The i who lost his dot (part 4)

If you haven't read my introduction and the first part of the story, please do so here before continuing.

As the little i was sitting there crying, he saw something that made him brush away the tears and stand up. It looked like his dot! It was round, the same color as he was, and it was sitting there all by itself. He went over to it, leaned down, and was about to pick it up when he heard a voice.

"Hey."

The little i looked around, puzzled.

"Don't pick me up."

The i looked down at his dot. "Is that you talking?"

"Yes. I'm not your dot."

"Then what are you?" asked the i.

"I'm a period. I end sentences. I have seen your dot. It went rolling on by me."

"Thank you," said the i, still half-sure that really was his dot even though his dot didn't talk.

The i had forgotten about the punctuation marks that lived at the end of the alphabet line. The period was one he knew about, but he didn't know what was coming next. He was trying so hard to think of what might be next, when he tripped and fell down!

"Oof," he said, picking himself up.

"You think that hurt?" said a voice.

Looking down, he saw a dot sticking up from the ground but clearly attached to something more. "Oh, you're a comma!"

"Yes, and you tripped over me," said the comma.

"I'm sorry," said the little i. "Did I hurt you?"

"A little, but I'll be ok," the comma replied.

"Have you seen my dot?" asked the i.

"I saw it roll by earlier, but my tail's stuck in the ground so I let it pass," said the comma.

"Ok, well thank you," said the i as he continued on.

Looking carefully around him while he walked this time, so as not to trip on any more commas, the little i saw a funny-looking mark. It was all curvy.

"Hello," said the i.

"Hello?" said the curvy mark.

"Have you seen my dot? It looks a lot like the one under you."

"No, I haven't? But you might try farther down the line?" said the question mark, who ended everything with a question sound.

"Thank you," said the i.

"You're welcome?" said the question mark.

Right after the question mark, the i saw another line, but it had a dot under it as well.

"Hi," said the i.

"Stop!" said the exclamation point.

So the i stopped. "Have you seen my dot?" he asked.

"No! I have not!" said the exclamation point.

"Ok, I'll just go on my way," said the i.

"Good luck!" replied the exclamation point.

"Thank you," said the i, waving.

He passed funny-looking marks hanging in the sky, who waved at him but didn't say anything. There were more dots on top of dots, but he knew those had to be connected to something. Finally, he saw three dots in a row.

"Hello?" said the i.

"Hello, hello, hello," said the dots.

"Have you seen another dot?" asked the i.

"Yes we have, we have, we have," said the dots, which together were called an ellipsis.

"You have? Do you know where it is?" said the i, looking around.

"It's at the end of us, at the end, the end," said the ellipsis.

Sure enough, there, after the last of the three dots that made up the ellipsis, was another dot. The little i bent over and picked it up, looked it over, brushed it off, and placed it up over his head. He walked back through the alphabet, smiling as he told every punctuation mark and letter that he'd found his lost dot.

_{Copyright 2009 Karen Thompson, all rights reserved.}