Sophie Makes Strudel

Sophie flung open the front door and stepped into the house.

"Mom?" she called, dropping her backpack and kicking off her shoes.

"I'm in the kitchen," answered her mother. "Please put your things away."

Sophie hung her backpack on the hook and put her shoes in the basket. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table, writing a shopping list. "How was school?" she asked.

"I want to make a strudel for Halloween," Sophie announced. "I'll make a list of what I need so you can get it at the store."

Sophie made a list with these ingredients: bricks, mortar, live shark, block of wood, agate stone, chemistry set. Sophie's mother added these ingredients to her shopping list: phyllo dough, butter, pecans, cheddar cheese, eggs, cottage cheese, chicken, olives, tomatoes.

That night, Sophie dreamed about building a pyramid in Egypt.

The next day, Sophie made strudel. First she was a bricklayer. She spread a thin layer of mortar evenly over each brick and stacked them neatly on top of each other.

Next she was a veterinarian dentist. She carefully extracted all the rotten teeth from the shark's mouth (her mother was a little nervous).

After that she was a sculpture, shaving away at a block of wood. She got carried away and ran out of wood, but her mother said not to worry.

She cracked open the agate stone while she was a geologist and found a yellow crystal formation inside. It was messier than she expected, so she cracked open the next one directly over a bowl.

Then she got out her chemistry set and mixed together the shark's teeth, the wood shavings, and the agate crystals. Sophie knew something was missing, but she couldn't think what. In the end, she decided to just add everything from the set and see what happened. When nothing exploded, Sophie was disappointed, but her mother was relieved.

Finally, she was a mail carrier, carefully wrapping up packages for delivery.

Sophie's mother baked the strudel for her while Sophie cleaned up her mess. When it was cool, they each tried a piece.

"Not bad," said Sophie's mother.

"I like the colors," Sophie admitted.

They served the rest of the strudel for dinner that night; Sophie's dad said he liked the shark's teeth, even though they were crunchier than usual.

That night, for some reason, Sophie had trouble deciding what costume to wear for Halloween.