The Old Letter O
by Daniel Errico
Illustrated by Michiko Cayce
The Letter O lived in the Land of Words.
He was the oldest of all the letters.
He was in the charge of the museum.
It was his job to find old and rare things.
He was always trying to get the rarest, oldest and most valuable item ever heard of: the Golden Dinosaur Skull.
He knew where it was, but he could not get to it.
The path was blocked by dangerous traps.
He had tried many times over the years, but he could never get it.
One day, the Old Letter O decided that it was time to try and find the Golden Dinosaur Skull one last time.
He took a bag of supplies and set off on his way.
The skull was inside the Cave of Phrases, but it was very hard to get to.
It was very dark inside the cave when he arrived.
All of a sudden, he heard a buzzing sound.
There was a swarm of glowbugs coming his way!
The glowbugs turned and flew away.
Years ago, the Letter O had learned that plumberries keep the glowbugs away.
He found this out during a mission to find the Lost Tablet of Glowbuggia.
Old Letter O continued on his way until he saw a large, ancient door.
There was a keyhole, but no key was nearby.
Then he saw that the key was on the other side of a pool of lava.
Most letters would have turned around and gone home, but not the Letter O.
He took out a big magnet, and the key flew right into his hands!
He knew that the key was made of a magnetic metal because he had seen the same metal years ago.
He had seen it on a trip to discover the Hidden Spoon of the Metal Mines.
At last he came to the Golden Dinosaur Skull.
He could see it, but there was a deep pit in his way.
He saw vines falling from the ceiling.
They were all different shapes and sizes.
He picked one vine and used it to swing across the pit.
He knew that it was going to be the strongest vine because he had swung across many vines on a trip through the Jungle of Stories.
He had finally reached the Golden Dinosaur Skull!
He had done it by using everything he had learned over the years.
The skull came back with him and was put on display in the museum.
All the young letters came by to see it, dreaming about discovering treasures of their own.
In the Land of Words, it’s never too late.
