It was not that Sam didn't appreciate his mom cooking a nutritious meal. The trouble was that sometimes she took the nutritious part too far, especially when it came to her homemade healthsicles.
"What are they this time, tofu and carrot juice?" Sam's friend Norman asked as they sat together on Sam's front porch the first day of summer vacation.
"Worse. Yogurt and beet juice. Tammy loves them."
"Tammy's only three. She doesn't have taste buds yet. Your mom's going to kill you with all this health food. It's not natural."
Sam shrugged. "She bakes great bread. But her healthsicles are gagsville. I wish I had a dollar. I'd get a triple ripple fudge bar."
"Me, too. Man am I sweaty." Norman fanned himself with Tammy's sand shovel. "Say, we could earn some money," he said.
"Doing what? We're just kids."
"Odd jobs. Walking pets, weeding gardens, running errands. I bet there's lots of people who could use some help. We could put signs on all the lampposts."
"Yeah, and we could call ourselves the Tripple Ripple Handy Helpers," Sam added.
"Hey, this is going to be a fantastic summer!"
It was fantastic, but not quite in the way Sam meant.
Pat McFadden is getting an MFA in Writing for Children from Spalding University. Her picture book, "Oh, No, Woolly Bear" is being published by Starbright Press this fall. McFadden also has an early chapter book and a middle grade fantasy novel available and loves to do author visits to schools. You can find out more about Pat on her website at www.greenturtlepress.com
© 2007 Pat McFadden. Original for CCF (McFadden grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).
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