When they were quiet and calm, she said, "I'm just going to describe the rules of haiku to you quickly, and then we must go on to our math."
She wrote her mother's poem on the board:
Over the pavement
Snow falls in January—
Soap flakes wash our tracks
They all read it aloud together.
"Okay," said Mrs. Pidgeon. "Three lines. Five syllables in the first line."
They read the first line slowly so that they could hear the syllables. Five.
"Next line: seven," said Mrs. Pidgeon.
They read the second line and could hear that it was true. Seven syllables.
"Finally, five again, in the third line," she told them, and they read it aloud.
"Usually, a haiku is about one of the seasons," she explained. "This one, of course, is about winter. It describes snow, in January. What other seasons do we have?"
"Thummer!" said Felicia Ann. "Thpring!"
"Correct. And fall, or autumn. So there we have the basic rules of haiku. Later today we'll have time to give writing haiku a try. But right now"—she looked at the clock—"we really must get to our math problems."
Then Mrs. Pidgeon noticed that Gooney Bird Greene, who had been very quiet, had her hand raised. "Yes, Gooney Bird?"
"I wrote one," Gooney Bird said. "I know I should have been facing forward, hands folded, eyes on you, when you were talking. But I couldn't help myself. Sometimes you just can't help yourself." She held up a lined paper with some writing on it.
"I know. That's true sometimes. All right, Gooney Bird, why don't you read it to the class? Then: math."
Gooney Bird stood. Frowning, she adjusted the damp knees of her tights. Then she read, from her paper:
Haiku
by Gooney Bird Greene
Winter walk to school
Stiletto boots, icy street—
Toes and knees suffer
3.
After the next morning's intercom announcements were over, Mrs. Pidgeon went to the front of the class with a paper in her hand.
"Is your mother better?" Beanie asked.
Mrs. Pidgeon looked sad. "No," she said, "I'm afraid not. When you're very old, as my mother is, you just start to give out, and you don't get better. But yesterday after school, I went to see her and I read poems to her again. Her own poems. You know, at one time my mom was a very serious writer."
"Is that one of hers?" Barry asked, pointing to the paper. Mrs. Pidgeon nodded.
"Another haiku?" asked Keiko.
"No, this one is different. I know some of you like hearing poems that rhyme, so I looked through my mother's poetry and found a lovely rhyming one."
"I hope it's not long," said Malcolm. "That poem you read at Halloween was long."
Mrs. Pidgeon laughed. "Anybody remember the name of that one?" she asked the second-graders. "Barry? You're my student who remembers everything. You're the memory champion of the class."
Barry grinned and nodded. "It was 'Little Orphan Annie,' and the name of the author was James Whitcomb Reilly."
"Good for you! That's correct. I read that one because it was about goblins and scary things, so it seemed just right for Halloween. But you're right, Malcolm—it was quite long."
Gooney Bird raised her hand. It made a clanking sound because she was wearing a large number of bracelets on that arm. Gooney Bird liked jewelry a lot.
"Sorry for the clank," she said. "I'm taking my bracelets off in a minute because they make it hard for me to write. They clank on the desk."
"How about the gloves?" asked Mrs. Pidgeon. "They don't interfere with your writing?" Gooney Bird was also wearing her fingerless gloves.
"Nope. Actually, I think they help with writing, because they keep my writing hand warm and make words flow out onto the paper better. It's like when I warm my brain with a hat."
"I see. Did you have a question? Is that why you raised your hand?"
"No, I just wanted to say something about long-ness. I think a poem should be just smack exactly as long as it tells you it should be."
"As it tells you?" Mrs. Pidgeon repeated, with a puzzled look.
Gooney Bird nodded. She pulled her bracelets off and stacked them on her desktop, carefully making a round tower of the brass circles. "Yes. Writing a poem is the same as writing a story. You say what you want to say, and then it tells you, in your brain: Stop here."
"Hmmm," said the teacher, thinking. "I believe you're right, and that we should all listen more carefully to our brains."
"You might try warming your brains with a hat," Gooney Bird suggested politely.
Malcolm held up his fist and pretended it was a microphone. "Brain to Malcolm, Brain to Malcolm," he intoned in a deep voice. "'Wear underpants on your head.'"
"Teacher to Malcolm," Mrs. Pidgeon said, holding up her own invisible microphone. "I am going to read this morning's poem now, and I want you to pay attention. You were one of the ones who wanted rhyme."
Standing in front of the class, Mrs. Pidgeon carefully unfolded the paper and read aloud:
My Daughter
by Mrs. X
"Hey!" Tyrone called out. "That's you! If your mom write that, then you be the daughter, right?"
"That's true," said Mrs. Pidgeon. "This is a poem about me. My mother wrote it many years ago, so it's a poem about me when I was your age."
"Cool," said Tyrone.
"Mrs. Pidgeon, you ought to say the author's real name, not 'Mrs. X'! Just because we call her Mrs. X, that doesn't mean it's her author name!" Chelsea pointed out.
"You're correct, Chelsea. But you know what, class? My mother has something special about her name, and I want to surprise you with it. But not yet. So for now, her author name is going to be Mrs. X. Is that all right?"
All of the children nodded.
"I'll start again."
My Daughter
by Mrs. X
Daughter, laughter: spelled the same.
Patricia: my laughing daughter's name.
Mrs. Pidgeon picked up the chalk and wrote the two words on the board: daughter, laughter.
"Yep, they oughta rhyme," Tyrone said. "Look at that. It's crazy that they don't rhyme."