Toothpaste Trouble

Good Morning Friday Fiction Fans!
It is still morning so I'm not too late. Especially since I don't usually get any comments until afternoon. ;)


S and I just got back from babysitting the kiddos. I whispered probably 4 stories to Pickle Puss and Goof Ball before Funny Boy woke up. Then after we got those three eating breakfast Doodle Bug woke up.


Last night I went to a concert with my grandpa. It was good, but not nearly as delightful as the last one we went to.
I can't figure out this weather. Is it winter or spring? The flowers are blooming, the trees budding and we've had beautiful weather, but yesterday it rained and sleeted and last night we had a frost and there was ice in the bird baths this morning. Crazy.


This week wasn't as busy as it was going to be. I was supposed to teach Geography Review on Wednesday, but two of the kids were sick. Then, a family from church was going to have everyone over for "game night" tonight, but they are sick, so that is off. I'll get more writing done.
I haven't worked on Triple Creek Ranch at all. Just haven't been in the mood I guess. I started another story that I think you all will enjoy. I have three parts done but I don't know how long it is going to be. I'll give you the title: Mystery at Random. Sound interesting? I tried something new one night. I've been wishing I could write two stories at the same time, but I only have one NEO. Well, I got a few Alpha Smarts (not as high quality NEOs) for some of my writing students. I kept one for myself just so I had a back up or so someone could borrow it if need be. So, I got the Alpha Smart and my NEO, turned them both on and tried typing right handed on one and left handed on the other with two different stories. :) Talk about splitting the brain!!! I couldn't type two different words at the same time, but I could go back and forth between the two. :) Haven't decided if I should keep practicing or not. What do you think?


This story's instructions were given to me by a friend and I must admit they made me smile. :) There is no picture to go with it but I think you will be able to picture it all yourself. There is one thing though, I need your help. I have not been able to come up with a good last line for the story, so I'm going to let all my readers try to help me. If you can come up with the perfect last line, I'll let you pick what story you want and what day you want me to post it! So, give me a little help if you please.

Warning: If you are someone who likes to try out others ideas to see if you get the same results, you might not want to read this story.

Toothpaste Trouble

by

Rebekah M.

    Nine-year-old Jamie and his twin brother Jerry, were busy in the living room constructing a masterpiece mountain resort complete with cabins, lodges and even a ski-lift all out of legos. They had been working on it for several days now and were eager to get it finished before their parents came home. Abby, who was six, was helping. It wasn’t often that Mr. and Mrs. Kauffman went out on a date, but Miss Rachel had volunteered to watch the children, so off they had gone.
    Everything had gone smoothly; the older ones had done their chores and now Miss Rachel had said she and the younger two would clean up the kitchen.
    “There,” Jamie sat back and looked at the legos before him. “I think it’s done.”
    “Yeah,” Jerry agreed, then added, “All we need now is snow.”
    Jamie laughed. “It sure makes skiing harder. Crash! ‘Hey mister, why won’t my skis work?’” He laughed and made his little lego man fall down.
    Jerry made another lego man say, “You can’t ski on grass, mister.”
    “You could put cotton stuffing for snow,” Abby suggested.
    “We tried that once and the men won’t stand up on it.”
    The three children sat and thought. “What we need,” Jerry began slowly, “is something that is kind of like snow. Like icing.”
    “That would be fun,” Jamie grinned. “But remember how hard it was to clean the iceing out of the lego pieces once it dried?” For the twins’ birthday cake their mother had decorated it with legos.
    “I know,” Jerry agreed. “I was just saying it should be kind of like icing. Surely there is something else that’s not food. I doubt Mom would let us use the food.”
    “Why not use toothpaste?” Abby suggested.
    “Toothpaste?” her brothers exclaimed, turning to look at her in astonishment.
    “Well, it’s not food and it goes away in water, doesn’t it?”
    “Uh huh,” Jerry nodded. “But we wouldn’t have enough.”
    “Oh, yes we would. Mom and I got a whole bunch when we went shopping. They were on sale and Mom had these coupons so we got them for almost nothing!” Abby was rather pleased with her mom’s ability to buy things with hardly any money.
    “Where are they?”
    Soon the three children were digging in the closet and discovered, to their great excitement, ten tubes of toothpaste!
    “Look!” Jerry held up one tube. “This one is blue!”
    “Mom didn’t really want that kind,” Abby volunteered, “but there weren’t any more of the white ones and she had to have ten. I don’t think she’d mind if we used it.”
    “What would we do with blue?” asked Jamie. He was all for using toothpaste, but blue didn’t seem to fit.
    “The lake. They could go ice fishing.”
    “Now that would be cool!” And Jamie grinned at his twin. “Come on. Let’s get started so we can be done before Mom and Dad come home!”

    “I don’t think we’ll use them all,” Jamie said, “but it’s a good thing we brought them all out here anyway.” He dumped his handful on the floor.
    “Here it goes,” Jerry grabbed a tube and squeezed the white stuff over the roof of one of the houses. Smearing it around with his finger, he grinned. “Hey, this is great! Come on help me, Jame.”
    “Can’t I help too?” Abby asked.
    “How ‘bout you open the tubes for us,” Jamie told her. “Then maybe you can help.”
    “Okay,” Abby was ready to do anything her brothers said in the hopes of getting to squeeze out and smear some of that goopy snow on the legos. Carefully she opened all the boxes and unscrewed all the lids.
    “I think we’re going to need a glass of water to rinse our fingers off. Oops, Jerr, you got it on the floor.”
    “I’ll go get a glass of water and a paper towel,” offered Abby.
    “And tell Miss Rachel not to come in until we’re done.” Jerry called after her. “We want it to be a surprise.” Little did he dream just how much of a surprise it was going to be.
    In a minute Abby was back with the requested items. “Miss Rachel said she wouldn’t come in and would keep the little ones with her so they didn’t mess things up.”
    “Good. Do you want to put the lake on?”
    “Can I really, Jerry?” Abby was thrilled. Carefully squeezing out a long line of blue toothpaste she swirled it in a circle. “I think there would be some white in here too,” she said. “That way it will look more like some of it is frozen.”
    “Yeah, good idea,” Jamie nodded looking up from covering the mountain with snow and setting the skiers up on it. “Hey, they stand up!” he cheered.
    Before too long the entire lego resort was decorated with toothpaste snow. The trio admired it and congratulated each other on the great idea. They hadn’t even used all the toothpaste.
    Then disaster struck.
    Abby sprang up to run and tell Miss Rachel they could come look now, but as she did she jumped on one of the open tubes of toothpaste. A long, white string of it shot across the hardwood floor.
    “Abby, look out!” Jerry exclaimed.   
    Quickly Abby stepped back, right into the paste, slipped and fell.
    As Jamie stood up to help his sister, he bumped the coffee table where the glass of water was sitting. With a crash the glass fell off right into the middle of the village! Toothpasty water poured out like a flash flood across the legos and spread around the shiny wood floor. Thankfully the glass didn’t break, but as Abby attempted to stand up and get out of the way of the on coming water, she slipped on the toothpaste and fell again.
    “Jerr, go get something to clean it up,” Jamie ordered before trying to step across the flooded lego resort. He ended up on the floor with his sister.
    Jerry managed to reach the kitchen safely and after telling Miss Rachel that something had spilled and not to come in yet, he raced back from the kitchen with a rag and a bucket partially full of water. Speed was not a good idea, for suddenly bucket, water, rag and Jerry all parted company as he slipped on the toothpaste.
    The crash and cry brought Miss Rachel, but alas, she didn’t know the danger and when the catastrophe was over, she was sitting on the floor in the middle of a lake of slimy, toothpaste water looking at the twins and Abby who were all on the floor with her, more or less covered with white smears and all smelling sickeningly of artificial mint.
    In the silence that reigned after the crash, the sound of a key turning in the lock was heard. The door opened.
    “What in the world happened?” Mrs. Kauffman gasped and hurriedly stepped back outside as the overwhelming smell of toothpaste turned her stomach.
    From the floor, Miss Rachel answered, “I’m not sure.” Bewildered, she looked from the three children up to Mr. Kauffman’s face.
    “Are you okay?” he asked, holding out his hand to help her up.
    Once on her feet, she replied, “Yes, but I think I should go. The little ones are in the kitchen and everything was great. Until now.” She stepped quickly out of the house and looked at Mrs. Kauffman. “You can tell me what happened later.”

    Not getting to play with legos for the rest of the month and having to buy more toothpaste with their own money made a big impression on the minds of Jamie, Jerry and Abby. They learned that creativity may carry a hidden price tag.

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What is your "last line"?