“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”
Ben, Melissa, and George sang while joyfully playing in the sandbox.

This was their daily routine. They sang songs and made sandcastles. Each day they tried to make their sandcastle look better than the day before. They made a bigger castle every day, and yesterday it was GINORMOUS. But today, something was very, very wrong. Every sandcastle they made was small and not even close to being as beautiful as before! They knew they could do MUCH better but the sand was too dry.

Ben was getting angry. He whined, “Ah! It has been one, two, three hours since we came to the playground and there is still no sandcastle.”
“I know!” George said, “But we can’t give up, we’ll be done soon!”
“Ugh yeah! Stop whining, Ben. And anyways, I like playing in the sand so we can take as long as we want,” Melissa said.
“But it’s been so long and I’m tired and hungry and sleepy and hungry. It’s almost nap time too.”

“Okay,” George sighed, “I guess we should go home then.”
“No!” Melissa screamed. “I’ll try to think of something so that we can finish the castle.”
Ben waited patiently until he just could not take it anymore.

“I wanna leave, Melissa! Can’t we just go back?”
“NO Ben!” Melissa squealed, “We can’t just leave. We should call all our other friends and we can go get a bucket of water so the sand won’t be that dry and work together and make a sandcastle and THEN go home.”
She panted, running out of breath while convincing Ben to stay.
Ben and George nodded, and the three of them called everyone so they could help them.

There were seven of them now, so it was not hard to get water. They began building the sandcastle, working non-stop, but having fun doing it.

Finally, they were all done!
“Aren’t you glad we finished, Ben?” Melissa asked. “It’s so beautiful!”
“Ah! This is bigger than twenty elephants PUT TOGETHER!” Ben shouted with excitement.
“I know!” The group replied.
They had HUMONGOUS smiles on their faces.

All of a sudden though, George stumbled upon the castle while trying to stand up and it shredded apart. “Awwww, darn it! I always do that! Ugh.”
“Its okay, George,” Ben smiled gently. “This happens all the time. Tomorrow we ALL make an even bigger and prettier castle!”
“Okay!” George jumped up.

“It’s time to go everybody!” Mrs. Flowers, their teacher, said.
The kids lined up in a wiggly line, and headed inside school, looking forward to their next sandcastle adventure.