| Kate and Dexter were walking on the gravel path that ran beside the train staion. They were ten years old and lived in Cuddleberry Cove. Dexter was admiring the sound of the chimes. He turned to Kate, “I think those chimes make the nicest sound in the whole world.” Then he boasted, “I bet I could build a set as nice as those if I just had some pipe.” Kate turned to Dexter and scratched her head, “I don’t know... think it’s harder than it looks.” Dexter stood still and grabbed his head, “I completely forgot about the craft fair tomorrow! I need to make something to enter in the contest.” “Don’t worry about it, Dexter. I’ll think of something.” Wanting to surprise her good friend, Kate returned to the train station by herself and asked Orville for a set of instructions. The old conductor did better: he also found some lengths of pipe as well. When Kate delivered it all to Dexter’s house, he was thrilled. But just as he’s about to launch into his project, Malvin came by. Kate didn’t like Malvin very much because he acted bossy sometimes. Kate said “goodbye” to Dexter and walked home. Malvin looked at the sheet of instructions sitting on the lengths of shiny pipe, “My dad builds things all the time and the first thing he does is throw away the instructions. He says they’re for sissies!” Taking Malvin’s bad advice, Dexter crumpled up the instructions and tossed them into the trash. “Besides,” reasoned Dexter, “I don’t have time to read all of those silly instructions anyway because the fair is tomorrow!” Malvin went home to work on his own project to enter in the contest. With his wild imagination, Dexter daydreams that his chimes will sound so beautiful that people from all over the world will come to Cuddleberry Cove just to buy a set from him. Before long, Dexter imagines that Orville needs another train-run just to hold all of the customers. Kate comes back to his house and brings him back to reality. Dexter shares his great plan with her but she tells him he’s headed for trouble. As he builds his chimes, Dexter makes the pipes the lengths that look right to him, but as soon as he tries them out, they make a horrible racket. Dexter’s solution was to shorten them one at a time with his hacksaw, hoping to nudge them into perfection. As he tests his chimes, everyone that walked past his house had to cover their ears. By the time he was finished, he had the shortest set of chimes ever made — they were terrible. Fortunately, Orville gave Dexter enough pipe to make two sets of chimes. Kate came over later to see how Dexter was doing. She was glad to see that he was honest enough to admit his mistake. Dexter humbles himself and meekly asks Kate to help him out. So with Kate’s help (first to locate the crumpled instructions from the trash can), they work together into the night and create a beautiful-sounding set of wind-chimes. When Kate and Dexter arrived at the Cuddleberry Cove Fairgrounds, Malvin was already there, boating to anyone within range how great his craft project was, and how it was a sure to win first place. Orville walked by just then and said to himself how Malvin’s boasting reminded him of those pesky seagulls. Since Malvin’s project was so poorly made (from slapping it together at the last minute), the judge wouldn’t even allow him to enter it in the contest. Dexter entered his chimes in the craft fair but came in third place, after two kids who spent several days after school working on their projects. Kate and Dexter walked over to congratulate the kids who won first place and second place, giving them well-deserved praise for their hard work. As the craft fair was winding down, a gentle breeze came off of the ocean, bringing Dexter’s wind chime to life. “Even if I never win a prize for my chimes, it’ll always bring me happy memories and beautiful music. |