"The principal is doing that?" asked Mrs. X in an outraged voice.
"Indeed he is," Gooney Bird replied.
Mrs. X didn't speak.
"The only thing you have to do is provide cupcakes. And you can come to the Thanksgiving pageant if you want, and sit in a seat of honor, and also—"
Gooney Bird looked at Mrs. Pidgeon. "I hope you don't mind, I said the next thing without asking your permission."
"What was that?" Mrs. Pidgeon asked. "I hope you didn't say she'd be paid. You know we don't pay anything."
"I'll continue," Gooney Bird said.
"And also, Mrs. Pidgeon, who wrote quite a fine song about succotash, will compose a second song, and its title will be 'Room Mother.'"
Mrs. Pidgeon began to laugh. "All right," she said. "I can do that."
Gooney Bird looked relieved. She continued.
"And," Gooney Bird told Mrs. X, "we will all sing the song to you at the end of the Thanksgiving pageant."
There was silence on the other end of the telephone. Then—
Gooney Bird looked at the class. "Guess the next word," she said.
"SUDDENLY!" they all shouted out. They'd learned from Gooney Bird how important the word suddenly could be.
"You got it." Gooney Bird continued.
Suddenly Mrs. X started to laugh. And she said, "Yes. I'll do it."
"Thank you, thank you!" Gooney Bird told her.
"On one condition," Mrs. X added.
"What is that?"
"Until Thanksgiving, I am incognito."
"My lips are sealed," said Gooney Bird.
The End
The class clapped. Gooney Bird bowed. Mrs. Pidgeon smiled.
"Gooney Bird," she said, "you are Squanto, for sure."
6.
Gooney Bird and the Room Mother
"Why do we have to have cardboard costumes?" Beanie complained. "At ballet class, we have stretchy satin, and for the recital I have shimmery wings attached. They're gold."
"Hold still," Mrs. Pidgeon told her. "I have to cut this very carefully. I don't want to miss and cut your hair."
Beanie stood very, very still. She looked nervous. "Don't you dare," she said. "I'm growing my hair to my waist."
"Ha!" shouted Malcolm. "Beanie's hair goes to the waste! To the wastebasket!"
"There," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "You can move now, Bean." She lifted the white cardboard that she had been cutting. "The reason we have cardboard costumes is because we already have cardboard, so it doesn't cost anything. And it makes good Pilgrim hats and Native American headbands.
"Malcolm." She glared at him. "Stop tormenting Beanie. Is your belt buckle almost finished?"
Gooney Bird and the Room Mother
Malcolm nodded and went back to his work. All of the Pilgrim boys were making large cardboard belt buckles. "I saw a guy with a skull on his belt buckle," he announced. "He was a Hell's Angel."
"Cool!" said Ben. "A real skull?"
"No. Fake."
Keiko looked up from the beads she was gluing onto her Native American headband. "Don't talk about skulls," she said nervously. "It makes me feel sick."
"My mom has skull earrings," Tyrone announced. "She wore them on Halloween. They dangled. Two little skulls."
Keiko stopped gluing beads and put her hands over her ears.
"These belt buckles will be very plain," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "The Pilgrims didn't decorate their clothing. The Native Americans did, though. Look what a good job Keiko is doing." Gently she reached down and removed Keiko's hands from her ears so that Keiko could continue attaching beads before her glue dried.
"Me too! Look at mine!" Tricia held up her headband.
"And mine! Mine's the best!" Nicholas called.
Mrs. Pidgeon walked around the room admiring the work of each second-grader. "I'm proud of all of you," she said, smiling. "Pilgrim girls, even though you don't have decorations, your white bonnets are quite lovely. Chelsea," she said, adjusting Chelsea's cardboard hat, "I think you might want to trim yours back a bit so that it doesn't cover your eyes that way
"And Native Americans? When you finish your beading, you may each add one feather from the feather pile." She reached for Tyrone's hand, which had quickly grabbed the entire collection of feathers. "Just one, Tyrone. Remember we talked about sharing just yesterday?"
Scowling, Tyrone selected a long yellow feather and put the rest back.
"I wish I could be a Native American," Chelsea said, frowning. "I hate my Pilgrim hat. It's too plain."
Beanie, wearing her white cardboard bonnet, patted Chelsea's arm. "But we were very brave," she reminded her. "We crossed the ocean, remember? And not in a cruise ship, either."
Ben, looking up from under the brim of his tall black Pilgrim hat, added, "Feathers are for babies. Pilgrims were tough and mean. They battled pirates."
"Actually," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "I don't think the Pilgrims encountered pirates at sea. But they certainly were brave. You're right about that, Ben. Can you lift your hat up a little, so your eyes show?"
Ben tilted his head back so that he could see. All of the Pilgrims had their heads tilted back. Somehow the Pilgrim hats were all a little too large.
"Good work, everyone!" Mrs. Pidgeon continued, looking around at the class. "And you've all memorized the words to the food song?"
All of the Native Americans and Pilgrims nodded.
"We'll practice it again when we get the headgear all done."
"Have you written the room mother song, Mrs. Pidgeon?" Gooney Bird asked. She was coloring Squanto's headband carefully.
"I'm working on it. There's a little problem with rhyming," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "If only she'd let us use her name—"
"Absolutely not," Gooney Bird said. "Incognito."
"Well, if you'd explain to her what a problem it creates. For example," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "if the song went, Hail to thee, Room Mother Greene, then the next line could easily be Best room mother we've ever seen—"
Gooney Bird Greene stopped coloring. She glared at Mrs. Pidgeon.