Keiko nodded and began again. "The title of my fable is 'The Kangaroo Who Came Home.'"
Once a very small kangaroo hopped out of his mother's pouch and went off to play.
He played with a koala and a dingo and a wallaby. They played tag and hide-and-seek.
Then it got late. It was time for supper. The animal friends said goodbye to each other and started for their homes.
But the baby kangaroo could not find his home! He had not been watching. His mother had hopped away across the dry land through the scratchy grass. He could not see her anymore. He did not know where she had gone.
He began to cry.
The koala said, "Come with me to my eucalyptus tree. You can share my dinner and sleep in my tree tonight."
So the kangaroo went with the koala. But he couldn't climb like the koala, and the tree was full of sharp twigs. It was very uncomfortable, and he did not like the taste of eucalyptus at
all
.
So he cried again.
The dingo said, "Come with me. I live in a small cave in those rocks over there. You can share my dinner and sleep in my cave."
The kangaroo tried that. But the dingo was eating rabbit for dinner, and the kangaroo was a vegetarian. He couldn't eat rabbit. And the cave was cold, not comfy and warm like his mother's pouch.
So he cried again.
The wallaby said, "Well, I can take you to where I live. As you know, I am a kind of kangaroo myself, so I eat leaves and roots the way you do. But I'm afraid there is no room in my mother's pouch for an extra. You will have to sleep on the ground, and it will not be cozy."
The little kangaroo cried and cried.
Suddenly he heard a thumping sound. He looked up. It was his own mother, leaping with her strong legs and big feet toward him. She had been looking everywhere.
He hopped to her and right into her pouch, which was warm and snug. There was milk waiting for him.
His mother scolded him gently and he promised never to wander away again, at least not until he was big.
Then he went happily to sleep.
"That's the end," Keiko said. "Did you like it?"
The second-graders clapped. They had liked her fable very much.
"It was a happy suddenly, when he heard his mom coming," Beanie pointed out, "not a scary one."
"Yes," Keiko said. "I wouldn't put in anything scary."
"Happy suddenlys are just fine," Gooney Bird told the students. "I think I may put one into my fable, actually. Thank you for that idea, Keiko."
She looked around. "Now," she said, "thinking caps! Who would like to tell us what the moral is? What kind of behavior are we supposed to learn from Keiko's fable?"
"Tricia?" Gooney Bird pointed to Tricia.
"Be a vegetarian!" Tricia said. "That's the moral!"
"My Aunt Carol is a vegetarian!" Barry called out. "My dad says she's a nutcase!"
"My mom's cousin Phyllis is a vegetarian!" shouted Chelsea. "And my mom says yeah, eat your dumb pumpkin casserole and more turkey for us at Thanksgiving!"
Mrs. Pidgeon stood up. "Class," she said, "many people are vegetarians. Nothing wrong with that. But I don't think that was the moral of the fable, was it, Keiko?"
Keiko shook her head. "No. And anyway, I like hot dogs."
"I have a feeling," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "that the moral of Keiko's fable is the same thing that we all remember from a certain movie. A movie that had a scarecrow and a tin man in it."
"The Withard of Oth,"whispered Felicia Ann.
"I know!" Malcolm shrieked. "I know! Call on me! I know!"
"I'm going to call first on Nicholas, I think," Mrs. Pidgeon said.
Nicholas looked up. He frowned. But he gave the answer." There's no place like home, "he said.
"Correct! And you know what?" Gooney Bird said. "In the movie, Dorothy says it three times! So we should have let Malcolm give the answer!"
"Go, Malcolm!" shouted Tyrone.
"There's no place like home! There's no place like home! There's no place like home!" Malcolm called out, with a big smile.
Then his smile changed to a scowl, and he added, "Unless the home has triplets."
5.
Beanie went to the front of the classroom to present her fable next. First she reached into her backpack and took out a small stuffed bear.
"This isn't really a costume, I guess," she said, "because I'm not wearing it. But my fable is about a bear, so I brought my old bear from home. I got him when I was born. His name is Teddy."
"That's a baby thing, to have a teddy bear when you're in second grade!" Barry said.
The class fell silent. Beanie looked embarrassed.
"Children?" Mrs. Pidgeon said, and she stood up. "When I was a very little girl, I had a stuffed lamb. I used to sleep with him. His name was Fleecy. And you know what?"
"What?" the class asked.
"I still have him. I don't sleep with him anymore. But Fleecy sits on a shelf in my bedroom, and I still love him just as much as I did all those years ago."
"I have a bear," Tricia said. "I call mine Bear-Bear."
"Tho do I," Felicia Ann whispered. "I thleep with my bear."
"I have a doll," Keiko said. "Not a bear. A soft doll with a painted face, and she is so old that her face is almost worn away, but I still love her just as much."
"I have a bunny," Ben said. "When I was born everybody gave me bunnies because of the story of Benjamin Bunny. My mom said I got eight bunnies when I was born. I only have one left, but I sleep with him every night, and when we went to visit my cousins and I forgot Bunny, I couldn't sleep."
Tyrone stood up. "Mine's a clown," he said. "My Nana made it. Got me a clown and he never makes a frown, makes me laugh as much as a giraffe—"
The class began to rap with Tyrone." Got me a clown—"
"Enough," Mrs. Pidgeon said, laughing. "You'll get your turn, Tyrone, when you present your fable. But for now we want to hear Beanie's. And also, Barry?"
"What?"
"It isn't a baby thing at all, to have a bear. Or a lamb, or a doll, or a clown. I'd like you to apologize to Beanie."
"Sorry, Beanie," Barry said.