Crunchy Eggs & Crumbled Cookies

“Hey, Justin!” Jessie sat down on the sofa beside her friend. “Did you hear about the new Twist ’N’ Twirl amusement park?”

“Yes!” said Justin. “I wish I could go. That park has some super fast roller coasters!”

“I’d love to go, too,” said Jessie.

“I’ve heard they’ll have all kinds of cool prizes and free rides at the grand opening. I’d hate to miss it.” Justin sighed.

“Wait a second!” Jessie exclaimed. “Maybe we can go.”

“Huh? How?” asked Justin.

“Why don’t we just ask?”

The kids went into the kitchen where their parents were chatting. Justin politely interrupted, “Excuse me, please.”

All four parents stared at Justin, waiting for him to speak. Justin cleared his throat and began, “Uh, Jessie and I would like to ask if uh—”

“Can we go to the Twist ’N’ Twirl grand opening?” Jessie blurted.

Justin looked at Jessie, surprised, but then nodded in agreement.

Their parents all looked at each other. “Well,” Justin’s dad replied, “we will have to wait and see.”

Justin sighed as he turned and left the room. Jessie trailed behind him.

“That didn’t work very well,” said Jessie gloomily. “Maybe if we do our chores, they’ll want to take us.”

“Yeah! Let’s try it,” Justin agreed.

The next day, Justin raced around the house doing all his chores as fast as he could. That evening at dinnertime, Justin’s mom commented, “Justin did all his chores like a whirlwind today.”

“Really?” asked Dad. “Why did you do that, Justin?”

“Ah, that’s what I thought,” Dad replied. “It’s great that you did your chores, but remember, they’re supposed to be done anyway whether we take you someplace or not.”

The next day, Justin told Jessie what his dad said. “Yeah,” said Jessie, “my dad said the same thing. But we can try doing nice stuff, like cooking breakfast or something. That might make them want to take us.”

“I can’t cook, but I’ll figure something out,” said Justin.

That evening, while Justin’s dad was relaxing and reading the newspaper, Justin sneaked into the kitchen and piled a bunch of cookies onto a plate then poured some milk in a cup for his dad. He had a little trouble walking back into the living room; the milk sloshed a bit, and two of the cookies slipped off the plate. Crunch! Justin accidentally stepped on them, crumbling them all over the carpet. “Oh no!” Justin gasped.

“Justin, what’s all this?” asked Dad.

“Uh, I just wanted to do something nice for you,” Justin replied.

Dad took the plate and cup. “You know this won’t make me take you to the amusement park, right?”

Justin looked down at his shoes, embarrassed. “Oh,” he said.

“But I’ll still eat the cookies. Thanks!” said Dad, stuffing a whole cookie into his mouth.

At Jessie’s house the next morning, Jessie asked her mom, “Can I cook eggs and toast for Daddy?”

“Sure, I’ll help you.” Mom smiled as she turned on the stove and set the frying pan on top. She turned to make coffee as Jessie cracked some eggs into the pan.

“Oops.” Jessie tried to pick several eggshells out of the pan, but they sank into the yellow yokes before she could get them. She shrugged. “I guess Daddy won’t see them.”

Jessie set her dad’s breakfast in front of him and gave him a big, smoochy kiss on the cheek. “Oh! Is this for me?” Dad asked.

“Yep! I made your breakfast,” Jessie said proudly.

Dad scooted the black, smoky toast aside and saw a pile of gloppy eggs underneath. He smiled a little as he took a bite of egg—crunch, crunch.

Mom tried not to laugh as Dad crunched on his eggs. He bit into the burnt toast—craaaack! Then he hurriedly drank down all his juice. “The juice is very good,” he said.

Jessie’s mom smiled. “Jessie, I think you’ll need some more practice cooking. But it was nice to do this for Daddy.”

“Now will you take me to the Twist ’N’ Twirl?” Jessie asked.

“I don’t know,” Dad replied. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

A few days went by. Justin and Jessie kept doing their chores (because they had to), but they were running out of ideas for extra nice things to do. “I can’t think of what else to do,” moaned Jessie as she plunked down beside Justin on the sofa.

“Well, you don’t have to think about it anymore,” said a voice behind her.

The kids turned around to see all four of their parents looking at them with big smiles on their faces. “We are going to the Twist ’N’ Twirl,” Justin’s dad announced.

“I thought we couldn’t go! You just kept saying, ‘wait and see,’” said Jessie.

“That’s because we were waiting, too,” explained Jessie’s mom. “Both of your dads had to wait for their bosses to tell them if they could have the day off.”

“So, we didn’t need to do our chores?” asked Justin.

“Of course, you still needed to do what you were supposed to do. And the extra things were nice, too,” said Justin’s dad. “But it didn’t change the fact that we had to wait for our bosses’ decisions.”

“Yep. There are some things we can change, but some things we just have to wait for,” Jessie’s dad added.

“Yippee!” shouted the kids. “We’re going to Twist ’N’ Twirl after all!”

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