Agnes prided herself on her perfectly manicured lawn. Not a weed in sight! So when she saw little Daisy, her neighbor’s daughter? Uh oh! stomping through it, mud splattering everywhere, Agnes nearly choked on her Earl Grey.
“Daisy, darling,” Agnes began, her voice a little too sweet, “what are you doing on my prize-winning petunias?”
Daisy, covered head-to-toe in mud, grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. “Building a dinosaur excavation site, Mrs. Higgins! I found a HUGE bone!” She held up a mud-caked… something. It was vaguely bone-shaped.
Agnes squinted. “That, dear, looks suspiciously like one of my garden gnomes.”
“Nope!” Daisy declared. “It’s definitely a femur! See? It’s… bumpy.” She wiggled it enthusiastically, showering Agnes with more mud.
“Bumpy because Gertrude’s head broke off when Bartholomew tripped over him!” Agnes cried, gesturing wildly at the headless gnome lying forlornly near the rose bushes.
Daisy considered this for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Oh! Then maybe Gertrude was the dinosaur! And Bartholomew was trying to protect the town!”
Agnes sighed. This was going nowhere. “Daisy, why don’t you go excavate in your own garden?”
Daisy’s face fell. “But… my dad planted tomatoes there.”
“And?” Agnes prompted.
Daisy looked at her, completely serious. “You can’t dig up dinner, Mrs. Higgins! That’s just bad manners. And it makes him cry. He really loves his tomatoes.”
Agnes chuckled. “Alright, alright. Tell you what. I’ll let you excavate here for another five minutes. But only if you promise to find me some gold!”
Daisy’s face lit up. She started digging with renewed enthusiasm, mud flying everywhere. After a minute, she stopped, triumphantly holding up something shiny. “Look, Mrs. Higgins! Gold!”
It was Agnes’s dentures. She’d been searching for them all morning.
