Page 10 - Wiggly the Worm

For as long as he could remember, Rattles and his friends had lived in peace.
The garden was quiet and sunny, and the four friends played together every
day. They had even built their own miniature Garden Town, complete with a
restaurant that Rattles ran himself!

One afternoon, Rattles decided to lock up the restaurant and take a short
break before the dinner crowd showed up. He ventured to the edge of the
garden and slithered around the flowerbed. He caught a whiff of the fragrant
roses growing in the far corner, so he followed their scent. Rattles hardly ever
ventured this close to the backyard, but he couldn’t help it.

Maybe I could pick a few rosebuds to put on the tables in my restaurant, Rat-
tles thought. He was just puzzling over how to do that, when he heard a small
child scream, “Mom, Dad, there’s a rattlesnake in the garden!”

The little boy’s parents, who owned the house and the backyard, came run-
ning. Rattles dove for cover, but not soon enough.

“I can’t believe it!” cried the boy’s father. “We’ve lived here five years, and I
never knew there was a rattlesnake in the garden!”
“He must’ve been hiding himself,” said the boy’s mother. “But we can’t have
him here—especially with kids playing in the yard. We’ll need to get rid of
him!”

Oh, no! Rattles thought. This is horrible. The humans had never seen him
before, but he hadn’t realized how much of a problem it would be if they did.
Terrified, he rushed off to find his friends.

Wiggly, Snarky, and Munchy were just as worried as Rattles when he told
them what had happened.

“What did she mean, get rid of you?” Wiggly asked in a trembling voice.

Rattles was shaking inside. “I don’t even want to think about it. You’ve gotta
help me hide, you guys!”

Several times over the next few days, one or the other of the little boy’s par-
ents came into the garden to hunt for Rattles. But, scared as he was, he man-
aged to stay well-hidden.

“I guess we’ll need to call someone to get rid of him,” the boy’s mother said
finally.

This could be very bad, Rattles thought to himself. He and his friends were just
figuring out what to do when they heard a loud splash!

“Oh, no!” shouted the boy’s mother. “Lucy’s in the backyard!” She and her sis-
ter, who was Lucy’s mother, rushed out onto the back porch.

But Rattles, who had also heard the splash, was even faster. Risking his very

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