Alfie
Credit phb In a dense forest where the sun's rays played hide-and-seek with the trees, lived a curious young squirrel named Alfie. Alfie loved to explore and ask questions about everything he noticed. One day, Alfie found a strange, flat rock covered in odd shapes. The shapes looked like wiggly lines, circles, and other strange marks. He had seen these before on the signs the humans left in the forest, but he never knew what they meant. Alfie decided to ask his friend, Bella Block the wise old owl, who lived in the ancient oak tree. Retired, but not tired. Bella was known to have answers to the most puzzling questions young squirrels might ask. "Hello, Bella," Alfie chirped as he scampered up the tree. "I found this rock with funny marks on it. Do you know what they are?" Bella turned her head slowly and peered at the rock with her large, knowing eyes. "Ah, Alfie, those are letters and numbers. Humans use them to communicate and count things. They are part of something called the alphabet and numbers." Alfie tilted his head. "Alphabet? Numbers? What do they do?" Bella hooted softly. "The alphabet is a set of letters from A to Z. They form words that humans use to speak to each other. And numbers, like from 0 to 100, help them count…