“Check out Angel’s snake,” whispered Clay to Amelia Bedelia. “It was moving around a lot because it was hungry. Now it’s snoozing.”
Amelia Bedelia looked at Squeezer. The python was coiled up, taking a nap. Amelia Bedelia shivered.
“Oswald? Oswald!” cried Penny. “Come here, baby mouse!”
“Squeezer doesn’t look that hungry anymore,” whispered Clay. “I think Oswald was lunch!”
Amelia Bedelia felt like screaming.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk!” came a cry from the kitchen. Amelia Bedelia’s mother dashed outside.
“Never mind,” said Clay. “I think we found Oswald.”
Penny coaxed her mouse from under the refrigerator with a morsel of cheddar.
“Don’t worry, Oswald is fine,” she said. “You just scared him.”
“What a relief,” said Amelia Bedelia’s mother, though she didn’t sound relieved. She was staring straight at Amelia Bedelia, who knew that she would hear about this after her friends left.
That night, Amelia Bedelia was sent to bed early. She wasn’t being punished. Her mother just wanted to make sure her bug didn’t come back. Amelia Bedelia perched her new plush monkey on her windowsill so it could look out at the backyard zoo. She imagined all the fantastic displays and games she would create. She fell asleep dreaming about how great her zoo was going to be.
The next morning was bright and sunny. Amelia Bedelia’s father had to leave for work earlier than usual for an important meeting. He kissed Amelia Bedelia and her mother good-bye and ran out the door. In less than a minute he was back, soaked from head to toe.
“Did you forget your umbrella?” asked Amelia Bedelia.
“It’s sunny—I don’t need an umbrella!” said her father, fuming. “I need answers. Who left a pile of banana peels in front of the door to the garage?”
Amelia Bedelia’s mother looked right at her. “What did you do with those bananas I gave you yesterday?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Amelia Bedelia. “I was going to show my friends how a monkey peels a banana, but we ran out of time. I left the bananas on the patio table. Sorry!”
“Well, somebody ate them!” said her father. “I slipped on those peels and went flying.”
“Oh, honey, are you hurt?” asked Amelia Bedelia’s mother.
“I don’t think so,” said her father. “Luckily I landed in a wading pool full of water. It broke my fall.”
“That was lucky,” said Amelia Bedelia. It was even luckier that it was time to catch the school bus.
Amelia Bedelia kissed her mom and dad good-bye, grabbed her backpack, and raced out the kitchen door. She took a quick detour and looked at the banana peels. That’s weird, she thought. Each banana had been peeled using the monkey method. Maybe everyone already knew how to peel bananas that way!
On the bus ride to school, Amelia Bedelia sat with her friend Joy, making plans for her zoo. “I like big cats the best,” said Joy. “Where are we going to find a lion, tiger, or leopard?”
An older boy leaned over the seat behind them. “My aunt’s got a really big cat,” he said. “He’s got tiger stripes and weighs more than thirty-seven pounds!”
“That’s not big,” said Amelia Bedelia. “That’s enormous!”
“Yup,” said the boy. “He just sits around all day, except when he waddles over to his bowl to eat.”
Mrs. Shauk kept her students busy, and she kept a close eye on their work. In fact, when she taught them how animals use signals to warn one another of danger, the class took that lesson to heart. During recess, some kids figured out a way to signal everyone when the Hawk was watching. It was a matter of survival!
“We need a warning signal,” said Wade.
“But it can’t be too obvious or she’ll catch on,” said Holly.
“Well,” said Teddy, “we can’t slap our tails on the water like a beaver when a coyote comes near. Or whistle like prairie dogs when a hawk is overhead.”
Beep-beep-beep went a truck backing up to the cafeteria to make a delivery.
They all looked at one another and got the same idea at exactly the same time. Whoever spotted the Hawk closing in would say “Beep!” as loudly as they dared.
When recess was over, Mrs. Shauk had the class take out their animal journals. She described different animal habitats, from rain forests and wetlands to grasslands and deserts. Amelia Bedelia tried to pay attention, but she was more interested in working on the map for her backyard, A.Z. (After Zoo).
It didn’t take Mrs. Shauk long to catch her drawing instead of taking notes. Joy whispered, “Beep!” But it was too late.
“Amelia Bedelia,” warned Mrs. Shauk. “I know it’s fun, but you’d be better off learning about real animals in the real world instead of thinking about a zoo in your backyard. That’s pie in the sky!”
Amelia Bedelia wanted to hear how a pie could stay up in the sky, but she knew that now was not the time to ask.
At lunch, Suzanne tried to explain. “My grandma says that all the time,” she said. “It’s a way to say you’re dreaming. She meant that your zoo isn’t going to happen.”
“But what does a pie in the sky have to do with animals in my backyard?” asked Amelia Bedelia.
Suzanne shrugged her shoulders and opened up her lunch box. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I sure hope my mom packed me some pie today!”
“Amelia Bedelia,” said Heather. “We all hope you keep working on your zoo, because it’s really cool. But if you hear a beep, watch out!”
After lunch, Mrs. Shauk began talking about endangered animals. Amelia Bedelia took a big risk by peeking in her notebook at the list she had made of cool animals for her zoo.
She still felt bad about turning down Roger’s deer head. She knew that zoologists and scientists often studied stuffed animals from long ago. Then she remembered that last year, Roger had brought a beautiful lizard for show-and-tell. It was green with gold spots and bright blue lines around its eyelids.
Amelia Bedelia made sure that Mrs. Shauk wasn’t looking and wrote Roger a note.
She folded the note into a tiny square, wrote “Roger” on the outside, and passed it to Penny . . . just as Mrs. Shauk looked up.
“Beep!”
Very quietly and very carefully, the note was passed from student to student until it reached Roger.
Mrs. Shauk was talking about polar bears when Amelia Bedelia got her answer.
“In a few years,” said Mrs. Shauk, “polar bears might go extinct.”
“No! I don’t believe it!” blurted out Amelia Bedelia.
The entire class stared at her.
“You disagree, Amelia Bedelia?” asked Mrs. Shauk. “What if an animal disappears?”
“That’s okay,” said Amelia Bedelia. “If their coats or skins let them blend in, that protects them.”
“You’re getting ahead of us,” said Mrs. Shauk. “We’ll talk about natural camouflage next.”
What Amelia Bedelia had not believed was the answer to her note.
Amelia Bedelia wrote back:
When Mrs. Shauk turned toward the board, Amelia Bedelia held out the note to Penny. But Penny didn’t take it. Amelia Bedelia looked at her.
“Beep!”
Penny was staring straight ahead, ignoring Amelia Bedelia and the note.
“Beep!”
Amelia Bedelia had forgotten the first rule of passing a note at school: Never take your eyes off the teacher.
“Beep!”
But it was too late.
Amelia Bedelia looked up at Mrs. Shauk and froze like a baby bunny in an open field. The Hawk came swooping down the aisle. Gleaming red talons plucked the note out of Amelia Bedelia’s hand.
“I’ll take this, young lady, and I’ll see you after school.”
Looking at the rest of the class, she added, “And if I hear one more beep out of anyone while I am teaching, you will all join Amelia Bedelia!”
“Amelia Bedelia,”
Mrs. Shauk said at the end of the day. “I am so disappointed. You’re usually so considerate. You pay attention. You ask good questions. Now you’re drawing plans for a zoo and passing notes.”
“After I missed the trip to the zoo,” said Amelia Bedelia, “I just wanted to do something fun with my class and animals.” Tears welled up in Amelia Bedelia’s eyes.
“I see,” said Mrs. Shauk. “How’s it going? Are you making progress?”
Amelia Bedelia thought for a few seconds. Then she said, “Pretty good. But it isn’t easy to make an interesting zoo. Especially if you can’t have the type of animals that can eat you.”
Mrs. Shauk laughed and Amelia Bedelia smiled back.
“You know,” said Mrs. Shauk, “I have been to lots of zoos all over the world, and I’ve seen thousands of animals.”
“I’d love that,”said Amelia Bedelia.
“It’s fun to see them,” said Mrs. Shauk. “But I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be them.”
“That’s more interesting,” said Amelia Bedelia.
Mrs. Shauk nodded. “Pay more attention in class, and you might get an idea for your zoo.” She handed the note back to Amelia Bedelia.
“I promise,” said Amelia Bedelia.
“In my class,” said Mrs. Shauk, “you can keep your head in the clouds as long as your feet are on the ground.”
Getting in trouble and staying after school meant that Amelia Bedelia missed her bus, so her feet were definitely on the ground. As she waited on the bench out front for her mother to pick her up, she thought about her zoo, her friends, and what Mrs. Shauk had said.
She looked up at the sky. She could never look at clouds without seeing animals in them. Today she spotted an entire zoo overhead. A hippopotamus drifted by a rhinoceros chasing a cheetah away from a gazelle. They raced around a huge cloud that didn’t have much shape. It was rounded on top and flat on the bottom, like a giant tortoise with its head and legs tucked inside its shell—no, wait a second. . . .
Amelia Bedelia couldn’t believe it. It was a pie! A pie in the sky! She pointed at it, but no one was around to share it with her. Suddenly it changed into a lizard and scampered away.
“If there can be a pie in the sky,” Amelia Bedelia said, “then there can be a zoo in my backyard!”
When Amelia Bedelia finally got home, Roger was already waiting. Sitting on the doorstep next to him was a plastic cooler.
“You didn’t have to bring your own refreshments,” said Amelia Bedelia. “We have cold drinks.”
“Amelia Bedelia’s right,” said her mother, laughing. “I’ll go make you some lemonade.”
Roger stared at Amelia Bedelia and patted the top of the cooler. “Georgie is in here,” he whispered.
Amelia Bedelia felt creeped out . . . and curious. Why would Roger bring a dead gecko over to her house?
“Don’t worry,” said Roger. “Georgie doesn’t stink. He’s frozen solid.”
Then he told Amelia Bedelia how his little brother had let Georgie out of his terrarium to show to some friends. Georgie had disappeared, and they found him flattened under a sofa cushion. It was winter, and the ground was too frozen to bury him. So they put him in a plastic bag and stuck him in the freezer until the ground thawed and he could have a proper burial.
“Georgie died five months ago,” said Roger. “I had pretty much forgotten about him until I got your note. Would you like to see him?”
Amelia Bedelia nodded, so Roger opened the cooler, pushed aside an ice pack, and held up the gecko. Georgie was in a plastic bag. He was flattened out like he had been run over.
Amelia Bedelia was fascinated. She didn’t notice Clay coming up the walk. “Cool!” he said. “What’s that?”
“It’s more than cool,” said Amelia Bedelia. “It’s frozen.”
“It’s Georgie,” said Roger. “I never got a chance to bury him. He’s a gold dust day gecko from Madagascar.”
Amelia Bedelia didn’t know what to do. She had imagined having a zoo, not a museum.
“This is amazing,” said Clay. “We can make a sign that says he’s a reptile and that even though the word dinosaur means ‘terrible lizard,’ he’s not a dinosaur. We can say Georgie is an ancient lizard that fell into a glacier and was perfectly preserved to this very day.”
“We can write that he liked to eat all kinds of insects and bugs,” said Roger.
“Even the flu?” asked Amelia Bedelia. “Because that would be great.”
“Let’s freeze him in a block of ice,” said Clay. “He’ll be the main attraction!”
“I’ll put him in our birdbath,”said Amelia Bedelia. She was beginning to see the possibilities in this idea. “Georgie will be on a pedestal, and it can hold the melting water.”
Roger looked relieved. “Once he thaws out, we can bury him.”
“Absolutely,” said Amelia Bedelia.
Amelia Bedelia, Clay, and Roger sneaked Georgie into the kitchen. They were about to fill the plastic bag with water when they heard Amelia Bedelia’s mother coming. They resealed it and tucked it into the back of the freezer, behind a bag of frozen peas.
That night, everything for dinner was fresh, so the freezer door stayed shut. Amelia Bedelia had already told her mother why she had to stay late at school, but during dessert she told her father too.
“You want to build a zoo?” asked her father. “With real animals?”
“Just pets,” she replied. “Like Finally . . . and Joy has a rabbit and Penny has a mouse. Lots of kids in my class have pets. Plus we’ll probably use some stuffed animals.”
“You started to tell me this the other day, didn’t you? So that’s why that snake was in our backyard!” said her mother.
“A snake! In our backyard?” said Amelia Bedelia’s father. “Forget it!”
“Oh, Daddy, please?” said Amelia Bedelia. “It’s a really Big Idea. We’ll have games and rides too.”
“Sweetie,” he said, “building a zoo is complicated. It would be different if you’d done some planning.”
Amelia Bedelia excused herself and ran to her bedroom. She returned with her notebook. She showed her parents the plan for her zoo. It included everything, from the rope-swing entrance to the birdbath glacier display. All of the animals and exhibits were organized into habitats.
Amelia Bedelia’s parents looked at the map, at each other, and then at Amelia Bedelia. “So,” said her father, smiling, “when I fell into your wading pool, it was actually a crocodile-infested river?”
“Uh-huh,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Sorry.”
“And my herb garden will be home to a Big Cat?” asked her mother.
“Yup. But it never moves,” said Amelia Bedelia. “It won’t bother anything.”
Her father shrugged. “Looks harmless enough, I suppose.”
“And you did a great job of planning,” said her mother. “Let us sleep on it, and we’ll let you know in the morning.”
Amelia Bedelia handed her notebook to her mother. “Just don’t sleep on it too much,” she said. “If it gets wrinkled, I’ll have to do it over.”
Amelia Bedelia put on her pajamas and kissed her parents good-night. She lay in bed looking at the sweet squirrel monkey perched on her windowsill. She loved her gift, and she felt really lucky to have such good friends at school. She could just see the reflection of the monkey in the glass. Two monkeys are better than one, she thought.
She was about to turn off her lamp when she noticed that her monkey had lost his reflection. That’s odd, she thought. Then Amelia Bedelia’s own animal instinct kicked in.
She got out of bed and rummaged through her backpack. Where was that extra banana her mother always packed? Got it! She raised her window and set the banana on the ledge.
Leaves rustled in a nearby tree as she closed the window. Back in bed, Amelia Bedelia whispered, “Good night, little monkey.”
Amelia Bedelia checked her windowsill as soon as she got up the next morning. The banana was gone! She
raced downstairs and ran outside to look for the peel. There it was! She picked it up so that her father wouldn’t slip again. She was so excited, she didn’t know what to do. The banana had been peeled exactly the same way the monkeys had peeled their bananas on the TV show.
At breakfast, Amelia Bedelia’s mother and father told her that it was okay for her to build her zoo as long as one of them was at home and as long as everyone helping had permission to be at Amelia Bedelia’s house. Also, no dangerous pets were allowed.
“That’s great!” said Amelia Bedelia. “Mom, will you get me more bananas, please—like a big bunch of bananas?”
“More bananas?” said her mother. “You already eat two a day.”
“She may look like Amelia Bedelia,” said her father. “But she’s actually the monkey that escaped from the zoo. Do you know, they still haven’t caught that little fella!”
Amelia Bedelia froze, like prey caught in the open. Had her dad guessed what she was thinking? Did her dad know something she didn’t know? Then she remembered her Rule #1: If you don’t know what to say, ask a question.
“Dad, do you know how a monkey eats a banana?” she asked.
“With relish,” said her father.
“Yuck!” said Amelia Bedelia. “A banana with relish would taste terrible. Save it for your hot dog!”
Amelia Bedelia grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and showed her dad how to peel it using the Monkey Method. “Amazing,” said her father. “Who knew?” He cut up the banana and put it on his cereal.
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