Once, I collected snails in my Aunt Kathy's garden.
She had a snail problem, but I liked snails,
I had a long cardboard box I kept them in.
There were so many, so I had to cart them up that way,
then I showed everyone my snails,
and they crawled up my arms, it was cool.
Then my aunt had me get rid of them,
so I took my snails into the alley behind her house,
and I poured salt on their feet, one at a time,
like boiled eggs, I did this fifty or sixty times,
and I left them bubbling in a pile of shells.
I still like snails, but my aunt fed me ravioli that day,
and those weren't as good as I'd remembered.

When Lizzie was little, she and some other kids on the beach
tried catching tiny fish in a bucket,
they all wanted to catch the fish, but she had the bucket,
she told them to put the sardines in it.
They collected them together, dozens of those fish,
then, further down the beach, she took her bucket
and set it down alone, and next to it,
she piled as big as she could a high, muddy castle.
She then took her bucket and dumped it,
the sardines fell on the castle while she stood, screaming Volcano!
She felt accomplished, but then she felt sick,
so she buried the fish and the castle,
she didn't want the grown-ups to see what she'd done,
and later, she heard one of the boys showing an old man his fish,
and the man said he'd better throw them back after,
because they're just babies,
they're going to grow up to be big fish, someday.