"Hey!" I exclaimed, blurting out my story idea.
"Let's write a story about a giant talking vacuum cleaner.
It can suck up the whole world!"
"Huh?" Molly blinked at me.
Then she shook her head.
"No, Iggy. The vaccum cleaner sounds like a monster.
I'm not writing a story about a monster!"
At lunch we talked some more about my idea.
Molly kept pointing out problems with it.
"The giant vacuum cleaner can't suck up the whole world, Iggy," she said.
"If it did, there wouldn't be a story because nothing would be left."
I knew Molly was right.
I decided that thinking of a plot for a story was even harder than inventing!
Other kids were talking about plot ideas too.
"Mrs. Romano said we should bounce our ideas off each other," said Colby.
"Boing!" said Jake, bouncing a grape off Colby's head.
"She said to bounce story ideas, not food!" said Kristin.
After school we stopped at Molly's apartment to ask if Molly could come to my apartment.
Caswell and Lucy were in the living room, watching Monster Madness again.
Lucy just stared at the TV screen.
"Iggy, your mom wants to see you and Molly right away.
She has a surprise."
Molly and I raced over to my apartment.
"What's the surprise, Mom?" I blurted out.
"I can't tell you yet," said Mom.
"But we're going somewhere fun.
Caswell can come too, if he wants."
Caswell decided he could miss the rest of Monster Madness for today.
Soon all of us, including Lucy, were walking down the busy street.
We passed Bubbles Bath Shop and waved to Mr. Chen.
We passed our school and waved to Mrs. Romano, who was just leaving for the day.
At last my mom stopped in front of a shop I had never seen before.
A sign read: "Garden Gate Children's Bookstore.
Author Story Hour Today!"
"It's a new bookstore," my mom explained.
"And we're just in time for story hour."
We entered through a door that looked like a garden gate.
Kids were sitting on the floor, and a lady was sitting on a chair in front of them.
"I'm Matilda Mackey," she said.
"I'm going to read my new book, The Wicky Wacky School."
Matilda Mackey's book was about a school where weird things happen.
One day the teachers turn into monkeys, and the main character has to figure out how to change them back.
She solves the problem when she realizes the teachers have been eating too many bananas.
I thought the story was really funny and had a lot of suspense.
Suddenly I got an idea.
I leaned over to Molly.
"Maybe Mrs. Mackey can help us think of a plot for our story!"
Molly nodded and gave me the thumbs-up sign.
After Mrs. Mackey finished reading, Molly and I rushed up to her.
"My name is Iggy," I said. "I'm an inventor."
"And I'm Molly," said Molly.
"I'm just a regular person."
"We're writing a story in school," I explained.
"And we can't think of a good plot," added Molly.
Mrs. Mackey's eyes lit up.
"Here's what you have to do," she said.
"Ask yourself what the character wants more than anything in the world.
And then give her a huge problem to solve."
Somehow Mrs. Mackey's words sounded familiar.
Then I realized why.
It was just like my life!
I always wanted to invent things to help people.
And I always had a huge problem:
my inventions turned out to be flops!