Flowers and Funny Doggies

“Look, dere’s a cat,” observed Miriam, pointing to the ginger cat who often prowled around Sunny Lane.

“Uh huh,” responded Moishe, who was busy trying to hold the flowers upright.

“An’ dere’s a doggy,” continued Miriam.  She stopped short. “A funny one.”

“Mm hmm,” said Moishe, wanting to be home already.

Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound. Something jumped up in front of Moishe, snapped up the bunch of flowers in its mouth, crunched them up, and swallowed them. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Moishe stood there, frozen in shock. The whole bunch of flowers gone, in a second! What on earth had happened?

“It was da funny doggy,” declared Miriam.

“What d’you mean by ‘funny doggy’? What was funny about it?” demanded Moishe.

It was all too much for the little girl, who burst into tears. Moishe felt like crying too. After all that hard work, not a single flower left! And it was no use going back to the Rabinowitzes. They’d taken all the nice flowers already, and there was nothing left worth picking.