A great illustrator would totally complete the text in this picture book!

     I was playing in the kitchen with my puppy, Bandit, when my mom called me. “Jamie, time to come in and help,” Mom called. She was in the bedroom folding the clean clothes. I told Bandit to go to bed and I ran in to help. Mom and I play a special game when we fold laundry together.

     “There’s your pile,” she said, pointing to the mound of clean white socks in the corner near the window.

      The sun shining in made them look so bright and new. I ran over to a bottom drawer in the dresser. I opened the drawer and went back to the pile of socks that were waiting for me. Mom and I played a game with all the white socks.

     First, I separated the socks into three piles, one for Mom, one for Dad, and one for me. Then I’d match all the socks up with their other half and make a ball out of each pair. When I was finished with each pile we’d play my favorite game, “Sock It to Me.” We would stand across the room and take turns throwing the balled up socks into the open drawer. Whoever got the most in the drawer won the game.

     I began working on Dad’s socks. I picked one up and looked for its twin in the pile. I made a ball by laying one sock on top of the other and smoothing them out. I carefully picked the socks up together and placed my hand inside the top of one of the ankles and stretched it open like a mouth. Then I shoved the toe parts halfway into the mouth part. I let the mouth part go and it swallowed the toes. The sock-ball was done.

     I began finding the twins to the other socks and folding them up. One ball. Two balls. Three balls. I couldn’t find the twin. Where was the other sock?

      “Mom,” I said. “There is a sock missing.”

     “Oh, no,” she smiled. “Here we go. We have to solve the mystery of the missing sock.”

      We looked under the bed. No sock. We looked behind the dresser. No sock.

      We looked in the dryer. No sock. We looked under the covers. No sock.

      We looked in my toy chest. No sock.

     “Wow,” Mom said. “We usually find the missing sock by now. This one is really hiding in a good spot.”

     We looked in the hallway and we looked in my brother’s room. No sock. 

     We looked in the closet and we looked under the rug. We could not find the sock.

     “Hmmm,” Mom said. “Maybe there’s a sock monster that came in the night and ate the sock.”

    “Oh, look!” I pointed to Bandit. “There is our sock monster!” When Bandit heard his name, he looked up and we could see the missing sock hanging out of his mouth. Mom and I started to laugh. Bandit wagged his tail. Our mystery was solved!

Kathy Levy     

What pictures do you see in your head? Visualize!