"Shhhhh," Gooney Bird said, and she held her finger in front of her mouth. "I'm sure Mrs. Pidgeon's fable won't be sad. Will it, Mrs. Pidgeon?" Gooney Bird stepped aside so that the teacher could stand at the front of the class to read her fable.
Mrs. Pidgeon was laughing. "No," she said, "it isn't sad at all. But it also isn't about a penguin!"
"It isn't?" asked Gooney Bird, looking puzzled.
"No. I'm going to write the name of my animal on the board. I'm afraid guessing is not going to be a good idea. It might take forever. Instead, each of us can write our animal in a list. I'll start right here." Mrs. Pidgeon picked up the chalk and held it to the board. "Then, after we're all done," she said, "we can have a lesson in alphabetizing. Remember my beginning letter, P?"
She wrote an uppercase P on the board.
Then she added an A, an N, a D, and another A.
"Panda!"the class called out. They looked at their teacher again. Her arms and legs were black, and her middle was white. A perfect panda.
"Now," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "I'll read my fable."
Once there was a small panda who lived in a bamboo grove in China. He was a happy panda who spent his days playing in the tall stalks of bamboo and nibbling at the leaves.
One day a majestic deer wandered into the bamboo grove.
"Hello," said the deer to the panda. "You look as if you are enjoying your nibbling."
"Yes," the panda replied. "I am."
"I myself prefer to eat the tips of rhododendrons," the deer said. "They are quite yummy, and I think they have a lot of vitamins."
"Bamboo is yummy, too," said the panda, "but I'd be happy to give a rhododendron a try, on your recommendation."
So the majestic deer led the small panda out of the bamboo grove and through a meadow, then to a rhododendron bush at the edge of the woods.
"Here," said the deer. "Help yourself."
The panda nibbled curiously. The taste was not bad. It was very different from bamboo leaves. He ate several twigs and a few blossoms.
But suddenly his stomach began to hurt. He felt sick.
"I think I want to go home now," he called out to the deer. But the deer had gone away. The panda was alone, and lost.
With a badly aching stomach, and crying a bit because he was frightened, the panda found his way with much difficulty back to the bamboo grove.
He made himself comfy there and decided never to leave the bamboo grove again.
"That's the end," Mrs. Pidgeon said. She folded her paper, placed it on her desk, and smiled at the class.
"It wath a good fable," Felicia Ann said.
"Not too scary," Keiko added. "Just a little scary, at the suddenly part, when his stomach hurt. But suddenlys are almost always a little scary."
"Nicholas?" Mrs. Pidgeon said. "Did you enjoy it?"
Nicholas lifted his head briefly. "It was okay," he muttered.
"Thank you, Mrs. Pidgeon. You may take your seat," Gooney Bird said. She was very good at being in charge.
"Now, class," she went on, "who can tell the moral of Mrs. Pidgeon's panda fable?"
All of the children were silent, thinking of the story of the panda. "Put on your thinking caps," Gooney Bird reminded them.
Malcolm's hand shot up. "I know!" he called out. "I know what it is! Oh, I know—"
"Malcolm?" Gooney Bird pointed to him. "Would you tell us the moral? And by the way, you only need to say it one time."
Malcolm stood up at his desk. "Don't ever, ever go off with some stranger who offers you candy!" he announced loudly. "Remember not to go—"
"Thtranger danger,"Felicia Ann murmured, interrupting Malcolm.
"Oh dear," Keiko said. "That's scary."
Mrs. Pidgeon stood up. "That's a good reminder, Malcolm. But it's not exactly the moral I was thinking of. I'm going to tell you my fable's moral so that you'll all get the hang of it.
"The moral of the panda fable is this:Sometimes what you already have is the best thing."
The children were silent for a moment, thinking it over.
"I get it!" Ben said. "Like when I got new hockey skates, but my old ones were really more comfortable!"
"And when my dad got his new car?" Chelsea added. "He said he really liked the old one better even though it had a hundred million miles on it!"
"And my mom and dad!" Malcolm called. "They already had me! I was already their kid! They'd had me for seven years! But then they got—"
Mrs. Pidgeon went to Malcolm and put her hand on his shoulder. At the same time she reached with her other hand to Nicholas, and rubbed his back in a comforting way. Nicholas didn't look up.
"Gooney Bird," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "we have a lot of fables to get through. How about calling on the next person?"
Gooney Bird nodded, and looked around the room.
"Keiko?" she said. "You next."
4.
Keiko stood. She reached under her desk, picked up a pink canvas backpack, and put her arms through the straps. But she did it backwards, so that the pack was suspended against her chest. Then she walked to the front of the classroom.
The class began to laugh. "I know!" "I get it!" they called out.
Keiko went to the board, and under PANDA, in her best uppercase printing, she wrote:
KANGAROO
Then she turned to the class, unfolded her paper, and announced, "My fable is called—"
She interrupted herself and looked over at Mrs. Pidgeon and at Gooney Bird, who was standing beside the teacher's desk. "Are we supposed to have a title?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," Gooney Bird said. "All stories have titles."
"But Mrs. Pidgeon's fable didn't have a title!" Chelsea called.
"Uh-oh," said Mrs. Pidgeon. "I forgot. And Gooney Bird is right; all stories should have titles. See? Not even teachers are perfect!"
The second-graders, all but Nicholas, laughed.
"Of course, they are almost perfect," Mrs. Pidgeon added, and the class, all but Nicholas, laughed again.
"The title of my fable," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "was, ah, 'The Panda in the Bamboo Grove.' But now it's Keiko's turn. Go on, Keiko."