"My mom and dad are desperate," Malcolm said, "because they had triplets."
The class laughed. They all knew about the commotion the triplet babies were causing in Malcolm's family.
"I see London, I see France," Ben called in a singsong voice. "I see Gooney's—"
"Enough," announced Mrs. Pidgeon. She glanced suddenly at Tyrone. "Tyrone, what do I see in your hand?"
Tyrone put on his who-me-I'm-very-innocent face. Mrs. Pidgeon went to his desk and reached out her hand. "You know the rules, Tyrone," she said, and he handed her the small cell phone.
"It's for emergencies," he said defensively.
"And what sort of emergency do you anticipate?"
"Ah, a bear may be comin' into the classroom."
"A bear," murmured all the other second-graders.
"In come a bear, but Tyrone doan care, when the kids all yell he just dial his cell..."
Mrs. Pidgeon, who usually enjoyed Tyrone's raps, glared at him and dropped the cell phone into the top drawer of her desk. "As I was about to say, I usually begin each morning reading a poem."
"Oh, I love when you do that. I love po-emth," Felicia Ann said. Her top front teeth were slow in coming in and she had a gap there that made it hard for her to say an s.
"That was a poem I was saying," Ben pointed out. "France rhymes with—"
Mrs. Pidgeon strode to his desk and clamped a hand on his shoulder. "And this morning," she continued, still with her restraining hand on Ben but smiling at Felicia Ann, "I had chosen a winter poem to read, but then suddenly, when Mr. Leroy was talking over the intercom about a snowstorm on the way, Tyrone, you..." She looked over at Tyrone, who was busy folding a piece of paper into a cootie-catcher.
He glanced up at the sound of his name. "Who, me? I didn't do nuthin!" Then he corrected himself. "Anything, I meant. I didn't do anything."
Mrs. Pidgeon laughed. "It wasn't anything you did. It was what you said. You said..." She looked around at the children. "Anyone remember? Tyrone said, 'Snow day...'"
"'Okay!'" several children called. "'Snow day! Okay!' That's what he said!"
Mrs. Pidgeon nodded. "And it occurred to me that Tyrone had created our morning poem with just those three words."
The class fell silent. They looked at her. Beanie raised her hand. When the teacher nodded at her, she said with a frown, "It can't be a poem. It's too short."
"There are no rules about how long a poem should be," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "It only has to be long enough to say what you want it to say. And here is what Tyrone wanted to say." She went to the board. Carefully, in her neat printing, she wrote:
SNOW DAY!
OKAY!
The class looked at the words. Malcolm, who could never remember to raise his hand, called, "No way!"
With the eraser, Mrs. Pidgeon removed the words. She smiled. Then she wrote:
SNOW DAY!
NO WAY!
Malcolm read it and grinned. "I made a poem!" he said in a surprised, proud voice.
"I did mine already," Tyrone pointed out. "Snow day! Okay!"
"Me, too," said Malcolm. "Snow day! No way!"
"I have one!" Keiko said, raising her hand. "Can I write mine on the board?" Mrs. Pidgeon gave her the chalk and Keiko wrote:
SNOW DAY!
LET'S PLAY!
Next Tricia wrote:
SNOW DAY!
HOORAY!
"I never knew a poem could be little," Felicia Ann said in her soft, shy voice.
"A poem can be whatever you make it be," Gooney Bird pointed out. She got up from her desk, took her turn at the board, and wrote:
SNOW DAY!
I'LL SAY!
Mrs. Pidgeon looked at Gooney Bird as she stood at the board with her two red ponytails protruding from the ruffled holes. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask this," she said. "I don't mean to get a cheap laugh. But, Gooney Bird, are those underpants on your head?"
Gooney Bird thought for a moment. Then she said, in a patient voice, "Once it was underpants. Now it's a two-ponytail hat. It's like a poem. It can be whatever you want it to be.
"Actually," she went on, and reached for the ruffled fabric, "I'm going to take it off now. The elastic hurts my forehead."
"Gooney Bird," said Mrs. Pidgeon with a smile, "you're so absurd!"
Gooney Bird grinned. "Aha! A poem!" she pointed out.
"Look!" she said suddenly, turning toward the window. Outside, they could see the first flakes of snow beginning to fall.
2.
By the next morning there was snow everywhere, but not enough to cancel school. The buses arrived one by one, their wheels slurping through the slush and shooting wet snow along the edge of the sidewalk so that the walkers, the children who lived near the school, had to jump aside.
Gooney Bird Greene entered the classroom with the other children, and they began to remove hats and mittens and jackets and boots. They all kept indoor footwear in their cubbies. One by one they lined up their wet boots and changed into their dry slippers and clogs and Crocs.
"What on earth are those, Gooney Bird?" Mrs. Pidgeon asked, watching as Gooney Bird sat on the floor and tried to wrestle something off her feet.
Gooney Bird scowled. "Well," she said, "I thought they were high-fashion boots. I got them at the Goodwill store, on the half-price table. One dollar and forty-five cents."
"Quite a bargain," Mrs. Pidgeon commented, still looking at Gooney Bird's feet. "Need some help?"
"Thank you." Gooney Bird hobbled to a nearby bench, sat down, and held her legs out. One at a time Mrs. Pidgeon pulled off the wet boots. They were bright blue, with very high, thin heels.
When Mrs. Pidgeon had set them side by side on the shelf, next to the long puddled row of ordinary rubber boots, Gooney Bird looked at them with distaste. "I thought the stiletto heels were very cool," she said. "Stiletto means a thin, pointy stabbing tool, and that's why they call these stiletto heels. See?" She held one up. "But they're not comfortable. They do stab. And they were slippery on the ice. I fell twice on my way to school. Look. My knees are all wet."
Mrs. Pidgeon felt the damp knees of Gooney Bird's black tights sympathetically. "Goodness," she said.