Work Text:
"Where are you going, Alvin?" Lulu asked one Saturday afternoon.
"I'm going exploring in the woods."
"By yourself?"
"By myself."
Lulu thought quickly. She couldn't let a little kid like Alvin go off by himself, even if he
was a little pest sometimes.
"Did I ever tell you about the time when" she began.
"Not another Poor Little Girl story," Alvin interrupted.
"This isn't a Poor Little Girl story," Lulu said, quickly switching gears. "This is about the time I went exploring."
"When?" Alvin asked in a skeptical tone of voice.
"Just last Saturday, when you were at your grandmother's. I asked my mother if I could go exploring, and she said I could, as long as I got home in time for supper."
"But it was snowing last Saturday. You went exploring in the snow?"
"Yes. I dressed warm, and I walked further in the woods than I'd ever walked before, and all of a sudden I came to a beebleberry bush crammed with ripe beebleberries."
"I didn't think beebleberries were real. I thought you made them up. Did you eat any of them?"
"Yes," Lulu said, "and they tasted like a combination of blueberries and blackberries and raspberries But I didn't eat
too many. There was no sense in being greedy. And then I walked some more, until I came to a cave."
"And there was a bear in the cave, right?" Alvin hinted.
"No. There were two men there, with their backs to me and six bags from a bank. One of the men asked how long they'd have
to lay low. Before the other man could answer, I picked up one of the bags, and hit the robbers over the head and knocked them out.
Then I went to the ranger's station, and the rangers called the police,and the police came and arrested the two men, and said that I was a
very resourceful little girl, and they gave me a hundred
dollars as a reward."
"You can buy a lot of candy and ice cream and sodas with a hundred dollars," Alvin remarked.
"I didn't buy anything with it. As I was walking out of the woods, I met the Poor Little Girl, and I gave the
money to her."
"I knew it," Alvin muttered. "I just knew it."
"Knew what?" Lulu asked.
"I knew you'd slip the Poor Little Girl into your story."
