Carrying my plot inventor, I walked to the front of the classroom.
"It looks like a box," said Jake.
"It is a box," I said.
"But because of what's in it, it's also something really cool—a plot inventor."
"Oh boy . . . ," someone muttered.
"It's another one of Iggy's incredible inventions."
"What's in the box?"
Gina wanted to know.
"Something that will make writing a story really easy," I explained.
"Lots of words and pictures.
All you have to do is shake the box."
Everyone watched while I gave the box a good shake.
"Then you turn it over and let a few pieces of paper fall onto the floor."
Three words and one picture fluttered through the holes in the lid.
I picked them up and showed them to the class.
"This is a picture of shoes," I said.
"And there's a word on each of these pieces of paper . . . 'sleep,' 'house,' and 'cake.'"
Everyone just stared at me.
"Now what do you do?" asked Colby.
"Well," I said, not entirely sure. "Now you—"
"Ooh!" cried Gina. "That gave me a great idea, Iggy!
My story is about a fox and a hunter.
The fox wants to stop the hunter from hunting in the woods.
Now I know what the fox can do—wait until the hunter is sleeping.
Then the fox can sneak into the hunter's house and steal his shoes.
Without shoes, the hunter can't go hunting.
At the end of the story, Fox and the other animals will celebrate with . . . cake!"
Everyone was amazed.
I could hardly believe it either.
My plot inventor worked!
All the kids lined up to take turns using the plot inventor.
Pretty soon everyone was writing, and no one was stuck anymore.
Mrs. Romano said the plot machine was one of the best inventions she'd ever seen.
"Iggy, may I let the other fourth-grade class use it for their stories?" she asked.
Proudly, I told Mrs. Romano that was just fine.
Earlier I said that no one was stuck on their stories anymore, but that wasn't quite true.
There were two people who were still stuck: Molly and me!
After shaking the box, we had decided to write about the giant talking vacuum.
So we decided the vacuum wouldn't suck up the whole world.
Instead the boy in the story, Jack, would use the vacuum to clean his room.
The vacuum sucked up his bed, his clothes, and even his computer.
But that wasn't all.
The giant vacuum sucked up his older brother!
Hmm . . . I wonder where I got that idea!
Our story was really funny.
But we couldn't figure out the last part—how to get Jack's brother out of the vacuum.
And we had to finish our stories by Friday.
At recess Molly and I bounced ideas off some other kids.
"Jack could just leave his brother inside the vacuum," suggested Jake.
I liked Jake's idea, but Molly got upset.
"Jack wouldn't do that!" she said.
"He really wants his brother back."
"He could smash the vacuum and get his brother out," suggested Evan.
But Molly and I both liked the giant talking vacuum, so we didn't want anyone to break it.
When I got home, Tate yelled at me for taking the last chocolate granola bar this morning.
By now I was ready to suck him up with a giant vacuum cleaner!