"Oh, no!" wailed Keiko. "Don't say 'kill birds'!"
"It was just a figure of speech, Keiko," Mrs. Pidgeon reassured her. "It means, ah, well, getting two things done at once. In this case, spelling and poetry writing. I think it's a good idea, Gooney Bird.
"Okay. It can be poetry time, class. List poems today. With some spelling words in them, please."
She passed out fresh pieces of paper. Then she turned her back to the class and went to a section of the board where there was still some blank space. "Here is my mother's poem," she said, and she began to write. She didn't notice that several of the second-graders had opened their desks to take out something.
Mrs. Pidgeon wrote:
It Makes Me Happy to Remember:
A cake with pink candles,
A yellow hair ribbon,
A kitten named Jingle,
The lace collar on my mother's best dress,
Ruffled curtains in my bedroom,
The fragrance of honeysuckle,
And fireflies on summer evenings,
So many fireflies.
I wonder where the fireflies have gone.
When she had finished, she turned to the class. To Mrs. Pidgeon's amazement, seven children—she counted—were now wearing underpants on their heads. Gooney Bird had once again donned her pale green ruffles. Malcolm had tightie-whities, and Ben was wearing boxers with smiley faces. Tricia was wearing white cotton with little blue flowers, and both Beanie and Felicia Ann had pale pink.
"Chelsea?" Mrs. Pidgeon said. "What is that on your head?"
"Thong," Chelsea explained. "Borrowed from my mom."
"And it helps?"
"Oh, yes," all of the children said. "Warms the brain."
"I'm bringin' some tomorrow," Tyrone said. "My brain is freezin'!"
"Me, too," said Nicholas.
"Well," Mrs. Pidgeon said with a sigh, "just as long as they are all absolutely clean."
***
As usual, Barry Tuckerman was the first one finished. Now, with his pencil down, his paper neatly folded, his hand shot into the air. "I'm done! I bet mine is the best! I'm the best poet in the class!"
"Poetry is not a contest, Barry," Mrs. Pidgeon reminded him. "There is no best or worst."
"Whatever," Barry said. "Can I read mine?" She nodded, and he stood beside his desk. He read:
These Things Make Me Laugh
by Barry Tuckerman, author
Cartoons
Jokes
My dog
Clowns
Mouse
Towel
Then he sat down.
The class, including Mrs. Pidgeon, was silent for a moment.
Then Gooney Bird gave a loud sigh. "Barry, Barry, Barry," she said. "That was awful."
"You can't say poetry is awful," Barry said. "Poetry is whatever you want it to be."
"But it wath, Barry," Felicia Ann whispered. "It wath thimply awful."
"Did you want it to be unimaginative, Barry? And boring?" Gooney Bird asked.
Barry scowled and shook his head. He looked at his paper. "I guess not," he said finally.
"Well, let's revise," Gooney Bird suggested. "Let's add details. What is funny about these things? Why do they make you laugh?"
Barry shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."
"Let's take them one at a time. What was your first thing?"
Barry looked at his paper. "Cartoons," he read.
"What makes you laugh about a cartoon?"
"When the superheroes go POW and ZAP," he said.
"Add that, then," Gooney Bird told him. He picked up his pencil. Around the class, other children picked up their pencils again and began to revise their own poems.
"Jokes?" Gooney Bird asked Barry. "Was that next?"
Barry had his tongue between his teeth and was busy writing. "Yeah, I'm adding more about jokes."
"And your dog." Gooney Bird looked around the class. "How many of you have a dog?" Many hands went up. "Do things about your dog make you laugh?"
Everyone nodded. Some children called out. "My dog's scared of thunder!" Tricia said. "He hides under the bed and we all laugh at him."
Barry looked up. "You know what?" he said. "Clowns don't really make me laugh. I think they're scary."
"Erase 'clowns,' then," Gooney Bird said. "Part of revising is deciding what to take out."
"Barry almost won't have nothin' left in his poem," Tyrone said. He sighed, then corrected himself when he saw Mrs. Pidgeon about to raise her grammar finger. "I mean, Barry won't have anything left. His poem gonna be short!"
"Short poems are okay, though," Beanie pointed out.
Barry wasn't listening to anyone. His face was scrunched up again in its thinking position, and he was writing very fast. "Done!" he announced.
"Read it again, Barry," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "and let us hear your revisions."
Barry stood. He read:
Things That Make Me Laugh
by Barry Tuckerman, great author
Cartoons that go
POW
and ZAP!
Jokes, like
Why did the moron?
Or Knock Knock!
And my goofy dog
Because once he chased a mouse
And when my mom threw a towel
Over them
They were both bumps under the towel,
The mouse scurrying
And my brave dog ready
to go
POW
And ZAP!
The class laughed and applauded.
"I used six spelling words," Barry said proudly, "and I wrote a good poem."
Gooney Bird went to him and gave him a high-five.
"Ouch," she said. "I should never do that when wearing a diamond ring."
"The really impressive thing," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "is that Barry wrote his list poem without wearing anything on his head except his own hair.
"Maybe hair is enough to warm the brain? What do you think, class?"
But all the second-graders, even those who had not put on brain-warming hats, shook their heads. Even Barry shook his head. "I think I could have done my poem faster and better if my brain had been warmer," he said. "Tomorrow I'm bringing a hat."
Mrs. Pidgeon laughed. "Well," she said, "all right. And maybe tomorrow we can work on a poem for different voices. That's a poem that we recite together, taking different parts."