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I wrote this story for my coworker’s son as a third birthday present. The little boy loves dinosaurs. Enjoy!

Terry T. Rex had a problem. His friends would be over soon and he had nothing to give them! All the cookies he had made earlier that afternoon had vanished into thin air!

Terry paced, swinging his large tail back and forth. His little brother, Tyson T. Rex, leapt onto his tail, hugging it to himself.

“Tyson, get off!” Terry said, trying to shake him off.

“No! Wanna play,” Tyson said, hugging Terry’s tail even tighter.

Sighing, Terry pushed him away and went back to his dilemma: who had taken his cookies and how could he get them back.

“Terry,” Tyson said, tugging on his brother’s claw. “Found something. Come see!”

Ignoring Tyson, Terry headed to his room and pulled out a detective hat, placing it proudly on his head. There! Now he was a true detective.

Returning to the kitchen, Terry found it empty.

Good, he thought. Tyson’s not here to bother me.

Pulling out an oversized magnifying glass, Terry began to search for clues.

Aha! Crumbs! And right where he left the plate of cookies. Terry followed the trail of crumbs outside, right to a large fern. It was shaking slightly.

Someone must be behind it!

Terry pushed away the plant, shouting triumphantly, “I got you now, cookie thief!”

Tyson looked up delightedly. “Brother!” he shouted and attached himself to Terry’s tail again.

As Terry wobbled, trying to keep his balance, he spotted the cookie plate. There were only crumbs left.

“Tyson! I made those for my friends!”

Tyson’s head drooped and he pulled out a single, uneaten cookie. “Found them on the table. I didn’t know they were yours. I just wanted to share.”

Terry took the cookie. “You wanted to share with me?” He paused. “Hey, Tyson, how would you like to help me make more cookies for my friends? Then, they can be from both of us.”

Tyson looked up excitedly and nodded.

“Come on, then.”

Terry took Tyson’s claw and together, they walked back into the house, ready to do the brotherly thing and get covered in flour.

I’ve been working on the sequel to Silver Rose for a while now. I’m currently on my fourth draft. My writing has been going well and I’ve been making rapid progress through this edit. Once I finish this draft, I’m going to print the new version and read through it again. With any luck, I’ll be finished after the fifth draft. Then, I can publish my book and get Silver Crescent out into the world. Thank you to everyone for your patience.

In honor of Leap Day, I’d like to tell you about my mom’s friend, who was born on February 29th. Sadly, the friend died quite a few years ago, but my mom says she absolutely loved her birthday. I think she was in her eighties when she died, but she got a kick out of telling people that she was only twenty-years-old. Since February 29th only comes around once every four years, I think it would be a hard birthday to have. I love the friend’s sense of humor when it came to her unique birthday. Happy Birthday to all those born on Leap Day!

A few days after Christmas, my brother bought a cat tree for our cats, Jenny and Cannoli. He’d been talking about getting one for a while and we were all curious over how the two cats would react to it. We’ve had it for about a month and Jenny and Cannoli love it. I’ve seen Jenny spend hours on it. I’m glad she’s so happy!

There’s a little cubby and a couple of platforms. Jenny has been known to sleep for hours in either the cubby or the top platform. Cannoli loves the scratching post feature right below that platform. Cannoli sometimes disturbs Jenny by clawing at the scratching post, while Jenny is sleeping above him.

The best part of the cat tree, though, is the toy mouse. There’s a toy mouse on an elastic string attached to the cat tree. They’ve both spent hours attacking that mouse. They keep trying to pick it up in their mouths and run off with it. They get confused when they pull too hard and the elastic string pulls the mouse back.

It’s fun to watch Jenny and Cannoli’s antics with the cat tree. My brother definitely had a good idea when he bought it.

Spoiler Alert.

Like many other people, I went to see the new Wonka movie. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. When they first announced this movie, I thought this was going to be yet another cynical cash grab. It wasn’t. This musical adventure was a joy to watch.

The movie starts with a young Willy Wonka arriving in a European city. He is determined to open a candy store and make his late mother proud. Wonka, with no money in his pocket, stays at a local laundromat ran by Mrs. Scrubbitt and Mr. Bleacher. They seem friendly enough, but the young servant girl, Noodle, warns Wonka that he should read the fine print. Wonka signs it anyway, later confiding in Noodle that he can’t read. Mrs. Scrubbitt tells Wonka that he needs to pay a sovereign by the next night to pay for his room.

The next morning, Wonka tries to sell his chocolate on the street, but comes into conflict with three rival candy makers: Prodnose, Fickelgruber, and Slugworth. Slugworth is clearly the leader, but all three of them tell Wonka to leave and never sell chocolate in their town again. The crowd watching surges forward to buy candy when they realize Wonka’s chocolate can make them fly. The police get involved and confiscate Wonka’s profits, saying that he needs a store to sell chocolate.

Wonka heads back to the laundromat with the one sovereign he has left. He tries to pay for his room, but Scrubbitt and Bleacher reveal that, thanks to the fine print, Wonka owes them more money than is reasonable. They charged him for using the stairs, washing his hands, and even the gin they offered him when he first arrived. Wonka now has to work for them until he can pay off his debt, which won’t be for another twenty-seven years.

Wonka meets the other people forced to work for Scrubbitt and Bleacher: Noodle (a bookworm), Abacus Crunch (an accountant), Lottie Bell (a phone operator), Piper Benz (a plumber), and Larry Chucklesworth (a comedian). Together, they come up with a plan to distract Scrubbitt and Bleacher, so Wonka can go out and sell his chocolate. The six of them decide to split the profits. It works, with Wonka staying one step ahead of the police, until they earn enough to buy a store. Now, they can legally sell chocolate.

Unfortunately for Wonka, the chief of police is working with Slugworth, Fickelgruber, and Prodnose. They discover what Wonka is up to and have Scrubbitt spike his chocolate, so nobody will buy it. Wonka is now ruined. The infuriated customers trash his store and Wonka is at his lowest point. Slugworth offers Wonka a deal. If Wonka leaves forever, he will pay off his and his friends debts to Scrubbitt and Bleacher. Feeling like he has no choice, Wonka agrees.

Meanwhile, as all this is going on, an Oompa Loompa named Lofty is following Wonka, saying that Wonka stole some cocoa beans from him and now Wonka must pay his debt. Wonka and Lofty narrowly avoid a death trap set by Slugworth and race back to help the others. Now together again, Wonka, Noodle, Crunch, Lottie, Piper, and Larry decide to go after Slugworth’s secret account book. Crunch had seen it once before, and knew that all of Slugworth’s crimes were recorded in it. They manage to get to the book and reveal to the whole town that Slugworth and Scrubbitt spiked Wonka’s chocolate. The movie ends with Wonka and Lofty getting a location to build Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Overall, I liked the movie. Wonka himself was naive, but endearing. There was just something wonderful about seeing such a happy, trusting character. His optimism was starting to rub off on me a bit. I felt myself smiling throughout the movie. It was clear that Wonka just wanted to sell his chocolate, so he could make people happy and feel closer to his mom. The music was fun and whimsical and the lyrics were catchy.

The only thing I didn’t like was that Wonka was blamed for spiking the chocolate. This is a personal preference, but I don’t like it when protagonists are blamed for a crime they didn’t commit.

Besides that, Wonka is a fun movie. It’s bright, colorful, and well written. I love how its sole purpose is to entertain. I would definitely watch it again.

On November 21, my dad and I were taking a walk around our neighborhood. It was early morning, before I had to get ready for work. We were about five minutes into the walk, on a quiet street, when my dad pointed out a tiny dog a little ways ahead. There was no owner.

As we approached, a nearby car stopped and the driver got out. I thought it must be the owner, pausing to catch his dog. But as we got closer, the passenger leaned out of the car and explained that they were just passing and stopped to help. They didn’t know who owned the dog either.

The little dog was in a playful mood. My dad and I started after the dog, determined to catch her, so she wouldn’t get hit by a car. Every time we got near, though, she ran off again. Eventually, we reached a turn off. One way continued on the quiet street, while the other led to a busy one. The dog ran toward the busy one. We continued on our walk on the quiet street, worried that our presence would accidentally cause the dog to run into traffic.

I happen to live on the busy street, so I called my mom and told her about the dog. She agreed to go out into the driveway and see if she could spot the dog. Ten minutes later, we came back out onto our street. We could see the dog still running on the opposite side of the road. Several more cars stopped as the drivers tried to catch the dog, as well.

The dog ran into a nearby parking lot and three people followed: my mom and two strangers, a man and a woman. Working together, they kept the dog from running off, eventually tiring her out. The man scooped up the exhausted dog, while the woman took her picture and posted it on the neighborhood website, hoping the owner would see it.

Since our house was right across the street from where they stood, my mom said we would take the dog and drop her off at the animal shelter later. The man handed my mom the dog, who was about the same size as my cats, and wore a collar with no tags.

The dog stayed in my house for about two and a half hours. We put her in my brother’s room with food and water and closed the door. My cats were not happy with this intruder. It turned out that the animal shelter wasn’t open that day, so my mom called animal control to pick the dog up. The two animal control officers were really nice. They thanked us for saving the dog and said that they would take her to the animal shelter.

It was quite a morning. I’m just happy we were in the right place at the right time to save her. I hope she found her owners.