Dottie the Brachiosaurus wanted to visit her friend Mouse.
Mouse lived in a little blue house at the end of Clover Lane. It had a little blue door with a little brass knocker.
Dottie loved that little brass knocker.
She walked down Clover Lane — boom, boom, boom, boom — and the mailboxes rattled and the puddles jumped.
She leaned down, way down, aaaaall the way down, and tapped the little brass knocker with one enormous toe.
Tap tap tap.
Mouse opened the door. "Dottie! Come in! I made cookies!"
Dottie could smell them. Warm and buttery and wonderful.
She looked at the door.
She looked at herself.
She looked at the door again.
"I will try," said Dottie, very politely.
She put her head through first.
Her head fit! Barely.
She pushed a little more. Her long, long neck slid through the doorway like a garden hose through a mail slot.
But then came her shoulders.
CRUNCH.
Her shoulders did NOT fit.
"Oh dear," said Dottie. Her head was in the kitchen and her body was in the yard and she was stuck right in the middle of the little blue door.
The doorframe cracked. Just a little.
"Maybe try the window?" said Mouse.
Mouse opened the big side window. Well — Mouse thought it was big. It was the biggest window in the house.
Dottie walked around — boom, boom, boom, boom — and leaned down, way down, aaaaall the way down, and poked her nose through the window.
Her nose fit! Her head fit! Her neck slid through like a —
CRUNCH.
Shoulders again.
"Oh no," said Dottie. Now the window frame was crooked.
She pulled herself back out very carefully. A flower box tumbled off the ledge and landed — PLOP — right on her head.
Petunias everywhere.
Dottie had dirt on her nose and a petunia behind her ear.
"I am so sorry about your flower box," she said.
Mouse looked at the petunia behind Dottie's ear.
"You look beautiful," said Mouse.
Dottie sat down in the yard. The ground shook a little. She tried not to look sad, but her bottom lip wiggled.
"Your house is very nice," she said quietly. "I just wish I could fit inside it."
Mouse climbed up onto the windowsill. She looked at Dottie. She looked at the cookies. She looked at the big, wide, open sky.
Then Mouse picked up the whole plate of cookies — the plate was bigger than Mouse — and climbed right out the crooked window.
She slid down Dottie's tail like a slide.
She walked across the grass and set the plate down in the clover.
"There," said Mouse. "Now the house is out here."
Dottie looked around. The sky was pink. The clover was soft. There were no doors anywhere.
"There's no door," said Dottie.
"Nope," said Mouse.
"So I can't be too big for it."
"Nope," said Mouse.
Dottie's bottom lip stopped wiggling.
They ate every single cookie in the clover while the sun turned orange and the fireflies came out, one by one by one.
And the little blue house sat empty, with its cracked doorframe and its crooked window and no flowers on the ledge, because everyone who mattered was outside.
Mouse leaned against Dottie's big warm ankle.
"Same time tomorrow?" said Mouse.
Boom, boom, boom, boom went Dottie's tail on the ground.
That meant yes.
