Maragold in Sixth Part One

AUGUST 22, 2006                                                               

                     MARAGOLD IN SIXTH

                                      DEDICATION

          To my sister and brother-in-law, Fran and Larry French, with love and appreciation for all that you did for me, and to my nephews and niece:  Mark, Tony, Mike and Lori, who are so very special to me.

          They have all made my life so much richer, joyful and rewarding.  With

gratitude and much love…………………William………………..

                             Previously published books by Bill Sheehan:

                                       MARAGOLD IN FOURTH

                                       MARAGOLD IN FIFTH

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education…Mark Twain...

                            CHAPTER  1

          Dear reader, if you have read the fourth and fifth grade books, then you know that I’m Bert, the invisible and magical leprechaun.  I came to America, from Ireland, to be Mara Grace Shane’s friend, advisor and protector.

          In fourth grade I was nine inches tall.  I grew one inch taller in fifth grade and that made me ten inches tall.  Then I went through a two inch growth spurt, the summer before sixth grade, so now I’m an amazing, twelve inches tall.  That means, of course, that I’m a ‘foot,’ but I know that I smell a lot better than a smelly foot because I use Irish Spring soap.

          Oh, yes.  I do have a very weird sense of humor.  I hope you will enjoy it.

          Unfortunately, this will be my last year with Maragold.  I returned to Ireland were Elder O’Keefe and the Committee of Elders taught me as much as it was possible to learn in July and August.

          Elder O’Keefe and the Committee of Elders also gave me two more magical gifts.  I now have the power to build a “force field” round myself so I can make myself visible without the fear of ever being captured.  I was also given the ability to erase parts of someone’s memory, especially with someone who has seen me that shouldn’t have seen me.

          It is September now and I have returned to America to be with Maragold for my final year.  I must permanently leave my dearest friend next June so I can become the leader of my secret leprechaun nation in Ireland.  It will be extremely difficult to tell her.  When and how I should inform her, and Matt, may be the most difficult problems I’ve ever faced.

          But, let’s not become too serious or sad.  I saw a funny thing when I got back to America.  I saw a big sewage truck owned by the Bear Feet Sewage Company, near Calford, where Maragold lives.  That company pumps human waste—poop—out of people’s septic tanks, the underground tanks that flushed toilets get emptied into (Yuck!).  Anyway, the clever sign on the Bear Feet truck said:  WE ARE NUMBER ONE IN THE NUMBER TWO BUSINESS.  I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw it.

          Then I went past the Calford Garage that fixes leaking car radiators and saw a sign that said:  THIS IS THE BEST PLACE IN TOWN TO TAKE A LEAK.  I was

laughing so hard that my stomach muscles ached.

          But then I passed the local pizza shop.  In the window, there was a sign that said: SEVEN DAYS WITHOUT PIZZA MAKES ONE WEAK.  I laughed more and hoped I wouldn’t see any more clever signs, or my stomach muscles would tear.

          When I returned to Maragold’s house I asked how her summer vacation was.  She smiled and said she thought a lot about me and Matt.  Then her face flushed and she changed the topic quickly.  She said that she did a lot of magic shows with her dad, and half the money she earned was spent on things she liked when she and her mom went shopping.  Mrs. Shane told Mara that whoever said, “Money can’t buy happiness,” obviously doesn’t know where to shop.”

          Maragold also said that she played with her cats, Apricot and Licorice.  I could tell how much she loved them by the tone of her voice and her facial expressions when she talked about them.  Those cats turned out to be one of her favorite Christmas gifts.

          She also said that she did not see much of Matt, Cheryl, and Eric because their families traveled a lot during the summer break, and because she and her dad kept busy practicing for all their magic shows.  She also said that she didn’t have much spare time because her family took a trip to Orlando, Florida and stayed longer than they had intended.

          Maragold said that she was bored some of the time because she missed her close friends, and she missed school.  For that reason her dad started joke sessions like Maragold did in school, with her friends.

          Mr. Shane asked Mara, “Why isn’t there an abbreviation for the word ‘abbreviation?’”  Maragold smiled at her dad, then he said, “Now that we have a computer, the set of encyclopedias that your mom and I bought for you are only useful for collecting dust … in alphabetical order.”

          Maragold jokingly put her hand on her father’s forehead to feel for heat, then asked, “Are you sure you’re feeling OK?”

          “Oh sure,” Mr. Shane replied, “I just haven’t been sleeping well lately and it’s causing me to act strangely and tell bad jokes.”

          “How come you can’t sleep?  Does mom snore that loudly?” Maragold asked with laughter mixed in her voice.

          “Well … it’s mostly because I keep having this one bad dream over and over.  I feel like I can’t breathe, and then I start choking and wake up feeling really full, like I had eaten a huge dinner.”

          “You wake up because you can’t breathe, start choking and feel full?  That’s a strange kind of nightmare.  Does it make you feel bad?”

          “Well, it’s not bad once I wake up and know what’s happening, but your mom sure does get mad at me,” Mr. Shane replied.

          “Geez!  I don’t understand.  Why would mom get mad at you?” Maragold asked.

          “OK.  Let me explain.  You see, the dream is about a giant marshmallow and I’m trying to eat all of it in my dream.  It’s making it hard for me to breathe and I’m choking on it, too,” Mr. Shane added.

          “And mom gets mad at you for that?” Maragold said, surprised.

          “Kind of.  You see, I keep biting chunks out of the pillows because, in my dream, they are the marshmallows,” Mr. Shane said, then started laughing, followed by Maragold’s laughter.

          Later I listened with much interest as my dear friend told me more about her summer.  She complained a little, especially about being treated like a little girl by her mom and dad.  She said she’s not a little kid any more, that she was growing and her body was changing into a woman.  She didn’t like her mom and dad treating her like a baby, especially since she was eleven years old and would be twelve at the end of the end of sixth grade.  I told her that I understood and thought that she had a good argument, even though I did not fully understand about the changes that a human girl goes through to become a woman.  But she needed someone to listen to her and sympathize with her complaints, not someone to understand physical changes.  I also felt like I should not ask, so that she could have her privacy and so I wouldn’t turn red-faced from embarrassment about questions that I should not have asked.

          But mostly what we talked about was news, fun activities, and funny stuff.  We laughed a lot and got reacquainted.  It felt so good to be with her again, to see her beauty, to listen to the rhythm and tone of her velvet voice.

          As she talked, I looked at her hair.  She had let it grow even longer.  Her fine, brown hair flowed off the crown of her head and dropped down her neck and back like a gentle mountain stream flowing over a boulder, then tumbling to a lower level half way down her back.  She was a pretty girl now, but in a few years she would be a very beautiful woman.  She smiled curiously at me and I thought she’d ask me why I was staring at her, but, instead, she asked me if I had learned any new jokes during my summer in Ireland.  I told her that I had heard a few, like:  There was a cross-eyed teacher who couldn’t control his pupils. And what do you get if you cross a vampire with a teacher?  You get a lot of blood tests.

          She grinned and said, “Did you hear any leprechaun jokes?”

          “Only one,” I said.  “What do you call a criminal leprechaun that has developed a really bad skin disease?”

          Maragold shrugged her shoulders, wrinkled her brow, then simply gave up and said, “What?”

          “You’d call him a leper-con.”

          Maragold looked confused, so I said, “You know.  A ‘leper’ is a person who has the disease called leprosy, and a ‘con’ is a convict, a criminal.  Understand?”

          Like the slow, rising sun in the morning, a bright smile spread across Maragold’s lips.  It made her face shine with a warmth that I could feel and it delighted me.

          After a few seconds of sharing our laughter, I asked Maragold if she’d heard any good jokes.

          “Oh, sure,” she replied, “I’ve heard tons of ‘em.  How about these?  Why did the teacher stare at the frozen orange juice can?”

          “Tell me,” I said excitedly.

          “Because the can says ‘concentrate’ on the label.”

          While I laughed, Maragold continued, “What would you call a curious alligator who is wearing a fancy vest?”

          I shrugged my shoulders because I had no idea what the answer was.

          “Well, of course, you would have to call the alligator an investigator, you know, an in-vest-i-gator.  Right?” Maragold said as she smiled at me.

          As I was smiling back at her, I said, “Tell me more.  I was away from your joke sessions for a long time and missed them.”

          “OK, one more.  If my mom was from Iceland and my dad was from Cuba, what would I be called?”

          Wow! That had me thinking.  It sounded like both a joke and a puzzle and I was stumped, so I just said, “What?”

          Maragold laughed mischievously and said, “I’d be called an ‘ice-cuba,’ Bert.  And I’d be a really cool kid, too.  Yep!  As cool as the inside of a refrigerator.”

          We both broke out into laughter as we stared at each other.  I was so happy to be back with her.  I had missed her greatly.

          Maragold said, “I’m really glad you’re back, Bert.  I missed you very much.”

          Her close school group had been separated by the schedules of their summer vacations and Maragold was looking forward to getting back together with them, now that summer was almost over and all her friends were home.

          Maragold added, “And tomorrow you can come with me to the Pizza Land shop at noon.  I’m riding my bike there to meet Matt, Cheryl and Eric.  Then we can eat pizza and get caught up on all the summer vacation news.

          “That sounds great,” I said. “I’m curious to hear their news too.  It should be fun.  One of us will have to tell Matt about my new power to make a protective force-field around myself so that, even when I’m visible, no one can capture me, and also about my ability to erase parts of a person’s memories.”

                                       *

          The next day was Saturday, the last day in August.  Maragold slept late.  I was in the kitchen watching Mr. and Mrs. Shane sip their coffee and talk quietly and leisurely to each other.

          “Well, another school year is about to start.  I hope Maragold has a better time than she did at the beginning of fifth grade,” Mr. Shane said, as he lifted his cup and stared into the large back yard through the siding glass door.

          “Oh, I’m sure Bugs”—Mrs. Shane called Maragold ‘Bugs’—“will have a great year, especially since she has Mr. Bunnlow again.  That sure was a stroke of luck, if it was really luck.  What do you think?”

          “I think Mr. B. had a lot to do with that luck, especially since all her close friends will be in the same classroom with her.  She should have a pretty good year.”

          I smiled when I heard Mr. Shane refer to Mr. Bunnlow as ‘Mr. B.’  I thought it sounded really good.  I decided to mention it to Maragold.  Maybe it would be OK to call Mr. Bunnlow, ‘Mr. B.’  It certainly had a cool sound to it.

          I could hear running water, so I knew that Maragold was awake and going through her morning washing and dressing routine.  I remained in the kitchen where both Mr. and Mrs. Shane stared into their coffee cups as if the rising steam had hypnotized them.

          Then Maragold appeared in the kitchen and ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with her mom and dad.

          Mrs. Shane and Maragold grimaced when Mr. Shane poured ketchup on his scrambled eggs.  It made the eggs look gross because they looked bloody.  But Mr. Shane liked them like that and ate them with lip-smacking gusto.

          Maragold reminded her mom and dad that she was riding her bike to the pizza shop, about noon, so she could meet with her friends and have a pizza lunch.

          Mr. Shane looked concerned, as he always did when Mara left the house. He said, seriously, “Have fun, but be safe, Sweetheart.”

          “I will, Dad,” Maragold replied with a smile. Her dad almost always said the same thing to her when she was going somewhere without him or her mom.

          Mr. Shane asked, “Do you need money?”

          Maragold grinned and said, “I always need money, but I have enough from my magic show money.  Thanks anyway.”

          The remainder of the morning Maragold cleaned her room, finished a book she was reading titled, Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt, then practiced a new magic trick while her mom and dad went grocery shopping.

          About 11:45 A.M. she got her bike out of the garage and rode it two miles to the center of Calford, parked it out of the way of customers, then went inside.  To her delight, her three friends were all sitting at a booth anxiously waiting for her.  Cheryl gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  Matt hugged her, but Eric just shook hands with her, then said, “How’s your cats?”

          “They’re fine.  Why?” Maragold asked, curiously

          “Oh, nothing,” Eric said as he smiled with mischief in his tone of voice.  Then he said, “I was just thinking about asking my mom to cook some Chinese food, but there are so few cats around our house.”

          “Very funny,” Maragold said, sarcastically.  Then, “I see you haven’t changed.”

          Eric smiled proudly.  His friends just shook their heads in disbelief, but smiles showed on their faces.

          They ordered a pepperoni and mushroom pizza.  When it came they ate and continued to talk about their summer vacation activities.  Maragold repeated all the information that she had given to me yesterday.  Then she looked at Cheryl and asked her to tell about her summer.

          Cheryl said that she spent most of the summer in North Carolina.  She said she stayed at her Aunt Colleen’s house, on the Outer Banks, in a town called Manteo.  She added that she and her cousins went to the beach a lot, collected shells, built sand castles and ate a lot of sea food.  She also said that she got even more interested in writing poetry and reading poetry written by famous people.  She said that she even kept a notebook of the poems that she had written.  She promised to show the poems to Maragold some other time.

          Matt said, “How come you didn’t bring it to show us?”

          His question was answered when Cheryl stared at Eric and Eric felt guilty all over again for some mean comments that he made about Cheryl’s interest in writing poems during fifth grade.

          To hop quickly off the embarrassing topic of poetry, Eric said, “OK guys, listen.  What do you call a country where all the cars are pink?”

          When Eric saw the puzzled, confused looks on his friends’ faces, he blurted out the answer, “It’s called a ‘pink car-nation!’  You get it?  Funny, huh?”

          His friends smiled at him so he knew that he was either forgiven or had been successful at distracting them away from the topic of poetry.  To make sure the topic stayed away from poetry, he told another joke. “What noise do you get from an animal that’s a cross between a cocker spaniel, a poodle and a ghost?”

          His friends shrugged their shoulders, and Maragold said, “We don’t know.”

          “The sound you’d get is ‘cocka-poodle-boo,’” Eric said with a happy smile.

          “It sounds more like the sound of a Chinese rooster.  Maybe you can put him in your Chinese food,” Maragold said as she, Matt and Cheryl laughed.

          “Yeah, OK.  The first joke was better.  I had a great summer vacation,”  Eric continued.  He told his friends about going to a vacation ranch for kids in Montana.  He said he had a great time hiking, fishing, riding horses and flirting with the few girls that were there.

          Cheryl said, “Oh yeah?  And how many times did you get slapped?”

          Eric hesitated, then shyly admitted, “Just once, but that’s pretty good for me.”

          “And why did you get slapped, Eric,” Maragold said with raised eye brows that slightly embarrassed Eric.

          “That’s none of your business!” Eric said rather loudly as his face turned more red.  Then his face glowed a deeper red when his friends laughed even harder.

          “OK. OK. You got me,” Eric stated when his face turned back to its natural color.

          Then Eric went on to tell his friends that he was a little afraid to ride a horse, at first, but once he did it he didn’t want to stop because it was so much fun.  He said it made him feel free, like an old time cowboy must have felt roaming around the old west.  He added that he also went to see Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park.  “They were awesome!” he said.  He told his friends that he met some nice kids that he is email-pals with now.

          Cheryl said, “Are you email pals with the girl that slapped you?”

          “Nope. Not her,” is all Eric stated, but he did not show any embarrassment or guilt this time.

          “Oh! I forgot to tell you.  I got to hunt rabbits and squirrels with a .22 rifle.  Wow! That was fun.  Even the NRA gun safety course that I had to take before going hunting was a lot of fun.  I may ask for a .22 rifle for Christmas.

          “Speaking of rabbits,” Eric stated—everyone knew he was going to tell another joke—“Why couldn’t the Energizer Bunny come out of the bathroom?”

          Answers were: low batteries, no batteries, wrong batteries, but Eric just smiled triumphantly at these wrong answers and said, “He couldn’t come out of the bathroom because he kept going and going and going.”  Eric broke out into loud laughter.  His bathroom humor was constant.  He enjoyed it much more than his audience did.

          Then Eric turned to Matt and said, “Your turn, buddy.  Tell us about your summer.”  All eyes focused on Matt.

          “Well, first of all,” Matt said, “I grew a couple of inches taller,”—I envied him.  “I also went to Disneyland and had more fun than I thought I would.  I thought it was just for little kids, but some of the rides are fabulous, even scary.  We were in Florida to visit my Aunt Frann and Uncle John—Aunt Frann is my mom’s sister. Aunt Frann lives in Deltona which is only about an hour from Disneyland.  We had a great time there and stayed for two weeks.

          “We came home for a couple weeks, then I went to the Adirondack Mountains with my dad.  That was a lot of fun, too.  My dad rented a cabin on Racquette Lake.  Our cabin was only about fifty feet from the shore.  There was a pier there and canoes.  We spent a lot of time canoeing, hiking, fishing, swimming, grilling the fish we caught, and sometimes just exploring the area.  Man! I’ll tell you one thing.  Fresh caught fish that’re grilled outdoors are so tasty that I spent a lot of time fishing just so I could have fish for dinner.  I had a darn good time, that’s for sure.

          “But, you know what?” Matt said, excitedly, and continued, “Mr. Bunnlow started teaching karate lessons this summer, for the very first time.  I wanted to take lessons so bad that I begged my mom and dad to let me.  They agreed without an argument.  Wow!  That surprised me.  Anyway I’ve been going to karate classes almost every day for a month.  I go to classes Monday to Saturday, so I’ve had a couple dozen lessons already.  Robby takes lessons, too, and sometimes we practice together on Sunday afternoons.  We’re getting pretty good … I think.  And another thing—”

          “Wait, wait, wait a second,” Maragold interrupted, “Who’s Robby?”

          “Oh, I forgot to mention.  Remember that boy who won the fourth grade award for the school talent show?  The boy who was a juggler and comic?  You remember him?  His name is Robby Terkak.

          Maragold looked at Cheryl and Eric and they nodded to her.  “Yeah, we all remember him.”

          “OK.  Well he’s taking lessons, too.  We became friends and we’re usually partners during our karate classes.  We practice our katas and self-defense routines together.  We help each other to get better and better.  Robby’s getting really good, too.”

          Does Mr. Bunnlow just teach you and Robby?” Cheryl asked.

          “Oh, no.  You guys weren’t around much this summer so you must not have heard.  Mr. Bunnlow rented a place that used to be an antique shop in Calford.  He fixed it up to make it into a karate dojo.”

          Seeing the curious looks at the word ‘dojo,’ Matt said, “Dojo is the Japanese name for a place where karate is taught and practiced.”

          “You didn’t tell us what a ‘kata’ was either,” Eric said with mild curiosity.

          Matt replied, “A kata is just a pre-planned series of self-defense movements.  It’s like memorizing a dance only the dance has hand strikes, leg kicks, blocks and all the other things you would do to defend yourself if you were attacked.”

          “So Mr. B. has other students?  How many?” asked Maragold.

          “Mr. B?” Matt replied with a frown of curiosity.

          “Yeah.  Lately I’ve been thinking of Mr. Bunnlow as ‘Mr. B.’ It’s easier and it sounds good, too.  If he doesn’t mind, I’d like to call him Mr. B. from now on,” Maragold added.

          “Mr. B. sounds good to me, too.  Anyway Mr. B. has about a dozen students already and will certainly have a lot more when school starts and the other students find out that he’s teaching karate.  They’ll get really excited when they learn that he’s teaching karate in the early evenings, after school, and on Saturday mornings.  It’s not free, of course, but he charges a lot less than the Rochester karate schools,” Matt said.

          “Do you know anyone else in class, besides Robby?” Eric asked.

          “Sure.” Matt stated quickly.  “There’s these twin brothers there that are really funny.  Their names are Pete and Re-Pete.  Then there’s the two twin sisters whose names are Kate and Dupli-Kate. Wow! They look so much alike, you know?”

          Matt nearly choked on a piece of his pizza when he started laughing at his teasing jokes.  Even I groaned before I laughed.

          “Oh, and Eric,” Matt said while still chewing his pizza, “I’ve been waiting all summer to tell you this joke.  It’s the kind you like.  If there’s H2O inside a fire hydrant, what’s on the outside of it?”

          “Heck, man.  Everything else in the whole world is on the outside of it,” Eric responded.

          “OK, Eric.  It’s easy.  The inside of the fire hydrant has H2O in it and the outside has K9P on it!  Dog pee!  Get it?” Matt said in a loud voice.

          Maragold and Cheryl crinkled up their noses at the thought of dog pee, but Eric went hysterical with laughter that quickly became contagious.  Then Matt couldn’t stop laughing either.

          “Hey!” Maragold said loudly as she looked at Cheryl for approval, “You guys told jokes and we didn’t get a chance, so now it’s our turn.  You guys be quiet and let us have a chance.”

          Matt and Eric looked at each other, then together they said, “Yes, ma’am.”  They followed that with humorous military salutes and giggles.

          They all focused on Maragold as she said, “Who can tell me what kind of dog can jump higher than any building?”

          “What! That doesn’t make any sense,” Eric said.

          “It depends on how you think about it, Eric.  The simple answer is that any dog at all can jump higher that any building because buildings can’t jump,” Maragold teased Eric as she leaned forward and winked at him with laughter spread across her lips.

          “Oh, Geez.  Terrible joke,” Eric groaned as if he’d just found a struggling spider trapped in the gooey cheese on his pizza.

          “OK, try this one,” said Maragold.  “Does anyone remember which month has twenty-eight days in it?”

          Matt remained quiet while Eric blurted, “It’s February, of course!  What kind of silly joke was that?  There’s nothing funny about it.”

          “Sorry, Eric.  I guess this isn’t your day for correct answers.  You see, Eric, every one of the twelve months has twenty-eight days in them, not just February, right?” Maragold said with a smirk, then added, “And even February doesn’t always have twenty-eight days, does it?”

          “That wasn’t a joke, anyway.  It was just a trick question,” an embarrassed Eric replied.

          “Maybe it was, but your answers have been pretty funny so far, so the joke is on you,” Cheryl said with pleasure.

          “OK, OK,” Eric said, “You got me. I admit it.  You see, I can be a good sport,” sneered Eric as he looked from Maragold to Cheryl.

          That’s when Maragold said to Cheryl, “Go girl.  Your turn.”

          “Finally, I get a chance.  Yippee!” she said.  “I have a poem type of joke.  OK, here it is:

                             Lily had a cute, pet bear,

                             To it she was so kind,

                             So every where that Lily went,

                             She had a bare behind.”

          A wonderful sound of shared laughter filled their corner of the room.  It reminded me of Mr. B.  One Friday afternoon, in fourth grade, after a really good joke session in the classroom, I read Mr. B’s thoughts.  He was thinking: There’s no music so perfectly pleasurable as a chorus of children genuinely laughing with unrestrained sincerity.

          Dear reader, if you could hear the laughter, you’d agree.

          The other customers at the pizza shop couldn’t help smiling and laughing too.  That was the proof of the truth of Mr. B’s thoughts.

          The four close friends all looked like the bright, warm sun had risen up their spines, to their necks and settled on their faces, leaving their cheeks and lips aglow with bright, warm smiles, soothing laughter, and a life-long memory to cherish.

                                      BERT’S QUESTIONS

                             What’s another word for synonym?

          If a word in a dictionary is spelled wrong, how would you know?

                           CHAPTER  2

          School started after Labor Day.  Maragold, Matt, Cheryl and Eric all met near Mr. Bunnlow’s classroom door, close to their lockers.  They all had friendly, happy smiles because they were glad to get back to school.  However, they did notice a few students who looked sad about the start of the school year, as if their lives were over for ten more months.

          I was sitting on Maragold’s shoulder, but only Maragold and Matt could see me.

          The four friends entered the classroom and all sat in a group, close to each other. They looked around the room and greeted other friends that they had known in fourth and fifth grades.

          Mr. Bunnlow caught the attention of the four friends and winked at them, but only the two girls winked back at him, then smiled.  The two boys quickly waved, then enthusiastically smiled at Mr. Bunnlow.

          Eric looked at Mr. Bunnlow and his quick mind thought: slim and tall; about six feet two inches, but with his cowboy boots on he appeared to be about six feet four inches tall.  Sort of forces you to look up to him.  I do.  He’s an unusual teacher; loves his students, but has little patience with most adults.  My kind of guy.  About 190 pounds.  A black belt in Japanese karate and in good shape.  Likes to be active outside with his students, also.  While other teachers sit on the bench and watch their students, he plays with his students: tag, races, touch football, frisbee, swinging or pushing students on the swing.  Stuff like that.  In winter he plays chess, checkers, Connect Four, paper football.  It’s funny seeing him get on the floor and do push-ups, sit-ups, the knee bends.  He looked even funnier when some students did the exercises with him.  A red-faced teacher lying on the floor was a funny sight.  Weird guy, but fun.  Good sense of humor that attracted and entertained kids; kept them interested, motivated, curious.  A mildly amusing Ichabod Crane face—the skinny school teacher in Washington Irving’s story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow—dark glasses and bobbing Adam’s Apple, like a buoy rising, then falling in rough water.

          Mr. Bunnlow took attendance and marked one person that was missing.  He asked if anyone knew Charles Fate, but no one did.  “Must be a new boy,” Mr. Bunnlow remarked.

          Mr. Bunnlow did not usually assign seats to the students unless they got into trouble often.  He assigned locker numbers to each student, explained classroom and school rules, then passed out the textbooks.

          When the textbooks were taken care of, Mr. Bunnlow sat on the corner of his desk and looked seriously at his pupils, scanning the room quickly.  Then he said, “I see a lot of faces that I recognize and some that I don’t.  So, for those of you who don’t know me … ahh … let’s just keep it that way.”

          The students looked confused and stared at Mr. Bunnlow, until Mr. Bunnlow finally had to burst into laughter at his own joke.  It was like watching a miniature volcanic explosion of laughter.  Then his students also burst into laughter.

          Then Mr. Bunnlow got up, walked to the chalkboard and wrote something strange.  It said:

                                ghoti = fish

          Mr. Bunnlow saw confused, but curious expression on his students’ faces, so he said, “Welcome to sixth grade.  Spelling correctly is much more important than most of you may realize.  Each of you has ideas and thoughts that you often need to describe or explain in writing.  To explain yourselves accurately, your words must be spelled accurately.  The American language is full of words that are difficult to spell.  Those words must even be written in a certain way, sometimes, so they mean what you want them to mean.

          “For example: If you wanted to write something about your father being too far away from you because of a business trip, then you wouldn’t write to him saying ‘Bad, you are a rot fart her away than you have never bean,’ when you really meant to say, ‘Dad, you are a lot farther away than you have ever been.’  You see what I mean?”

          At first their was only hesitant laughter, then when Mr. Bunnlow gave a hearty laugh and the student’s  laughed louder.

          Mr. Bunnlow raised his hand to get the students to be quiet and explained why he wrote that “ghoti” equals “fish.”

          He explained, “Boys and girls, if the ‘gh’ in ghoti sounds like the ‘gh’ in the word ‘enough,’ then that’s an ‘f’ sound.  If the ‘o’ sound in ghoti sounds like the ‘o’ in the word ‘women,’ then that’s a short ‘i’ sound.  If the ‘ti’ in ghoti sounds like the ‘ti’ in the word ‘position,’ then that’s an ‘sh’ sound.  So the sounds of the letters in ‘ghoti’ equal the exact same sounds as in the word ‘fish.’  That’s just one of many reasons why spelling is so difficult.  That’s why, this year, I will place more emphasis on correct spelling than you may have been used to having .”

          After a half hour of talking about the academic work the students would be performing, Mr. Bunnlow said, “OK, let’s take a short break.  Does anyone have a good joke to tell the class?  Please remember that it must be a clean joke, and it must not embarrass anyone, or any group of people … ahh … especially your sixth grade teacher.”

          A short burst of laughter erupted in the classroom and Mr. Bunnlow could tell that his students were feeling at ease, even those students who did not know him.

          Mr. Bunnlow saw Maragold’s hand shoot up, so he called on her, saying, “Go ahead Mara.  Let’s hear your joke.”

          Maragold replied, “First, Mr. Bunnlow, I’d like to ask if it would be all right if we called you ‘Mr. B’ instead of Mr. Bunnlow.  Mr. B. is so easy to say and it sounds cool, too.  Is that OK with you?”

          “You may call me Mr. Bunnlow or Mr. B.  Mr. B. does sound good, though, doesn’t it?  Then if you don’t behave yourself, I can sting you like a bee.”

          Then Mr. B. said, “OK Mara.  Please tell us your joke.”

          Maragold’s face turned red as she said, “I forgot what it was.”

          Mr. B. and the students laughed.  Then, seeing Jim’s hand raised, Mr. B. said, “OK, Jim.  Why don’t you tell your joke.”

          “Oh! I didn’t have a joke, Mr. B.  I wanted to ask about your after school karate lessons,” Jim said, shyly. “Can anyone take those classes?  When are they? And how much does it cost?”

          “Jim, there will be a large advertisement in the next Penny Saver.  It explains everything you’ll need to know if you want to take lessons.  If your parents have any questions, just have them call me or come to the dojo, the building where I teach the lessons, across the street from the Calford library, OK?”

          “Sure, Mr. B.,” Jim replied, happily.

          Now Mr. B. saw Eric’s hand raised.  He smiled at Eric and said, “Oh!  Does Mr. Innocence have a joke for us? If you do, then come to the front of the class.”

          “Yes, sir, I sure do, Mr. B.” Eric said “Mr. B.” a little louder than the other words, trying to tease Mr. B.  Eric walked confidently to the front of the classroom, then said to his peers, “How many of you have ever eaten asparagus?  It’s a long, skinny vegetable, whitish at the root end, but gets greener as you go toward the top.  At the top it has tiny leaves that seem to be pressed tightly together.  Anybody ever eaten them?”

          More than half the class raised their hands, including Mr. B.

          “Well, then,” Eric continued, “The next time you went to the bathroom, your pee really stunk, right?  That’s smelly old asparagus pee, ya know and—”

          Mr. B. interrupted Eric as he noticed a lot of red, embarrassed faces. “Eric, please don’t say any more.”

          “Why?  It’s not a dirty joke.  Everybody pees.  It’s just that after eating asparagus, your pee really smells,” Eric replied.

          “Eric, your observation about the smell of urine, after eating asparagus, is true.  Technically, what you said is not really bad, but in school we don’t talk about human body wastes, unless it’s in science class.  Do you have a regular joke to tell?”

          Eric thought about it, but did not say anything.

          Mr. B. filled the pause by saying, “Eric, you seem to have lost your dictionary because all of a sudden I’ve noticed that you are at a loss-for-words.”  Mr. B. smiled at Eric and the students giggled.

          “Oh, Mr. B., I got tons of jokes.  I’m just trying to figure out which one to tell,” Eric responded.

          “Eric, you should say that you ‘have’ tons of jokes instead of you ‘got’ tons of jokes. OK?” Mr. B. stated.

          “Oh. Sure.  I remember you leaching us that in fourth grade.  I got to remember that.”

          Mr. B. took a deep, relaxing breath and was about to say something to Eric, when Eric said, “Just kidding, Mr. B.  I know that you were ‘teaching’ and I ‘have’ to remember that.  You know Mr. B. I think you must be the smartest teacher in school.”

          Mr. B’s chest puffed up with pride, then he smiled suspiciously and hesitantly asked, “Why do you say that, Eric?”

          “Well, Mr. B., last year you were in fourth grade and you must have been so smart that you got sent to sixth grade without going to fifth grade.  That’s how it happened, right?”

          Comfortable laughter filled the room as Mr. B. said, “Well, Eric, it didn’t quite happen that way but it’s nice of you to think I’m smart.”

          Eric said, “Mr. B, do you know what an anagram is?”

          “Sure.  It’s a word made from all the letters of another word.”

          “Yeah,” Eric said, “and I’m really worried about how well you’ll do in sixth grade Mr. B.”

          “Why would you be worried about that, Eric?”

          “Because an anagram for the word ‘teacher’ is the word ‘cheater,’ and that worries me a lot,” Eric replied with a mischievous giggle.

          “No need to worry about that, Eric,” Mr. B. smiled. “The only time I can imagine myself cheating is when you get a really good grade and I make it a lot lower, particularly a report card grade.”

          The whole class roared with laughter and Eric’s face looked like a red rose with a black toupee.

          Mr. B. walked over to Eric, put his hand on Eric’s hair, then messed it up a little and said, “Just kidding.”  As he walked away, Eric let out a deep, thankful sigh, then combed his hair with his fingers.

          With his face still red, Eric said, “Maybe I should be quiet, huh?”

          Mr. B. replied, “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea, Eric.”

          After a couple more students told jokes, Mr. B. taught a formal spelling lesson.  Then he went through the math textbook with his students and explained some of the things that they would be studying during the year.

          The students went to art class, then about a half hour before lunch time Mr. B. let the students select books for independent reading.  He had sixth grade books all over his classroom.  As always, he emphasized the fact that better readers are also better writers, and better writers are also better readers.

          When the books were put away, the students had a bathroom break, then they went to lunch.

          When the class reached the school cafeteria, there was a long line of other students standing near the wall, waiting to get their trays and go through the food line.  So when Mr. B.’s class lined-up against the wall, that line went past the nurse’s office.  Natural curiosity took control and the nearest students looked into the office.  That’s the first time those students realized that they had a new nurse this year.  The name plate on the door said: MRS. BULLOCK.

          When Matt peered into the room and saw the young, very pretty nurse, his jaw fell like a loose anchor.  His eyes got big and his heart began to flutter as he stared at her.  He almost bit his tongue, not realizing that it was sticking out of his mouth.

          Eric looked Matt’s expression as Matt also looked into the nurse’s office.  Matt’s mouth was closed tightly, as if he was stopping himself from saying something that he knew he shouldn’t say.  Matt’s eyes blinked rapidly, then squinted with pleasure as his heartbeat increased.

          Maragold slugged Matt on the upper arm and Cheryl did the same to Eric, but neither girl got her desired result.

          Then Cheryl whispered, “Her name is Mrs. Lori Bullock.  I heard some kid say her name on the bus this morning as he was drooling onto his seat and talking excitedly to some other boys.  One of those boys said that she lived across the street from him and that her two daughters were in high school.  He also said that they were both eye-popping beautiful.  That same boy said that her husband must have to walk around with a hammer just to keep the guys away from his three gorgeous women.”

          “Wow!” Matt exclaimed, “she’s … you know…she’s a … she’s gorgeous!  I suddenly feel sick.  I think I need to see the nurse,” he joked.

          Maragold said, “OK, little boys.  Pop your eyes back into your heads and let’s go.  The line’s moving.”  Maragold grabbed Matt’s arm and practically had to drag him towards the cafeteria entrance.

          Maragold and Cheryl looked disgustedly at Matt and Eric.  Maragold said to both boys, “She’s old enough to be your mother, and—”

          “Maybe so,” Eric interrupted, “but our moms don’t look that young … or that hot.  Know what I mean?”  Then Eric rolled his eyes up into his head in a dreamy, wishful movement, displaying a naughty smile that almost got him slapped by Cheryl.

          When Maragold and Cheryl turned away from Matt and Eric, and stopped speaking to them, Matt and Eric snapped out of their romantic daze and apologized for gawking at Mrs. Bullock—but they didn’t say that they were sorry for their thoughts.

          Maragold and Cheryl did not believe a word of the apology.

          Cheryl said, “Yeah.  You were both being childish and rude.  Disgusting too.”

          “We aren’t speaking to you guys,” Maragold added.

          Matt and Eric both looked at their shoes trying to hide their flushed and embarrassed faces.

          They finally got to the serving ladies and they all asked for Italian dunkers—Italian garlic bread-sticks that are dunked into spaghetti sauce before they’re eaten.  Then they went to their cafeteria table and ate quietly until Matt broke the silence by saying, “OK, girls.  Please don’t be mad at us any more.  I admit that Eric and I were acting like immature jerks.  But we both apologized, so can we please get back to normal and talk to each other?”

          Eric didn’t dare say anything to Matt, or the girls, but he was thinking, “Apologize?  What the heck for?”  Then his hand went to his mouth and covered it, as if he needed a hand to prevent himself from speaking.

          To make sure that he did not say anything about Mrs. Bullock, he started joking.  Eric said, “OK, listen to this puzzling joke.  See if you can figure it out.  After you see a flying bat, you start running for home.  You go straight, then you take three left turns until suddenly you stop.  Then you see two masked men.  Who are those two masked men?”

          Eric heard an assortment of guesses like: burglars, Halloween kids, doctors, and other silly answers.  He pretended to be disappointed in the answers and said, “You’re all so pathetic.  Those two masked men are the catcher and the home plate umpire.  It’s a baseball game!  Get it?”  Eric looked at his friends and yelled, “Duh!”

          “OK,” Cheryl stated sarcastically, “See if you can answer this one.  Why would Cinderella make a poor baseball player?”

          Maragold and Matt shrugged, but Eric concentrated and said, “She can’t play baseball in a fancy dress and high heels.”

          “No!  Smarty pants.  It’s because her coach is a pumpkin and she always runs away from the ball.  Gotcha!” Cheryl teased Eric.

          “Not really,” Eric said confidently.

          “What do you mean by that?  You didn’t know the correct answer, did you?” Cheryl replied while staring at Eric.

          “Well, let me quote you, OK? You said to me, ‘See if you can answer this one.’  That’s what you said, right?” Eric said.

          “Yes. So what?” answered Cheryl.

          “OK.  I did answer.  It may not have been the answer you wanted to hear, but I did answer you.  You see, my dear friend, you didn’t say, ‘See if you can answer this one correctly.’ You just said, ‘See if you can answer this one.’  Well, I answered it, didn’t I?

          “You knew darn well what I meant,” Cheryl said angrily.

          “I know what you said.  It’s up to you to say what you mean,” Eric replied stubbornly.

          “Well, you still did not know the correct answer.”

          “No, but I got you all flustered and it was worth it,” Eric said with mocking laughter in his voice.”

          Hey, you two.  Calm down.  It’s just jokes we’re telling.  It’s supposed to be fun,” Maragold stated.

          “It was fun,” Eric said, “Plus, my joke was a lot better than her’s.”  Eric smiled teasingly at Cheryl.

          Cheryl’s eyes shot darts of anger at Eric and she whispered, “Smart arse.”

          Maragold looked down the cafeteria table to see most of her classmates listening to the teasing and wondering what would happen.  So Maragold continued the joke session, hoping for quiet and calm between Cheryl and Eric.

          Maragold said, “Did you know that my dad is a real light eater?  No?  Well he is, and that’s why it’s always dark in our house at night.”  Maragold looked all around the table at her classmates .  It took a few seconds, but then the giggles came.  Immediately, she started another joke.  “Eric, I think you’re a treasure,”  Eric smiled proudly, thinking that a compliment was coming.  But, to Eric’s surprise, Maragold finished her sentence with, “and that’s why I think you should stay buried.”

          “Yeah!  And the only time he really looks normal is on Halloween,” Cheryl added.  “And his lips are so big that he can whisper in his own ear.  And you can’t ever get rid of him.  He’s like a turd that just won’t flush.  What’s the matter Eric?  You look uncomfortable.  Are you wearing burlap underwear?”

          “Yeah!  So maybe I deserved that, but I was just teasing you before.  You did forgive me, didn’t you my sweet, cutie-pie?” Eric asked, smiling.

          “You’re forgiven, but don’t call me ‘cutie-pie,’” Cheryl replied.  “And if I had a squirt gun I’d drench you with it because, sometimes, you’re a drip, a washed-up comedian with watered-down jokes.  Understand?”

          “Yeah.  I understand.  You’re such a cutie-pie, in a big, dumb, loyal, and faithful kind of way.  So, come here, Rover.  Woof, woof,” Eric teased.

          “Hey! Come on you two.  You don’t always have to tease each other,” Matt said.

          “A guy’s got to have some fun,” Eric responded.

          “And a girl’s got to have some fun, too,” Cheryl replied.

          “Matt said, “Did you hear about the dyslexic kid who, at Christmas time, was trying to sing the ‘Noel’ song?  But he kept on saying ‘Leon’ instead of Noel.”

          “Whoa,” Maragold responded quickly.  “I thought the rule was that joke sessions would not have jokes that make fun of certain people,” Maragold stated.  “That joke sounds like something that Eric would carelessly say.”

          Matt was embarrassed by Maragold’s comments.  He said, “Yeah, I forgot, but that’s hard to do.  Most jokes make fun of a person or a group of people.  You’re right, though.  I apologize, but I can tell you something funny.”

          Matt continued, “This joke is actually true.  My dad and I went to a Rochester Red Wings baseball game.  We had to use the men’s room so we walked to the nearest one.  On the door was a sign that said: OUT OF ODOR instead of OUT OF ORDER. Some one must have been in a hurry when they wrote that.  Probably someone who had to go pee so bad that his eyes were turning yellow.”

          When Mr. B. arrived at their table, they lined-up and followed him outside to the playground for twenty minutes.  Just before the students returned to their classroom they had a bathroom break.  After the break, when they were all seated and quiet, Mr. B. asked them to take out their math textbooks for their math lesson.

          When math class was over, they took out their social studies book and Mr. B. told them that one of the places they would study this year was the South American country of Chile, and, if time permitted, Peru.

          When Mr. B. looked at the clock he frowned and said, “Sorry, people, we won’t have time to start social studies today.  We have an assembly to go to.  You’ll meet the new principal.  As you must already know, Mr. Maldon has left us to be a principal at a school in Vermont.”  Cheery faces bloomed all through the classroom.  “Our new principal is a woman.  Her name is Mrs. Plum.  She used to be a fifth grade teacher and this will be her first job as a principal.  She’s very nice, and I’m sure she’ll be fair, too,” Mr. B. added with emphasis as he looked at Eric.

          Eric didn’t notice the look.  He was thinking of the unfriendly sounds of the conversation that he overheard last year while in Mr. Maldon’s office. He was there to be reprimanded for something that he could not even remember now.  But he did remember that Mr. Maldon’s wife was named Ruth, and that if Mr. Maldon divorced her, he would become a “ruthless” principal.

          Eric thought that Mr. Maldon and his wife got divorced and that Mr. Maldon wanted to move far away from her.  Such a “ruthless” thought!

                                      *

          At the assembly for fourth, fifth and sixth graders—kindergarten through third grade had their own earlier assembly to meet the new principal—the sixth graders sat in back of the fifth graders.  Matt saw Robby and waved to him vigorously.  When Maragold, Cheryl and Eric saw Matt waving, they waved also.

          The new principal was a lady with a happy, contagious smile, and very pretty eyes.  She looked as if she were in her mid-forties and was dressed very nicely in a dark blue skirt and a light blue blouse.  Her gold necklace matched her golden ear rings and gold watch.  When she smiled at the group, Eric reflexively smiled, too.  Then he whispered to himself, “Better than Mr. Maldon.  Maybe it won’t be so bad being sent to her office, even if it is to get yelled at.”

          Mrs. Plum had a very mellow, concerned and sincere voice as she introduced herself to the audience.  Her first name was Marie, but the students did not know that … yet.  Mrs. Plum welcomed everyone back to school and hoped that they would have a wonderful and rewarding school year.  She said that she wanted all the students to do their best with their academic subjects and their behaviors.  She also told the students that she was willing to help any student in any way that she could, but that any problem should first be discussed with their teacher.  If the problem could not be solved, then they could come to her.

          A lot of the quiet talking, whispering, and giggling stopped while she was talking.  She had a commanding, but non-threatening voice, that attracted even students that thought they were used to, and immune to, the babble of teachers and principals.

          Her introduction did not take long.  She said, “Good luck,” to everyone and departed the auditorium, leaving a good impression with most students and teachers.

          I know for sure that Mr. B. was impressed, especially when she said she’d taught elementary grades—mostly fifth grade—for twenty years before becoming a principal.  Mr. B. also hoped that she did not have a lot of meetings and committees.      Personally, dear reader, I was also impressed by Mrs. Plum’s calm sincerity, plus the kindness and confidence that appeared to radiate from her expressive face.

          Mr. B. brought his students back to their second floor classroom and played a name-game with them so that he could more easily remember their names.

          Then he decided that it was close to the end of the day and there was no use starting a new lesson.  So he showed the students how to play eraser-tag.  He picked a boy and a girl.  The boy stayed at the back of the room and the girl came to the front of the room.  He gave an eraser to each of them and asked them to balance it on their head.  When the erasers were balanced, he told the boy that he’d have to chase the girl—practice for future years?—and if he could touch her shoulder without his eraser falling then he would be the winner and automatically got to play again.  If the eraser fell off of either of their heads at any time, then they automatically lost the game and the loser would get to pick a person to take their place.  However, in the next game, the players’ rolls would now be reversed; the “chaser” now became the “chased” and the “chased” now became the “chaser.”

          The students cheered their friends and had a lot of fun.  Three o’clock seemed to come quickly for them.  Mr. B. stopped the game and promised to play it another time.  The class had a bathroom break, then cleaned and straightened the classroom to prepare for going home.

          When the students had lined-up to go home, Mr. B. said, “Remember that you have a math test coming up.  Start studying.  Also, please go home with a smile on your face and a good attitude.

          “I’m going to be nice and give you a break on your math tests,” Mr. B. said much more seriously. “I’ll try not to make your tests too hard.  So, instead of the tests having two hundred problems on them, I’ll only make the tests have one hundred and fifty problems.”

          Mr. B. kept a serious expression as he looked at his students faces.  When he saw the look of near horror on most faces, he laughed loudly and yelled, “Just kidding!”

          Then, as the horrified looks disappeared, Mr. B. looked at the clock and rattled off a quick series of jokes: “If people in Poland are called Poles, are the people in Holland called Holes?

          “Did you hear about the first grader who came home from his first day of school?  His mother asked him what he learned and the kid said, ‘Not enough, I guess, because they’re making me come back tomorrow.’

          “Do you know that dust is just mud with all the juice squeezed out to it?

          “Do you know that a raisin is just a grape with a really bad sunburn?

          “Do you know that I was dumb when I was little, but I got real smart as soon as I started eating a lot of alphabet soup?”

          Mr. B. looked at the clock again.  He said, “Almost time to go to your buses, but I want to pass-out these papers for you to bring home?  Mr. B. passed out a sheet of paper to each student and asked them to give it to their parents.  But when the students started reading what was on the paper, they started laughing and looking at Mr. B. with unbelieving eyes.  The paper had a short note, in large print, on it.  It said:

                   Dear Parents,

                             If you promise not to believe everything

                   your child says that happened in school, then

                   I promise not to believe everything that they say

                   happened at home.

                                                                   Sincerely,

                                                                   Mr. Bunnlow

          As they were walking to the buses, Mr. B. said, “Make sure you tell your parents that it’s just a joke to start the year off with good humor.”

          So, dear reader, that’s how the first day of school went, and ended.  It certainly was a lot better than the first day of fifth grade.

                                      BERT’S  QUESTIONS

          Why is it that when Americans carry supplies in a car, they’re called a

shipment, but if those supplies are carried on a ship, they’re called a cargo?

          Why do people who know the least, know it the loudest?

                                      CHAPTER  3

          The second day of the new school year was a rare one for the Great Lakes region of New York.  Much water vapor rises off these huge lakes, creating frequent cloudiness and rain.  But today’s sky was cloudless and the sun shone warm and bright.

          I sat on Maragold’s shoulder as she and Cheryl rode “the big Twinkie”—a name that Maragold gave to school buses last year.

          I had used my magic powers to shrink, and make invisible, one of Mr. Shane’s magic books.  I was fascinated by magic tricks and the jokes that magicians used to entertain and distract people.  When Maragold was busy with her friends, or with assignments, I would read and study Mr. Shane’s magic books to learn magic tricks.  I also liked to read the joke books.  They were very entertaining.  I would, of course, return these books in their original size to where I had found them.

          Maragold sat quietly by the bus window where the bright sun made her very light brown hair look as if it had been dipped into a bucket of honey.  Her long hair looked brownish-gold and glowed in the sunlight.  It was a very pleasant distraction from the bumpy, noisy school bus ride.

          I noticed how much more mature Maragold looked and how she’d gotten taller and prettier.  Even her clothes looked more grown-up and feminine.

          My face turned scarlet, dear reader, when I realized that I was looking at her clothes and noticing that there were curves and bulges that just seemed to appear over the summer vacation.  Then I realized that the same thing had happened to Cheryl, who was sitting next to Maragold.  Their bodies were taking the form of young ladies and I broke my embarrassed eyes away from them.  They were more like young women now than young girls, as they had appeared in fourth and fifth grade.  I smiled to myself, thinking, it’s just how girls develop naturally into adult women.  They were both very pretty.  Maybe lovely would be a better word and it seemed to happen like magic.

          Unfortunately for you, dear reader, I started thinking of a magic question.  I was thinking about the big equipment, like boxes and tables, that magicians use to perform illusions.  If a magician had a bad day and felt depressed, then went home and found that his illusions had been stolen, would you say that he was “disillusioned?”

          The bus driver had the radio tuned to WBEE, a popular Country song station.  I was really starting to like that music a lot, even though it was completely different than the Irish music that I was used to hearing.  I noticed that not many of the students liked it, so they were busy talking to friends.

          Maragold and Cheryl were talking about Mr. B.  I missed most of their discussion because I was relaxing and enjoying a Toby Keith song.  Then a song by the group Heartland floated to my ears.  The song was, “I Loved Her First.”  I knew that that song had a very special, but sad meaning to Maragold’s father.

          The bus arrived at school and the students ran off like ants from a disturbed nest.  Maragold and Cheryl waited on the sidewalk for Matt and Eric, then talked as they walked together to their classroom.

          After leaving their lockers, the girls walked toward Mr. B., who was standing near the classroom door, greeting his students.  As the girls approached Mr. B. they both kept winking their right eyes as they were about to turn , to the right, into their classroom.  Some magic trick, huh?  They were about to turn into a classroom?

          Mr. B, who thought they were both winking at him, and flirting, said, “Well now, Mara and Cheryl.  Are the both of you winking at me because I’m so tall, smart and handsome?”  He smiled at the two girls.

          Together, the girls said, “No, Mr. B.  We were just using our winking turn signals.  It’s important to be safe, you know.”

          They all laughed, even Matt and Eric, who were behind them.  The girls had already told them what they were going to do and say to Mr. B.

          Their smiles and laughter were contagious as they walked into the classroom.  They noticed that most of the other students were smiling at them.  Of course the smiles could also be the result of the beautifully sunny day as it sparkled off the dew on the windows.  The classroom shone, the windows gleamed and the bright smiles of the students made the room look like one huge treasure chest, with the students being the golden coins that glowed brilliantly in the sunlight.

          Someone made a comment about the “dew” on the windows and on the grass.  Eric’s ears perked up.  Dew on the grass, he thought.  Then a joke dropped from his brain and settled on his tongue.  He asked Maragold and Cheryl, “If there’s twice as much dew on the lawn today, as there was yesterday, does that mean that the lawn is full of do-do?”—dew-dew.

          “No,” Cheryl said, before anyone else could speak, “It means that today you are full of do-do, even more than usual.”

          As the four smiling friends sat at their desks and prepared for the morning lessons, Matt saw Eric kiss his lucky rabbit’s foot.  Matt said, “I never knew that you were superstitious.  Since when?”

          “Since I don’t want to get in trouble like I did last year,” Eric replied with a hopeful smile.

          “Well, buddy, don’t you know that it’s really bad luck to be superstitious?” Matt teased.

          Eric thought for a second, then he and Matt laughed quietly, while the two girls wondered what they were laughing about.

          Eric started scratching, then picking at the outer edge of his nose.

          Cheryl whispered, “Hey, Eric, you laughed at me last year for picking my nose and now you’re doing it.  You’re such a weirdo.”

          “Well, I was wrong about that, Cheryl.  I’ve thought about it, and you know what?  We all should be able to pick our noses if we want to, without getting yelled at or laughed at.  Wanna know why?  I’ll explain.”  He paused to collect his thoughts.

          Now he had my interest as well all the other students who could hear him.

          Eric explained, “Listen.  People clean their teeth with toothpaste and a toothbrush, right?  They also use tooth picks, right?  And they use mouthwash to clean their mouths, and cotton-tipped sticks to clean their ears, and eye wash to clean their eyes, and special paper to clean their rears.”  The laughter started.  “So what’s all the fuss about cleaning noses with a tissue or a finger nail?  Finger nails are ideal booger pickers, you know.  Why can’t we pick our noses without being embarrassed?  Huh?  Tell me!  Why not?”

          Eric looked at everyone seriously.  Then his brow wrinkled and his eyes flashed open in a facial gesture that seemed to say, “What?  You mean you people haven’t ever picked your own noses?”

          Maragold just smiled, leaned closer to Eric and said, “Of all the little things you’ve ever lost, it’s your mind that you must miss the most.”

          Before Eric could answer, Mr. B. rang his desk bell and asked for the students to be quiet.  When it wasn’t quiet enough, he rang the bell again and that brought the silence that he desired.

          Mr. B. took attendance and noticed that the new student, Charles Fate, was absent again.  Mr. B. asked, “Does anyone know Charles Fate?  He’s a new boy who’s supposed to be in our class this year.  Anybody know him?  Anybody ride his bus?”

          Mr. B. saw a lot of heads turning, indicating that those students didn’t know anything about the new boy.  Mr. B. marked Charles absent, then the students stood for the daily Pledge of Allegiance.  When the students all sat, they noticed Mr. B. looking towards the doorway.  Charles stood there nearly filling the doorway with his large, overweight body.

          Charles just stood there, as if frozen and unable to move.  His face showed both fear and embarrassment.  I could sense the intensity of his discomfort.  It was not the normal, “I’m the new boy in school,” type of fear.  It was the kind of intense fear that sends icicle worms crawling up your backbone.  It gave Charles “brain freeze,” like you get from eating or drinking something that’s really cold.  His head started to ache.  He tried to smile, but couldn’t.

          Mr. B. smiled as he rushed to Charles and said, “Excuse me!  Please remain quiet,” to his students.  Mr. B. placed his arm around Charles’s shoulder and guided him back out into the deserted hallway for privacy.

          In a soft, comforting voice, Mr. B. asked, “Are you Charles Fate?”

          Charles nodded his head up and down to indicate that he was.

          “You don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed, Charles.  You are very welcome to our classroom and I’m sure you’ll make friends and feel more comfortable soon,” Mr. B. said.

          Charles thought, sarcastically, “Yeah, sure I will.  I’ve been the ‘new, fat boy’ before.  I know how the ‘new, fat boy’ gets treated.”

          Mr. B. asked a few more questions, but Charles only said, “yes” or “no” in response to them.

          Mr. B. showed Charles his locker, where Charles placed his backpack, then guided Charles into the classroom.  Mr. B. introduced Charles to the students—Charles looked at the floor—then brought him to his desk in the rear of the room.

          As Mr. B. walked back to the front of the room, he heard giggles.  He turned around and stared at the location where the giggles had come from, then glared with a look that might have stopped a charging bear.  The giggles stopped, but Charles’s face was a bright pink, his ears red, and his eyes watery.  The damage was done.

          That kind of giggling is very familiar to an overweight person, dear reader.  Charles was very much overweight.  He had probably been teased terribly about it all through his school years, maybe even before that.  Being overweight caused him to get a lot of unwanted attention.  The cruel teasing, and humiliation had caused him to remain mostly silent, without friends and very lonely.

          Mr. B. stood in front of his students.  He said, “I am hoping that everyone will help make Charles feel welcome and comfortable.  Please help him in any way that you can.  Being the ‘new boy’ is not easy, as some of you may know.”  Then Mr. B. stared in the direction that the giggles had come from, his message clear but silent.

          Mr. B. understood exactly how Charles must feel, certainly better than anyone in the classroom and probably better than anyone in the elementary school.  Mr. B. understood Charles’s embarrassment because Mr. B. was also teased constantly through his school years, but for a different reason.  He overcame it, but not until he was an adult.  Thus, he felt a particular sympathy, friendship and empathy for Charles.

          The classroom was still so quiet that I could hear the soft, ruffling noises of clothing and the brushing noises that moving shoes make on a rug.

          Mr. B. passed out the reading textbooks, but before reading class began he said he wanted to discuss the craziness of our American language.  “Our language,” he said, “is very confusing, but funny, too.  We are all lucky to have grown up hearing it every day because English may be the most difficult language in the world to learn.  I think it is, anyway,” he added.

          “For example,” he continued, “there is no egg in eggplant, people are not selling their garages or their lawns when they have garage and yard sales, there is no ham in hamburger, and no pine or apple in pineapple.  English muffins were not invented in England and French fries were not invented in France.

          “Things like that make our language very confusing for people from other countries to learn.  There are so many vague rules, exceptions to rules, words with several meanings, and words that don’t sound as they are spelled.  We Americans, who were born in America, take our language for granted and seldom think how very unusual it is and how difficult it is for immigrants to learn.  How do you explain to someone, just learning to speak English, that quicksand works slowly, not quickly, that a guinea pig is not only not from the country of Guinea, but it’s not a pig either?

          “We all know that writers write, and teachers teach, so why don’t hammers ham?  Or, if the plural of tooth is teeth, then why isn’t the plural of booth beeth?  Or, if the plural of goose is geese, then why isn’t the plural of moose meese?

          “And if you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of all but one item, what do you call it?  Is it an ‘odd’ or an ‘end?’

          “If the teacher taught, did the preacher praught?  If a vegetarian eats vegetables, does a humanitarian eat humans?

          “Sometimes I think that the English language was developed in a hospital for the insane.  Why would we say that people recite at a play and play at a recital?  Why does ‘a slim chance’ of something happening mean the same as ‘a fat chance’ of the same thing happening?  A ‘wise man’ and a ‘wise guy’ are opposites, right?  So are ‘overlook’ and ‘over see.’  But ‘quite a lot’ and ‘quite a few’ mean the same thing.

          “It truly amazes me that any of us can understand and correctly use our American language when our houses can burn ‘up’ as they are actually burning ‘down.’ Or you can ‘fill-in a form by ‘filling it out,’ or that alarm clocks can go ‘off’ by turning themselves ‘on.’

          “I’m sure all of you have looked at the night sky.  When the stars are ‘out,’ they are visible, but when our lights go ‘out’ they are invisible.  And do you see my wrist watch?  When I wind it up, I start it, but when I wind up this lecture, it means I’m ending it.”

          Mr. B. stopped to catch his breath and to let these things sink into his students’ minds.

          Wow, dear reader!  Are you as confused as I am, but laughing, too?

          At lunchtime Maragold invited Charles to eat with her group of friends.  Robby joined them from his fifth grade table because he wanted to see Matt.

          While Matt and Robby were busy discussing their karate classes—Eric listened with interest—Maragold and Cheryl tried to get Charles to talk about himself.  They were curious about how old he was, what school he used to go to, his school interests and hobbies, where he lived, his parents, and stuff like that.

          Charles was shy and very hesitant about talking to the girls.  He was scared, too, because it was girls that usually teased him the most.  Charles stared at his food tray and chewed very slowly and swallowed hard, as if he were trying to swallow a stone.

          When Charles finally spoke, he angrily said, “You can call me ‘Chubby Fatty,’ like everyone else.”  His shoulders were raised and his arms were pressed close to his body as if he wanted to pull into a protective shell, like a turtle will when it’s threatened.  He avoided looking at the girls.  He looked down at his food tray and lifted another large forkful of food to his mouth, then chewed it slowly and remained silent.

          Maragold and Cheryl gave each other puzzled and confused looks.

          Cheryl said, “Charles, why did you call yourself Chubby Fatty?”

          Charles swallowed, then answered, “Because that’s what everybody calls me … and they’re right.  I am fat!” he said behind angry, clenched teeth.

          “Who calls you that, Charles,” asked Maragold.

          Charles looked at Maragold.  She thought she saw his lips tremble slightly.  “I just old you, everybody does.  I don’t want to talk about it!” Charles answered.

          “We want to be friends, Charles.  Friends talk to each other and help each other.  Tell us about the teasing.  It must have happened at your old school, right?”

          “I don’t have friends, so leave me alone,” Charles said in a sad, painful whisper.

          “We could be friends if you’ll let us,” Cheryl stated sympathetically.

          Charles stared into Cheryl’s, then Maragold’s, eyes, wondering if he should trust them.  Then his stare softened.  He said, “Are you telling the truth or just waiting to make fun of me?  Pretty girls don’t want to be friends with me.  They just want to tease me.  I’m tired of being tricked and teased.  My old school was like that and now this school will be the same.  I’m new and already I’m getting teased on the bus by a girl named Dawn and a muscle monster named Harvey … and their creepy friends.”

          The boys were busy talking and were not aware of the girls’ conversation with Charles.

          Maragold and Cheryl looked startled.  They both thought, “Dawn … Harvey?”  The names had a distasteful feeling to them.  “Dawn who? … and Harvey who?” Cheryl asked quickly, with concern.

          “Dawn Robins and Harvey Dembro … sky … or something that sounds like that,” Charles said quietly, as if their evil spirits were close.  “They’re seventh graders and we ride the same bus.  There’s a couple other guys, too, but I don’t know their names.  I hoped that changing schools might change things, but this school won’t be any different than my last school … or the school before that.  Fat kids get teased no matter where they go, right?” Charles said with a sarcastic laugh at himself.

          Cheryl looked sadly at Charles.  She knew that she and Mara could not understand the intensity of his pain.  But they both knew Harvey and Dawn.  That was enough to know that Charles was feeling awful.  Dawn, Harvey, and their friends, enjoyed pain, as long as it was them causing the pain in other students.

          Maragold sat quietly and listened as Cheryl took charge.

          “But why do they call you Chubby Fatty, like it was your special name?” Cheryl asked.

          “That’s just it,” Charles snickered.  My name, Charles, gets changed to Chuck.  Chuck gets changed to Chucky and Chucky gets changed to Chubby.  It fits perfectly, right?  Then my last name, Fate, gets changed to Fat-ee.  Fat-ee sounds like ‘fatty,’ right?  So now my name becomes ‘Chubby Fatty’ to them.  I hate my own name.  I hate it!” Charles said, bitterly, as he stared at his food.

          Cheryl and Maragold looked at each other, then at Charles.  Anger and sympathy showed on their faces as they turned to have a private conversation.

          “Dawn, Harvey, Dan and Lee, are at it again.  They found a new target,” Maragold stated.

          “Yeah.  And I thought we were done with them,” Cheryl added.

          Maragold whispered, “Every bushel has its rotten apples, is what my dad says.”

          “Even worse, Dawn and Harvey are on the same team now,” Cheryl stated

          “And with two mental midgets to assist them,” Maragold said, sadly.

          Maragold noticed that Matt, Eric and Robby were looking at them.  The look in Matt’s and Eric’s eyes told Maragold and Cheryl that they heard what was being said, and about whom.  But Robby eyes and facial gestures indicated confusion.  He didn’t know Harvey, Dan, or Lee.  He knew who Dawn was because she was in the talent show last year.  He also knew what kind of girl she was, and it didn’t take much thinking to figure out what Harvey, Dan and Lee must be like, if they were close friends with Dawn.

          Robby tapped Eric on the shoulder and whispered, “Who are Harvey, Dan and Lee?”

          Eric turned and whispered, “I’ll explain later.”

          Mr. B. came to get his class—Robby returned to his fifth grade cafeteria table—brought them back to the classroom and had an immediate bathroom break.

          The sky had changed in a few hours and was now covered, from horizon to horizon, with a dark gray and very wet blanket of clouds.  The rain was splattering like tiny, exploding water balloons on the school parking lot and the cars.

          As I stood by the windows, during the bathroom break, I thought that the landscape looked like it was under shallow, clear water.  The dark clouds appeared to be the water’s surface and we were all under water.  I almost expected to see fish floating by the windows and sea weed waving as it rose to the surface.  It was as if I was standing on the bottom of a large aquarium.  I felt a sense of amazement, as if I had just found out that I could breathe under water and that I was about to be the first to discover a new world.  Imagination can be a wonderful thing, dear reader.

          After the classroom bathroom break, Mr. B. reminded the students about how to play eraser tag.  After fifteen minutes of eraser tag, Mr. B. had all the students take out all their textbooks, look through them, put their names in the appropriate places and ask questions, if they had any.

          Eric asked, “Mr. B, are we going to have a lot of homework in sixth grade?”

          Mr. B. replied, “Yes, Eric, you will.  But only on those days that end with the letter ‘y,’ OK? And only on those days will you have homework in all your subjects.  All the other days, because I want to be as fair as possible, I will not give you any homework at all.

          Startled, happy faces suddenly looked up at Mr. B.  It was such good news that many students were making joyful noises … until Eric yelled, “Wait a second!  All the days end with a letter ‘y.’

          Some students laughed at Mr. B’s joke and some frowned with disappointment at being tricked and with having a lot of homework.

          Maragold, Cheryl and Matt had it figured out immediately and just shook their heads, thinking, “Yep.  That’s the same old Mr. B.”

          Mr. B. looked at the students faces and said, “Come on, people.  Loosen up!  Stop worrying so much.  I was just joking.  Of course you will have homework, but mostly in math and spelling, and sometimes in science and social studies.  I’ll be giving you the last twenty minutes of the school day to start your homework and, when possible, I may extend that to thirty minutes, if we get all the other work done.  So the more cooperation I get, the more time you get to complete some of your homework before you leave school.

          “Look,” Mr. B. said to keep their attention.  “Seriously, you are all smart enough to get at least a satisfactory grade on homework and tests.  Some of you, however, will need to work a little harder than others.  Some of you will need extra help and I can do that easily at the end of the day, while most of the class works on their homework assignments.

          “Probably every parent thinks they have special kids; although it sure makes me wonder where all the ordinary adults come from.  Anyway, to me, you are all very special.  Sure, some of you may have to work harder, struggle for good grades, but remember, it’s not the size of the dog in a fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog that matter most.  Not that I would call any of you dogs!”  Laughter erupted with some woof, woofs, and arf, arfs.

          “For goodness sake, I know there aren’t any idiots in here.  If I asked you to stand up if you think you’re an idiot, I sure hope no one would stand?”

          Suddenly Eric stood up with a slight grin.  Everyone stared at him.  Even Mr. B. looked at him with amazement, then suspicion.

          Mr. B., somewhat irritated with Eric, said, “Eric!  Why on earth are you standing?  Do you honestly think that you are an idiot?”

          Eric’s grin turned into a smile as he answered, “Of course I don’t think I’m an idiot, Mr. B.”

          I laughed to myself because I knew what Eric would say next and was curious how Mr. B. would respond.

          Mr. B. responded, “Then why, may I ask, are you standing?”

          “Well, Mr. B.  You know I like you a lot … so I hate to see you being the only one standing after you asked that ‘idiot’ question.”  Eric’s smile was huge and showed all his sparkling white teeth.

          The whole classroom echoed with loud laughter at Eric’s joke.

          Eric still smiled broadly … but Mr. B. was not smiling, though there was a slight up-turning on the corners of his mouth.  But still, he did not look pleased.

          The classroom became very quiet, again.

          Then Mr. B. looked down at his cowboy boots—he liked to dress western style—as if lost in thought.  He shuffled his feet as if he was using the rug to wipe dirt off the soles of his boots.  He looked up and stared at Eric for a couple seconds, then suddenly turned to face the chalkboard so no one could see him.

          They saw Mr. B. cover his face with both hands as if he was frustrated.  Then they saw his shoulders moving up and down as if he was furious.  That’s when Eric, and the whole class, got worried.  Many of them had never seen Mr. B. get really mad, except with Harvey, Dan and Lee, last year.

          Eric thought, “Oh, crap!  I’ve done it now,” and he sat down.

          Mr. B. suddenly turned on his students and roared at them.  But it was the roar of laughter.  It went on and on until tears streamed down Mr. B’s face.  He kept slapping his thighs while he laughed.  Then the whole class laughed with him as Eric slouched in his chair with grateful relief.

          “I just couldn’t hold it in any more,” Mr. B. said.  “I tried hard not to laugh, but I kept on thinking of me being the only idiot who was standing.  Eric!” Mr. B. bellowed, “I owe you a big one, a big repayment of revenge!”  The laughter continued.  This time Eric joined in the laughter and smiled at Mr. B., letting him know that he expected to be repaid and was looking forward to it.

          Mr. B. held his hand up for quiet after a minute of laughter.  When the classroom was quiet he said, “Well, anyway, I hope you understood my message about homework.  But I do need to add that Eric will be getting twice as much homework as everyone else.”  He winked playfully at Eric and everyone knew that he was joking.

          “I forgot to mention that I will make spelling class a lot easier for you by teaching you the Hawaiian alphabet, OK?” Mr. B. asked.

          Shawn said, “How will that help us?”

          “Well,” Mr. B. responded, “the Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters in it, not twenty-six letters like the American alphabet.  So, you see, there’s only about half the letters to worry about.”

          “But we can’t speak Hawaiian.  I don’t get it,” Shawn added.

          Matt said, “Mr. B, can you get a hula girl to come to our school and teach us?”  Matt flicked his eyebrows up quickly, twice, then grinned at Mr. B., who knew what Matt was thinking.

          “OK, people.  The Hawaiian alphabet is apparently a bad idea.”  Mr. B. frowned at Matt as he said that.

          The remainder of the day went quickly and no one noticed that Charles did not participate.  I noticed, with sadness, that Charles just stared at Mr. B., or at his own desk, or out the windows.  It disturbed me to see that life had no joy, no smiles, no laughter for him.  Some of his own peers had hurt him emotionally and his positive feelings were almost dead.  I wished that Mr. B. had seen it, too, but with all the excitement and laughter, Mr. B. was too distracted to notice.

          Before getting ready for home, Mr. B. reminded his class that they would be studying part of South America this year, with emphasis on Chile, and possibly Peru.

          So the second day of school ended.  The students walked to their buses.  Some of them waved to Mr. B. and smiled.

          One large sixth grade boy walked all alone, head down.  He dragged his feet slowly, dreading the thought of getting on his bus.  The bus looked like a yellow beast to him.  He was about to enter the beast’s mouth to be torn apart and swallowed.  A tear formed in the corner of one eye, but he brushed it away quickly and entered the beast.

                                      BERT’  QUESTIONS

                   Why isn’t the number “eleven” pronounced “onety-one?”

          Doesn’t “expecting the unexpected” make the unexpected expected?

                           CHAPTER  4

          September passed like a tricycle at a NASCAR race for most of the students.  It was typical though.  The first month of school, after a wonderfully, long break, takes a few tough weeks of adjustment.  But that’s not to say that school was unbearable.  Friends got to see each other again, and the Maragold gang kept things lively with their good humor.

          The students got to know Charles better, once he allowed himself to relax.  Charles started to smile once in a while, and even participated in some classroom discussions.  He started being friendly as Mr. B’s students started helping him, liking him, and allowing him into their discussions and activities.

          Charles seldom mentioned Dawn and Harvey.  They still teased him constantly, but Charles knew that once he got to school and was in Mr. B’s classroom, he would be safe.  It made the teasing on the short bus trips to school and back home much more bearable for him.

          One early autumn morning, Eric rushed into the classroom, walked past his friends and went into the far corner where some girls were talking.  Maragold, Cheryl, Matt, and Charles were watching him.  Eric pretended as if his finger hurt, then suddenly and urgently said, “Ouch! Oh! Quick! Pull my finger. Hurry!”

          He held out his right index finger to the closest girl, Tammy, with his eyes begging, as if he were in pain.  Tammy hesitated due to the sudden shock that Eric’s actions caused in her.  But when she saw the look of pain on Eric’s face, she reached out and pulled his finger, thinking that maybe it had been dislocated.

          Immediately, she heard the familiar sound of a fart.  The color of her face changed from peach to cherry as a thoroughly disgusted look twisted her face.

          Eric, however, sighed with a heavenly, dreamy, relieved smile as his whole body relaxed.  He looked at Tammy and showed her a thoroughly stress-free grin of pleasure.  Eric said, “Ah,” as he thanked Tammy, then smiled at her and her friends.  He turned away from them and walked back to say hello to Matt, Cheryl, Maragold and Charles.  His friends started backing away from him.

          “What?” Eric said as he approached his friends.

          Maragold held up her hand, like a stop sign, and said, “Don’t come over here, Eric.  We don’t want to smell the junk in your trunk.”

          That remark made Charles laugh so hard that his eyes watered.  His belly jiggled up and down, and back and forth like a large bowl of Jell-O during an earthquake.  Charles said, “Nothing funnier than the squeak of a fart, right Eric?”

          Eric immediately walked over to Charles and tried to put his arm around his shoulder, but couldn’t.  So he just rested his hand on Charles’s shoulder, stared at his other friends and said, “Hey!  I like this guy more and more each day.  He’s someone who appreciates the value of good, gross humor.  He’s a guy that doesn’t mind my odor motor and knows how to have some bun fun.”

          Maragold, Matt, and Cheryl tried not to smile at him and Charles, then they all shook their heads and frowned, but their smiles were hidden behind those frowns.

          Mr. B. rang his desk bell and happily noticed that everyone scurried, like hungry mice that smell food, to their desks and sat down.

          After Mrs. Plum’s announcements and the Pledge to the flag, Mr. B. briefly mentioned some topics that his students would be studying in science and some experiments that they would all be performing.

          “Oh!  Wow!  That’s ting,” Cheryl blurted.

          Mr. B. looked at Cheryl with a curious squint to his eyes.  “Ting?” he said.  “What do you mean by ‘ting,’ Cheryl?”

          Cheryl could see the, curious faces of the students who sat in front of her and were looking back at her.  She answered, “Ah.  Well.  Mr. B., ‘ting’ is just a short way of saying the two words ‘exciting’ and ‘interesting.’  They both end with ‘ting,’ so when something is exciting and interesting, I say it’s ‘ting.’”

          Mr. B. smiled, said “ting,” almost in a whisper.  Then he said it louder and listened to his own voice.  “Hey!  I like it,” he stated.  “I like the sound of it.”

          Cheryl was pleased that Mr. B. and the kids liked her invention.  She was afraid, at first, that she would be teased about it.  But her word invention was accepted pleasantly by Mr. B., then by her peers.  It made her feel happy and relieved.

          September and its gentle summer weather were bullied away by a rough fall that punched the summer heat away, shook the leaves to make them blush, then kicked the trees until the defenseless leaves fell in sudden surrender.  Then the fall bully blew a chilly wind that scattered the leaves like frightened children running fast.

          The leaves changed color and the air turned cool, refreshing and comfortable.  It was Mr. B’s favorite season and it showed on his almost constantly smiling face, especially on sunny days.  That mood was contagious as most students also smiled, joked, and were happy about learning new things each day.

          In early October the classroom subjects, schedules and routines were established and had grown comfortable for the students.

          It was Mr. B’s normal morning routine to have his reading class first, then his writing class (dealing with the reading class content), followed by math class.  “Special classes” (gym, music, library, art) were mostly in the morning, so that left him the afternoon to have his second writing class (creative writing), then social studies, science and spelling lessons.

          At the very end of the day he tried to, but couldn’t always, give his students a twenty minute period to start their homework and get extra help with any academic problem areas.

          Today, Mr. B. went through his morning routine, then just before lunch, he informed the class that after lunch they would start learning about the South American country called Chile.

          A couple “tings” were said, followed by some giggles.

          In the cafeteria Robby joined Matt at the sixth grade table.

          Charles had been doing well in class, made other friends and sat with them.  He was slowly adapting happily to Mr. B.’s classroom and was pleased with his new friends.  His new friends did not mind that he was over-weight. They figured that if they were nice to him, and he was nice to them, then they could be friends.

          Before Maragold even took the first bite of her food, she said, “We visited my grandma and grandpa last weekend.  My grandpa is in his seventies and he can be really ‘ting,’ sometimes.”  Maragold smiled at Cheryl when she used her new word.

          Maragold continued, “I asked my grandpa for some good advice for a sixth grader and he,” Maragold giggled,“ gave me a mischievous laugh and said, ‘Sixth grade, huh?  Heck, I don’t even remember sixth grade.  That was so long ago that I can’t give you advice about it, except, maybe, just always do your best.  But I can give you some advice that you can definitely use when you get old like me.’”

          Maragold told her friends, “He looked into my eyes and paused until I had to ask, ‘Yeah?  What advice, grandpa?’”

          “He looked to see if grandma was near, and when she wasn’t, he replied, ‘It’s some of the best advice you’ll ever get, believe me; especially at my age.  Now listen close,’ he whispered in my ear.  ‘Don’t ever, and I mean never, ever take a laxative and sleeping pills on the same night.  You know, just before you go to bed.  Take my word for it, sweet girl, you never want to do that, or you’ll have a crappy night’s sleep.’  Then grandpa laughed loudly.  When I realized what he meant, I laughed, too.

          “My grandma heard the loud laughter and she asked what we were talking about.  My face turned red because I didn’t want to tell her, but grandpa, in a normal voice said, ‘Oh, Dear, we were just laughing about a funny joke that I heard.’”

          “Well, I hope you aren’t being a bad influence with your jokes,” grandma stated in a serious tone of voice.

          “Then grandpa whispered into my ear, ‘I know I just lied to your grandma, and lies are things that you and I should avoid, but can you imagine what grandma would say, or do, if she heard the advice that I just gave you?  Well, it wasn’t vulgar, it was just gross to the point of being funny … as long as it doesn’t happen to you, right?’”

          ‘Yep,’ I told him with a big smile.”

          Maragold’s friends thought the advice was funny, too, and they were wondering if her grandpa or grandma ever had it happen to them.  The thought of that was even funnier to them, so they laughed heartily.

          Maragold continued, “Then my grandpa said, ‘I know a way that your grandma and I can buy a brand new car and pay for it all at once.  Grandma thinks it’s silly, though, and she won’t help me.’”

          “‘Help you do what?’ I said excitedly.”

          “Grandpa giggled, so I knew it was another joke.  I just stared at him with my eyebrows raised and a smile on my face until he said, ‘It would be so easy, Mara.  When grandma and I go to bed , we can both put our false teeth under our pillows, then just fall asleep.’

          “ ‘What good would that do?’ I asked curiously.”

          “‘What good would it do?’ grandpa said in a surprised voice.  ‘Well, when the Tooth Fairy comes during the night and sees all those teeth, she’ll have to leave so much money that we could buy a car with it.  Understand?’” he asked, with a smile.

          Half the kids at the lunch table were splitting a gut with laughter.  Even Charles and his new friends heard Maragold and were laughing.

          Charles said, “Wow! You must have a great grandpa.  Pretty cool guy, it sounds like.”

          “Yeah, he’s silly, like my dad, and I love them both.  And sometimes they are even funny,” Maragold said while laughing.

          Charles surprised everyone by saying, “I want everyone to know that I am not fat.  I just have a large, and very soft, protective covering over my rock-hard muscles.”

          Having Charles joke about himself surprised everyone and they laughed immediately, but with him, not at him.

          Charles, seeing an appreciative audience for his humor, continued joking.  He said, “You do know that I have the body of a god, right?” Charles was quietly, looking at the stunned faces of his peers, who were waiting for the rest of the joke.

          Charles broke the silence, saying, “That’s right.  The body of a god.  The god’s name is BUDDHA.  So who says that I’m not in good shape?  Isn’t the shape of a pear, a good shape?  Sure it is!”—More laughter.

          Eric got into the mood and said, “You did real good, Charles.  Now is anyone smart enough to tell me the meaning for ‘astute’?”  To Eric that word sounded like the words ‘ass toot.’  Eric looked around the table.

          Matt and Robby were not paying attention.  They were talking quietly about their karate classes.

          About the same time, Maragold and Cheryl whispered to each other and Cheryl replied to Eric, saying, “Astute means somebody is smart.”

          “Nope,” said Eric with a very superior attitude which Cheryl disliked, so she said, “Eric!  I’m pretty sure that ‘astute’ means ‘smart’ or something very close to that meaning.”

          “Well, Deary,” Eric said, “ if the answer was ‘smart’ then at least you’d have the last three letters right.  ‘Smart’ does end with ‘art,’ and the answer is really ‘fart.’”

          “You’re so wrong, wise guy,” Cheryl said with a disgusted look.

          “OK, how do you spell ‘astute,’” Eric asked calmly and confidently.

          “A-S-T-U-T-E,” Cheryl quickly responded.

          Just about everyone was focused on Cheryl and Eric during their playful banter.

          “Oh!  Well, that’s the problem, right there, Cheryl.  You see, I didn’t ask for the meaning of ‘a-s-t-u-t-e.’ I asked for the meaning of ‘ass toot,’ spelled a-s-s t-o-o-t.  So, you see, an ass toot is a fart.  Now do you see your big mistake, Deary?” Eric said with his voice dripping, like thick syrup, with sarcasm and superiority.

          There was an immediate hush around the table because ‘ass’ was not supposed to be a word to use in school.  But when the students realized that no adult had heard Eric, they began laughing again.

          Eric was getting on Cheryl’s nerves, so she looked at Mara and whispered, “Watch this.”

          “Don’t act so immature, Eric,” Cheryl said, with a heavy emphasis on the word “immature.”  She knew Eric did not like to be called “immature.”

          “What are you talking about?  I’m not acting immature!  I’m being smart, clever, imaginative, creative.  That’s not being immature at all.”

          “It is if you use the word A-S-S in school, when you definitely know that you shouldn’t be saying it,” Cheryl teased.

          Eric knew that Cheryl was trying to tease him.  She’d done it so many times before that he had gotten used to it.  Eric pretended to pout as if his feelings were seriously hurt, then said, “I am not being immature, you ‘tupid, ‘tinky, poopy-head.”  Then he laughed at his own silliness.  He was having fun.

          Cheryl asked, “Eric, do you like sports?”

          “Sure I do.  Why do you ask?” Eric said, impatiently.

          “Just wondering.  So you would support the school’s athletic programs because they are helpful and fun for the students?” Cheryl asked.

          “Of course!  Now quit babbling!  What’s your point? Or is that it on the top of your head?” Eric teased.

          “Oh!  My dear child.  I’m so glad to hear that you think you’re an athletic supporter!  A real jock, huh?” Cheryl crowed.

          Maragold laughed until tears flooded her eyes.  Then, after the other kids got the joke, their laughter strained their stomach muscles until it hurt.

          Eric and Cheryl stared at each other, then both reluctantly, and insincerely, smiled at each other, which meant that they had called a temporary truce.

          A girl named Grace leaned close to Maragold and Cheryl, then whispered, “You girls really know how to handle the boys.  What’s your secret?”

          Maragold leaned close to Grace, saying, “It’s really my mom’s secret, but Cheryl and I share it.  My mom told me that men and boys need to be treated like fine wine.  Men and boys start out like plump grapes, but it’s up to the women and girls to stomp the juice out of them.  Then they will eventually amount to something that you can have a decent breakfast, lunch and dinner with.  But, my mom also said that a girl has to be clever and subtle about when and where she does her stomping.  But that’s pretty easy since females are a superior race  So, naturally, we just out-think the males.”  All three girls laughed joyfully.

          Maragold and Cheryl smiled at Grace.  She was welcomed into their group with a pat on the back, and shared laughter.

          After lunch, Mr. B. brought his students to the school playground.  I was happy about that.  I like being outdoors in the sun, especially when it’s nice and cool.  It was a beautiful, sunny fall day.  The maple trees were full of bright, colorful leaves that made the trees look like Christmas trees with bright leaves instead of bulbs.

          The cool air was refreshing, but most satisfying of all was the playful laughter of the fifth and sixth grade students.

          I watched Matt and Robby as they practiced a karate kata.  A kata is an imagined fight where the punching and kicking techniques are pre-planned and memorized in a certain order.  The opponents are imaginary, so Matt and Robby looked weird as they punched and kicked the air.

          I had learned that their karate training was excellent for developing their self discipline, self control, self confidence, and taking responsibility for their actions.  Those were the secondary goals.  Their primary training emphasized self-defense.  They were instructed many times that they should not use their karate skills except to defend themselves, or family and friends.

          After spending a short time on the playground, having a bathroom and drink break, the students completed their creative writing class and handed in their composition notebooks.  They then took out their science books.

          Dear reader, even though I’m a leprechaun and have some magic powers, I still have a lot to learn about people and the world.  That’s why I also thought that learning about Chile would be a “ting” thing.

          But I’d have to wait a little while because Mr. B. would be doing a science lesson first.  I also enjoyed his science lessons.  Perhaps it was because Mr. B’s voice and actions showed that he enjoyed science very much.  I could tell that astronomy really interested him, and it was obviously “ting” for him.

          All the students had a difficult time understanding “black holes,” where the pull of gravity is so strong that not even light, which travels at 186,000 miles per second, can escape.  Since nothing can escape from a black hole, not even light, that’s why the hole is black.  And since the night sky is black, a black hole can not be seen with the naked eye.  Only the effects of it on other objects near it can be seen with a strong telescope.  It sure was “ting” to think about.

          Mr. B. asked, “What happens to all the meteors, comets, planets and even suns that get pulled into a black hole by its tremendous force of gravity?  Can they ever get out?  Are they changed or destroyed?  Can a black hole ever become full?  Are there any black holes close enough to pull objects from our solar system into it?”

          Mr. B. paused to let these questions sink into his students brains.

          I sat on Maragold’s shoulder, listening, thinking and being amazed by thoughts that I had never experienced with my leprechaun education.  I knew traditional math and science extremely well, of course.  But leprechauns have no use for studying outer space.  Our lives are mostly consumed with everyday events, customs, traditions, relationships, and government.  We usually avoid humans, and, because of this, we have avoided advanced human knowledge and the equipment, like telescopes, that are required to gain that knowledge.  I was wondering if I should try to change that when I became the leprechaun leader.

          Mr. B. told his students that all those twinkling dots in the black sky, that we call stars, are really suns, like our own sun, but those stars are so huge that they would make the Earth’s sun look very tiny.  And all those stars (suns) are billions of miles away so they only appear as twinkling dots of light in the night sky.  Earth’s sun is ninety-three million miles away from us, but it can still burn us (sunburn).  That’s how hot it is.

          I tried to imagine the heat of those larger suns, but couldn’t.  Does that mean that a space traveler, in the future, will only be able to travel in our own solar system because of the risk of being turned to ashes by a distant star (sun) that can burn things from millions of miles away?

          Mr. B. also informed his students that there are many billions of objects in the sky and yet, we see only a small amount of them.  The black space in the night sky that we all see is not empty, he said.  It is packed with objects that we can’t see, like black holes, dead suns, dark planets, asteroids, meteors, and other “dark matter.”  We can’t see them because they do not give off or reflect light like stars and moons do.

          Mr. B. said, “The black sky may look empty, but it’s really snot.”  Most of the class laughed.

          Please excuse Mr. B’s slimy joke, dear reader.  Sometimes he tries too hard to be funny—Eric thought it was very funny.

          Then Mr. B. hung up a large piece of black cloth across the chalkboard.  He asked all of us to make a single line, at the back of the classroom, parallel to the chalkboard, and facing the black cloth.  On the cloth he had already placed a dozen gold colored, circular stickers.

          He asked, and the students told him that they could see all the gold stickers.

          Then Mr. B. said, “I’m glad you can see all those gold stickers.  They represent the suns in the universe.  Now tell me how many black stickers you can see.”

          The students were confused.  They could not see any black stickers, at first.  Neither could I.  Then with staring, squinting, focusing and concentrating, some students were able to find about a half-dozen black stickers.

          Mr. B. laughed and said, “There are thirty black stickers, and they are all different sizes.  He got his pointer-stick out and pointed to some of the black stickers so his students could see where they were.  That’s the “ting” way that Mr. B. showed his students, and me, that the black portion of outer space is not empty.

          Wow! I was fascinated.  The students were too.  I’m telling you, dear reader, I would never have thought about that unless I’d seen it with my own ears.  OK, so maybe I heard it with my own eyes.  Better?  Maybe I haven’t got the hang of American humor yet.

          Then Mr. B. held up a pair of binoculars and gave them to Matt to see if he could see the black stickers more clearly.  Matt could see all of them.

          Mr. B. said that instead of binoculars, early and modern astronomers used telescopes, which are more powerful than binoculars, and that’s how they find dark objects that are hidden in the black, night sky.

          Mr. B. had a large chart that showed all the Earth’s planets, plus he had a three-dimensional model of the sun and all the planets that revolve around it.  He pointed to the ninth planet, Pluto, and said that it was so far away that it was not even discovered until the year 1930.  Then he said that modern astronomers have discovered another planet beyond Pluto and he wondered if they would name it “Goofy” so that Pluto and Goofy could be together.  He said that Walt Disney would certainly appreciate it.

          The students and I learned that the first four planets from the sun, called the “inner planets, (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) were “rocky” planets.  Then there is an asteroid belt that many scientists believe would have the mass to make another planet, but, for some unknown reason, never combined to form one big mass of material that would have been a planet.

          At this point my thoughts were interrupted by Eric’s thoughts.  His thoughts rumbled through the air like deep belly laughter that only I could hear.  I concentrated on Eric and—I should have known—he was thinking of the “asteroid belt.”  Then he started thinking of “asteroids” and wondering, If an astronaut had a hemorrhoid while he was in outer-space, would it be called an “asteroid?”  I’m sorry to say that it made me giggle.  Then I went back to concentrating on Mr. B’s lesson.

          After the asteroid belt came the “outer planets”: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus—a lot of muffled laughter occurred at this point because Mr. B. pronounced “Uranus” in the old fashioned way.  He said “your anus.”  Mr. B. ignored the laughter.  These three planets are made up mostly of gas, not rocky material.

          “The ninth planet is Pluto,” Mr. B. stated.  “Pluto and the planet beyond it—it just has a number for a name—are mostly ice that is frozen so hard that it would feel like solid concrete.  They are both very small objects and, for that reason, most modern astronomers want to declassify them so that they are not considered planets.”

          I was amazed. “Ting,” really “ting.”

          Mr. B. wrote a sentence on the chalkboard.  He asked his students to place the sentence in their science notebooks because it would help them remember the order of the planets from the sun.  The sentence said:

                   My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.

          Then Mr. B. said that the first letter of each word was also the first letter of a planet, starting with the first planet from the sun.  He wrote: M=Mercury, V=Venus, E=Earth, M=Mars, J=Jupiter, S=Saturn, U=Uranus, N=Neptune, P=Pluto.  Then he asked the students, again, to copy that into their notebooks and memorize it to help them with test questions.

          Matt copied that into his notes, but under it he wrote: Many Vulgar Elephants Make Jam Simply Using Nasty Poop.  He held up his notebook and showed Eric.  They both snickered, but Matt would not show it to Maragold and Cheryl when they indicated that they wanted to see what he wrote.

          I felt a sudden shock.  It took all the “ting” away from me.  I felt a cold chill and knew something was very wrong.  I could hear Elder O’Keefe’s weak voice.  I had to leave quickly; very quickly.  I immediately flew from Maragold’s shoulder outside to a high tree branch to hear the message better.  I remembered that a message like this was only to be used in an emergency.  That worried me very much.

          Maragold was distracted from the lesson.  She felt something different.  She knew I was gone.  I had left her shoulder and she was searching for me, her pretty eyes roaming slowly around the classroom.  I could read her thoughts.  She missed me, was worried about me because I usually sat on her shoulder and listened to the lessons.  I gave her a brief thought-message, telling her that I had to leave.  Some thing was wrong at home.  I would contact her when I could.

          Mr. B. allowed his students to use the last fifteen minutes of the day to begin their homework.  Most students did just that.  A few students came to his desk to get extra help with a difficulty that they were having in math.

          Maragold did neither.  She was worried.  She sat at her desk as if she’d been instantly frozen, all but her eyes.  Warm moisture filled her eyes.  It wasn’t supposed to end like this, she thought.  Then, as she lowered her head to hide her face, tears fell onto her arms.  A few minutes later she raised her head.  She appeared outwardly normal, except for her red eyes.  Inside, her brain felt a fearful panic, a feeling of dread.

          As the students lined-up to go home, Mr. B. said that the class would be learning much more about astronomy and Chile.  The students would be having lessons about them for the next two or three weeks.

          He asked them to get ready for home, then he led them to their buses.

          All the way down the hallway and out to the buses Maragold heard only a constant loud buzz in her ears.  It was the sound of rushing blood pushing past her ears on its way to her brain?

          Maragold did not hear Cheryl, Matt or Eric as they talked to her.  They all stared at her odd behavior.  Just before entering her bus, she looked strangely at Matt, who was standing near his own bus.  She whispered, “Bert’s gone.”

          Matt worried about Mara.  She had been acting differently.  She hadn’t talked to him at all when they walked down the hallway, or when they left the school building and walked to their buses.  It was very unusual behavior.  She didn’t even stop at her bus door and wave to him like she almost always did.  She just mouthed the words “Bert’s gone.”  Gone where? Matt thought, then entered his bus feeling confused.

          When Bert did not show up for their normal bus ride home, Maragold worried even more.  He had done that occasionally, when he explored the school, but he had always returned for the bus trip home.  She had already been quite worried about Bert because ever since he returned to her at the end of summer vacation, he had not acted the same.  There was something sad about him, something he had buried deeply and did not allow to surface, not even to her.  When Maragold asked him about it, he said he would talk to her about it at some other time.  But, so far, he had been silent.  However, she guessed that it had something to do with his family because he would not speak of his summer in Ireland as he usually did.

          Now, all of a sudden, he had disappeared with just a quick mental message saying that he would contact her.  When?  What was wrong?  How could she help?  Her brain screamed helplessly, “Bert, let me help you!”  She heard the soft, rhythm of crying, as if it were miles away, just barely within hearing range.

          By the time Maragold arrived home, her intense worrying had caused a stomach ache.  She went to her bedroom, threw her books on the bed.  She heard the crying again, but much closer.  She turned suddenly and stared at her dresser.  Bert sat there in a toy rocking chair that Maragold had purchased for him.  Bert was rocking back and forth staring at the ceiling.  He wiped the tears away and put on a brave face.

          “What the heck happened, Bert?” asked Maragold.

          Bert stopped rocking, looked at Maragold, but did not speak right away.

          Maragold saw the red lines in the whites of his eyes.  She knew now that something terrible happened.  “Please tell me,” she said to Bert.

          Slowly Bert’s lips parted as he stared at his closest friend; closest human friend.  She’s so kind, so beautiful and smart, he thought.  His following thought was that it would be almost impossible to leave her.”

          “Please, Bert.  Talk to me.  Let me help,” Maragold appealed once more.

          Bert pushed himself out of the rocking chair, then floated to Maragold’s left shoulder and whispered to he, “Elder O’Keefe had a heart attack.  His health is getting worse, and now he has to stay in bed.”

          On another bus, Matt was sitting very quietly.  Usually he was cheerful and talkative with his friends, especially Robby.  Robby was fooling around telling jokes that he would not tell in school or in front of the girls.

          Robby wanted to talk about karate class, but saw that Matt was deep in serious thought as he stared out the bus window watching the trees, poles, fences and houses race into, then out of his vision.

          Robby asked, “Is everything all right, Matt?”

          “Yeah.  Fine.  Just in a quiet mood.  Need to relax and think.”

          “OK,” was Robby’s response.  Then he went back to his other friends and started listening and laughing at their jokes.

          Even more unusual, Matt thought, was that Bert was not perched on one of her shoulders at the end of school.  Matt couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.  That may be what was bothering her, he thought.  He continued to stare out the bus window.

          Matt thought about his feelings for Mara.  He had a special relationship with her.  They liked each other a lot.  They had held hands and it was a “ting” feeling.  She was, he thought, a good friend, loyal, kind, friendly and usually cheerful.  He wondered if she would be his girlfriend.  The fear of asking her made him put that thought out of his mind, but not before his face turned red.  He didn’t care, though.  No one could see his face.  He leaned his cheek against the cool window and smiled at the comfort it offered.

          Matt had told his mom and dad about his feelings for Mara.  They both agreed that he was having perfectly natural feelings for a boy his age.  They both encouraged him to talk to them about his feelings, but mostly Matt talked to his dad.

          Matt continued to stare out the window.  The sky was clear, sunny and robin’s egg blue.  Just a few cotton-ball clouds sailed by like white ships with fluffy sails on an a blue ocean of cool air.

          His eyelids got heavy. He felt drowsy, then he slept with his head against the cool bus window.  He felt as if his head was resting on a pillow of ice.  He found it refreshing.  He dreamed about the bright sky, only now the white clouds formed into the four letters that spelled LOVE.  He saw himself floating towards those clouds; peaceful and relaxed, but happy and excited too.  As he approached the “LOVE” clouds, the letter “O” changed into the smiling face of Mara.  Matt’s heart thumped like a hammer on an anvil as he thought, is this what love feels like.  Then he thought, are we too young to know what love really is?

          Then, in his dream, he saw the letter “L,” in the word LOVE, grow into a hand that reached out and grabbed him.  It shook his whole body and he wondered why it was doing that to him.  When he woke, suddenly, he was still shaking.  He took his face off the window and looked around.  It was Robby that was shaking him by the shoulder, trying to wake him up so he could get off the bus.

          Robby said, “See you tonight, at the karate class, OK?”

          Matt shook his head to clear his thoughts, then responded with, “You bet.  See you there.”  Then he walked to the bus exit.

          On another school bus Eric was sitting in back of Cheryl.  He was teasing her by asking her if he could sit with her, but she said, “No,” as she always did.

          Eric just smiled, leaned over the seat and said to Cheryl, “Hey! Did you know that a fart is an anal volcano?”

          “Oh, Eric!  You’re so gross and you don’t even make sense, so be quiet.  I don’t want to hear your sick fart jokes.”

          “Well,” Eric responded in a teasing voice, “I make more sense than the interstate highway signs that are in Hawaii, right?”

          Cheryl smiled, though she did not want to make Eric happy.  Then she blurted, “That can’t be true!  How could Hawaii have interstate highways when there’s no other states for the highways to go into?  You’re just making up stuff again?”

          “I’m telling the truth.  Really, I am.  I read about it in a travel magazine that my mom and dad get in the mail.  The magazine said that in order for Hawaii to get federal aid to build certain big highways, they had to be classified as ‘interstate highways,’ even though they couldn’t possibly link with any other states.  So that’s what they did.  Hawaii got federal aid and they built the highways, then put up signs that named them ‘interstate’ highways.  Funny huh?” And you wanna know something else?” Eric added.

          “What?” Cheryl said, cautiously, expecting some trick from Eric.

          “That’s where we’ll go after we get married,” he joked

          “You’re so weird.  You know that?” Cheryl said.

          “Oh, sure.  That’s my strong point.  It really attracts the girls.  Makes me a very powerful chick magnet.  Only I think your magnet’s north end is pushing away my magnet’s north end … ah … if you don’t mind me talking about our ‘ends.’”

          Cheryl said, “You’re hopeless,” but she grinned, then reluctantly smiled at Eric.  She held up her open palm and Eric slapped her a “high five” as they both smiled.

          Then Cheryl said, “You know, Eric, most of the time, you’d be much better off saying nothing.  You know that, right?” Cheryl asked teasingly, as she smiled at Eric over the back of her bus seat.

          Eric gave a false, surprised and hurt expression, then said, “Yes ma’am.  I assure you that when I have nothing to say, I will try really hard not to say it, OK?”

          Cheryl said, “My neck’s getting sore looking over the seat at you, so come up here and sit with me.”

          “Wow!” Eric said, surprised. He faked a delighted shiver as he changed seats and said, “Cool!” then added, “Ah, you really do love me after all, huh?”

          Cheryl gave Eric an evil smile.  “That’ll never happen so don’t make me send you back to your own seat for saying stuff like that.  And if you touch me I’ll break your skinny arm off and use it to beat you’re head like a drum.”

          “OK, OK,” Eric responded disappointedly.  But he still winked at Cheryl.  “All right,” he added, “just friends it is.  Does that satisfy you?”

          Cheryl said, “Absolutely.”  Then Cheryl turned to look out the window and smiled at her own reflection.  There was a boy on her mind.  That boy was not Eric.

          On another school bus, Charles was trying to read the book, Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, but he was having great difficulty concentrating.  The space next to him on the bus seat was empty.  No one would sit next to him.  That’s where his thoughts were.

          Dawn sat in the seat in front of him.  Harvey sat in back of him and Lee and Dan sat directly across the aisle from him.  Like chattering buffoons, they were all busy teasing him with “fat” jokes; jokes that felt like daggers pushed deeply into his flesh.  The pain spread through his body like a rushing high tide.  He said nothing, showed nothing, and felt like nothing.

          Dawn said, “You must be on the new seafood diet!  You know?  That’s the diet where you ‘see food’ and eat all of it!”

          Echoes of laughter bounced off the bus walls.

          Harvey glared at Charles, trying to intimidate and humiliate him.  “Well, at leas’ ya keep yerself in shape, Chubby Fatty!  A pine tree shape, right?  An that da shape you in, fat boy!”

          More teasing laughter.

          Charles was getting a head ache.  His eyes were starting to water but he was trying desperately to hold back the tears and not respond to the cruel teasing.  His face was red from embarrassment and humiliation.  He stared at his book, wishing he was dead.  He desperately wanted to get away from all of them.  They hadn’t teased him this badly in a long time.  He had hoped that they’d gotten tired of it.

          “What’s the matter, Chubby?  Cat got your tongue?  Must be a fat cat, huh?  Maybe you can lick your butt like a cat, too.  Right?” Lee teased.

          Those four jerks ganged up on Charles non-stop.  They wanted to see him cry, or see him lose his temper and get screaming angry, then they’d laugh in his face and taunt him even more.

          Charles knew that Harvey was the leader.  If Harvey stopped, they would all stop.  So, Charles thought, Harvey’s my worst enema.  Charles meant to think the word enemy not enema, but decided that “enema” was an excellent word for Harvey and his gang.  Then he laughed to himself, and that’s what prevented him from losing his temper.

          The students sitting farther towards the front and back of the bus would not make eye contact with Dawn, Harvey, Lee or Dan because they knew they’d be treated the same way if they said anything to help Charles.

          “Hey! What you smilin’ about?” Dan yelled, “You certainly does have a huge butt.  There must be lots a junk in your very large trunk!”

          As Charles was being laughed at, he felt the coldness of their meanness, like being stabbed with icicles.  He closed his book and looked out the bus window.  He felt his arms crackle and his neck crack as he moved, as if ice had formed in his body and it was shattering when he moved.  But he saw Harvey’s face in his mind as well as a vision of Harvey getting an enema, and he felt warm again, calm again, and laughed.

          But he did not see the same sky that Matt saw.  The cruel teasing made him see the sky as dark gray, like it would be just before a bad rain storm.  It matched his dark mood.  He wished that he could make himself temporarily deaf.  Instead, he thought about his new friends and the teasing became just a buzz of background noise that wasn’t very bothersome.  Then a ray of sunshine broke through the gray clouds.  He looked up at it and wondered if it had any meaning for him.

          Dear reader, I sincerely hope you understand the huge amount of pain that you can cause by teasing overweight people, like Harvey and his gang are teasing Charles.  That gang is damaging Charles’s personality, robbing him of simple fun and pleasure, blackening his view of school, people, himself and his own worth.

          Those four bullies enjoy the physical pain they create.  They also create terrible mental pain for their own entertainment.  It gives them a false sense of power and the thrill that goes with being powerful.  They cut their peers to pieces with words that they use as swords.  Please, dear reader, don’t be like them … ever.

                                      BERT’S  QUESTIONS

          If the number two pencil is so popular, then why isn’t it number one?

          Why does cloth get darker when it’s wet, even though the water is clear?

                                  CHAPTER  5

          Columbus Day sailed in on three ships: Breezy, Sunny and Cool.

          Before reading class officially started, Mr. Bunnlow reviewed the importance of Columbus and his discovery of a new continent.

          Mr. Bunnlow said that Columbus had been seeking a shorter trade route to India.  He thought he had found India so he called the native people in America Indians.

          The students also learned that Columbus made more trips from Europe to North America without realizing that he had discovered a new continent—new to Europeans.  He died not knowing of his great discovery.

          Unfortunately for Columbus, America is named after another explorer named Amerigo Vespucci.  He discovered and reported that Columbus had not found a short trade route to India; he had really found a whole new continent.

          Mr. Bunnlow informed the students that if America had been named after Columbus, then America’s name might have been “Columbus; The United States of Columbus.”  Some students’ eyelids snapped up in surprise and wonder.

          Matt had noticed that Mr. B. constantly looked at Maragold’s empty desk.  Matt, Cheryl and Eric also wondered where she was and why she hadn’t called any of them to say she would be absent?

          Mr. B.’s face showed concern.  He knew that it certainly wasn’t like Mara to be absent from school.  During his lunch break he wanted to check her attendance record.  What he would find is that in fourth and fifth grades, she had a perfect attendance record.  That meant that it would take something serious to cause her to be absent.

          What no one knew was that last night Maragold had cried herself to sleep.  She had stayed in her bedroom all evening, shocked by the sad news that I was being called back to Ireland and had to leave her at the end of the school year.

          Mr. and Mrs. Shane allowed her to stay home, thinking that she had a bad headache.  Her eyes looked blood-shot, too—from crying.  One of them wanted to stay home with her, but Maragold insisted that she’d be OK, and told them to go to work.  She said that she would call the school nurse and tell her why she was absent.  She forgot to do that, but I didn’t want to disturb her with a reminder.

          I sat on her pillow and cried with her.  I’m a few years older than she is, in human years.  It was then that I wished that my people did not have the tradition of selecting future leaders while they were in their middle or late teens, especially since we usually have long life spans.  But that’s just the way it is in Leprechania.

          I could not console Maragold.  Her tears fell gently, but regularly, leaving glistening wet paths down her cheeks.  Darker wet spots appeared on her pillow.

          I hurt inside, like my heart was being ripped open.  It was the hardest, most painful thing I had ever had to do.  How could I leave her?  I felt like I couldn’t do it, yet I knew that I had to do it.  I felt like two strong forces were pulling my arms in opposite directions and ripping me apart.  But I knew that I really had no choice.  It had to be done, but my brain ached, my vision blurred, so I tried to stop myself from thinking at all.

          During one short period of time, when Maragold stopped crying, she asked me, “Bert, can’t you just reject the apprentice position as the future leader?”  Then I sensed her guilt for acting selfishly.

          I said, “Maragold, I wish I could do that but I can’t.  I would be letting down my people, my relatives, my friends, and it would probably dishonor my family.  I can’t do that to them.  I’m supposed to consider this the biggest honor any leprechaun could ever have, and it is, I guess, but it means I have to leave you, my best and dearest friend.  I’ll never, ever forget you, but I think it will be best if you were to forget me.  Then the pain will go away when I go away.”

          She looked at me, startled.  “And just how am I possibly going to forget you?” she said with her red eyes staring at me.

          “I can hypnotize you and Matt, then use magic to make you both forget that I was ever in your life.  That’s the only way I can think of to do it so that your memories of me won’t cause you great sadness and pain when I’m gone.  It’ll also prevent the teasing and embarrassment you’d get if you talked about me.”

          I was caught off guard when Maragold spoke to me with anger in her voice.  “But I want to keep all my memories of you, Bert.  No one would ever believe me, anyway, if I talked about you.  No one believes that leprechauns are real.  People would just think I’m kidding, or overly imaginative.  But, even though the memories may be sad and painful, they are my memories.  They belong to me and you have no right to erase them … even with good intentions, and certainly not without my permission!” she said forcefully and uncharacteristically.

          “Yes.  Ah … perhaps you are right, but the more you talk about me, the less seriously people will take you.  You’d be considered a nut-case.  Jerks like Harvey, Dawn, Lee, and Dan would tease you forever.  Nothing you say will be taken seriously by many people.  You may be a big joke around school.”

          “Maybe,” Maragold said, “but I can fix that easily by only talking to Matt about you when the two of us are alone.  We’ve been doing that for two years already and no one has figured it out so far, not even our closest friends.”

          “I still think you and Matt would be better off if you did not remember me.”

          “Well, you aren’t always right, are you?” Maragold stated, defensively.

          “No.  Of course not,” I responded, calmly.

          “I never expected you to suggest such a thing.  It makes me even more sad than knowing that you are leaving.  Matt will be sad and disappointed, too.  You’ve helped him a lot, and I know that he respects and admires you.  But, I’m sure, he will not agree with you either.”

          I responded, “I know, Maragold.  His thoughts often drift to me.  I appreciate his thoughts.  But, you know, we leprechauns mature much faster than humans.  Though I’m only in my middle teens, as far as experience, knowledge and maturity are concerned, I am equivalent to a human in their late twenties or early thirties.  That gives me the insight and concern to not only help, advise and guide you, but it also allows me to easily recognize and appreciate the friendships I’ve had with you and Matt.  I value your friendship and will always cherish the memories.”

          I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I said the last word, “memories.”

          “You will cherish your memories of us, but you want to erase our memories of you?”  The logic of her statement made me feel guilty, especially since she was much younger and correct about it.

          “When will you tell Matt?” she asked.

          “I’ll go to his house tonight and talk to him.  That way, when you see him tomorrow, he’ll know all about the sad news.

          Maragold said, “I still don’t agree with you wanting to erase our memories of you.  I don’t think that is being fair … and I won’t agree to it,” she said again.

          “Perhaps I will not need to do it, but it would save the both of you a lot of sadness.  Let me talk to Matt to see how he feels about it,” suggested Bert.

          “I already know how he’ll feel about it!  You should too!” Maragold said with renewed anger.

          She had never gotten mad at me before, but my suggestion really upset her.  I couldn’t blame her.  I wasn’t nearly as certain about it as I pretended to be.

          That night, as Matt thought about using the phone to call Mara, I landed on his shoulder.  I told Matt about Mara’s bad mood and explained my suggestion that had caused it.  Matt said he understood why I had to leave, but he did not agree that erasing memories was a good idea, even if it did cause some pain from teasing or sadness from my leaving.  Also, he said that no one would tease them simply because no one else would ever know.

          Then Matt surprised me by asking, “Will you steal my bike when you leave?”

          I was shocked.  “Of course not!” I replied.  “Why’d you ask that silly question?”

          “You wouldn’t think of stealing my bike … but you would steal my memories?  Sure doesn’t sound like you, Bert,” Matt said.

          No.  It didn’t sound very much like me.  Maybe I’m not as smart as Elder O’Keefe thinks I am, I thought as I flew back to the Shane’s house.

          Late that night, after Maragold was asleep, I was in thought-contact with Elder O’Keefe.  I told him about the memory erasing suggestion that I made to Maragold and Matt.  He said that under normal circumstances, it would be a very good suggestion.  But, he asked, “Do the circumstances in this particular case justify erasing friends’ memories, without their consent?”  Then he added, “That’s an important decision for you to make.  Will you make a decision based on your point of view and feelings only, or will you make a decision that considers Maragold’s and Matt’s opinions and feelings?  And whose feeling should carry greater weight when making the final decision?  You have the final say, though.  You can erase their memories with or without their opinions and with or without their agreement.

          “The Committee and I have proudly noticed how considerate, logical and persuasive you are being, most of the time.  You are acting like a leader already, by proposing persuasive ideas and solutions to problems, convincingly getting agreement for your ideas and suggestions with your maturity of thought, sense of responsibility, reasonable ideas, and your indomitable spirit.  The Committee and I have looked at each other with satisfaction and pleasure.  Most of their uncertainties about you being the next leader have evaporated to be replaced by respectful admiration and joy, though, of course, you still have much to learn.

          “But erasing memories is a very big decision for you to make.  I wish you good luck when you make that decision.  It will not be easy.”

          “What do you think I should do,” I asked Elder O’Keefe.

          “I think you should do whatever you decide is the best thing to do for everyone concerned,” he answered, offering no help.  “The Committee, however, is very curious to know what your decision will be.  They see it as a test of your leadership, logic and decision-making ability.”

          “Have you heard any opinions from them?” I asked.

          “I’ll tell you that most of them think that your memory erasing suggestion is a very good idea.  But, Son, you and only you will make that decision.  They can not force a decision on you, only I can, and I won’t.  This is the kind of position that you will face many times when you take my place.”

          Elder O’Keefe coughed hard, but did his best to hide it, as if he were just clearing his throat.  “Good luck,” he said, as his voice drifted away like a kite with a broken string.

          The next morning, while Matt and Maragold talked privately by their lockers, Cheryl approached Eric.

          “Hey, smarty pants!  I have a joke to tell you,” she said to Eric.

          “Oh, yeah?  Fork it into my ears, Babe,” Eric said with a teasing smile.

          Cheryl’s hand darted to Eric’s earlobe and squeezed hard.  “Don’t call me your Babe.  We’re just friends … remember?” she said as she delightedly watched Eric’s face turn red and his eyes bulge out from the pain.

          “OK! OK!” Eric said as he yanked Cheryl’s hand free from his ear and grimaced.  Then Eric cupped his hands over both of his ears to protect them and said to Cheryl, “Yeah?  So, what’s the joke, my sweet Baby Doll?”

          When he saw Cheryl staring at him, he quickly said, “Hey! I didn’t call you, Babe.  You told me not to and I didn’t.  I just said ‘Baby Doll,’ cause your so cute.”  Then he laughed at her while still cupping his hands over his ears for protection.

          But Cheryl just smirked at him, then suddenly reached out and grabbed his nose; squeezed, then twisted.  Eric said something, but with his nose squeezed,  Cheryl couldn’t understand him.

          Cheryl squeezed harder and said, “Don’t call me any names that make it sound like we are more than just friends.  Understand?”

          Now Eric had a red, sore earlobe and a bright red nose that looked like a circus clown.  “All right!  I get it!  I get it!  So friend, he emphasized the word ‘friend,’ “What’s the joke?”

          All around them was the noise of student laughter, conversations, books dropping and lockers slamming.

          “Are you ready to listen and stop fooling around?” Cheryl asked.

          “Sure, my good friend,” Eric responded, not wanting of offend Cheryl again.

          “OK, then,” Cheryl stated.  “Pretend that you are walking down the sidewalk in a rich part of town.  The first house that you see is very large and made of red bricks.

          “Then the second house you come to is a gleaming, pure-white house that reminds you of a castle made of the finest white marble.  Next to this marble house is a gloriously beautiful green house.  Can you tell me what this green house is made of?” Cheryl asked with a smile.

          “Um,” Eric said as he rubbed his nose.  “The first was red brick, the second was white marble and the third was a green material.”  Eric screwed up he lips, shrugged his shoulder, then said, “Maybe aluminum siding?… Oh heck.  I don’t know.  Don’t care either.  Is there something that’s supposed to be funny about that boring story of yours?  OK, I give up.  What’s the green material for the third house?”

          “There’s no green material!  It’s clear glass, you lame brain!” Cheryl teased.  “Greenhouses are made of glass.  Don’t you know anything?”  Cheryl held her hand to her mouth and giggled.

          “Yeah, smarty pants, I do know something.  I know that sometimes you can be an awful pain my buttocks and—”

          Luckily, before Eric could finish his rude remark, Cheryl held her hand up in front of Eric’s face, telling him to stop immediately.  “Don’t say any more, Eric.  I wasn’t trying to make you mad, OK?  I’m sorry if I did.  I thought we were just having fun, like friends do, without getting mad at each other.”

          Eric calmed down, took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, I know.  You’re right and I’m sorry I got mad.  I shouldn’t have lost my temper.  But, wow!  My ear and nose still hurt.  You’ve got strong fingers … Babe.”  Then Eric laughed in Cheryl’s face, turned and ran to the classroom before Cheryl could grab him.

          Cheryl looked at her fingers.  “There will be pay-backs,” she said as Eric ran away from her.  Then she looked at her fingers, and saw snot-juice on them.  “Yuck!” Cheryl said to herself with a disgusted expression spreading across her face.  “I have to go wash my hands.”  She did that quickly and returned to the classroom, giving Eric a dirty look.

          The students who were lingering in the hallway entered their classrooms.

          Mr. B. rang his bell to signal that his students should be seated and quiet.

          After the principal’s announcements and the Pledge of Allegiance, Mr. B. made his own announcements about upcoming events and things to remember.  He reminded the class about the Friday morning spelling test, the upcoming math test, and the Halloween party.

          Before Mr. B. could let the students get started on their reading assignments, he saw a hand raise into the air.  It was Charles.

          “Yes Charles.  What is it?”

          “Well, ah … Mr. B. there’s a gang of kids on my bus that bully everyone, especially me, because I’m the fat, new kid.  The leader is a big guy, Harvey.  He friends are Dawn, Dan and Lee.  What should I do about it?”

          Mr. B. remembered those names and frowned.  “Charles, you should immediately report the bullying to your bus driver.  If that doesn’t stop the bullying, then you’ll have to report it to the Mrs. Plum.  If the bus driver can’t stop it, I’m sure Mrs. Plum can take care of it for you.”

          The Maragold gang listened to those names, also, and knew exactly who they were.  Flashes of unwanted, sad memories came alive in their brains.

          Reading class went smoothly.  So did writing, math and spelling classes.  But ‘smoothly’ doesn’t mean ‘joyfully’ for everyone.  Mr. B. had to reprimand a couple of boys for fooling around and not paying attention in math class.  Plus, in writing class, there was something written and passed on to other students that should not have been written, nor passed around the classroom … nor talked about here.

          Mr. B. expressed his disappointment with the students involved but did not make a big issue out of the interruptions.

          In math class, Mr. B. noticed that some students still had trouble with the multiplication tables, so he taught his finger-multiplying system to everyone.  Those students who had him in fourth grade remembered it.  The new students appreciated it, especially those who constantly had trouble with multiplication.

          Prior to the bathroom break, before lunch, Mr. B. said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to remind you that the yearly classroom student pictures will be taken soon.  I’ll send a reminder home with you.  Please try to be here on picture day, dressed nicely so we can have everyone in our classroom in the class picture.  Then, years from now, you can say, “Wow!  There’s Mara.  She’s a principal now, or look, there’s Eric.  He’s a famous comedian now.”  Then Mr. B. laughed, waved his hand over the whole class and said, “What will you be many years from now?  Think about it.”

          Suddenly Eric’s voice, loud and clear, said, “And look!  There’s Mr. B.  He’s dead now!”

          The whole class burst into laughter and Mr. B., caught up in the fun, started laughing loudly too.  Then he said, “That’s true.  No one lives forever, but I’m a teacher so I want to die with class while my pupils are reading a book.

          Muffled laughter followed his statement, but the groans were louder.

          At lunch time the students were in an exceptionally good mood—except for Maragold and Matt.  They had both tried to smile and laugh at the classroom humor, but the news of my leaving them was like a wet blanket over a fire.

          Maragold and Matt were quiet at lunch.  Everyone noticed, but when asked about it, Matt just said it was something personal and they could not talk about it.  But saying something like that is almost always a sure way of starting rumors.  Now there was a lot of whispering going on at the lunch table.

          To distract all their friends, and to provide Mara a moment to collect her thoughts, Matt said.  “Hey!  It’s joke time!  Did you hear the story about the kid whose mother told him that he couldn’t eat the box of animal crackers if the seal was broken?  Well, the kid emptied the whole box of animal crackers onto the table to see if the seal cracker—the kind of seal that’s an animal—was broken.  Duh!  It’s probably a story about Dan or Lee.”

          The laughter started easily so Matt’s distraction worked.

          Matt looked at Mara, encouraging her to tell a joke so that their friends would continue to be distracted.

          Maragold understood and said, “What do you get when you cross Fed Ex with UPS?”  She did not wait for any replies.  She said, “You get ‘Fed Up.”

          More laughter followed her joke, but when Eric’s voice rang like Mr. B.’s bell, everyone focused on him.

          Eric said, “In America we are much too wasteful, you know.  We should all conserve as much as possible.  One way we could do that is to conserve toilet paper by using both sides.  I know it’s a crappy joke.  It may even be the turd time I’ve said it.”

          “Ugh!  Yuck!  Disgusting!” and “Not while we’re eating,” were some of the replies aimed at Eric.  But that just encouraged his warped sense of humor.  He laughed loudly and proudly at his gross joke.

          Another voice said, “My mom and dad said that I should always give one-hundred percent effort at school, and I do exactly that.  I give fifteen percent on Monday, twenty-five percent on Tuesday, thirty-five percent on Wednesday, twenty percent on Thursday, and five percent on Friday,” a new girl named, Grace, said.  Then added, “It’s hard giving one-hundred percent, but I work really hard at it.”

          More laughter ran a race around the lunch table.

          Cheryl said, “Well, I’m nobody and we all know that nobody is perfect.  Therefore, I am perfect.  But please don’t die of envy, OK?”  Then Cheryl laughed and her laughter mingled with all the other laughter.

          “Yeah!  Right!”  Eric said as he stared at Cheryl and winked.  But as he winked, his eyes shifted to Grace.  He smiled at her, then looked back at Cheryl.

          When Cheryl gave Eric a dirty look, his mouth snapped shut as he thought about his sore ear and nose.  When the other students saw the comical expression on his face, they burst into louder laughter.

          Cheryl attempted to insult Eric by saying, “Eric, you live in your own weird, little world, don’t you?”

          “Darn right,” Eric responded quickly.  “And I love it there because everyone knows me and loves my sense of humor.”

          Cheryl shook her head at Eric, as if to say that he was a ‘hopeless’ case.

          But the table still vibrated with the laughter that her comment and Eric’s response caused.

          Then another voice said, “Does anyone here like cats?”

          Several girls raised their hands, including Maragold.

          Then Tommy’s voice squealed, “Great!  I really love cats ,too, so I’ll give you my tasty recipes as soon as I can make copies.”

          There was not much laughter at that joke, although some of the boys thought it was really funny.

          No one noticed Mr. B. standing by the end of the table.  When he spoke, everyone was startled and snapped their heads towards him.

          Mr. B. said, “I was reading the newspaper in the teacher’s room while I was eating lunch.  There was a short story that was very interesting.  The title of the story was sort of a mystery too.  It said: ‘SCHOOL TOILET SEATS STOLEN.  TEACHERS HAVE NOTHING TO GO ON.’  OK, line up quietly so we can go outside for a few minutes.”

          At first everyone was unnaturally quiet.  Then as they walked outside, Mr. B. heard more and more laughter as more and more students got the joke that he told them.  He smiled with satisfaction as he led his class to the playground.

          Just before reaching the playground, Mr. B. heard Eric shout, “I hope our toilet seats never get stolen.”  Then Eric made his voice sound as deep and manly as he could and said, “Me Big Chief Poops-a-Lot, and I won’t stand for it!”

          Mr. B. heard Eric’s comment and thought, from what I hear, you’re Big Chief Thunder Pants, too.  Mr. B. smiled to himself, pursed his lips, then shook his head back and forth thinking of what a nice weirdo Eric was.  When Mr. B. turned around to tell his students not to run until they reached the playground, there were a lot of smiling faces, but none were brighter or bigger than Eric’s.

          Later in the afternoon, when the science lesson was over, Mr. B. was about to review the previous social studies lessons.  Before starting he saw Eric’s hand raise.

          Oh no, Mr. B. thought, what’s on his mind now?

          “You have a question, Eric?” Mr. B. said, wondering what Eric was up to.

          “Yes,” Eric stated seriously.  “Are we going to have to study Peru, too?”

          “Ah ... ” Mr. B. paused, then looked at Eric curiously.  He thought Eric was going to say something funny and decided to tease Eric before Eric could tease him.  He said to Eric, “No, ah … Eric.  We won’t be studying PU too.  PU is a verbal reaction to an unpleasant smell.  And it’s very difficult to study smells.  It’s not something we will study in science mainly because it’s not that important and we would need expensive laboratory equipment that the school can not afford.”

          Eric wondered what Mr. B. was talking about and said, “OK.  I see, but—”

          Mr. B. quickly interrupted Eric and said, “Eric.  You know it wouldn’t be polite to talk about PU coming from someone’s butt.”

          Quiet laughter was spreading around the classroom.

          “No!” Eric said loudly.  “I wasn’t going to say anything about someone’s butt.  You interrupted me when I was going to say, ‘I see, but I’m not talking about smells at all.’ I just wanted to know if we also had to study the country of Peru.  Peru,” he repeated, for emphasis.

          “PU, Peru?  Why do you think Peru stinks?”

          More laughter came quickly.

          Eric gave a little growl and a big grimace that showed his frustration, then said to Mr. B., “You’re not listening closely to me.  I did not say, ‘Peru stinks.’”

          “Well, Eric, it was you I was listening to, and I heard you say Peru was PU,” Mr. B. responded as he continued to tease Eric.

          More hushed giggles and laughter erupted in the classroom.

          Eric’s face turned red, especially when he saw Maragold, Matt, and Cheryl trying to hold back their laughter by putting their hands over their mouths.

          Eric wanted to clarify what he had really said.  He took a deep breath, calmed himself and said, “Please listen, Mr. B.  I’m talking about the country of Peru, P-E-R-U,” he spelled it slowly.

          Mr. B’s face showed false shock as he used a stern voice to say, “Now that’s enough, Eric!  People don’t like it when you say that their country stinks.  How’d you like it if someone said that America stinks?  It’s very rude, so I advise you to stop saying that.”

          “Darn it, Mr. B., you’re getting things all mixed up.  Heck, I didn’t mean to say that Peru stinks.”

          “Oh,” Mr. B. said, sounding confused.  “So now you don’t think Peru stinks, but before you said it did.”

          “Man!” Eric shouted.  “You are really weird today.  Why do you keep saying that I think Peru stinks?”

          “See!” Mr. B. said as he pointed at Eric.  “Finally you admit it,”  Mr. B. said excitedly, still pointing at Eric accusingly.

          Eric spread his arm open as if pleading, then said, “What are you talking about?”

          “OK,”  Mr. B. said.  “Let’s settle this right now.  Let me ask you a simple question that will finally prove my point.  OK, Eric?”

          “Sure.  Go ahead.  But I know what I said,” Eric added.

          “Eric.  A little while ago you said to me, ‘Why do you keep saying that I think Peru stinks?’  You did say that, right?”

          “Yeah.  So?” Eric said.

          “Good.  Now simply tell me what the last four words of that sentence are.  Just the last four words, please.”

          Eric wrinkled his brow and said, “I think …” Eric paused as if he suddenly realized something, then finished his sentence, saying “Peru stinks.”

          “Ah! See, Eric, you said the four words, ‘I think Peru stinks,’ right?”

          “Oh! No!” Eric protested.  “Now wait just a darned minute!  I did not mean that way.  And that’s a trick.  Wait … let me explain more clearly.”

          “It seems pretty clear to all of us, Eric.”

          Now the classroom was a loud orchestra of laughter and an echo chamber for high pitched giggles, low pitched laughter and muffled laughter.

          Eric tried to ignore the noise and continued to try to talk to Mr. B.  “No!” Eric said.  “Mr. B., listen to me.  You are making a mistake when you think that I think Peru stinks.”

          “You see!”  Mr. B. shouted.  “You just said it again.  You just said, ‘I,’ meaning you, ‘think Peru stinks.’  You can’t deny it any more, not after you said it again.  Eric, am I correct or not?”

          “Yes, but that’s not what I mean.  It was only a part of the sentence,” Eric said.

          “Gee, I think you’re convincing me, Eric.  Maybe Peru is a stinky country.  Listen.  Does Peru start with the letter ‘P’ and end with the letter ‘U’?” Mr. B. asked.

          “Yeah.  So what does that prove?” Eric responded with frustration.

          “Well, think about it.  The first and last letters of PERU spell PU?  So everything in between must stink also.  But the absolute proof is that the middle of the word PERU you will find the letters ER, and ER is the abbreviation for ENTIRE REGION.  So you see, my dear boy, you were right after all.  The entire region of Peru must stink.”

          Mr. B. started to dance and hum loudly to celebrate his triumph.  Then he said, “And that’s the proof, Eric.  Of course, we all know it’s just a joke, right?  I was just teasing you.  Peru is probably a wonderful, beautiful country, right?”

          “Just joking, huh?  You’re so weird, Mr. B.  You twist words like a professional.  Ever think of becoming a superintendent, or being on the Board of Education?  You must eat a large bowl of Crazy Weirdo Flakes every morning.  And you should be ashamed of yourself for picking on a poor, little, helpless kid like me.  Pick on someone your own size,” Eric said, trying to make Mr. B. feel bad.

          When the roaring laughter started, Mr. B. rushed to close the classroom door so the noise wouldn’t escape into the hallway.

          Then Eric pretended to pout so that he could get some sympathy.  Actually he only made the other students laugh harder, and caused Mr. B. to say, “Nope!  No way do I feel bad, Eric.  I was having way too much fun to think about feeling bad.”

          Then Mr. B. walked to Eric’s desk, gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and said, “Gottcha!” with a teasing, but friendly voice.

                                      BERT’S  QUESTIONS

Why do people say their noses run and their feet smell?  Shouldn’t they be reversed?

Why isn’t toothpaste called teethpaste?  Don’t you brush more than one tooth?