"Hey kids. Hey, Suzy and Alex, I'd like you to put your tablets away."
Reluctantly, Suzy, age 7, and Alex, age 5, put their tablets on the car seat between them.
"Look out the windows, kids. We're almost to Grandma's house. And like we said, you're not allowed to play with your tablets this weekend. I'm sure you'll find plenty of interesting things at Grandma's."
Sullenly, the two children handed the tablets to their parents and looked out of the window at the mountain roads.
"Why is there a picture of a bear on that sign?" Alex asked. His father replied that in the mountains lived bears, and that was a bear crossing sign. "Look out the window, you might even see a bear!"
The family soon arrived at Grandma's house, a home they hadn't visited since the children were younger, so the kids barely remembered it. They parked near the open garage and Alex immediately noticed the collection of old license plates Grandpa had once nailed to the wall inside the garage. Suzy first noticed the colorful jump ropes.
Dad pushed back his sunglasses and removed the key from the car. Grandma was coming out of the house, wearing a hat and gloves, even though it was only September. It does get cool in the mountains.
The children walked up the stone path toward Grandma's house and they noticed the huge leaves on the ground. Suzy asked, "Why are those leaves so big?" Grandma replied, "They're sycamore leaves, from that tree over there."
Although the outside of Grandma's house had some white paint peeling from it, when the kids walked inside they saw colorful wallpaper on the walls. However, the thing that grabbed their attention most was the jar of lollipops on the kitchen counter. After greeting their grandma, the first thing Alex asked was, "Can we have lollipops?"
"You may each have one," Grandma replied. After finishing their candy, the little ones began to grow restless. "Grandma, do you have any toys?" asked Alex.
"Oh, I do have some toys," she replied. "But before I show you the toy cabinet, you need to make a costume from my treasure box."
Curiously Suzy and Alex followed their grandmother out into her warm sun room. She opened an old trunk and said, "This is my treasure box!"
The children began removing items, Alex immediately put on a big fuzzy bear cap and Suzy donned the sparkly tiara.
"What's this?" Suzy asked.
"A shoe horn," Grandma replied, explaining how it was used. Then she noticed five packs of matches from various restaurants in a bowl near the treasure chest. She moved them out of reach so that the kids wouldn't be tempted to play with them.
Then the two children began creating costumes from the treasures they found: a clip-on tie, a coaster (worn like a Sherriff's badge, held on with pipe cleaners), toy cars peeking out of pockets, a cork, sea shells, and buttons became necklaces with some string from the box, and Alex stuck a sponge paintbrush in his back pocket, trying to look like a builder.
It's going to be a good weekend at Grandma's!
~
(This small story was a written during a writing exercise at today's Unlocking Words. We were presented with a table full of visual aids, and we were asked to include every word/item in our writing. It's fascinating to see that when 8 people are using the same list of words, our stories or essays usually turn out very different from one another. For example, here is Suzanne's story, using the same key words. Here's the word list we used: bear hat, tiara, license plate, tie, sunglasses, shoe horn, jump rope, coaster, pipe cleaners, leaf, toy car, stone, lollipop, key, cork, seashells, matches, wallpaper, paint, sponge paintbrush, glove, button jar. -Betsy Herman)
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