Building Sandcastles

Rory was making sandcastles on the beach with his friends, Diana and Morris. It was fun to shape the wet sand with their hands, like dough. As they played, Rory noticed something: none of their sandcastles looked like castles. Rory’s sandcastles looked like upside-down ice cream cones. Diana’s castles looked like wooden blocks, with little dents where she had shaped the blocks with her fingers. And Morris made castles that looked like a lot of snowmen huddled together.

“Diana, Morris,” Rory said. “None of our castles look like castles!”

“You’re right, Rory!” Morris said. “But so what? This is fun!”

“But wouldn’t it be more fun if we could make a sandcastle that actually looked like a castle?” Rory asked.

Diana said, “I know how we could do it! My dad is an architect. Before the builders make a building, my dad draws it first.”

Morris said, “That gives me an idea.” He got up and ran down the beach until he found a stick, then came back and held it out. “Who wants to draw our castle?”

“Diana, you’ve seen your dad do this— you should draw it!” Rory said.

“But it was your idea, Rory!” Diana said. “You draw it!”

“O.K.,” Rory said, and took the stick from Morris. He drew a square in the sand.

“That’s the main part of the castle.” He added a small rectangle at the bottom. “And that’s the bridge that leads in, across the moat.”

Rory drew four circles at the corners of the big square. “And these can be the towers around the castle.”

Then Diana made a big cube of sand for the main part of the castle, and then she made a small bridge. Morris made four turrets to go around the castle.

“It looks a lot more like a castle than before,” Rory said. “But it still doesn’t look quite right.” He looked at the smooth surfaces of the castle, the bridge, and the turrets, and then he tapped his chin with the stick. Then he drew a small door on the front of the castle and crisscrossed lines to make it look like it was made of bricks.

They were all satisfied with their sandcastles.