Audrey wanted to do something nice for her mom.
She’d been making some dreadful messes lately.
One day, she’d found a can of silly string and sprayed it all over her bedroom, making sure to get most of it in her hair.
Another time, she’d pulled the flour canister down from the counter and scattered it all over the floor and made “snow angels”.
And the other day, she’d tried to make chocolate milk with cocoa powder and sugar.
Not only did she make a mess of the counter, she’d managed to spill a whole gallon of milk, half the cocoa powder and most of the sugar in the canister all over the kitchen floor.
The kitchen had been a milky, sticky, chocolatey disaster.
She had a pretty patient mom, but by the third mess, she had had enough.
“Audrey, could you please try to be more careful?” she had asked.
So after breakfast, when her mom was getting ready for the day, Audrey decided to do the dishes. Thinking it would be a nice surprise for her mom.
She went to the bathroom to get her special bottle of soap, thinking that her friends, the Bubblebath Kids, would enjoy helping her.
When Audrey had poured quite a bit of soap into the warm water and all over the dirty dishes, the Bubblebath Kids bounced to the surface giggling in delight.
“There are so many of you!” Audrey exclaimed, never having seen such a crowd of kids at once.
They laughed and said, “Well, usually your mom only squirts a little bit in the tub. You’ve poured in half the bottle!”
Audrey laughed as she watched more and more Bubblebath Kids pop to the surface of the water.
Her giggles soon stopped as the bubbles grew and spread across the counter and onto the floor.
“Audrey!” squeaked one of the kids. “Turn the water off!”
She snapped out of the daze she was in and quickly turned the water off, but the bubbles just wouldn’t stop spreading.
“Oh no!” she cried. “Now I’ve made a bigger mess. And I was only trying to do something nice for Mom!”
“Don’t worry Audrey, we’ll help! We always do!” they all sang at once.
Then the kids began to pop out of their bubbles and clean up the wreckage.
When the dishes were finished and the kitchen was sparkling, the Bubblebath Kids turned to look at Audrey. They smiled and said, “See you upstairs soon!”
Audrey looked down at her pajamas. Syrup and bits of pancake covered her pajamas and face. Her hands, having just been soaked in soapy water, were the only clean part of her.
As Audrey’s mom walked back into the kitchen, the last of the kids slid into the bottle of bubblebath.
“Audrey! What a lovely surprise! Thank you very much!” her mom joyfully exclaimed.
Smiling, Audrey picked up the bottle of soap
“Mom, can I take a bath now?”
a pinch of homestead 