Madison and the Playroom

             Madison and Marie stood in the doorway of the playroom looking at the huge mess that stood between them and the slumber party they wanted to have on Saturday.  Mom had said that the playroom had to be clean or there would be no slumber party.

            “Well, we better get started,” said Marie with a sigh.  “If we don’t, we will never get done.”

            “I don’t even know where to begin,” said Madison looking around at the mess.  “I can’t even see the floor.”

            “You’re right,” said Marie.  “We need an attack plan.  Why don’t you start over in that corner and I’ll start over here in this corner.  We’ll meet in the middle.”

            Madison trudged over to her corner.  It had piles of art supplies that they used to make things.  She started with the crayons and put them all back in their containers.  Then she put them back in the art desk on the other side of the room.  Next she attacked the piles of different packages of construction paper.  She stacked them neatly, and then, tried to pick up the entire stack.  As she tried to turn to make her way to the art desk, she dropped all of it on her big toe.

            “Oww!” cried Madison as she hopped around trying to hold her injured toe.

            “What happened?” asked Marie rushing over to see what was wrong.

            “I dropped a stack of construction paper on my toe,” said Madison as she sat down and inspected her toe.

            “Oh, you will live,” said Marie matter-of-factly.  “Now don’t try to take it all at once this time.”

            Madison picked up part of the construction paper and limped over to the art desk.  She opened the drawer where the construction paper was supposed to go and disturbed a moth taking a nap.  The moth buzzed by her face making Madison scream and drop the construction paper, which scattered all over the top of the art desk.

            “What happened this time,” asked Marie starting to get aggravated with her sister.

            “A bug flew in my face,” said Madison as she shivered in disgust.  “I hate bugs!!”

            “Get back to work,” said Marie as she rolled her eyes.

            It took Madison some time to pick up all the scattered construction paper and put it in the drawer.  Before long, however, she finished putting all the art supplies in their rightful place and could start on the next pile.  This pile consisted of dirty dishes and glasses they had left in the playroom when they had their last party.  Madison wanted to touch those as little as possible so she went to the kitchen to get a big bowl.  She would put them in the bowl and then take the bowl to the kitchen.  When she picked up the last plate, she noticed a puddle of red goo on the floor.

            “Oh yuck!” exclaimed Madison.  “I think I might hurl.”

            “What now!” yelled Marie as she went over to see what Madison had found.  Marie grabbed a scrap piece of paper, wiped up the red goo, and carefully smelled of it.

            “Oh, it’s just strawberry jam that came off of one of the plates,” said Marie.  “Now get back to work.”

            Madison and Marie worked in silence for quite a while until suddenly Madison jumped up in excitement.  “I found it! I found it!” she cried.

            “What did you find?” asked Marie not even looking up.

            “Look, I found my missing piece to the zoo puzzle,” Madison said excitedly.  “I have been looking for this forever.  Now, my gray elephant will finally be complete.”

            Madison went over to the puzzle boxes and put the piece back in the zoo puzzle box.  While she was there she decided to straighten up the puzzle boxes and games.  When she moved one of the game boxes, she found an old birthday candle shoved into the corner.

            “What do I do with this?” asked Madison holding up the birthday candle.

            “Just throw it away,” said Marie.

            Madison went over to the garbage can to throw it away.   When she turned around, she noticed how close they were to being done.

            “Wow,” said Madison.  “I can see the floor now.  We are almost done.”

            Marie stood up and stretched.  “You’re right.  We are almost done.  Wow, that was much easier than I thought it would be.”

            “We are the greatest picker-uppers in the world,” said Madison as she made a muscle.

            This made Marie giggle.  The two girls finished the final items and stood together surveying their work.

            “We do make a great team, don’t we?” said Marie as she gave her sister a playful shove.  Madison looked at her sister with a great big smile on her face.  The party was on after all.