"That's okay." Still holding Teddy, Beanie turned and wrote BEAR on the list, just below KANGAROO. Then she unfolded her paper and read the title of her fable.
The Very Small Bear
Barry interrupted her. "Actually," Barry admitted, "I have a stuffed walrus, and his tusks are all gross because I suck on them."
Mrs. Pidgeon put her finger to her mouth. "Shhhh," she said to Barry. "Let's be good listeners."
Once there was a mother bear with twin cubs. One was a big strong bear cub, and very brave. But the other was quite small and weak, and frightened of things.
When they went to the river so their mom could teach them to get fish, the big cub jumped right in and splashed around. He grabbed a salmon with his claws. But the little cub was afraid of the water, and he cried. "It's cold!" he said. "And I can't swim!"
The big cub made fun of the little one. "Sissy!" the bigger cub said, and grabbed another fish for himself.
When their mom took them to the orchard where sometimes she stole apples from the farmer's trees, the big cub jumped right up into a tree and grabbed apples and ate them with a gulp.
But the little cub only peeked out from his hiding place behind the corner of the barn. "What if the farmer sees us?" he said. "What if the farmer has a gun and
shoots
us?" It made him shake with fear just to think about it.
"Scaredy-cat!" said the big cub to his brother, and he stuffed another apple into his own mouth.
The mother bear took them to a dead tree she knew of where she could get honey from a hive inside the trunk.
"Yay!" said the big cub. "Honey!" He climbed up the trunk of the tree, reached inside, and brought out his paw coated with sticky, delicious honey. The bees buzzed around angrily but he didn't care.
The little bear hid in the bushes and watched. He was very scared of bees. "What if they sting my nose?" he said.
So the big cub got bigger and bigger and healthier and healthier, but the little cub was always skinny and scared.
Beanie looked up. "That's the end," she said. "But it doesn't have a suddenly. And I don't think it has a moral, either."
Gooney Bird took the paper from Beanie and looked at it carefully. "You know what?" she said. "I don't think that was the end."
"It isn't?" Beanie said.
"You just stopped too soon," Gooney Bird pointed out.
"What if, after this last sentence—'the little cub was always skinny and scared'—you then added a suddenly?"
"But what could it say after that?" Beanie asked.
"Class?" Gooney Bird turned to the second-graders, who were all listening and thinking. "Ideas?"
Malcolm shouted, "Suddenly the big cub was killed by a lion and the little one got to eat all his food! This big lion comes and kills him, see! How about if a lion—"
"Oh, no!"wailed Keiko.
"Other ideas?" Gooney Bird asked.
"I have one," said Felicia Ann timidly.
"Remember, it should start with a suddenly," Gooney Bird reminded her.
Felicia Ann nodded. "Thuddenly," she said, "the big cub got thtuck in a bear trap! He wath too fat to get out!"
"And then what?"
"Well, hith little brother came along and wath able to reach in and help him, becuth he wath thkinny! He unlocked the trap and let hith brother out!"
"YES!" called Tyrone." Caught in a trap cuzyou acted like a sap, and along come your bro and help to let you go—"
"Tyrone," said Mrs. Pidgeon, with a meaningful look.
"Sorry," Tyrone said.
"What do you think of Felicia Ann's suggestion?" Gooney Bird asked Beanie.
Beanie nodded happily. "I like it! And it has a moral!" she said.
"What's the moral?"
"Be nice to your brother!" Malcolm called out. "Always share with your brother! Your brother is—"
Mrs. Pidgeon put her hand firmly on Malcolm's shoulder. "Let Beanie answer," she said.
"Well," Beanie said slowly."Everybody has things they can do. You don't have to be big or brave. The important thing is to be helpful."
"Sounds good to me!" Gooney Bird said. "Class? What do you think?"
"Sounds good!" the class said.
"The bear didn't die in the trap, did he?" Keiko asked fearfully.
"No," Beanie said. "He came out of the trap and went and got some fish and other stuff for his brother, to say thank you.
"The end," Beanie added.
6.
Felicia Ann went next.
"My fable ith very, very short," she said apologetically when she went to the front of the class.
"That's all right," Gooney Bird told her.
You'll thee why," Felicia Ann said.
She was wearing a bright pink dress and matching pink tights. She went to the board. Carefully she printed, under BEAR, the word FLAMINGO.
Then Felicia Ann turned to the class and unfolded her paper. They could all see the very short sentences printed neatly on it.
"The title ith 'The Fable of the Flamingo,'" Felicia Ann read aloud.
Oneth there wath a flamingo. It didn't mind being bright pink.
But itth legs were pink, too. And that made it embarrathed. The flamingo thought that itth legth should be brown, like other birds' legth.
Tho it tried to hide them. It pulled one leg up to itth tummy in a folded way tho that no one would thee it.
But thuddenly, when it pulled the other leg up, it fell over.
Tho it only hid one leg at a time.
And it had a very hard time walking.
The end.
Everyone noticed that Felicia Ann was wobbling a bit. She had read her fable standing on one leg, with the other leg tucked up as high as possible.
After she read, "The end," she sighed with relief and put her leg down.
"I almotht tipped over," she said, "tho it had to be short."
"It was a good fable, though," Gooney Bird told her. "Class? Didn't you think so?"
The other second-graders, all but Nicholas, who was scribbling aimlessly on a piece of paper, nodded.
"And the moral?" Gooney Bird asked. "Do you want the class to guess, or would you like to tell us?"