My name is Ella. I'm 4 years old, and I live in a town populated by talking animals.
My mommy and daddy found this house about a month ago. It's pretty small, but it's cozy. My new baby sister, Lily, loves to explore the small house. My older brother, Micheal, who's around 14, likes to explore the town.
Me, I like to explore with my friends. My BFF, Truffles, is a green elephant. Then the squirrel siblings, Chitter and Chatter. Last there's Bellow, who's a hippo. We always find a new spot to explore in town.
Right now is Monday morning. My mommy is trying to get Lily to eat breakfast. Our house doesn't have much furniture. Daddy has a job at the store 'Nook's Cranny' It's a cool store! Sometimes Daddy is allowed to bring me in when he goes.
All we really have in the house is two beds- one for Mommy and Daddy, one for me and Lily- a blanket on the floor for Micheal, and a table and some chairs. It's pretty cozy.
I finish my breakfast and look up at my Mommy.
"Mommy, can I go out and play with my friends?" I ask.
"Sure honey," Mommy says, "Be safe."
Micheal finishes his breakfast, too. "Can I go out?" He asks Mommy.
"With friends?" Mommy asks.
"No, with terrorists," Micheal says sarcastically as he leaves. I follow and see Truffles waiting for me.
"Hi Truffles," I smile as I greet my BFF.
"Hi Ella!" Truffles smiles back, giving me a hug, "Let's go get the others."
We race over to Bellow's house first, since it's closest. Micheal followed us, cuz one of his best friends is Bellow's older brother. Micheal knocks on the door of the large, blue house. Bellow's mom opens it.
"Hello, come on in," She says, letting us enter.
Bellow runs over and smiles.
"Hi, guys!" Bellow greets in a deep voice.
Bellow's older brother, Hip-Hop, walks up to Micheal.
"Hey, dude," Hip-Hop greets, "Let's go get the others."
We all leave and me, Truffles, and Bellow run up to Chitter and Chatter's house. We knock in the door of the small brown house and their dad answers.
"Oh, I'm sorry, guys, but the twins can't come out now," He says.
"Aw, why not?" I whine.
"They're in trouble," he says. I sneak a peek inside and see the twins sitting in the corner. Chitter has her usual pink bow in her hair. The twins are always getting into trouble, but that doesn't make it any less sad.
"Oh, ok," Truffles sighs, "We'll see them later. Bye bye!"
We leave and walk down to the beach. Coconut trees are planted all along the shore. I pick up a pretty pink shell and hold it to my ear. I sigh and groan in disappointment.
"What's wrong?" Bellow asks.
"My mommy said that if I hold a sea shell to my ear, I can hear the ocean," I explain, "This one must be broken." I throw the shell on the ground in slight anger.
"Well, one of these must work," Truffles says. She always looks on the bright side, "Let's try them out find one that does.;
We all look around for a while, putting each and every shell to our ears, then tossing them to the ground in despair. I pick up a large spiral-looking shell and put it to my ear. I gasp in delight as I hear the ocean.
"Guys, I found one!" I call to my friends. They race over and listen, too.
"Cooool!" They say together.
"Hey, let's find a bunch of cool shells and make a collection!" Truffles suggests.
"That's a great idea!" Bellow agrees.
We start looking around for really cool shells. I find one that looks really pretty, but when I pick it up, a small head pops out! It was a crab!
"Oops, sorry," I say as I set him down. He scuttles off and hides in the sand. After a bit we pile all our shells in between us. I look at all of them, pointing out the broken ones, and the ones that wouldn't be any good for our collection. I'm sorta the leader of the group. I see a drab flat brown shell. I shake my head and set it into the 'No' pile.
After I'm done with that, I start organizing them by color. I'm into organizing things. My friends watch me as I sort the shells into piles of pink, white, orange, blue, and spotted. Doing this, I find a really pretty pink-and-white spotted shell. One spot looked like a giant heart.
"Mind if I keep this one?" I ask.
"Sure," Truffles smiles.
Neither of them know it, but I have a tiny crush on Tommy. He's a cat that lives nearby.
"Ok, now how will we carry these back?" Truffles questions. I look around and see the large leaves of the coconut trees above me. I smile as I get an idea.
"Guys, lift me up and I can get some of those leaves to hold them in," I say. I stand on Truffles' shoulders, and she stands on Bellow's. I reach up and strain to grab a leaf that's just out of my reach.
"Almost...there!" I groan. I yell as we fall down into a pile.
"It's no use," I sigh as I stand up, "I can't reach."
"If Chit and Chat were here," Bellow says as he helps Truffles up, "They could climb up the tree and grab them for us." Chit and Chat are Chitter and Chatter's nicknames.
Just then, the twins land next to us. They had jumped off of the cliff and onto the sand.
"Hey guys," Chitter says in a squeaky high voice.
"What's up?" Chatter asks in a squeaky low voice.
"Those," Truffles points at the coconut leaves, "We need some to carry our shell collection back, but we can't reach them."
"Say no more!" The twins say together, racing up the tree.
"How many do you need?" Chitter calls down.
I count the piles of shells, deciding to put one pile in one leaf each, to make sure they don't get mixed up again. "Five!" I call up to them.
Chitter and Chatter pick out five large leaves and let three fall to the ground. The other two they use like parachutes and fall to the sand.
We each take a leaf and put a pile of shells in them. We carry them back to my house and arrive just in time for lunch. Mommy made each of us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She makes mine with just peanut butter, cuz I don't like jelly.
"What's in these?" Mommy asks, looking at the leaf bundles that we set in the corner of the room.
"We collected sea shells!" I answer, finishing my sandwich in one bite and opening a leaf. The pink shells spill out and I show them to her.
"These are very pretty," Mommy smiles as she looks at them.
"We're gonna make a museum!" Chitter says.
After we are done eating, we each grab a leaf and run outside to our clubhouse. We had found a cool little cave when we went exploring one day, and we made it our clubhouse.
Truffles turns on the flashlight lantern we use as a light and the cave lights up. I run over to the small shelf that Bellow had made from wood that we found. It's been bare forEVER and it's been bugging Truffles.
"We can use the shelf for the shells," Truffles suggests.
"But there's only three shelves," Chatter points out, "We need five, one for each color of shell."
What about the side table?" I suggest. We had found a small table in the dump one time, and it had a shelf under it.
"That could work!" Truffles smiles. Bellow moves the table over next to the shelf and we organize all the shells.
"There!" Chitter cries when we're done. Each shell color had it's own shelf, organized from biggest to smallest.
"Perfect!" I cry out happily. We all head home for dinner as the day ends.
