Piles of sand, packed by gentle hands, formed a huge sandcastle on the beach. Twenty young men and women worked all day long building the monstrous mound and forming it into a massive castle of turrets, doorways and windows. When night came, they went home, leaving behind their buckets and shovels.

The next morning Chad and Brad went to the beach. They wanted to gather sea shells and pieces of sea glass. As they walked along they spotted the giant sandcastle up ahead. Chad sat in the sand to look at it. “Wow! This is one big sandcastle!”

Brad gazed at it. “I think we can make it bigger.”

“How?”

“The left the buckets and shovels. Let's fill them up and add to it. The tide is going to come in soon and wash it all away. Do you want to?” Brad picked up a shovel.

For the next hour the two brothers worked hard filling buckets with sand and dumping them on the already massive mound. When they finished, they stepped back. “We did it, Brad. We made it bigger.”

Just then a wave rushed onto the beach. “The tide is coming in now.” Brad sighed and watched the incoming waves taking the castle apart grain by grain and carrying it out to sea. Sea gulls hovered above, screeching and diving into the water to catch fish.

Soon there was only half a castle, then a fourth and then it was gone. The water lapped at Brad and Chad's feet. The buckets were carried out to sea, bobbing empty on the waves.

As they walked home, Brad said, “Look how everything is gone. It's like there never was a sandcastle at all.”

Chad smiled. “Tomorrow, when the tide goes out, we can come back and build another. There's always plenty of sand.”

“Good idea, Chad. You're right. As long as there are waves, there will be sand.” Brad picked up a few sea shells and the two of them went home. As he lay in bed that night he thought about what the next sandcastle would look like.

Chad dreamed the same thing.

The next morning they went back to the beach. The tide was out, as they had expected. Brad and Chad built another sandcastle. This time it was even bigger than the one before. They stood gazing at it for hours. “We'd better enjoy it before the tide comes in again.” Brad blew his hair out of his eyes. “We can always build another though, can't we, Chad?”

“We always can.”