"Wrong," said Chelsea.
"But what other 'ch' animal is there?" Mrs. Pidgeon asked.
"Chipmunk!" called Beanie.
"Chimpanzee!" called Ben.
"Chinchilla!" called Barry.
"Chinchilla?" Gooney Bird asked. "What on earth is a chinchilla?"
"A small rodent from South America," Barry explained. "It looks like a rabbit, but with big mouselike ears and a squirrel-like tail. It was first introduced into the United States back in—"
He stopped. "I'm giving a report again," he said. "Sorry."
"Have you memorized the encyclopedia, Barry?" Mrs. Pidgeon asked, laughing.
"Almost," Barry said. "Only the A's, B's, and C's, though. I'm working on the D's now."
"And my fable is not about a single one of those animals," Chelsea announced. "Here is my costume." She took a small leather belt decorated with rhinestones out of her pocket. Carefully she buckled it around her neck.
Then she went to the board and, after checking her paper to be certain her spelling was correct, printed carefully: CHIHUAHUA.
Tyrone made a face as he looked at the word. "Chi-hooah-hooah? I never heard of no chi-hooah-hooah!"
Chelsea explained. "It's a Spanish word. You say it this way: chi-wa-wa."
The second-graders all repeated it.Chi-wa-wa.
When she turned and held up her paper to read, Chelsea announced, "The title of my fable is just one word."
Woof
Once there was a teeny tiny dog called a Chihuahua. He lived in Mexico with a very rich lady.
He slept on a bed made out of one of her old mink coats. He had steak for dinner every single night. He had a collar with diamonds on it.
He was allowed to get on the furniture.
One day, when he was on the sofa, he looked through the window and saw many other dogs playing in the road. They were chasing one another, and biting sticks, and barking at cars.
"Woof!" he said, meaning that he wanted to go out and play with them.
"No, you must stay inside," said the rich lady. "Here. Have a cream puff and a glass of wine."
But the Chihuahua kept looking through the window. "Woof," he said again.
"Woof.
"Woof."
He kept saying it all day long, until the rich lady was so annoyed that she opened the door to the house and told him, "Okay then, go outside if you want to."
Off he went.
But when the bigger dogs saw him, they did not know what he was. Maybe a cat? Or maybe a chinchilla?
A chinchilla is a small rodent that lives in South America...
Chelsea paused. "Oh, dear," she said. "I started making a report."
"That's okay," Gooney Bird told her. "Please go on. Your fable is interesting. It has details, dialogue, and suspense."
So Chelsea continued.
The bigger dogs began to chase the Chihuahua. "Help! Help!" he cried, though in his language it sounded like "Woof! Woof!"
If the rich lady heard him, she paid no attention. She had listened to enough woofs that day. She was playing an opera on her stereo.
The Chihuahua ran as fast as he could on his teeny tiny legs. The bigger dogs kept chasing him. He was never seen again.
"That's the end," Chelsea said to the class.
"But what happened to him?" Beanie asked.
"No one knows," Chelsea explained.
"But a story has to have an ending!" Beanie complained.
"This story leaves you hanging," Gooney Bird told the class. "Some stories do."
"Oh, no!" Keiko wailed."Hanging?"
"It just means—what's the word, Mrs. Pidgeon?" Gooney Bird asked.
"I think the word would be ambiguous Mrs. Pidgeon said. "Let me look it up." She picked up her dictionary and leafed through the pages of the A's. "Here we are," she said. Then she read aloud, "'Open to many different interpretations.' Yes, Chelsea's story has an ambiguous ending."
The class was silent for a moment. They were all worrying about what might have happened to the Chihuahua.
They looked sad.
"Class," Gooney Bird suggested, "let's think about the moral of the Chihuahua story."
"What color wath the Chihuahua?" Felicia Ann asked shyly.
"Brown," Chelsea replied after she had thought for a minute, "with some spots near his tail."
"Well," Felicia Ann said, "the moral could be Be proud of your color, like my flamingo story."
"Yes, it could," Gooney Bird told her.
"I know! I know!" Beanie called, with her hand raised.
"Beanie?" Gooney Bird pointed to her.
"It could be You don't have to be big or brave. Like my bear fable."
"It could," said Gooney Bird.
"How about this?" Mrs. Pidgeon said. "Could it be Sometimes what you already have is the best thing? Like my panda fable?"
"It could," Gooney Bird said, and all of the second-graders nodded.
"Or my kangaroo story!" Keiko said. "There's no place like home!"
"Any one of the morals fits just fine," Gooney Bird pointed out. "Chelsea? What did you have in mind for the moral of your Chihuahua fable?"
Chelsea fingered the leather rhinestone-trimmed collar that was still buckled around her neck. "Here is the moral of my fable," she announced. "Rich is good. If you have a mink coat, you should stay put."
The classroom was silent.
Mrs. Pidgeon looked at her watch. "You know what?" she said. "It's lunchtime. And I'm hungry."
"Me, too!" Gooney Bird said. "And guess what! I have an anchovy sandwich today, on date-nut bread. I'll trade half if anyone wants."
10.
No one wanted half of Gooney Bird's sandwich. No one even wanted to sit near Gooney Bird's sandwich.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like some? Last chance," she said. "Keiko?"
"Not I," said Keiko.
"Nicholas?"
"Not I," said Nicholas.
"Barry?"
"Not I," said Barry.
"Tricia?"
"Not I," said Tricia.
The children began to giggle as they went around the table, answering one by one.