This story is about two sisters, their dog Beep, and a mess that happened one morning at breakfast. But this was not an ordinary mess. It was a great mess. It was a big mess. It was a terrible mess. It was a great, big, terrible mess.

It all started with a big, red, juicy squirt of ketchup. A squirt that flew through the air, across the table, over the oatmeal, and right on the tip of one sister's nose. A squirt that caused Beep to laugh so hard, that his bowl of cereal landed on his tail.

While the ketchup squirted and the cereal spilled, the little girls' parents slept soundly in their beds. But they weren't dreaming of children with ketchup on their noses. They dreamt of children whose clothes were neat and tidy, and of children whose noses were clean.

It was at that moment when the GREAT mess occurred. Beep, hungry for more cereal, jumped up on the table, causing the two little girls to spill their glasses of milk all over the rug.

With Beep on the table, and milk on the floor, the little girls' parents kept snoring away.

Then the BIG mess happened. The two girls had an idea to make the biggest, fattest, tallest, pancake in the world. When you mix flour, salt, pepper, sugar, and water to make the biggest, fattest, tallest, pancakde in the world - you sometimes make a BIG mess. And they did.

While they mixed and mixed, their father dreamt that he was the captain of the cleanest, neatest, biggest boat in all the world.

But the girls couldn't find a pan big enough, wide enough, or high enough to hold the biggest, fattest pancake in the world. They decided to wait and ask their mommy when she woke up.

So while the girls thought of their mommy, their mommy dreamt of dinner in a fancy French restaurant where everything was clearn, and everyone was tidy.

Do you know what happened while their mommy dreamts? That's when the TERRIBLE mess occurred! The girls put spaghetti in their hair and washed it out with tomato sauce.

From their dreams of tidy children, clean ships, and beautiful restaurants, their parents awoke. Mommy yawned. Daddy stretched.

And covered from head to toe with shagheit, tomato sauce, ketchup, scrambled eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and sugar, the two little girls were in the living room with two yummy pints of their favorite chocolate ice cream.

In the bedroom, their daddy said, "Oh what a fine day it is going to be." "Yes," their mommy agreed. "A very fine day." "The children are very quiet this morning," their daddy said.

But their daddy didn't know that little girls' hands were covered with their favorite chocolate ice cream. He didn't know they were pretending to be gymnasts. And he didn't know they were doing cartwheels and leaps, hops and jumps, on the sofa, the rug, and the chairs.

And so their mommy and daddy, all smiles, got out of bed, put on their new clean robes, and entered the living room to see...

THE GREAT BIG TERRIBLE MESS! And they fainted right inot the sugar, the flour, the salt, the pepper, the oatmeal, the spaghetti, the tomato sauce, and the two pints of the girls' favorite chocolate ice cream.

Later that morning the two girls, their mommy and their daddy had a talk. Together they took a look at the mess. It was great. It was big. It was terrible. And it had to be cleaned up!

And it was.