Otis Counts the Cannonballs — Every afternoon, Otis slipped on his round goggles and tried his private pool challenge: make ten tiny splashes without waking the sleepy lifeguard’s whistle. Plip. Read the full story →
Every afternoon, Otis slipped on his round goggles and tried his private pool challenge: make ten tiny splashes without waking the sleepy lifeguard’s whistle. Plip. Plip. His toes flicked like little fish tails, and the warm deck smelled like sunscreen and wet towels. He had reached splash number seven when a striped beach ball bonked the floating lane rope. Boing! The rope wiggled, the pool noodles rolled, and Otis’s quiet game turned into a bobbing noodle parade.
Because of that, Otis had to count fast before the noodles bumped the lounge chair steps. Because of THAT, he waved both arms and invented the silliest rule: only giggle-kicks could steer them. “Everybody, wiggle left!” he called. The noodles bumped together, the beach ball spun away, and even the whistle gave one tiny tweet. At last, Otis made splash number ten—huge, not tiny—and dared you to find where the runaway ball floated after plip, plip.
