The Wee Wheels of Charlotte
Charlotte loved it so, so much.
But, oh dear, when Daddy was trying to work at his big, grown-up desk, that ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND sound was very, very annoying for Daddy.
One day, Charlotte was having a super-duper fast car race, and the track was going as loud as it could! Daddy looked up from his papers. “Charlotte! Please, honey, turn that off.”
But Charlotte pouted her lip and shook her head. “No! This is my favourite toy! I will do it forever!”
Daddy sighed and gave her his Thinking Look. “Well, how would you feel, missy, if you were one of those little cars, going round and round and round and round forever? Would you like to be that, or would your tires get tired?”
Charlotte thought about her little running shoes. “Hmm. I guess my tires would get tired.”
“So!” Daddy said. “Okay, Charlotte, enough is enough. Put your Hot Wheels car away and turn off that track!”
Begrudgingly, Charlotte walked over to the track to turn it off. But just as she would touch the switch, a ZAP! A static electricity spark would BOOM! right up her little fingers.
And poof!
She shrunk to the size of a very small person—just small enough to fit inside a toy Hot Wheels car!
Daddy did not notice. He was too busy staring hard at his papers on his desk.
Charlotte screamed for Daddy to look, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t hear her teeny-tiny voice.
She thought and thought, What am I going to do to get his attention?
Daddy finally looked up, didn’t see Charlotte anywhere, and figured she had just left the room to play somewhere quiet.
But Charlotte was smart! She quickly jumped into one of her tiny Hot Wheels cars. But just before she jumped in, she reached up with all her might and flicked on the track’s engine!
Vroom! The track started up all by itself!
Charlotte was now in the car, and the little car hit the track and started going, ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND all by itself!
Daddy was amazed! “Goodness gracious! How did that happen? How did that turn on?”
So Daddy reached down just to pick up the car and turn off the whole thing.
ZAP!
A static electricity spark again went right through Daddy’s big fingers! And all of a sudden, Daddy was as small as Charlotte, too!
He was watching the little car zip by when he noticed something funny: Charlotte’s tiny face in one of the car windows!
“Goodness gracious! That’s where you went!” Daddy was still very confused by the whole thing.
He quickly ran over and pushed the switch with his little, shrunken finger. Screeeech! The track stopped!
Charlotte got out of the car. “Daddy! I shrunk!”
Daddy looked at his small hands. “Wow, so did we both! Now we have to figure out how to get back.”
“But Daddy,” Charlotte said, “I did learn something.” She looked at the car she was just riding in. “I learned that being in that car for so long was really, really, really tiresome. It must have been tiresome for you listening to it, and it certainly was tiresome for the cars.”
She gave her Daddy a hug. “I wish we could both be back to normal. And I would be more cautious with this track, I promise!”
And thus, then, a static electricity sparkled between Daddy and Charlotte, and POOF! They were both back to normal size! And both had learned a lesson: Charlotte had learned that it was kind of annoying for the track to go zoom zoom zoom, and Daddy that maybe, maybe, maybe he should pay more attention to Charlotte.
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