One day a mother blue penguin laid three eggs. When the eggs hatched, the penguin’s names were Flipper, Flapper, and Feather. They lived with their mom for a year, and then their mom told them to go and build their own houses. “But watch out for the big bad walrus!” She warned. Then Flipper, Flapper and Feather were off.
The first little penguin (Flipper) dug a hole in the snow. Then he covered it with snow. The second little penguin (Flapper) cut down millions of icicles and piled them in a house shape. Then they danced around and slid and splashed in the water. Meanwhile the third little penguin (Feather) was busy making her house perfect with rocks sealed together with solid ice and snow. “Forget the house and come play with us!” they shouted. But Feather ignored them. Finally Flipper and Flapper went to bed. But not Feather. She stayed up late and finished her house.
The next day there was a thump at Flipper’s door. “Little penguin, little penguin, let me in!” a voice shouted. Flipper had been in such a hurry to finish his house that he forgot to make a window, so he poked a hole in the roof. The thing outside was the biggest, ugliest walrus Flipper had ever seen. It was the big bad walrus!
“Not by the feathers on the top of my head,” Flipper answered.
“Then I’ll whack and I’ll smack and I’ll knock you’re house down!” And with that, the walrus started to whack and smack.
Flipper dashed off, with the walrus at his heals. But Flipper reached Flapper’s house first.
Then there was a thump at Flapper’s door. “Little penguin, little penguin, let me in!” A voice bellowed. Flipper and Flapper peeped out through a space in between two icicles. There was the meanest, maddest walrus Flapper had ever seen.
“Not by the feathers on top of my head,” They answered.
“Then I’ll whack and I’ll smack and I’ll knock your house down!” And with that he started to whack and smack.
“Ahh!” the penguins screamed as the thin icicles shattered. Then they waddled as fast as they could, with the walrus at their heels, to Feather’s house. They reached her house just before the walrus, and they barely had time to push the ice door closed, but they made it in one piece.
“What are you doing here?” Feather asked “I thought you would be off playing,”
“The Wa-,” Flipper and Flapper started to say, but they were cut off by a thump at the door.
“Little penguins, little penguins, let me in!” a voice roared. The penguins looked out the window, and there stood the biggest, meanest, most furious walrus.
“Not by the feathers on top of our heads,” Flipper, Flapper, and Feather answered.
“Then I’ll whack and I’ll smack and I’ll knock your house down!” the walrus shouted, getting angrier by the minute. He started to whack and smack, but this time the house did not fall down. The walrus tried again and again and finally slunk over to the water shouting “I’ll be back and I’ll get you, you just wait, you’ll be sorry!” And finally he was gone.
“Yea!” all the penguins shouted “stone and ice is the best!” And Feather helped Flipper and Flapper make houses like hers for next time the big bad walrus came, though he never did. So they all lived (you guessed it) happily ever after.
The End!!!!
Monday, April 25, 2005
The Babysitting Nightmare
Chapter 1 Once upon a time, I was babysitting
“Lulu, you’re babysitting for the Mellonjellys!” said my mom.
“No!!!!” I shouted. The Mellonjellys are three 5 year old triplets, April, May & August. Plus they have a little sister named Springy. Well anyways, my friend babysat there once, and she says she still has nightmares about it. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
I walked over to the Mellonjellys after school. “Hi Lulu!” said Mrs. Mellonjelly. “The kids can have peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for snack. Well, have fun!” and she shut the door behind her.
“We want snack!” the Mellonjelly kids chanted.
I ran into the kitchen and started making sandwiches. Seriously, those kids must have a hollow leg. We used up the whole loaf of bread.
I was so busy I didn’t notice Springy taking apart her sandwich and smearing it on the wall. Well, that is, I didn’t notice until April, May & August started doing it too, and they smeared some on me. I screamed and sent them outside while I cleaned up the mess. Soon I heard shrieks of laughter. I raced outside to see what they were up to. August was burying Springy, while April and May were digging through their mother’s zinnia garden, looking for worms.
Then I had an idea. The Mellonjellys have a pool in their backyard. That would get them clean and give them something to do while I finished cleaning the kitchen. After all, there wasn’t that much they could do in the pool, was there?
Chapter 2 The Pool
“Come inside and get your life jackets!” I ordered. They did just that, tracking mud all over the house. I made sure the life jackets were on tight then let them jump into the pool. Then I started cleaning. Now where was the vacuum? I thought.
Crash! I jumped around and looked outside. All I could see was a bunch of splashing. I looked at my watch. “Out of the pool!” I called. Well, I ended up having to get in the pool and pull them out. But when I took a closer look, I saw that the lawnmower was on the bottom of the pool. The kids had pushed the lawnmower into the pool!
I was beginning to lose my patience. “Inside all of you and get dried off!” I shouted. August had a sneaky look on his face, so I gave up on trying to figure out how to get the lawnmower out of the pool. Then we walked inside, unaware of the surprises that lay ahead of us.
Chapter 3 The Games
“Let’s play some games,” I said. Now we were upstairs.
“50 million pick-up!” shouted May, running in the opposite direction. I turned around just in time to see ten decks of cards thrown all over.
“Yeah!!” the others cried. Then they began flinging cards.
“Let’s play something else,” I said.
“I know!” shouted August, as if he were the smartest person in the world, “Let’s play follow the leader!”
“I’m first!” screamed April.
“No. Me!” shouted August.
“Nuh-uh!” said May. “I’m first”.
“Are not!”
“Are too!”
“Are not!”
“Are too!”
“Three-eyed-monster!”
“Evil alien!”
“Meany brat!”
“Unfair badguy!”
Then they started kicking and hitting each other. “I know a fair way to decide who goes first!” I said suddenly. The Mellonjelly kids froze, hands and feet in mid air. I did eeny-meeny-minny-mo. It turns out, August won. He started by making farting noises. Then burping. The others laughed and imitated him. But something seemed wrong, I thought. Then it came to me. Where was Springy?
Chapter 4 The Big disaster
“I’m going to look for Springy” I announced. Then I took off. Suddenly I heard a voice.
“Yes, I will make it the perfect size for you, Mrs. Tippy,” the voice said. The voice was coming from Mr. and Mrs. Mellonjellys’ bedroom. Slowly I walked inside. And there was Springy, sitting on her parents’ bed, with her mother’s best dresses. And, to my horror, a pair of scissors. “I a sewing person” she said, as she ripped and cut up the last dress.
“NO!!!” I screamed, but it was too late.
“All done!” she said happily. I’m sure my face had turned red by then.
“Get out and give me the scissors!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. It didn’t quite work out that way, so I took the scissors from her and grabbed her hand and together we ran to the room where the triplets had been playing. No one was there. Well except for May, that is. And when I took a closer look I saw that she was ripping pages out of a bunch of books.
“May!” I cried.
“I don’t like those pages,” she said innocently.
“Well, whether you like them or not, you do not tear pages out of a book!” I said, grabbing her. I heard something bang downstairs, so that’s where we went. There was August, with a bunch of plants lined up. (The Mellonjellys have about 40 in the kitchen).
He kicked one of the plants. They all tipped over like dominoes. “Oop-sies,” he said when he saw me glaring. I grabbed him. So now I had May, Springy and August. Where was April?
I looked all over the house. But she wasn’t there. So she had to be outside. When I got outside, I screamed. April had gotten at least six buckets of paint around her, and she had painted the whole front of the house as high as she could reach, with pink, blue, purple, green, yellow, orange and red.
“Isn’t it so prettyful?” she said. I grabbed her, too, and dragged all four kids into the house.
“You guys are in so much trouble,” I said. But before I could think of a good punishment, the phone rang.
Chapter 5 The Deal
I answered the phone.
“Hello Lulu,” the person on the other end said. “This is Mrs. Mellonjelly. I just remembered that I forgot to tell you that if they get in trouble, punishing them won’t work. They always find some way to enjoy it. Well, I’ve got to go! Bye!”
“Okay, bye.” I said.
Now what was I going to do if I couldn’t put them in time out or anything. Then I had an idea.
“Come over here,” I said, trying to make my voice sound happy. And surprisingly, they did just that. “We need to talk.” They didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “Let’s make a deal, okay?”
They nodded. I had never seen them so quiet. “I promise to take you to the park…”
But then August cut me off. “You mean the park with the rides?!” he shouted, jumping up and down.
“Yes,” I said, “now let me finish. But you guys have to do something for me.”
“Okay! What do we do?” shouted May.
“Well, you made a big mess, so you have to help me clean it up,” I said. “So first we need to get the paint off the house.”
“I saw some clear stuff next to the paint,” April said. “Will that work?”
We ran out to the garage. The clear stuff turned out to be paint remover! “Now let’s just hope the paint hasn’t dried yet,” I said. We took the paint remover and five paintbrushes outside. I started reading the instructions. “It says here that you paint this over the wet paint you want to take off, then you let it dry, and when it’s dry, you scrape the paint off,” I said. Then I opened the lid and we started painting.
“This is almost as fun as painting!” April said.
“Yeah!” agreed May, “except no pretty colors.”
So we painted for half an hour. Then we cleaned up the sandwiches and plants in the kitchen, and fixed the zinnia garden, taped the pages back in the book and picked up the cards. We decided there was no way we were going to get the lawnmower out of the pool or to fix Mrs. Mellonjelly’s dresses, so then we went outside to scrape off the paint. That paint remover really worked! You just had to run the thing over the paint, and it came off! When we were finished with that, we still had an hour to play. So I grabbed a little snack, and we were off.
Chapter 6 The Park
Well, we had to walk to the park, since I’m not old enough to drive yet. But when we got to the park, I said, “What ride do you want to go on?”
“ Let’s go there!” they all said together, but they all pointed in different directions.
“Uh-oh” I whispered. They all looked at each other.
“There!”
“No, there!”
“Nuh-uh! There!”
“Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat!”
“Dare-devil!”
“Baby!”
“Meanie-pooh!”
“You guys! Let’s not waste all our time fighting,” I said.
“But who goes first?” asked August.
“I’ll make a list of the rides we want to go on,” I said.
So I did that, then I ran my finger down the list with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes I was pointing at the Lilly pad ride. So we did that one first. We went on seven more rides. Then I looked at my watch. “Okay, time to go home!” I said.
“NO!” the Mellonjelly kids shouted.
I looked at my watch again. “Okay, we have time for one more ride,” I said.
“Who gets to pick the ride?” asked May.
“Me,” I said quickly. And before they could argue, I said, “Let’s go on the screamin’ eagle.”
“But that ride’s scary!” said Springy.
“Then you’ll sit next to me.” I said.
After the screamin’ eagle we walked home. We got there ten minuets before Mrs. Mellonjelly. When she rang the doorbell, April got the door.
“Hello!” was all Mrs. Mellonjelly was able to say, before April interrupted her by saying, “No soliciting, Bye-Bye!” And she slammed the door.
“Who was that?” I asked as April marched into the kitchen.
“A person trying to soliciting,” answered April. “But I told her to go away.”
“Oh really,” I said as I ran to the door and opened it. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Mellonjelly.
She stepped into the house and looked around. “They didn’t make a mess?” she said, looking surprised.
“Well, um, they, um,” but luckily she interrupted me before I could say anything else.
“Well, I’ll have to get you get you to baby-sit again!”
Now would you look at the time! I have to baby-sit for the Mellonjellys again. Bye!
“Lulu, you’re babysitting for the Mellonjellys!” said my mom.
“No!!!!” I shouted. The Mellonjellys are three 5 year old triplets, April, May & August. Plus they have a little sister named Springy. Well anyways, my friend babysat there once, and she says she still has nightmares about it. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
I walked over to the Mellonjellys after school. “Hi Lulu!” said Mrs. Mellonjelly. “The kids can have peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for snack. Well, have fun!” and she shut the door behind her.
“We want snack!” the Mellonjelly kids chanted.
I ran into the kitchen and started making sandwiches. Seriously, those kids must have a hollow leg. We used up the whole loaf of bread.
I was so busy I didn’t notice Springy taking apart her sandwich and smearing it on the wall. Well, that is, I didn’t notice until April, May & August started doing it too, and they smeared some on me. I screamed and sent them outside while I cleaned up the mess. Soon I heard shrieks of laughter. I raced outside to see what they were up to. August was burying Springy, while April and May were digging through their mother’s zinnia garden, looking for worms.
Then I had an idea. The Mellonjellys have a pool in their backyard. That would get them clean and give them something to do while I finished cleaning the kitchen. After all, there wasn’t that much they could do in the pool, was there?
Chapter 2 The Pool
“Come inside and get your life jackets!” I ordered. They did just that, tracking mud all over the house. I made sure the life jackets were on tight then let them jump into the pool. Then I started cleaning. Now where was the vacuum? I thought.
Crash! I jumped around and looked outside. All I could see was a bunch of splashing. I looked at my watch. “Out of the pool!” I called. Well, I ended up having to get in the pool and pull them out. But when I took a closer look, I saw that the lawnmower was on the bottom of the pool. The kids had pushed the lawnmower into the pool!
I was beginning to lose my patience. “Inside all of you and get dried off!” I shouted. August had a sneaky look on his face, so I gave up on trying to figure out how to get the lawnmower out of the pool. Then we walked inside, unaware of the surprises that lay ahead of us.
Chapter 3 The Games
“Let’s play some games,” I said. Now we were upstairs.
“50 million pick-up!” shouted May, running in the opposite direction. I turned around just in time to see ten decks of cards thrown all over.
“Yeah!!” the others cried. Then they began flinging cards.
“Let’s play something else,” I said.
“I know!” shouted August, as if he were the smartest person in the world, “Let’s play follow the leader!”
“I’m first!” screamed April.
“No. Me!” shouted August.
“Nuh-uh!” said May. “I’m first”.
“Are not!”
“Are too!”
“Are not!”
“Are too!”
“Three-eyed-monster!”
“Evil alien!”
“Meany brat!”
“Unfair badguy!”
Then they started kicking and hitting each other. “I know a fair way to decide who goes first!” I said suddenly. The Mellonjelly kids froze, hands and feet in mid air. I did eeny-meeny-minny-mo. It turns out, August won. He started by making farting noises. Then burping. The others laughed and imitated him. But something seemed wrong, I thought. Then it came to me. Where was Springy?
Chapter 4 The Big disaster
“I’m going to look for Springy” I announced. Then I took off. Suddenly I heard a voice.
“Yes, I will make it the perfect size for you, Mrs. Tippy,” the voice said. The voice was coming from Mr. and Mrs. Mellonjellys’ bedroom. Slowly I walked inside. And there was Springy, sitting on her parents’ bed, with her mother’s best dresses. And, to my horror, a pair of scissors. “I a sewing person” she said, as she ripped and cut up the last dress.
“NO!!!” I screamed, but it was too late.
“All done!” she said happily. I’m sure my face had turned red by then.
“Get out and give me the scissors!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. It didn’t quite work out that way, so I took the scissors from her and grabbed her hand and together we ran to the room where the triplets had been playing. No one was there. Well except for May, that is. And when I took a closer look I saw that she was ripping pages out of a bunch of books.
“May!” I cried.
“I don’t like those pages,” she said innocently.
“Well, whether you like them or not, you do not tear pages out of a book!” I said, grabbing her. I heard something bang downstairs, so that’s where we went. There was August, with a bunch of plants lined up. (The Mellonjellys have about 40 in the kitchen).
He kicked one of the plants. They all tipped over like dominoes. “Oop-sies,” he said when he saw me glaring. I grabbed him. So now I had May, Springy and August. Where was April?
I looked all over the house. But she wasn’t there. So she had to be outside. When I got outside, I screamed. April had gotten at least six buckets of paint around her, and she had painted the whole front of the house as high as she could reach, with pink, blue, purple, green, yellow, orange and red.
“Isn’t it so prettyful?” she said. I grabbed her, too, and dragged all four kids into the house.
“You guys are in so much trouble,” I said. But before I could think of a good punishment, the phone rang.
Chapter 5 The Deal
I answered the phone.
“Hello Lulu,” the person on the other end said. “This is Mrs. Mellonjelly. I just remembered that I forgot to tell you that if they get in trouble, punishing them won’t work. They always find some way to enjoy it. Well, I’ve got to go! Bye!”
“Okay, bye.” I said.
Now what was I going to do if I couldn’t put them in time out or anything. Then I had an idea.
“Come over here,” I said, trying to make my voice sound happy. And surprisingly, they did just that. “We need to talk.” They didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “Let’s make a deal, okay?”
They nodded. I had never seen them so quiet. “I promise to take you to the park…”
But then August cut me off. “You mean the park with the rides?!” he shouted, jumping up and down.
“Yes,” I said, “now let me finish. But you guys have to do something for me.”
“Okay! What do we do?” shouted May.
“Well, you made a big mess, so you have to help me clean it up,” I said. “So first we need to get the paint off the house.”
“I saw some clear stuff next to the paint,” April said. “Will that work?”
We ran out to the garage. The clear stuff turned out to be paint remover! “Now let’s just hope the paint hasn’t dried yet,” I said. We took the paint remover and five paintbrushes outside. I started reading the instructions. “It says here that you paint this over the wet paint you want to take off, then you let it dry, and when it’s dry, you scrape the paint off,” I said. Then I opened the lid and we started painting.
“This is almost as fun as painting!” April said.
“Yeah!” agreed May, “except no pretty colors.”
So we painted for half an hour. Then we cleaned up the sandwiches and plants in the kitchen, and fixed the zinnia garden, taped the pages back in the book and picked up the cards. We decided there was no way we were going to get the lawnmower out of the pool or to fix Mrs. Mellonjelly’s dresses, so then we went outside to scrape off the paint. That paint remover really worked! You just had to run the thing over the paint, and it came off! When we were finished with that, we still had an hour to play. So I grabbed a little snack, and we were off.
Chapter 6 The Park
Well, we had to walk to the park, since I’m not old enough to drive yet. But when we got to the park, I said, “What ride do you want to go on?”
“ Let’s go there!” they all said together, but they all pointed in different directions.
“Uh-oh” I whispered. They all looked at each other.
“There!”
“No, there!”
“Nuh-uh! There!”
“Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat!”
“Dare-devil!”
“Baby!”
“Meanie-pooh!”
“You guys! Let’s not waste all our time fighting,” I said.
“But who goes first?” asked August.
“I’ll make a list of the rides we want to go on,” I said.
So I did that, then I ran my finger down the list with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes I was pointing at the Lilly pad ride. So we did that one first. We went on seven more rides. Then I looked at my watch. “Okay, time to go home!” I said.
“NO!” the Mellonjelly kids shouted.
I looked at my watch again. “Okay, we have time for one more ride,” I said.
“Who gets to pick the ride?” asked May.
“Me,” I said quickly. And before they could argue, I said, “Let’s go on the screamin’ eagle.”
“But that ride’s scary!” said Springy.
“Then you’ll sit next to me.” I said.
After the screamin’ eagle we walked home. We got there ten minuets before Mrs. Mellonjelly. When she rang the doorbell, April got the door.
“Hello!” was all Mrs. Mellonjelly was able to say, before April interrupted her by saying, “No soliciting, Bye-Bye!” And she slammed the door.
“Who was that?” I asked as April marched into the kitchen.
“A person trying to soliciting,” answered April. “But I told her to go away.”
“Oh really,” I said as I ran to the door and opened it. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Mellonjelly.
She stepped into the house and looked around. “They didn’t make a mess?” she said, looking surprised.
“Well, um, they, um,” but luckily she interrupted me before I could say anything else.
“Well, I’ll have to get you get you to baby-sit again!”
Now would you look at the time! I have to baby-sit for the Mellonjellys again. Bye!
Saturday, April 2, 2005
The Runaways
“Marigold, wake up.” I whispered, shaking her.
“Why?” she mumbled.
“Remember? The plan,” I said.
When she heard that, she shot up and jumped onto the floor with a soft thud. “What do I do?” she said, running to the closet to get her dress.
“Go get the horses ready,” I answered.
Marigold stopped in her tracks. “You’re the one who loves animals, why don’t you do it,” she snapped.
“Shush!” I hissed. But Marigold was right, I did love animals, especially my horses, Maple, Snowdrift, and Pebbles. But I had to get ready to leave. So I said “Your birthday is in three months, remember?” she nodded. “And stepmother is going to make you wear a corset when you turn seven, like me.” Marigold just stared at me, wide eyed. Then she turned and ran out to the stables.
What did I mean by the plan? You might be wondering. Well first of all, my name is Buttercup Gaggle. And I’m thirteen. The plan, well, it’s a long story. But if you really want to hear it… it started when our dad died, two years ago. Then we had to live with our step mom, and we absolutely hate her. She’s way too old-fashioned and makes us wear dresses, and I have to wear a corset. And she makes us work all day, every day. So we decided to run away. We were going to ride in the one present our stepmother gave us, a little wagon, pulled by Maple, Snowdrift and Pebbles. In case you’re wondering who I mean when I say we I mean me and my sisters Marigold, Violet and Rose.
“Violet, time to get up.” I said.
“Is it morning?” she mumbled, getting ready to pretend to be sick, so she wouldn’t have to work all day, even though she’s only three.
“No,” I whispered, “we’re running away, now go get your dress.” I tiptoed over to Rose’s crib. I didn’t want her to start crying, so I just picked her up and grabbed her dress. Then I took Violet’s hand and we ran into me and Marigold’s tiny room to get my bag. And we walked out to the stable, where Marigold stood smiling proudly at how she had hooked up the horses. Well, sort of. The bridle was on backwards, the reins all twisted up, and she hadn’t put on the blinders.
“Get in the cart,” I said, and handed Rose to Marigold. Then I started to fix the things on the horses. I heard a noise. It was stepmother, getting up to get dressed. That would take her twenty-five minutes. I should be able to get out of here by then. I straightened the reins, then slapped them and the horses took off.
We drove for five hours, then stopped to eat breakfast and let the horses rest. “Did you bring some eggs?” Violet asked.
“No, They would crack in the bag.” I said. “We’re going to eat mush.” And I handed out the mush.
“My mush is cold,” whined Violet.
“Shut-up, you baby,” snapped Marigold
“Why should I?”
“Because I said so!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
They started flinging their mush at each other and throwing dirt. Rose thought it looked fun, and she babbled “Apa-dafa-dafoo!” And did it too. I stared at them and realized that there was only one way to stop them. So I picked Marigold up, then Violet, and dropped them into the river we were sitting by.
“Hey!” the yelled together.
Then Marigold splashed Violet. “This is all your fault!”
“Nuh-uh! Yours”
“No you started it!”
“Yeah, but if you hadn’t snapped at me, this never would have happened!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“ Don’t start again!” I said, picking up Rose, who was trying to squirm out of my arms. Finally we all waded out of the river and drove off in the wagon. A police officer was checking for four runaways, but luckily we had enough time to put on tons of make-up.
Then after three more hours of driving, we came to the house that stepmother said was our Uncle Ivory’s house. “Stay here.” I told my sisters. Then I went and knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?!” a deep voice bellowed.
“B-B-Buttercup.” I said, getting more nerves by the minute.
“What do you want?” the voice said, not so harshly.
“We came to see Uncle Ivory.” I said. The door opened. It was Uncle Ivory!
“You fell for my trick!” He laughed. Then his face became serious again. “Why aren’t you at your stepmother’s house?” he said, looking puzzled.
“We ran away,” I said calmly.
“Well, uh,”
“We were wondering if we could live with you.” I interrupted him.
“Well, um, sure!” Uncle Ivory said.
“Marigold, Violet, Rose! Come on!” I called. And we all sat down to eat dinner in our new home.
“Why?” she mumbled.
“Remember? The plan,” I said.
When she heard that, she shot up and jumped onto the floor with a soft thud. “What do I do?” she said, running to the closet to get her dress.
“Go get the horses ready,” I answered.
Marigold stopped in her tracks. “You’re the one who loves animals, why don’t you do it,” she snapped.
“Shush!” I hissed. But Marigold was right, I did love animals, especially my horses, Maple, Snowdrift, and Pebbles. But I had to get ready to leave. So I said “Your birthday is in three months, remember?” she nodded. “And stepmother is going to make you wear a corset when you turn seven, like me.” Marigold just stared at me, wide eyed. Then she turned and ran out to the stables.
What did I mean by the plan? You might be wondering. Well first of all, my name is Buttercup Gaggle. And I’m thirteen. The plan, well, it’s a long story. But if you really want to hear it… it started when our dad died, two years ago. Then we had to live with our step mom, and we absolutely hate her. She’s way too old-fashioned and makes us wear dresses, and I have to wear a corset. And she makes us work all day, every day. So we decided to run away. We were going to ride in the one present our stepmother gave us, a little wagon, pulled by Maple, Snowdrift and Pebbles. In case you’re wondering who I mean when I say we I mean me and my sisters Marigold, Violet and Rose.
“Violet, time to get up.” I said.
“Is it morning?” she mumbled, getting ready to pretend to be sick, so she wouldn’t have to work all day, even though she’s only three.
“No,” I whispered, “we’re running away, now go get your dress.” I tiptoed over to Rose’s crib. I didn’t want her to start crying, so I just picked her up and grabbed her dress. Then I took Violet’s hand and we ran into me and Marigold’s tiny room to get my bag. And we walked out to the stable, where Marigold stood smiling proudly at how she had hooked up the horses. Well, sort of. The bridle was on backwards, the reins all twisted up, and she hadn’t put on the blinders.
“Get in the cart,” I said, and handed Rose to Marigold. Then I started to fix the things on the horses. I heard a noise. It was stepmother, getting up to get dressed. That would take her twenty-five minutes. I should be able to get out of here by then. I straightened the reins, then slapped them and the horses took off.
We drove for five hours, then stopped to eat breakfast and let the horses rest. “Did you bring some eggs?” Violet asked.
“No, They would crack in the bag.” I said. “We’re going to eat mush.” And I handed out the mush.
“My mush is cold,” whined Violet.
“Shut-up, you baby,” snapped Marigold
“Why should I?”
“Because I said so!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
They started flinging their mush at each other and throwing dirt. Rose thought it looked fun, and she babbled “Apa-dafa-dafoo!” And did it too. I stared at them and realized that there was only one way to stop them. So I picked Marigold up, then Violet, and dropped them into the river we were sitting by.
“Hey!” the yelled together.
Then Marigold splashed Violet. “This is all your fault!”
“Nuh-uh! Yours”
“No you started it!”
“Yeah, but if you hadn’t snapped at me, this never would have happened!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“ Don’t start again!” I said, picking up Rose, who was trying to squirm out of my arms. Finally we all waded out of the river and drove off in the wagon. A police officer was checking for four runaways, but luckily we had enough time to put on tons of make-up.
Then after three more hours of driving, we came to the house that stepmother said was our Uncle Ivory’s house. “Stay here.” I told my sisters. Then I went and knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?!” a deep voice bellowed.
“B-B-Buttercup.” I said, getting more nerves by the minute.
“What do you want?” the voice said, not so harshly.
“We came to see Uncle Ivory.” I said. The door opened. It was Uncle Ivory!
“You fell for my trick!” He laughed. Then his face became serious again. “Why aren’t you at your stepmother’s house?” he said, looking puzzled.
“We ran away,” I said calmly.
“Well, uh,”
“We were wondering if we could live with you.” I interrupted him.
“Well, um, sure!” Uncle Ivory said.
“Marigold, Violet, Rose! Come on!” I called. And we all sat down to eat dinner in our new home.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
The Amazing, the Incredible, Dolphins and Whales
It’s time to learn about the incredible, the amazing, the most wonderful creatures, Dolphins and Whales! So let’s get the facts. We hopefully all know that dolphins and whales are mammals, animals that breath air, give birth to live babies, (not eggs) feed their babies milk, have hair or fur, (dolphins have a little hair on their snout when they are first born) and are warm blooded. But did you know that Bottlenosed dolphins have 88-100 teeth? Now that’s a lot of teeth. Here are some other interesting facts. Dolphins eat their fish whole. (No chewing.) And dolphins don’t have to drink ocean water; they get their water from the fish they eat.
Dolphins can sort of see in the dark; they use something called eco-location. How does it work? The dolphin makes a sound. It bounces off an object like a fish or a wall, and the sound comes back to the dolphin, telling it where the thing is.
But a dolphin can see, just not in dark water, and a dolphin is color blind. Dolphins’ herd (group of dolphins) can have 200 members. Dolphins weigh between 100 to 20,000 pounds. You want to know how to tell a boy bottlenosed dolphin from a girl bottlenosed dolphin? You look at their belly. A boy has a mark like a exclamation point on it’s belly. A girl has a mark like a division sign.
Scientists believe that dolphins’ ancestors were furry four-legged land mammals. If you look at a dolphin’s skeleton, you’ll see that it’s probably true. Dolphins have five finger bones in each flipper. And they have little extra bones where legs might have been. And another thing you might see is that a dolphin has no bone in its tail. There are over 30 different kinds of dolphins.
So a dolphin must have ears, because they use eco-location. But where are they? They are little holes right behind a dolphin’s eyes. You want to know how to tell a dolphin from a porpoise? Well, a dolphin has pointy teeth while a porpoise has flat teeth. And a porpoise’s dorsal fin is sort of triangle and a dolphin’s dorsal fin is more curved. Now that we’re talking about porpoises, did you know that porpoise means “pig of the sea” because it’s so chubby?
A dolphin uses its tail to swim, its flippers to steer, and its dorsal fin to keep them from spinning around while they swim. A dolphin doesn’t have a sense of smell, because if you think about it, a dolphin’s blow hole is like a nostril on the top of their head. Dolphins and toothed whales have one blowhole and baleen whales have two.
Bottlenosed dolphins that live in the ocean are bigger than bottlenosed that live near the shore. Baby spotted dolphins don’t have spots. As they get older they get more and more spots until they’re one big blur.
Spinner dolphins are the only ones who spin when they jump. That’s probably why they’re called that. And there are more common dolphins than any kind of dolphins. Striped dolphins look like common dolphins except they have a stripe.
Now let’s talk about things whales and dolphins do a lot. Porpoising is when dolphins leap out of the water and practically fly. (Big whales don’t normally porpoise, because they’re too big and heavy). Breaching is when dolphins or whales throw themselves into the air and fall back into the water. Log-tailing is when whales go upside down in the water, stick their tail in the air and wag it then smack it on the water.
A killer whale’s dorsal fin can be 6 feet tall! (A killer whale is also called an orca). Dolphins have 8-250 teeth! Some people consider toothed whales (like an orca, pilot whale or beluga whale) dolphins.
You may think that dolphins only live in the ocean. It is true that ocean whales and dolphins will die if they are in fresh water, but there are such things as river dolphins. One example of river dolphins is the Amazon River dolphins. Get ready to learn a lot about Amazon River dolphins. Amazon River dolphins are also called botos. Botos are gray when they are born, and get pinker when they get older. Ones that live in dark muddy water are pinker than botos that live in clear water, because botos in clear water get something like a suntan, since they get more sun. Botos also get pinker when they are more active. A boto is very flexible. It can turn its head 180 degrees from side to side. It can paddle one flipper forward while it paddles the other one backwards. During the rainy season, the rain forest floods and botos swim through the trees, chasing fish.
Marine dolphins can’t get pregnant when they are still making milk for their calves. That’s because their pregnancy lasts almost a year. Amazon River dolphins’ pregnancy doesn’t last that long. Botos also don’t get stranded very often, because they are strong and flexible and can wriggle themselves out.
Here are some more whale facts: The fastest whale is an orca. Gray whales dive down and scoop up a mouthful of mud, send it out of their baleen and eat what’s left. Humpback whales make a bubble net and trap tiny fish, then they lounge at them. They make noises that kind of sound like singing, and some people actually listen to humpback whales singing. Humpback whales have bumps all over their heads.
Dolphins have sensitive skin. Unfortunately, dolphins’ and whales’ skin cracks when it gets too dry.
Baby dolphins are born tail first. If they are born head first, they usually die. And dolphins rarely have twins. If they do, both babies or even the mom normally die.
I hope you’ve learned a lot from this book. And as you can see, dolphins and whales really are wonderful creatures.
Dolphins can sort of see in the dark; they use something called eco-location. How does it work? The dolphin makes a sound. It bounces off an object like a fish or a wall, and the sound comes back to the dolphin, telling it where the thing is.
But a dolphin can see, just not in dark water, and a dolphin is color blind. Dolphins’ herd (group of dolphins) can have 200 members. Dolphins weigh between 100 to 20,000 pounds. You want to know how to tell a boy bottlenosed dolphin from a girl bottlenosed dolphin? You look at their belly. A boy has a mark like a exclamation point on it’s belly. A girl has a mark like a division sign.
Scientists believe that dolphins’ ancestors were furry four-legged land mammals. If you look at a dolphin’s skeleton, you’ll see that it’s probably true. Dolphins have five finger bones in each flipper. And they have little extra bones where legs might have been. And another thing you might see is that a dolphin has no bone in its tail. There are over 30 different kinds of dolphins.
So a dolphin must have ears, because they use eco-location. But where are they? They are little holes right behind a dolphin’s eyes. You want to know how to tell a dolphin from a porpoise? Well, a dolphin has pointy teeth while a porpoise has flat teeth. And a porpoise’s dorsal fin is sort of triangle and a dolphin’s dorsal fin is more curved. Now that we’re talking about porpoises, did you know that porpoise means “pig of the sea” because it’s so chubby?
A dolphin uses its tail to swim, its flippers to steer, and its dorsal fin to keep them from spinning around while they swim. A dolphin doesn’t have a sense of smell, because if you think about it, a dolphin’s blow hole is like a nostril on the top of their head. Dolphins and toothed whales have one blowhole and baleen whales have two.
Bottlenosed dolphins that live in the ocean are bigger than bottlenosed that live near the shore. Baby spotted dolphins don’t have spots. As they get older they get more and more spots until they’re one big blur.
Spinner dolphins are the only ones who spin when they jump. That’s probably why they’re called that. And there are more common dolphins than any kind of dolphins. Striped dolphins look like common dolphins except they have a stripe.
Now let’s talk about things whales and dolphins do a lot. Porpoising is when dolphins leap out of the water and practically fly. (Big whales don’t normally porpoise, because they’re too big and heavy). Breaching is when dolphins or whales throw themselves into the air and fall back into the water. Log-tailing is when whales go upside down in the water, stick their tail in the air and wag it then smack it on the water.
A killer whale’s dorsal fin can be 6 feet tall! (A killer whale is also called an orca). Dolphins have 8-250 teeth! Some people consider toothed whales (like an orca, pilot whale or beluga whale) dolphins.
You may think that dolphins only live in the ocean. It is true that ocean whales and dolphins will die if they are in fresh water, but there are such things as river dolphins. One example of river dolphins is the Amazon River dolphins. Get ready to learn a lot about Amazon River dolphins. Amazon River dolphins are also called botos. Botos are gray when they are born, and get pinker when they get older. Ones that live in dark muddy water are pinker than botos that live in clear water, because botos in clear water get something like a suntan, since they get more sun. Botos also get pinker when they are more active. A boto is very flexible. It can turn its head 180 degrees from side to side. It can paddle one flipper forward while it paddles the other one backwards. During the rainy season, the rain forest floods and botos swim through the trees, chasing fish.
Marine dolphins can’t get pregnant when they are still making milk for their calves. That’s because their pregnancy lasts almost a year. Amazon River dolphins’ pregnancy doesn’t last that long. Botos also don’t get stranded very often, because they are strong and flexible and can wriggle themselves out.
Here are some more whale facts: The fastest whale is an orca. Gray whales dive down and scoop up a mouthful of mud, send it out of their baleen and eat what’s left. Humpback whales make a bubble net and trap tiny fish, then they lounge at them. They make noises that kind of sound like singing, and some people actually listen to humpback whales singing. Humpback whales have bumps all over their heads.
Dolphins have sensitive skin. Unfortunately, dolphins’ and whales’ skin cracks when it gets too dry.
Baby dolphins are born tail first. If they are born head first, they usually die. And dolphins rarely have twins. If they do, both babies or even the mom normally die.
I hope you’ve learned a lot from this book. And as you can see, dolphins and whales really are wonderful creatures.
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