To my grandpa

    There was once a little boy with hair the color of chocolate 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 nefarious witch if not worse. The house looked like a ramshackle with old wood falling down and broken steps. The boy lived in the house working for the disgusting witch. Unfortunately, he couldn't leave. He had no money and would die by himself, and the witch would find him. He had no family except his aunt, the witch. The boy was smart and knew never to cross the witch, but he was still covered with many bruises.

    Every day he 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 she wanted him to go crazy. Then one day the boy went out to count the animals and the animals had babies. It was a plan from the witch to give them a potion that multiplied them. It was late out at night with a full moon as the only light, so it would be even harder to count than usual. 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 let him 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 reason he picked using letters is because a single tally mark looked like an I, which is how 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.

     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 for vicious." 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 5 animals. He thought about something. The witch makes sure he doesn't make a mistake, but how does she do that? He looks at a pig, and there is a number. He thinks of finding the biggest number, but what if he can't find the highest number. He carries on with his mission.