On a wonderful sunny Saturday morning, my sister Sarah and I decided to do something incredible: we were going to form a club! Now, let me tell you, this club needed to be secret and extraordinary.
Sarah said, “How about the Secret Unicorn Fairy Club?” She loves fairy tales and all things sparkly. But I thought, “Hmm…not so cool.”
“I know!” I shouted, “Let’s have a ninja club!” Ninjas are stealthy, fast, and super cool, right? But Sarah pouted. “Ninjas don’t have sparkles. They can’t even read fairy tales!”
Miss Sparkles, that’s what we called her at home, crossed her arms, and I knew this wasn’t just about the names. It was a BIG quarrel over what was more creative: ninjas or fairies.
After lots of arguing, Mom suggested we both had to agree. But agreeing wasn’t a piece of cake. We each came up with three rules, and guess how many rules we could agree on? Zero. That’s right—every time Sarah made a suggestion, I said no, and the same went for me.
So, Mom had to step in again. “Why don’t you listen to each other first and then see if you can combine your ideas?” she suggested over toast and butter. “Working together is very important; it makes things so much better.”
With all the toast eaten, we still couldn’t decide our club’s name. We finally thought of combining both names. Now our club was called “The Secret Unicorn Ninja Fairy Club”! All right, it was a bit silly, but it got us working together instead of against each other.
Next, we needed some entrance requirements. “In order to join,” I said, “one must have a black belt.”
“Tommy!” Sarah gasped, “What if they aren’t ninjas?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The black belt is to identify real members.”
Sarah thought a second and then said, “They must be a unicorn fairy.”
“What if they don’t have wings?” I asked back.
“They must still have a sparkly unicorn horn,” Sarah said.
“But even a unicorn horn requires an operation!” I opposed.
“What if the mother fairy isn’t around?” Sarah retaliated.
We were stuck there again. Mom suggested we both choose one entrance requirement. In order to do this, we had to listen to each other again. She really liked to say that.
Then Tommy and Sarah, two happy children, joined the Secret Unicorn Fairy Ninja Club, or in other words, “The Sibling Secret Club.” Why Sibling Secret? Because it was now truly a family requirement club, and this was more exclusive than any other kids’ club outside!
Mom took care of the entrance requirements herself. She made a beautiful silver black belt for me from one of her ribbons and looked into her box for craft stuff to make a sparkling unicorn horn that could be worn on Sarah’s head at our wish.
And together we did creative homework: learn and apply the abacus to our universe, read books, and listen to Mozart. Meetings were held three times a week.
Then I got worried. We had to sprinkle fairy dust every month on our black belts. But what to do when the dust got all blown away or absorbed in the paper?
“I think Mom,” I suggested.
“But that would ruin our secret club,” Sarah cried.
After lots of arguing, in which Mom had no part, Sarah and I came down happily from our discussions, and we explained to Mom, of course, why we decided to do without fairy dust in our club.
So, if you say that working together makes things easier, you’re right: Tommy and Sarah will prove you right at least.
By the way, maybe we should tell Dad. But wouldn’t dinosaurs be more interesting? Anyway, Mom said we shouldn’t mention working together and also that daddies might believe in dinosaurs. Wouldn’t this give them a good reason when asked why children shouldn’t go to bed on time?