ginger exclaimed.

She wondered whether animals in the sky had to follow the same rules as animals on the ground. Perhaps cloud elephants could fly, and cloud fish could walk. Maybe somewhere above the mountains, there was an entire cloud zoo where the animals changed into something different whenever the wind blew.

Ginger slid off the bench and stretched out on the grass, folding her hands behind her head. From down there, she could see even more of the sky. A great white horse galloped over the rooftops, followed by a dog with an unusually long nose. A little farther away, a crocodile opened its enormous jaws as though it were trying to swallow the sun.

"Don't you dare," Ginger warned it.

The crocodile promptly lost its head, which drifted away and became a sheep.

Ginger laughed. She began making up names for the animals as they passed. There was Mr. Wobble, the three-legged giraffe; Princess Puddle, a hippopotamus with butterfly wings; and Captain Whiskers, a cat whose tail stretched halfway across the sky. Captain Whiskers lasted longer than any of the others, which Ginger thought was quite appropriate for a captain.

But then a much larger cloud began rising above the western horizon. It was enormous, with a broad back, a long neck, and something that looked suspiciously like a row of spikes. Ginger sat up. This was no ordinary cloud animal. It was a dragon.

She watched as the dragon grew larger, its great white wings spreading across the blue. Its head tilted toward the Sandia Mountains, and a smaller cloud slipped from its mouth like a puff of smoke. For several wonderful minutes, Ginger imagined it flying over the high desert, its shadow sweeping across the fields while rabbits and lizards hurried into hiding.

Then the wind changed. The dragon's wings began to unravel, its neck grew thinner, and its magnificent head slowly disappeared. Ginger felt a little disappointed. She had rather liked the dragon.

"Goodbye," she told it.

A voice came from behind her. "What are you looking at?"

It was her brother. Ginger pointed toward the sky. "Animals. There was an elephant, a flying rabbit, a crocodile, and the biggest dragon you've ever seen."

Her brother looked up. "I don't see any animals."

"That's because you're too late."

He studied the clouds for a moment. "That one looks like a tractor."

Ginger followed his finger. She had been certain the cloud was a buffalo, but now that he mentioned it, she could see a tractor too. It had a tall smokestack and one enormous wheel.

"Well," she said, "maybe it's a buffalo driving a tractor."

Her brother shook his head and went back toward the house.

Ginger remained on the grass, watching the afternoon drift past. The clouds were growing thinner now, stretching into long white ribbons above the mountains. Most of her animals had disappeared, and the sky was beginning to turn the pale golden color it wore before evening.

Just as she was preparing to get up, she noticed one last little cloud floating by itself. It was round and fluffy, with two tiny ears and four short legs. Ginger smiled. It looked exactly like a lamb.

But as she watched, the lamb's ears grew longer, its legs disappeared, and its round little body stretched into something else entirely.

A rabbit.

Ginger sat up, delighted. It was the same rabbit she had seen earlier, or at least she decided it was. Perhaps it had spent the afternoon wandering through the clouds, changing into other animals before finding its way back.

She waved as it floated toward the mountains.

"See you tomorrow!"

By the time Ginger went inside, the rabbit had become a teapot.

And she was fairly certain it was pouring tea on her house.