“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice and sighing. “It is a long tail certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she kept on puzzling about it while the mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this— Now it is your turn to tell your long (and not so sad) tale. I’ll help you a bit. Select an item from the lists in the story below, then read your story out loud to a friend. There once was a . beamish boy little girl piglet wombat dormouse hedgehog named . Teddy Alice Walter Angela Jacqueline Jessee , whose best friend was a . gryphon mad hatter white rabbit kitten mock turtle space alien named Xenophanes. Xenophanes came from . Zanzibar down the rabbit hole through the looking glass Saturn Detroit the North Pole where all of the . flowers trees people doors houses streets were . polka-dotted green with mold smelly slimy beautiful huge , and everyone ate . pickles and milk frog legs and horseradish mock-turtle soup chocolate-chip cookies bubble and squeak comfits and treacle . When Xenophanes was all alone, he liked to . play dance sleep bathe run sing with his . rubber duckie broom chess set dog fiddle teddy bear . When he was with his friends, he liked to . watch funny movies tell long and sad tales have a tea party cook a pot of soup smoke cigars ride bikes . Xenophanes was terribly . happy weird ebullient handsome smart gregarious One . sunny dreary rainy c-c-c-cold windy sultry day, Xenophanes was very  . lonely sad down in the dumps weary itchy blue and thought he was . all alone going to cry falling asleep not loved imagining things sinking in quicksand , so he put all of his . eggs chess pieces playing cards marbles neat stuff treasure into a . clothes hamper wooden box picnic basket paper sack suitcase garbage can . He looked high and low for his friends. It turned out, however, that they were . sneaking up on him throwing him a birthday party leaving town robbing a bank in school still in bed . Imagine how . surprised scared shocked hysterical angry happy he was! Sometimes . things friends days places are not what they seem The end.