To my grandpa

    There was once a little boy with hazel colored hair and dark green eyes. He lived a horrible life as a slave in 1478 and his name was Dan Macast. The boy lived in Rome, Italy, in a small house with a evil witch who always threatened to hurt him. The ramshackle house had old wood falling down and cracked steps. Even though the witch had a giant mansion made from magic, the boy lived in the ramshackle house working for the horrible witch. Unfortunately, he couldn't leave. He had no money and would never survive by himself, and the witch would find him with her special tracking powers anyway. He had no family except his aunt, the witch. His parents died when he was young, and he never knew them. The boy was smart and knew never to cross the witch, but the bruises that covered his body showed how difficult his life was.

    Every day Dan would do different tasks that weren’t easy. Once a week he had to count the cows, chicken, pigs, and sheep for no reason except the witch thought it would drive him crazy. If he made a mistake, she would take coins from his piggy bank. Since his parents had been wealthy, they left him all their money, but the with was slowly taking it all away. Then one day the boy went out to count the animals and noticed they'd multiplied. The witch had given them a potion that multiplied them. It was late at night, and the full moon was the only light, so time was ticking. Dan only had until dawn to finish, since the witch wanted to be told the number of animals when she woke up. He was glad there was some light. He had an idea he would make a new way to count the animals—a faster way. He was through with using slow tally marks. 

     There was a problem with that: if he didn’t count the animals, the witch wouldn’t allow him to eat for one day. He knew that he had to make a faster way to count. The boy always used tally marks, but today he had too many tallies because of all the animals, so he had an idea. He thought, “What if I use letters to count and make them more efficient than tally marks?”  The idea to use letters can when he noticed a single tally mark looked like an I; he picked that for the number one. He knew it wouldn’t help with all the animals, so he picked to put them in groups of five. He was a smart boy, but he didn't know if he could count all of them. He knew to rush but not too much in case he made a mistake. If he was wrong by even the animals the witch would double his bruises; one mistake was more than he could risk. The witch had a magic counter which she, of course,  would never let him use.

     He knew the witch was vicious and was always threatening him with dangerous things. He thought, “If I take the first letter of the word vicious it would be V." That was the final choice for five. From then on it was V, and no one could change it, not even him. He wrote down a V, representing five animals.