New book in progress. Charlotte Morgan and the Lemonade Stand--Thee Number Investigators 2--Chapter 1-My Mom Calls Me Charlotte Morgan When I am in Trouble

This is my next book. Charlotte Morgan and the Lemonade Stand.

  It is still in the work-in-progress phase. The cover I am posting here is a temp cover derived from the first book.  But I like sharing my work her first.

The book is leveled for third grade readers and up.

I am using the #steemiteducation tag because the book is about using math and earning money.

  Chapter 1 Mom Calls Me Charlotte Morgan When I am in Trouble 

My name is Charlotte Morgan, and I am good with numbers. My friends like numbers as well. Sally, Marcus, Aaron, and I all make up The Number Investigators. We hold our meetings in my awesome tree house. We all competed in our school’s annual math bee. I was the runner-up for the whole school. A fifth grader named Sanjey won. He is going to go to a county-wide math bee. My dad teaches math at the high school. So, he is really good at numbers, too. I guess that’s where I get it from. Today is Saturday and it is 73 degrees Fahrenheit, or 23 degrees in Celsius, outside. 

“Charlotte Morgan! Charlie chewed up one of my shoes!” my mom shouted from her bedroom. 

Mom calls me Charlotte Morgan when I am in trouble. Charlie is my new Labrador puppy. He is about ten weeks old. And he likes to chew on things. I zoomed up the seventeen steps to the second floor. Charlie may be in as much trouble as I am. 

“Yes. Mom, what happened?” I asked. My mom showed me the shoe. Charlie was following her. Maybe he thought she was going to drop the shoe and let him finish eating it. “I’m sorry.” 

“That pair of shoes was seventy-five dollars.” Mom pointed out of her room, “Take him for a walk and work with him.”  

“Yes, ma’am,” I picked Charlie up and took him to the kitchen. I put his yellow leash on him. His tail wagged so hard it made a flapping noise has it hit my leg and the leg of the kitchen chair. I picked up a yellow tennis ball and took him outside. 

“Come on boy,” I said as I gently led him on the leash. I led him to the driveway and then to the street. “Let’s get some of that energy out of you!” I spoke in a high-pitched voice. Charlie jumped up and down when I spoke in that voice. 

It was Saturday, so, here were more kids out on bikes and playing in their front yards. I thought maybe I could find someone to play with me and Charlie. Down the street to the left I saw something I had never seen before in this neighborhood. It looked like a lemonade stand. I had only seen them on TV and in books. And it was in front of Gavin Eggelston’s house.  

Gavin used to be a bully to me and the other Number Investigators. But once our teacher Mrs. King assigned me to help him in math class he seemed to be nicer to me. I mean, we’re not best friends hanging out all the time, but he’s been nicer to me and my friends. 

I walked Charlie to Gavin’s lemonade stand. “Hi, Charlotte,” Gavin waved from behind his stand. His stand was a table, covered in a white table cloth. Two pitchers of lemonade with two stacks of red plastic cups. One stack was large cups and the other stack was small cups.

 “Hi, Gavin. A lemonade stand?”

 “Yup. I need to earn some extra money. And I figured with it getting warmer and with people riding back and forth on the street with their bikes and with more joggers running, I would be able to make some money.”

 I read his sign: 50 cents for a lemonade. $1 for an extra-large. That must explain the different sized cups. “How much money have you made so far?” I asked. 

“Twelve bucks so far.”

 “That sounds pretty good. How long have you been out here?” 

“About thirty minutes. You want one?” 

“I don’t have any money. If you’ve made twelve dollars and you have been out here for thirty minutes you are on pace to make twenty-four dollars per hour.” He reached down underneath the table pulled out a small paper cup. He poured lemonade into the cup and handed it to me. “Try some. Twenty-four dollars per hour you say? Well, you are the one good with numbers.” I took the tiny paper cup of lemonade and drank it.

 “Actually, that’s really good.”

 “Thanks.” He motioned at his sign, “If you want more, it’s fifty cents for a regular cup, and one dollar for a large.” 

“Maybe I’ll be back later.” 

His lemonade gave me an idea.