Ben and Anna

Anna, who was listening, added, "And if we put everything together, we get… mud! So we should keep our own colors sometimes."

They both laughed, knowing that every day could be an adventure if they stayed curious and kept experimenting.

Questions to Chapter 19:

What three primary colors did Mrs. Brown use?

What new colors did the children create by mixing?

What happened when they mixed all the colors together?

What was the second experiment with milk and soap?

What did Ben write in his journal about people?

What did Anna learn about "keeping our own colors"?

Chapter 20: The Lost Letter

One rainy Sunday, Ben was looking for a book in the living room when he found a small, hidden drawer in the old writing desk. Inside, there was a yellow envelope with faded handwriting. It was addressed to their house, but the name was different: "To the New Family at 25 Garden Lane."

"Mum, Dad, look what I found!" Ben called out.

Everyone gathered around. Anna carefully opened the envelope. Inside was a letter written many years ago.

"Dear New Family,

If you are reading this, then you are living in our beloved home. We planted an apple tree in the backyard for our daughter Mary's fifth birthday. We hid a time capsule under its roots. Please find it and remember us.

With love,

The Henderson Family, 1975"

The children's eyes widened. "A time capsule! We have to find it!" Anna exclaimed.

The rain had stopped, leaving the garden fresh and sparkling. They rushed to the backyard. There was only one apple tree, now tall and strong.

"But how do we find something buried under the roots?" Ben wondered. "We can't dig up the whole tree!"

Dad thought for a moment. "When we planted our cherry tree last year, the gardener said trees grow wider, not deeper. The capsule should be near the trunk, but not too close."

They got small gardening tools and started carefully digging around the tree. After several minutes, Anna's shovel hit something metal.

"I found it!" she shouted.

They pulled out a rusty metal box. It was heavy. With some effort, they opened it.

Inside, they discovered treasures from the past:

A black-and-white photo of a smiling family in front of their house

Mary Henderson's favorite red hair ribbon

A 1975 newspaper

A baseball card of a famous player

A list of "popular things" from 1975

And a letter from Mary

Anna read Mary's letter aloud: "Hello! I'm Mary. I'm 5 years old. My favorite color is red. I like to play hopscotch. My dad says this tree will give sweet apples. I hope you like them. Please write back to me someday."

The family sat under the apple tree, looking through the treasures. The house had been their home for only five years, but now they felt connected to all the families who had lived here before them.

"Let's make our own time capsule!" Ben suggested.

They spent the afternoon gathering items:

A photo of their family with Max

Ben's favorite football sticker

Anna's drawing of their school

Today's newspaper

A list of popular games and apps

And letters from both children

They put everything in a waterproof box and buried it next to the Henderson's capsule.

"Now we're part of the tree's story too," Anna said, patting the tree trunk gently.

That evening, Mum made apple pie from their tree's apples. As they ate, they wondered about the future family who would find both capsules someday.

Ben smiled. "Maybe in another 50 years, some children will be as excited as we were today."

The lost letter had helped them discover not just buried treasure, but their place in the long story of their home.

Questions to Chapter 20:

Where did Ben find the mysterious letter?

What did the Henderson family hide under the apple tree?

How did the children know where to dig?

What was inside Mary Henderson's time capsule?

What did Ben's family put in their time capsule?

How did finding the letter make the family feel about their home?

Chapter 21: The Best Birthday Present

Anna's birthday was coming soon. She would be six years old. She wanted a special present – a new bicycle with pink wheels. She told everyone about it.

"Are you going to get me a bicycle?" she asked Mum every day. "Maybe," Mum always answered with a smile.

Two days before her birthday, Anna saw a big box in Mum's car. It was long and narrow. It looked exactly like a bicycle box!

"I saw my present!" Anna told Ben happily. "It's a bicycle!" "Don't be so sure," Ben said. He was eight, and he knew that presents could be surprising.

On birthday morning, Anna woke up early. She ran to the living room. There were many presents, but no bicycle. The big box from the car was there, but it was a different shape now.

"Open my presents!" Anna said excitedly.

She opened the small presents first. A book from Grandma. A doll from her friend Sophie. Art supplies from Ben. But she was still thinking about the bicycle.

Finally, she came to the big box. "This is it! My bicycle!" she said.

She tore off the wrapping paper. It wasn't a bicycle. It was… a telescope!

Anna's smile disappeared. "Where is my bicycle?" she asked, trying not to cry.

Mum sat next to her. "I know you wanted a bicycle, Anna. But look at this telescope! Your Dad and I chose it specially for you. You love looking at the stars, remember?"

Anna looked at the telescope. It was black and silver, with many interesting parts. It did look cool.

"Let's try it tonight," Dad said. "We can look at the moon and stars."

That evening, they set up the telescope in the garden. Dad showed Anna how to use it. When she looked through the eyepiece, she gasped.

The moon was so big and clear! She could see its mountains and valleys. It wasn't just a white circle anymore – it was a world!

"Wow!" Anna said. "It's beautiful!"

Then they looked at stars. Some were white, some were blue, some were red. Dad told her stories about the constellations.

"This is better than a bicycle!" Anna said happily. "I can explore the universe!"

Ben looked through the telescope too. "This is so cool! Can we look at planets?"

"Of course!" Dad said. "Next week, we can see Jupiter and its moons."

That night, Anna understood something important. Sometimes you think you want one thing, but life gives you something better. The telescope wasn't just a present – it was a new way to see the world.

She wrote in her diary: "Today I got the best birthday present. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was what I needed. Now I have the whole universe to explore!"

Before going to sleep, she looked out her window at the stars. They seemed brighter now, like friends waving at her through the telescope.

Questions to Chapter 21:

What present did Anna want for her birthday?

What did she see in Mum's car?

What was in the big box actually?

How did Anna feel when she opened the present? Why?

What did she see through the telescope?

What did Anna learn about presents?

Chapter 22: The Garden Competition

Mr. Davis, their neighbor, had the most beautiful garden on the street. His roses were perfect, his lawn was like a green carpet, and he won the "Best Garden" competition every year.

"Our garden is nice too," Ben said one morning, looking at their colorful but messy garden. "But Mr. Davis's garden is… perfect."

"Maybe we can make our garden better," Anna suggested. "Let's enter the competition!"

Mum liked the idea. "Why not? But remember, gardens are for enjoying, not just for winning."

They worked hard every day after school. Ben pulled out weeds. Anna planted new flowers. Mum trimmed the bushes. Dad fixed the old fence. Even Max "helped" by digging small holes – though his help wasn't very useful.

They planted sunflowers along the fence. They added a small pond with water plants. They made a bird bath from an old bowl. The garden was becoming beautiful and lively.

Meanwhile, Mr. Davis worked in his garden too. His plants were straight in perfect lines. Every flower looked the same size. There were no weeds anywhere.

"The competition is next week," Ben said. "Mr. Davis's garden still looks better."

But then something interesting happened. Birds started visiting their new bird bath. Bees buzzed around their flowers. A friendly frog moved into their small pond. Their garden was full of life!

On the day of the competition, the judge walked through all the gardens on their street. He spent a long time in Mr. Davis's perfect garden. Then he came to their garden.

He smiled when he saw the bees on the flowers. He watched the birds splashing in the bird bath. He even took a picture of the frog in the pond.

That evening, everyone gathered for the results. The judge stood up to speak.

"This was difficult," he said. "Mr. Davis's garden is perfectly maintained. But the first prize goes to the garden at number 25 – for being not just beautiful, but alive!"

They won! Ben and Anna jumped with happiness.

Mr. Davis came over to congratulate them. "Your garden is wonderful," he said. "It has… character. Maybe I'll add a bird bath too."

That night, they had a celebration picnic in their award-winning garden. As they ate, butterflies flew around them, and the frog sang in the pond.

"You were right, Mum," Anna said. "Gardens are for enjoying. And we're definitely enjoying this!"

Their garden wasn't perfect, but it was full of life and happiness – and that turned out to be even better than being perfect.

Questions to Chapter 22:

Why did Mr. Davis always win the garden competition?

What did Ben's family add to their garden?

How did Max "help" with the gardening?

What visitors came to their garden?

Why did the judge choose their garden as the winner?

What did Mr. Davis learn from them?

Chapter 23: The Day Everything Went Wrong

It started at breakfast. Ben spilled milk on his school uniform. Then Anna couldn't find her homework. Dad burned the toast. Mum couldn't find her car keys.

"It's going to be one of those days," Mum said with a sigh.

At school, things got worse. Ben forgot his sports shoes for PE class. Anna's best friend Sophie was absent. Then it started raining, so they couldn't go outside for playtime.

After school, Mum picked them up. "Bad news," she said. "The car has a flat tire. We have to walk home."

The walk home in the rain felt long and miserable. When they finally got home, they discovered that Max had knocked over a plant, and soil was everywhere.

"Everything is going wrong today!" Ben said, almost crying.

But then Dad came home early from work. He saw their sad faces and had an idea.

"You know what?" he said. "When everything goes wrong, sometimes you need to make it go wrong on purpose!"

He went to the kitchen and came back with a chocolate cake. "Let's have cake for dinner!"

Mum laughed. "Why not? It's that kind of day."

They ate cake first. Then they put on their pajamas even though it was only 5 o'clock. They built a big blanket fort in the living room and watched funny movies. They made popcorn and put extra butter on it.

Max jumped into the fort and purred loudly. The rain outside made the fort feel extra cozy.

"You know," Anna said, eating popcorn, "this might be the best day ever."

Ben thought about it. "It started bad, but it's ending great!"

Dad smiled. "That's the secret. When things go wrong, you can choose to be sad, or you can choose to make a fun new plan."

That night, as they went to bed (in their pajamas they'd been wearing for hours), Ben thought about the day. Maybe bad days weren't really bad – they were just days that needed a little extra creativity to make them good.

The spilled milk, the flat tire, the rain – they all led to the blanket fort and chocolate cake dinner. And he decided that was a pretty good trade.

Questions to Chapter 23:

What went wrong in the morning?

What problems happened at school?

What was wrong with the car?

How did Dad change the bad day?

What special things did the family do?

What did the children learn about bad days?

Chapter 24: The Mystery of the Missing Socks

It was laundry day, and Mum was frustrated. "Again!" she said. "I'm missing three socks! Where do they all go?"

Ben and Anna looked at the basket of single socks. There were blue ones, striped ones, even Anna's favorite unicorn sock – but all without partners.

"This is a mystery," Ben said seriously. "We need to find the sock thief."

They decided to investigate. First, they checked Max's bed. Sometimes he took things to sleep on. But they found only a teddy bear and a woolen scarf – no socks.

Next, they looked under the washing machine. Anna found a pencil and a hair clip, but no socks.

"Maybe there's a secret sock door to another world," Anna suggested.

"Let's be scientific," Ben said. He got paper and made a list of all the missing socks and when they disappeared.

They noticed something interesting. Socks usually went missing on sunny days when the laundry was hung outside.

The next sunny day, they hid near the laundry and watched carefully. The socks danced in the wind. Then they saw it – a flash of black and white.

"Max!" Anna whispered.

But Max was just walking by. He wasn't interested in the socks.

They kept watching. Suddenly, a big crow landed on the fence. It looked at the blowing socks with its head tilted. Then – quick as lightning – it flew to the laundry line, grabbed a red sock in its beak, and flew away!

"The crow is the sock thief!" Ben exclaimed.

They ran to tell Mum. "The crows are taking our socks!"

Mum laughed. "I've heard that birds sometimes take colorful things for their nests."

They followed the crow's direction and found its nest in the big tree at the end of their garden. And there, woven into the nest, were all their missing socks! The red one, the blue striped one, and even Anna's unicorn sock.

"We can't take them back now," Mum said. "The birds need them for their babies. The socks are keeping the nest warm."

Anna looked at her unicorn sock in the nest. "Okay," she said. "The baby birds need it more than I do."

That afternoon, they did something funny – they hung old colorful rags on the laundry line specially for the crows. And you know what? The crows took the rags and left their socks alone!

Now, whenever they see crows flying with colorful fabric, Ben and Anna smile. They know some baby birds are sleeping warm and cozy in their old socks.

Questions to Chapter 24:

What was missing in the laundry?

Where did the children look for the socks?

What clue helped them solve the mystery?

Who was the real sock thief?

Why didn't they take the socks back from the nest?

How did they solve the sock problem?

Chapter 25: The Super Secret Code

Ben found a strange message on his desk at school. It said: "Gur yvtug vf ba ng frira!"

"What does this mean?" he asked Sam. Sam looked at it. "It looks like a secret code!"

They tried to decode it all day. They tried numbers for letters. They tried backward alphabets. Nothing worked.

That evening, Ben showed the message to Anna. "It's a secret code," he explained.

Anna looked at it carefully. "The words look almost right… but wrong."

Dad saw them studying the paper. "Ah, a Caesar cipher!" he said. "What's that?" Ben asked.

"It's a simple code where you shift each letter," Dad explained. "For example, if you shift one position, A becomes B, B becomes C, and so on."

They tried shifting different amounts. When they shifted 13 positions, the message suddenly made sense!

"Gur yvtug vf ba ng frira!" became "The light is on at seven!"

"But what does it mean?" Anna wondered.

At exactly seven o'clock, Ben's friend Tom called. "Did you get my message? The clubhouse light is on – come to my treehouse!"

Ben laughed. "We just decoded it now!"

The next day at school, Ben, Tom, and Sam made their own secret code. They decided to shift 3 positions this time. A became D, B became E, C became F…

They started writing notes to each other in code. Other children became curious. Soon, half the class was learning the secret code!

Mrs. Brown noticed all the strange notes. "What's going on?" she asked.

Ben explained about the codes. Mrs. Brown smiled. "That's a wonderful way to learn! Let's have a code-breaking competition!"

She divided the class into teams and gave them coded messages to solve. Ben's team won because they had the most practice.

That weekend, Ben and Anna made a secret code for their family. They left coded messages for Mum and Dad:

"Pxwweh hqjv wkh errnvkhoyh" ("Let's clean the bookshelf") "Uhphpehu wr ex\ plon" ("Remember to buy milk")

Mum and Dad had fun decoding the messages. Even Max got a message: "Iulgh ilvk iru pd[" ("Give fish to Max")

The secret code made ordinary things exciting. And without realizing it, Ben and Anna were practicing their spelling and reading in the most fun way possible!

Questions to Chapter 25:

What was the strange message Ben found?

What is a Caesar cipher?

How many positions did they shift to decode the first message?

What did the decoded message mean?

How did Mrs. Brown use the codes in class?

What messages did the children write for their family?

Chapter 26: The Memory Box

Grandma was coming to visit, and Ben and Anna were excited. But when she arrived, they noticed something different. Grandma kept forgetting things.

"Where did I put my glasses?" she asked five times in one hour. "What day is it today?" she wondered.

Mum explained that Grandma's memory wasn't as good as it used to be. "We need to be patient and help her," she said.

Ben felt sad. He missed the Grandma who remembered all his stories and could find anything she'd misplaced.

Then Anna had an idea. "Let's make a memory box for Grandma!"

They found a beautiful box and started filling it with things that might help Grandma remember:

Photos with everyone's names written on the back

A large-print calendar

A list of important phone numbers

Labels for different rooms in the house

A notebook to write things down

But the most special part was the "memory section." They put in:

The recipe for Grandma's famous cookies

A map of her old neighborhood

Dried flowers from her garden

A recording of Grandpa's favorite song

Stories about when Mum was a little girl

When they gave the box to Grandma, her eyes filled with happy tears. "This is the most wonderful present," she said.

The box really helped. When Grandma forgot something, she could look in her memory box. The photos helped her remember names. The recipes helped her cook. The stories helped her remember happy times.

One afternoon, Grandma was looking at the photos. "This is your mother on her first day of school," she told Ben and Anna. Then she told them the whole story – without forgetting any details!

The memory box didn't fix everything. Grandma still forgot things sometimes. But it gave her back some of her favorite memories.

Ben learned that even when memories fade, love doesn't. And sometimes, the best way to help someone remember is to help them feel loved and safe.

The memory box stayed on Grandma's bedside table. Sometimes, when she had trouble sleeping, she would look through it and remember that she was surrounded by people who loved her – even if she sometimes forgot their names.

Questions to Chapter 26:

What was different about Grandma?

What did the children create to help her?

What kind of things went into the memory box?

What was in the "memory section"?

How did the box help Grandma?

What did Ben learn about love and memories?

Chapter 27: The Great Indoor Camping Adventure

The weather forecast predicted a huge storm. Dark clouds gathered, and the wind began to howl.

"No camping trip this weekend," Dad said, looking at the storm outside. Ben and Anna had been planning to go camping in the backyard for weeks. Their faces fell.

"But we have our tent ready!" Ben said, pointing to the backpack filled with camping gear.

Mum smiled. "Who says we need to go outside to go camping?"

And so began the Great Indoor Camping Adventure. They set up the tent right in the middle of the living room. It was a real tent, and it just fit between the sofa and the television.

"First, we need a campfire," Anna declared. They built a "fire" using red and orange construction paper and a flashlight. Dad showed them how to make shadow animals on the tent walls. A rabbit, a dog, even an elephant!

For dinner, they made "campfire food" in the kitchen. Hot dogs became "sausages roasted over the fire." Potato chips were "foraged forest roots." And they made s'mores in the microwave! The marshmallows puffed up perfectly.

As they ate their indoor picnic, the storm raged outside. Thunder boomed, and rain lashed against the windows. But inside the tent, they were cozy and safe. They told spooky stories with the flashlight under their chins.

Max wasn't sure about the tent at first. He sniffed it carefully. Then he decided it was the best new bed ever and curled up in the middle of the sleeping bags.