My Daughter Said She'd Burn This Book! -- by L. David Mark

      "Cindy, there's one other possibility," I said, going back into her room.

      "What's that?" she asked.

      Moments before, she had knocked on the door to my bedroom -- I was just getting dressed -- & when I finished & came out, she asked, "Do you hear that?"

      "No," I replied, "what?"

      "That sound, that 'boing, boing, boing'?"

      I listened hard. "Do you hear it," she said; "-- tone, tone, tone" & she moved her finger up & down to the 'tone' until, yes, I did hear it.

      "I think it's outside," I said.

      "Oh."

      But now as I went into her room and mentioned "another possibility," she said, "What's that?"

      Then I repeated the words that I had been carefully rehearsing. "The possibility exists that it might be a tone bird, which neither twitters nor tweets but merely sits upon a fence & goes 'tone -- tone -- tone'."

      She looked at me with belief for a moment & then incredulously.

      "Are you lying?"

      Then, as realization set in, "Dad, you're supposed to teach me about things."

      "Cindy," I said, attempting to mollify her, "don't you have a sense of humor?"

      "Well . . . " Then she added in a wistful little voice, "But I would like for there to be a 'tone bird'."

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