Dear Readers,
This next story was created for and with my oldest grandson, almost eight-year-old, Lincoln. It started with a phone call with a challenge for me to write him a story. Together, we developed a plot including the genre of it, a mystery, , the main characters and their names, and the number of chapters, five. (It actually has six chapters, so I failed him in that respect. He didn’t mind.) Just like I do with you, dear Readers, I provided him the story one chapter at a time and upon his completing it and his his approval, which he said he loved it, he titled it, Dinosaur Clueless Key, but I am renaming it, simply, Dinosaur Key. He also gave me permission to share it with you.
Lincoln and I hope you like it, too!
Chapter 1 – Surprise!
Harold was walking home from school with his best friends, Olivia, and George. Harold was the oldest at eleven years old then came Olivia was eight and George was the youngest at six years old. They were neighbors who live on Spencer’s Hill. It was called Spencer’s Hill because the first man who came here first had a dog named Spencer and named the place after his dog. That’s what Harold’s grandpa told once when he visited one summer. His mother laughed when Harold asked her if it was true. It was autumn and the leaves were almost gone from all the trees and had spread out on the ground. Harold and his friends crunched the leaves as they walked. The school was located at the far end of a line of buildings that formed the Main Street in the town that was called Spencer. The trees they were walking through surrounded the town and they were making a short-cut around the town to get home. Besides, it was more fun.
Main Street was made up of six buildings. On one side of the street was a General Store where food and most everything else was, a Stable where people can have their horses taken care of by the blacksmith who lived there, and the school. On the other side of the street was a bank with a post office in it, a hotel where visitors could rest on their way to Madison and a restaurant where anyone could eat. On the outskirts of town, on the other side of the woods, were dairy farms. Harold, Olivia, and George lived at the largest farm just on the other side of town. George’s father owned the farm and Harold and Olivia’s parents help him and live in houses spread out across the farm.
“Do you guys want to come to my house to play with my dinosaurs?” Olivia asked the two boys as they came through the trees and stepped on the dirt road that led up to the farm.
“Sure,” George said as he dropped his book bag on the ground and dragged them behind him using the rope he had used to tie them together. “I love dinosaurs.”
“I have to go home first,” Harold said as he pulled on tree branch that hung from a tree. “I’ll bring my T-Rex.”
“Great! I’ll have Mom get a snack ready for you guys,” Olivia started to skip with joy.
Up ahead the farm buildings came into view and the three children ran to their own homes. Harold climbed up the porch steps, banged the front door open and ran upstairs to his room. He threw his books on his bed and looked around his room for his T-Rex. His grandpa sent it to him on his birthday. He looked in his closet where his toy box was expecting it to be there. But it wasn’t there! He looked under his bed and there it was! He grabbed it, stood up and ran back downstairs, heading for the front door.
“Wait a minute, mister!” his mother said as she waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. “Where are you going?”
“I am going to Olivia’s. We are going to play dinosaurs,’ he explained as he stopped on the middle of the stairs.
“You have to do your homework first,” she told him, so he trudged back upstairs to do his homework.
A half hour later, he was running back down the stairs heading to the front door.
“Wait!” his mother’s voice stopped him as he reached for the front doorknob.
“Mom!” he trudged to the kitchen. “I did my homework!”
As he entered the room where she was, he saw her back as she stood at the stove. She turned to face him and smiled as she said, “You have to take your Grandpa with you!”
Sitting at the kitchen table was his grandpa and he cried with joy. George ran and jumped his grandpa’s waiting arms.
“Grandpa,” Harold said as he hugged. “Your hair is whiter than I remember, and your beard is longer, too.”
“You are right, Harold!” Grandpa said as he set his grandson down on the ground.
“Do you want to come with me to Olivia’s to play dinosaurs? I will got get my Raptor for you to play with!” Harold told him.
“No, I need to rest. The wagon ride from my house to yours is a little bumpy,” Grandpa said to George.
Then Harold had an idea and he turned to his Mom and asked, “Can I have a sleepover tonight?”
To be continued…
My First Stories 