“Why did Eli’s Place send flowers?” he asked in surprise. Mrs. Morris shrugged. “It’s a long story, and I couldn’t quite understand it

Moishe and Miriam Morris walked down the road slowly and carefully. Moishe was carrying a beautiful bunch of flowers for his mother for Shavuos. The Rabinowitzes up the road had many flowers growing in their garden, and as they were going away for Shavuos, they’d given the Morris children permission to pick as many as they wanted. Miriam had helped Moishe put together a pretty bouquet.

“Look, dere’s a cat,” observed Miriam, pointing to the ginger cat who often prowled around Sunny Lane.

“Uh huh,” responded Moishe, who was busy trying to hold the flowers upright.

“An’ dere’s a doggy,” continued Miriam.  She stopped short. “A funny one.”

“Mm hmm,” said Moishe, wanting to be home already.

Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound. Something jumped up in front of Moishe, snapped up the bunch of flowers in its mouth, crunched them up, and swallowed them. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Moishe stood there, frozen in shock. The whole bunch of flowers gone, in a second! What on earth had happened?

“It was da funny doggy,” declared Miriam.

“What d’you mean by ‘funny doggy’? What was funny about it?” demanded Moishe.

It was all too much for the little girl, who burst into tears. Moishe felt like crying too. After all that hard work, not a single flower left! And it was no use going back to the Rabinowitzes. They’d taken all the nice flowers already, and there was nothing left worth picking.