Reread line 527-541 in which maya parents are arguing about her

onto a large boat, and mark the water level that the boat sinks to. then, take the elephant out and put a bunch of marked weights onto the boat until it reaches the same water level. add up the masses of the weights to get the weight of the elephant.

the answer is mary made mudpies on monday.

remember alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.