Noggin & Izzy Meet a Cheetah

14:16  14 October 2006 14102006467

14:18  14 October 2006 14102006472

14:18  14 October 2006 14102006473

14:19  14 October 2006 14102006475

14:23  14 October 2006 14102006479

Sometimes it is more important than others to know how to read.  Noggin, who is a two-year-old West Highland Terrier, can only read a little, because he doesn't go to school.  But Izzy has been going to school for ever so long, and she can read quite well.  Unfortunately, she didn't see the sign that said "Do not feed the cheetahs" because she was busy reading a brochure that said that cheetahs have more than 2000 spots.  So they walked right by the sign, and nobody read it.

Still, that might not have been a problem, if it wasn't for the Crunchy Bites in Noggin's backpack.  You might already remember that Crunchy Bites are Noggin's favorite snack, and that even though he loves them, he is always willing to share them.  So when he turned a corner and came upon three baby cheetahs lying next to old bits of tree, he thought it only polite to offer them each a Crunchy Bite.  Now here's the real problem:  cheetahs can run very fast, and when you give them Crunchy Bites, it makes them run even faster, and they started running around and chasing everyone in sight, including Noggin and Izzy.  Now Noggin can run faster than almost any dog at the Rec, which is the park where he plays back home, but he can't even come close to running as fast as a cheetah, and he was starting to become very tired and wondering what would happen if he stopped running.

Luckily, just then three girls came along, Anna, Alexandra and Katerine, and even more luckily, Katerine has experience with cheetahs, because one came in her garden when she was only a tiny baby.  So Katerine knew the secret to calming down a cheetah: you must confuse it. 

"You might be fast," shouted Katerine to the cheetahs, "but can you whirl and twirl around like this?"  And she spun about to show them.  The cheetahs all tried to whirl and twirl, but they got all dizzy and fell down. 

Then Anna joined the game by walking about upside down, so that the dizzy cheetahs did not know which was was up.  Now that the cheetahs were calmer, Alexandra sang them a song, so they'd get sleepy. 

Thanks to the clever and talented girls, everyone could now rest easy, which was especially important because it was almost naptime, and Noggin was very tired from all the running.

"Next time," said Noggin, "I'm going to make sure and read the signs."

Comments

[Ann Gibson]

Your stories are really cute..