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Illustration by Bailey Age: 7 Ms. Amanda Cook's 2nd grade class |
Hayden the turtle looked over the
huge mess that had once been his back yard.
At the edge of the yard stood the empty grape vine that had
been full earlier this morning.
The
ground was covered with grape skins, grape seeds, and grapevine leaves.
This morning while he had been eating
the grapes, it had been so much fun.
Now that he looked at his mess, he wanted to cry.
When his parents
found the mess, they said, “Pick up this mess before you do anything else and
we mean ANYTHING!”
Hayden picked up
one leaf, and then just sat down staring at the mess.
He wanted to be anywhere doing anything else except picking
up this mess.
Suddenly, the
butterfly twins, Summer and Madison, flew up and landed on the grape vine. “What are you doing?” asked Summer.
“I have to pick up
my mess before I can do anything else,” mumbled Hayden miserably.
“Wow! That’s a big
mess!” exclaimed Madison.
“I don’t even know
where to begin or what I do with it when I do pick it up,” stated Hayden as he
picked up another leaf.
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Illustration by Tyler Age: 8 Ms. Amanda Cook's 2nd grade class |
“Maybe we can
help,” said Summer.
“Make a pile
of leaves, and then Madison and I can take them to the tall grass to dump them.”
Hayden perked
up.
He liked that idea.
At least it gave him a place to
start.
He set out at once moving
all the leaves into a pile next to the grapevine.
Madison and Summer grabbed handfuls of leaves and flew over
the tall grass letting the leaves fall.
The girls had great fun watching the leaves fall into the grass.
“This makes me
think of autumn,” said Summer as she released a stream of leaves behind her.
“Yes, it does,”
agreed Madison as she chased the leaves Summer had just released.
When the twins had
deposited the last of the leaves, they waved goodbye to Hayden and set off to
play in the tall grass. Hayden was
once again left alone with his huge mess.
However, now it wasn’t as big as it was before. He decided that he would tackle the
seeds next and started stacking seeds in a pile next to the grapevine.
When the pile was
nearly finished, Audra the duck waddled up to Hayden.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have to pick up
my mess before I can do anything else,” said Hayden not quite as miserable as
before. “But I don’t know what I
am going to do with these grape seeds.”
“Oohh!!
I love grape seeds!” exclaimed Audra as
she waddled over to the pile of grape seeds.
Soon the pile of grape seeds was in Audra’s tummy.
“Well, that takes
care of those,” said Hayden.
“I
don’t guess you like grape skins, do you?”
Audra made a face
at him and shook her head. “Here
comes Emerson,” said Audra. “Maybe
he will know what to do with the grape skins.”
Audra waved
goodbye to Hayden and waddled off as Emerson the dragonfly flew up and landed
on the grapevine. “What are you
doing?” asked Emerson.
“I have to pick up
this mess before I can do anything else,” replied Hayden. “But I don’t know what to do with the
grape skins.”
Emerson thought
hard.
“Maybe we could dump them in
the tall grass.
I bet that will help
the grass grow.
The farmer in the
big house beyond the tall grass often puts stuff like that in his garden,” he
said.
Hayden liked that
idea.
Emerson quickly made a
little basket out of grass while Hayden started making a pile of grape
skins.
When the basket was
finished, Emerson took load after load of grape skins to the tall grass making
sure to dump each load in a different place.
Soon all the grape skins were gone.
“I’m done!”
exclaimed Hayden. “Before I
started I thought it would take me days to pick up all this mess. I probably would still be working on it
if I hadn’t gotten help from my friends.
Thanks!”
“Your welcome,”
said Emerson. “Now lets go find
everyone else so you can tell them thanks, too.”
Emerson and Hayden
set off for the clearing to find the rest of their friends.
They found Audra, Summer, and Madison
playing with leaves the twins had brought from the tall grass.
Soon all five friends romped and played
in the leaves just as if autumn had come in the middle of summer.
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