Three Minutes in the Hot Seat

Normanday #59: Ribbet.

I’m a turtle, a reptile. That means if it’s cold outside, I’m cold. Since they don’t make sweaters for turtles, I need some help warming up. Write for three minutes (or knit me a sweater)…

…describing something hot.

Email what you wrote to woof at bright dot net by the end of the day January 20 (put “Norman Looks Great in a Turtleneck” in the subject line). I’ll post as many of my favorite entries as I want next Monday. Include your first name (or, even better, use a pen name) and age (unless you’re tortoise-old). If you’re a published children’s or young adult writer, include a biography to be posted with your entry.

Here is the single entry from last week when I asked you to write for three minutes about…

…frogs.


Ralph

We’ve been stuck inside Grandma’s house all week because it’s been raining. It didn’t rain this much last summer. Max started calling the board games bored games three days ago.

This morning when I woke up, I listened for the sound of rain on the windows, but all I could hear was the tick-tocking of Grandma’s clocks. She has at least one in every room. I jumped out of bed and looked outside. No rain!

I got Max up and when he heard the news he was out of bed and out the door before I was out of my pajamas.

Grandma has a huge back yard. Max and I raced from one end to the other a dozen times. Max won every time, but it was mostly because I had the side of the yard with all the trees. They’re pine trees with long branches around the bases that I had to run around.

The ground was soggy and mucky from all the rain. Grandma has a little garden pond at the end of her lot and we went there next. Last year we spent hours catching tadpoles. This year the tadpoles had already become little frogs. Hundreds of them hopped in the puddles by the pond. Max scooped his hands along the grass and caught three frogs at once. We ran along the edge of the pond, sending the frogs leaping for the cover of the murky water.

Grandma called to us from the back door. It was time for lunch. We raced to the house. This time I won. The bright yellow kitchen was warm with heat from the oven. Max and I smiled and shouted together: “Frog pie!”