“I’m going to get you!” yelled Tom as he chased his best friend Mark.

“Oh no you won’t!” Mark yelled back. He wasn’t looking where he was going because he was running to fast.

“Watch out for the mud!” exclaimed Tom’s sister Maryanne.  But it was too late. Mark ran right into the slippery, slimy mud and fell flat on his back! Mark’s twin sister Annie came running out of the house right then and she started howling with laughter. Then Maryanne and Tom joined in. Mark didn’t think it was very funny and responded but throwing a mud-ball and yelling “Its not funny!

Mark ran down to the mud puddle to make a mud-ball to throw at Tom but in his hurry he fell down too! Pretty soon the girls ran down too and they started a mud fight. Pretty soon they got tired of throwing mud-balls and they decided that they wanted to go inside. All four of them walked toward the house trying to decide who looked worse. Maryanne opened the house door and started to walk in but her mom stopped her.

“Wait a minute! You aren’t going to come in my house looking like that! Go try the neighbor’s house. How did you get so muddy?”

“Mark was running away from…”

“Tom was chasing me and…”
            “Mark threw a mud-ball at us and I went to get some…”

“I came out of the house and Mark had just…” All the kids started talking at once.

“One at a time, one at a time!. All I can understand is Mark this, and Mark that and Tom was chasing someone and there were mud-balls involved with it,” laughed Tom’s mother. “You go wash off with the hose and come back when you look a little cleaner,” and she shooed them off the porch.

The kids raced each other to the hose and had lots of fun spraying each other. Then they went and sat in the sun to dry off a little before they went inside.

This time when they went to the door they were allowed to come inside and Tom’s mother had some cookies fresh out of the oven for them to eat.