Mi papelito

Scott Dalgliesh

Prof. Macosko

FYS

Children’s Story

There was once a small bacterium called Denny Radio. He was a great bacterium, and had lots of friends and family. Normally, he spent his time hanging out with his bacteria friends, Shelly and Paul. They had great times together hanging out whenever and wherever they wanted to. The special thing about these bacteria was that they were very strong and could do lots of thing that we couldn’t do. This let them hang out in some pretty disgusting places, like contaminated water and areas with hazardous material. They didn’t enjoy going to these areas though and their favorite spot by far to hang out was the lake. What made them strong and healthy was a little man inside of them, and his name was Ricky RecA. He was a funny looking guy, and even smaller than Denny, Shelly, or Paul. Since Ricky had lots of brothers, they all lived and swam around inside of the three keeping them in tip top shape.

One day Denny was hanging out with Shelly and Paul, when he noticed some very nasty looking water in a puddle next to a lake.

He said, “Hey guys, lets go over and check that place out.”

Shelly said, “No Denny, that water looks really dirty I don’t think we should go over there.”

But sure enough Denny went anyways. When he got into the water it stung a bit and didn’t smell very good. Denny thought to himself, “Wow, there must be some pretty bad stuff in this water.”

As he was thinking this Ricky and all his brothers were working very hard inside of Denny. Ricky has the special job of helping Denny and the others stay healthy. While they were playing around in the contaminated water, he and his brothers were fixing broken parts of them inside their bacteria bodies. These parts are called DNA, which are very important to the healthiness of not only Denny, Shelly, and Paul, but us as well. The Ricky’s that live inside our bodies work much slower though, so we can not go into places like they were.

While Ricky was fixing Denny’s DNA, Denny had a sudden thought. He said to himself, “This contaminated pool really isn’t that nice, I hope the water from here doesn’t end up in the lake.”

He went back to where Shelly and Paul were standing and said, “We should do something to stop this water from getting into the lake.”

The three began to brainstorm, but they just could not think of anything they could do by themselves to clean up the water. Denny came back to his house but he could not get the lake off of his mind. Suddenly, he realized he could call his friend, Munchy. Munchy was always very hungry, and he could eat anything. Maybe he could help Denny and his friends.

On his way over to see Munchy, Denny walked by the lake, but he noticed something different about it. The water looked dark with algae and there were a few dead fish floating on top of the water. Also, it appeared the trees and bushes around the water had shriveled up and fallen over. Denny began looking around, and sure enough the contaminated water had seeped into the beautiful lake. He ran to get Shelly and Paul, and they could not believe it either. The lake was one of their favorite places to hang out at, and they knew they must get Munchy to see if he could clean it up.

When Denny got to Munchies house, he told him, “I need you help over at the lake we have a serious problem.”

Munchy joined Denny to come down to the lake, but once he got there, he was hesitant to go in the contaminated lake, because he was scared that the water might hurt him. He said, “Denny, there’s no way I’m going in there, that water is way too dirty.”

Denny was confused by this because he never had a problem going into the dirty water before. But he trusted his friend Munchy and they both went home for the night. The next morning, Denny went down to the lake again, but he could not figure out how he could clean it up by himself. He called Munchy again and told him to come down to the lake. Munchy was once again hesitant, but Denny’s reassurance made him more confident to go down.

When he got there, Denny told him of his new idea to help clean up the lake. Denny’s plan was for Munchy to climb on his back while he swam around in the polluted water. While he was swimming, the very hungry Munchy could eat up all the pollutants stuff in the lake. Once again, Munchy was a little hesitant, telling Denny, “I’m not sure whether I should do this that water looks way too dirty for me.”

Denny said, “You don’t have to worry if you’re on my back, because my quick working Ricky and his brothers will help you stay safe.”

With this in mind, Munchy hopped on his back and climbed into the water with him. Once again, the water stung a little bit for Denny and Munchy, but soon enough they became used to it. As Denny swam around, Munchy began eating all the pollutants in the lake. Stuff like Mercury, Toluene, and Radiated Hydrocarbons all tasted great to Munchy. He said, “Wow Denny, this isn’t that bad at all, and this stuff is delicious!”

Denny exclaimed, “I told you so Munchy, just think we can go around to all the dirty places now and clean them up, just like this lake.”

They were both very excited and after the lake they ran back to their house to tell Paul and Shelly about it. Neither of them could believe it and they next day, they followed Denny and Munchy down to the lake. Paul and Shelly were astonished at the progress they had made. The water looked clean, animals were beginning to come back, and the plants were reestablishing themselves around the shoreline.

The next morning while Denny was still sleeping, Shelly and Paul went to go wake up the very full, but still very hungry Munchy. The three decided to go down to the waste dump, which was next to their other favorite place to hang out, the river. Munchy hopped on Shelly’s back just like he had for Denny and they began to swim around.

Of course Paul wanted to try too, and the three went around all day cleaning the dump next to the river. At the end of the afternoon, the tired trio went back and fell fast asleep after their long day cleaning. They had cleaned up the lake, and tomorrow, they knew they could go and have a blast in the newly cleaned water. Also, they knew if in the future the lake or any other place became contaminated, they could use their new strategy so everyone can enjoy the outdoors.