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 Every single day Emma’s mum and dad
told her to clean her bedroom and every single day she ignored them. It
was a mess! She could hardly open the door because there were so many
toys, dirty clothes, and books lying on the carpet.
One morning, as Emma was lying on
her bed, her mum stuck her head in the door and said, "Emma! I can hardly
stick my head in. Look at this mess. You need to clean your room. We’re
taking Ryan to the zoo today. Now that we have a pram, we thought it would
be a good day to try it out. Clean your room! We’re leaving after lunch."
Her mum had to squeeze her head between the door and the wall to pull it
out.
Emma looked at the mess on her
floor. "It’s too messy. I don’t know where to start. I’ll just leave it
and clean it after we get home from the zoo," she said.
"Emma, it’s time for lunch," her mum
called.
Emma, being much smaller than her
mum, squeezed through the door quite easily and ran into the kitchen.
"What are we having today, Mum?" she asked.
"Bacon and tomato sandwiches and
some potato crisps. Can’t you smell the bacon?" her mum answered.
"It smells delicious. Can we take
some old bread to the zoo to feed the animals? I know that Ryan will enjoy
that, or at least watching us feed them," Emma said. Ryan was sitting in
his high chair looking around the room.
"We’ll stop by the bakery and pick
some day old bread up, if you’d like. Now hurry and eat and then we’ll go.
It’s going to be a lovely day. Gran is coming with us. She’ll be here any
minute," Mum said. "Go and get your shoes on and then we’ll go."
Emma ate her lunch and then ran into
her room to get her shoes. The problem is that she could only find one of
them. She looked under her bed, but all she could see were dirty towels
and pants. She moved some of her toys out of the way, but still couldn’t
find her shoe. After she’d checked everywhere she could in her room, she
squeezed through her door and ran into the kitchen. "Hi Gran," she called
to her grandma, who had just arrived. "Mum, I can’t find my shoe. Will you
wait while I look for it?" she asked.
Her mum thought about how many times
she’d told Emma to clean her room up. She whispered something to Gran and
then said to Emma, "You will have to stay home. Your dad and I will take
Ryan to the zoo. Gran will stay here with you."
"No, Mum. Please wait for me. I want
to go to the zoo," Emma cried.
"I’m sorry, Emma. I’ve told you a
dozen times to clean your room and you ignored me. You can’t find your
shoe now. It’s your own fault for not doing as I asked. You will stay home
with Gran."
Emma ran into her bedroom, sobbing.
Her mum came to the door. "Emma, clean that room of yours before I get
home. I’ve told Gran not to give you any sweets until you are finished."
She went out to the car with Ryan and Emma’s dad and then they drove away.
Emma sat on her bed and cried for a
long time. Gran stayed in the living room and did some knitting. "I guess
I’d better clean my room," she pouted, wiping the tears from her eyes. It
took Emma two hours to clean her room. She put all the dirty washing into
the clothes hamper. She put all her toys back in the right boxes and then
stacked them nicely in her closet. She hung up all of her clean clothes
and put the rubbish into a plastic garbage bag. She made her bed and put
the doll clothes in the doll box. "I did it!" she said proudly. She even
found her missing shoe. She ran into the living room. "Gran! Come and see.
I cleaned my room and found my shoe."
Gran put her knitting down and
looked in Emma’s room. "The door actually opens. This looks very nice,
Emma. If you kept it this way, you’d not lose your shoes. Come and have a
sweetie now," she said.
Emma and Gran were sitting at the
table eating a bowl of trifle with cream when her mum, dad, and Ryan came
home. "Well, look at Emma’s room," her dad said. "It’s clean."
"Your room can look that good every
day, Emma. All you need to do is put your wash in the clothes hamper every
night and pick your toys up when you are finished playing with them," her
mum said.
"How was the zoo? Did Ryan have fun?
I wish I could have gone," Emma frowned.
"I see you found your shoe! We’ll go
again and if you keep your room clean, we may go and do some other fun
things too," her mum added.
From then on, Emma tried her hardest
to keep her room clean. Every night, after she changed into her pajamas,
she put her clothes in the hamper. She put her shoes in the closet and
always cleaned up her toys. A week later, her mum took her to the zoo and
they had so much fun. |
