… there was a little girl who loved sheep. One day she asked her mom for a sheep birthday cake and her mom was stumped. You see, she had already made sheep cakes in the past and she was running out of ideas.

The mom was looking on The Internet for ideas one day when she hear a voice. Now, since the mom knows that hearing voices when you’re alone in the house with no tv or radio on is a bad sign, she did the logical thing and turned on CBC. “If you’re going to hear voices,” she thought, “they should be identifiable.” She certainly had no intention of answering the voice.

But it didn’t go away. And CBC started playing music, so that wasn’t helping anymore.

So she did what people alone in houses should never do. She answered it, but pretended that she was talking to the cat*.

And the cat (who sounded an awful lot like a sheep) said, “Make a green cake with sprinkles. Don’t worry about the sheep. We’ve got it covered.”

So the mother, who was really out of options by this point (and wondering who “we” was and how many cats she did in fact have), made a marble cake, covered it with green, green, green icing and greener sprinkles. And crossed her fingers.

The day of the party came.

There was green cake.

There were candles.

And….

But there were only six sheep and the little girl was nine.

Forswearing her earlier vow not to talk to cats-who-sound-like-sheep, she muttered, “Hey! I thought you had it figured out!”

The cat turned his head, stared haughtily at her and said, “You sound foolish when you talk to yourself. You need a dog.”

Then the sheep stared at each other (and the mom) with trepidation (I imagine that they do that a lot).

Then there was a conference, in which an appalling sort of math involving systems other than base ten were attempted in order that six might be more, but they always made it out to be at least ten and that’s not for another year. There were other unsuccessful ideas ventured:

Finally they admitted that they needed some help. Or rather, “help” overheard and snuck in. Slowly.

Nine was finishing supper, so we waited….

And waited…

Finally the last turtle showed up, there was much creation of flame and the nice little girl had a very sheepish green, green, green birthday cake. With turtles.

*talking to the cat is the first step on the path to Madness. Talking to dogs is fine, because dogs listen and respond. Cats don’t give flying fig what you say, so talking to one is akin to talking to yourself.

For more of the Sheep & Turtle Saga, check out these Sheep & Turtle Posts…..