It Won't Die!

   I bet that title got your attention.  Yes, I said that.  It was more like a wail, actually.  It all started when...
   I saw something on Morgan's neck.  He had been in the garden, so I didn't know if it was dirt or something.  But when it fell on the table, I learned the awful truth...it was a tick. (Apparently it hadn't attached itself yet.)
   "Oh my gosh, it's a tick!"  I whirled and grabbed a napkin, then snatched up the tick.  I proceeded to smush it in between my fingers - and trust me, I was smushing hard.  After squeezing for what seemed a long time, I checked on my little friend in the napkin - and squeezed more.  Smush, check, smash, check.  "It won't DIE!" I lamented.
   Jonathan told me to I had to smash it.  I glared, "What do you think I've been doing?"  So Mom told me to use the handle of a knife.  I grabbed a knife -a pretty big one, but I'm always safe with knives- and smushed with that.  I checked on the tick, still in the napkin - it was still alive and kickin'.  That's when I got mad and started pounding on the napkin with the handle of the knife.  "It sill won't DIE!"
   "Now, Michaela," my mother calmly interjected.  "Just take the bottom of the handle, put where the tick is, and grind it up."  Wow, Mom, didn't know you were so violent - in a calm sort of way.  But I did it.  Then I peeked at the small arachnid in my napkin.  It was squished!  "It's dead!" I cried joyfully.  "Yay, I killed it!" I threw away the napkin -with the tick of course- and calmly sat at the table to eat lunch. (OK, I did have a triumphant grin on my face.)
   And so ended the epic saga of the tick in the napkin.  I just love happy endings, don't you?