by Lois Lowry
"But we have to be sure that the flag is just big enough for this!" Gooney Bird picked up a small stack of photographs from Mrs. Pidgeon's desk. She held up the top one, a small school photo of Felicia Ann, grinning, with her top teeth missing.
"I'll give you each your own photo, and you'll paste it onto your flag. Carefully cut out your face so that it just fits on your flag, okay?"
The children nodded. They had all gotten their scissors out.
"You too, Mrs. Pidgeon. You'll have a flag, too." Gooney Bird handed the teacher her photograph.
Mrs. Pidgeon looked at it and made a face. "My hair looked awful that day," she said.
"When your flag is done, with the picture on it, then we'll use the stapler to attach it to the flagpole," Gooney Bird explained. "I've already tested this. See?" She held up her own flag. Her chopstick had a purple rectangle attached to it, with Gooney Bird's picture carefully glued to the purple. "My hair looked awful that day too, Mrs. Pidgeon," she said. "I had a bad case of hat hair.
"Okay, start cutting out your faces, and your flags. Mrs. Pidgeon will come around with paste, and then we'll do the stapling really carefully. And be sure to put your flag on the square end! We need the pointy end to stick into the snow."
Chelsea looked up from her photograph, from which she was carefully cutting out her head. "Where are we going to stick them?"
"We'll each plant our flag at the place where we'll be spending our vacation! Barry? Whiz Kid ? Yours will be right beside Humphrey's palm tree!"
"YES!" said Barry.
The class became very quiet. Everyone, including Mrs. Pidgeon, was carefully creating a flag.
7.
Toward the end of the day, the playground was empty. Two crows sat on the limb of a bare tree and watched as the class, each person carrying a flag, made their way to the snow map. One of the crows made a cawing sound as if he were annoyed at the interruption. Then he and his partner lifted their large wings and flew away.
"Look! A piece of Humphrey's palm tree broke off! Hawaii's all messed up!"
"I bet a bear walked through and broke it while we were having lunch," Tricia said.
"Really?" asked Keiko nervously. "A bear?"
"No, Sweet Thing," Gooney Bird reassured her. "I think those crows snapped it off. They're probably looking for nest material."
"Let's get started, class!" Mrs. Pidgeon suggested. "We'll use up all our time just talking and our feet will get cold. How shall we do this, Gooney Bird? Who'll go first?"
Gooney Bird thought for a moment. "Alphabetical," she decided.
"Yay!" Barry shouted. "I always go first alphabetically!"
"I always go last," Tyrone said with a pout.
Felicia Ann went shyly over to Tyrone. "It maybe be a blast, when you always goin' last," she said to him, softly, and Tyrone's face brightened.
"Run my engine pretty fast, 'cuz I be always goin' last," he replied with a grin.
"Cool Dude," Felicia Ann added.
Barry plunged his chopstick in the snow beside the broken palm tree. "Ta-da!" he said. "Hawaii for Whiz Kid!" He wiggled his hips in a brief hula.
"Okay. Who's next?" asked Mrs. Pidgeon. "Let me think. Barry, Beanie, Ben, Chelsea..."
"Beanie!" Gooney Bird called. "You next, Sunshine!"
Beanie, carrying the little flag with her photograph on it, stepped forward onto the map and found Florida. "M-I-C-K-E-Y!" She sang the letters. "M-O-U-S-E!" She leaned down and poked her flag into the snow in the center of Florida.
"Ha! Barry and Beanie both get really bad sunburns," Malcolm said loudly, "and Beanie, she has to wear stupid mouse ears!" Mrs. Pidgeon put her hand gently on Malcolm's shoulder.
"Do you think William Henry Harrison used sunscreen at the beach?" Keiko asked in a curious voice.
"William Henry Harrison never even went to the beach, poor guy," Gooney Bird said.
Without any announcement from Gooney Bird, the second grade observed a moment of silence. Poor President Harrison.
Ben went next. He was well prepared, because his family had been planning their ski trip for a long time. Ben knew exactly how to find Sugarbush, Vermont, on their packed-snow map.
"There," he said, after he had poked his flagpole into the snow. "If I had a lot of flags, I could make it look like a slalom course! Whoosh whoosh whoosh, this is me, snowboarding down between the flags! That's what I'm gonna be doing on vacation! In Style!"
"I bet you fall and break your leg," muttered Malcolm.
"Snowboard down the slope, and you actin' like a dope..." Tyrone chanted.
"Chelsea?" said Gooney Bird. "You're next!"
Chelsea, holding her flag, moved forward slightly onto the map. She started toward California. Then she stopped, and hung her head.
"What's wrong, QT ?" asked Mrs. Pidgeon.
"Nothing."
"Don't you want to plant your flag?"
But Chelsea shook her head. "I asked my mom if we could go to California during our school vacation. But she said not unless we win the lottery." She looked up. "She said we could go to the pizza place one night, though."
"I see. Well, the pizza place sounds like fun."
"Not as much fun as Hawaii!" shouted Barry.
"Or Disney World!" called Beanie.
"Or Sugarbush, Vermont!" said Ben in a loud voice.
Chelsea began to cry.
Mrs. Pidgeon put her arm around Chelsea. She looked around. "Felicia Ann?" she said. "You're next in the alphabet. What's Up ?"
"I'm going to the public library," Felicia Ann said in a very small voice.
"Well, that's always exciting," Mrs. Pidgeon said. She glared at Barry, Beanie, and Ben. "Anyone want to go next? Anyone else got a vacation spot to show us?"
One by one the children shook their heads. "I'm going to my grandma's," Nicholas said, "but it's just down the street. Really Magic. NOT!"
"I'm going to the movies," Tyrone said. "My dad said he'd take me."
"Cool Dude," muttered Malcolm.
"Keiko?" Mrs. Pidgeon suggested. "How about you, Sweet Thing ?"
But Keiko said no. "I'm not going anyplace. I'm going to help in my parents' store during vacation."
"Do you get to do the cash register?" Malcolm asked.
"No. But I arrange the fruit. I can make a really beautiful pyramid out of oranges."
"Oh, lovely, Keiko," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "Anyone else? Who has a vacation destination?"
"Not me."
"Not me."
"We're not going anywhere ever again" Mal- ^ colm complained, "because of the triplets."
"I'm not going anywhere either," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "I promised my husband I'd spend the vacation finishing a sweater that I started knitting for him in 2004."
"U Go, Girl," Tyrone said, and high-fived the teacher.
"Gooney Bird?" Mrs. Pidegon asked. "What about you? This was your idea."
"And it was a pretty good one," Gooney Bird said in a tentative voice. "We learned a lot about maps."
"But where are you going for vacation, Gooney Bird? Someplace Très Chic ?" asked Felicia Ann.
Gooney Bird sighed. "I'm staying home," she confessed. "I'm planning to write a novel."
Everyone stared at the big snow-packed map and its three chopstick flagpoles in Hawaii, Vermont, and Florida. They looked very small and far apart.
"We could make a math problem out of this," Mrs. Pidgeon suggested. "If there are twelve people, and three of them go off on a vacation, then how many are left?"
No one said anything. Finally Keiko murmured, "Nine."
"If we put our nine flags here, in this town, it would look like a porcupine sitting on the map," Chelsea observed glumly.
"I have an idea," Barry announced. "How about a moment of silence for everybody in this whole second grade except for me..."
"And me!" Beanie said with a grin.
"AND ME!" Ben shouted.
Everyone was very silent. Felicia Ann sniffled quietly and wiped her nose on
her sleeve.
"My feet are cold," Nicholas said, after a moment.
"Well," Mrs. Pidgeon suggested. "Let's go inside and regroup."
8.
Inside the classroom, with their outdoor jackets hanging up again and their boots standing in pairs by their cubbies, the second-graders took their seats glumly. Their map project had not been the success they had hoped it would be.
"What're we going to tell the other kids?" Nicholas asked.
"Yes," said Ben, "what about Marlon Washington? He said our project was just a big mess, and we said just wait till it's done! But now he's going to say it's really just a big mess!"
Mrs. Pidgeon glanced through the window, down to the playground where the map was.
"The oceans are so blue and beautiful," she said with a sigh. "We really did make a wonderful map. Surely we can think of some educational way to use it.
"Barry?" she asked. "You're the Whiz Kid. Any ideas?"
Barry shook his head.
"I know a card game called 'spit in the ocean'! How about if we all go down and spit in..." Malcolm suggested. But his voice trailed off and he didn't even finish his sentence.
"You're really a Class Act, Malcolm," Chelsea said, and rolled her eyes.
"So?" Malcolm replied. "You got a better idea, QT ?"
But Chelsea didn't.
"Well," said Mrs. Pidgeon, "let's get out our math books. Gooney Bird, would you pass around these worksheets?" She handed some papers to Gooney Bird, who stood and began to hand one to each child.
At the rear corner of the room, Gooney Bird stopped, suddenly, and began to look at something on a shelf near the supply closet. "We didn't get worksheets over here!" Ben called.
"Oops, sorry," Gooney Bird said, and passed the rest of the sheets to the students in Ben's group of desks. Then she went back and looked again at the shelf. After a moment, she picked up a maroon cardboard box.
Malcolm's hand shot up. "Mrs. Pidgeon!
Mrs. Pidgeon! Gooney Bird took a puzzle from the puzzle shelf! That's not fair! It's math time! Nobody can do a puzzle during math time!"
Mrs. Pidgeon walked to Malcolm's desk and put her calm-down hand on his shoulder. "Relax, Malcolm," she said. "Gooney?" she asked. "What are you doing?"
Gooney Bird didn't answer. She closed her eyes and stood very still. "I'm thinking," she said. "Excuse me for a moment."
Everyone in the room waited. They all watched Gooney Bird, who had now reached into the pocket of the plaid shirt she was wearing today over her red tights. She removed a pair of glasses and put them on, carefully arranging the silver frames around her ears.
"My vision is perfect," she said. "But I feel that sometimes wearing glasses improves concentration. I got these at the Salvation Army store."
"Can you see through them?" Keiko asked, in a concerned voice.
"Blurry," Gooney Bird replied. "But seeing blurry helps me think. Mrs. Pidgeon, may I stand here thinking while the class does the worksheets? I'll do mine at home tonight."
Mrs. Pidgeon considered that. "All right," she decided. "How much time do you need?"
"About four minutes and thirty seconds, I think," Gooney Bird said.
"Very well," said Mrs. Pidgeon, glancing at the clock.
Exactly four minutes and seventeen seconds later, Gooney Bird carefully removed her glasses, folded them, and replaced them in her pocket. Carrying the maroon box, she returned to her desk and sat. She was smiling.
"You have an idea, don't you?" Felicia Ann asked. Then she remembered her own candy-heart name. "What's Up?"
Gooney Bird grinned.
"You have an idea about our map?" asked Malcolm.
She nodded.
Mrs. Pidgeon collected the math papers quickly. "Let's hear it!" she said to Gooney Bird.
Gooney Bird opened the box. It was filled with oddly shaped wooden puzzle pieces. "Mrs. Pidgeon," she said, "could you read me the list of class names backwards? I mean alphabetically, from the bottom up?"
"Sure," the teacher said. "I'll just read them from the list on the wall. From the bottom: TYRONE."
Gooney Bird shuffled around in the wooden pieces and took one out. "Here you go, Cool Dude," she said, and handed the piece to Tyrone, who looked at it, pumped his fist in the air, and said, "Yes! Texas!"
"TRICIA," Mrs. Pidgeon said.
Tricia reached for the puzzle piece that Gooney Bird gave her. "Pucker Up!" she said with a grin, and gave her wooden piece a kiss. "Tennessee!"
"Next: NICHOLAS," Mrs. Pidgeon said.
"Wait a minute," Gooney Bird told her, and held out another piece. "You come next, Mrs. Pidgeon. P for Patsy! U Go, Girl!" The teacher examined the puzzle piece Gooney Bird handed her. "Hmm," she said. "Pennsylvania. Thanks!"
Then it was time for Nicholas. "Abracadabra, Magic!" said Gooney Bird, and gave him Nebraska. Malcolm got Massachusetts, and Keiko smiled when she looked down and saw Kentucky on her piece. "What's Up?" asked Felicia Ann with a giggle, and was given Florida. "Here you go, QT" Gooney Bird said to Chelsea next, and presented her with the long narrow wooden piece that was California. Then she placed the maroon jigsaw puzzle box on the top of her desk and looked around the room. "Everyone got a state with an initial that matches yours?" she asked, and the children held up their puzzle pieces. All but three.
"I don't!" called Beanie.
"Neither do I!" Barry said.
"Where's mine?" asked Ben.
"Oops!" Gooney Bird responded. "Let me look in the box again. There are a lot more pieces." She shook it, and the wooden pieces rattled inside. She opened the lid, shuffled the pieces around, removed some, and then said, "Nicholas? Here you are!"
Nicholas came forward and she filled his cupped hands. "He already had Nebaska," Gooney Bird explained. "Now: presto! Magic! He has Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and North Dakota." Nicholas looked astonished at first. Then he grinned and went back to his desk with the stack of puzzle pieces.
"That's not fair!" Ben called loudly.
"Well," said Gooney Bird, "there are more pieces. Let me take another look." She shuffled the remaining pieces around in the box.
"Wow! This guy's really a Class Act!" Gooney Bird exclaimed. "Come get yours, Malcolm! Hold out your hands!" Malcolm stood, tripped over his own untied shoelace briefly, then righted himself, and came to collect the pieces as she named them. "Malcolm already had Massachusetts. Now he gets Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Montana!" Malcolm, who so often looked unhappy, was grinning broadly as he went back to his desk. All of the children clapped and cheered. All but three.
"Where's mine?" called Beanie.
"Here, Chelsea, two more for you!" Gooney went to Chelsea's desk and handed her Colorado and Connecticut.
"EXCUSE ME?" Barry Tuckerman stood up and put his hands on his hips. Gooney Bird ignored him.
"And Keiko? You get Kansas."
"Thank you," Keiko replied politely, as she took the wooden piece shaped like Kansas. "It goes very nicely with Kentucky."
"I WANT ONE!" Ben bellowed.
"Me too!" Beanie said angrily.
"I'm going to tell on you, Gooney Bird!" Barry announced loudly.
"Tell what?" Gooney Bird asked.
"That you cheated! You could have used the world puzzle! I could have been, ah, Belgium! Or Bolivia!"
"We don't even have a world puzzle, Barry," Chelsea pointed out.
"Well. We should" Barry muttered. "I'm gonna complain to the principal. I could be Bulgaria!"
"What is Mr. Leroy's first name, Mrs. Pidgeon?" Gooney Bird asked.
The teacher thought for a moment, trying to remember. "John," she said.
"Oh," said Gooney Bird. "What a shame. No state for him, either. Well, let's have a moment of silence in his honor."
9.
"Before we go outside and work again on our map project," Mrs. Pidgeon directed, "let's all open our dictionaries and look up the word gloating..
" She wrote the word on the board.
"Us too? Me and Beanie and Ben? Even though we didn't get any states?" Barry asked.
"I would say especially you three," Mrs. Pidgeon told him.
All of the second-graders took their dictionaries out of their desks and began to turn the pages. Keiko, who was a very fast reader, raised her hand almost immediately.
"Let's wait until we've all read it silently," Mrs. Pidgeon said. She sat at her desk and watched all the second-graders with their heads bent over their dictionaries. After a moment she stood up.
"All right," she said. "Now let's think about gloating. It means to feel pretty smug because you're better off than someone else. Maybe you've accomplished something, or you have something, that another person hasn't. And the other person feels bad. Who can think of an example of that?"
Barry shot his hand into the air. "Everybody got a state except me and Beanie and Ben! And Malcolm got about a hundred!"
"Eight," Malcolm said. "I got eight."
"So he was gloating," Barry pointed out. "And Gooney Bird was, too! And she did it on purpose!"
Mrs. Pidgeon looked at Gooney Bird. She tilted her head in a questioning way, and waited.
"It's true," Gooney Bird said. "I did it on purpose. It made you feel bad, didn't it?"
Barry nodded.
"I almost cried," Beanie said. "I bit my lip really hard to keep from crying."
"I'm sorry. It was mean of me. I was getting even," Gooney Bird explained.
"For what?" Ben asked.
"Think back," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "Was there a time, not very long ago, when you and Barry and Beanie realized you had something that the rest of us didn't have? And we all felt pretty sorry for ourselves?"
"No. Never," Ben replied. "We never—"
"Yes, we did, Ben," Beanie interrupted. "It was about our vacations."
"Yes. We gloated," Barry pointed out.
"Gloat, gloat, gloat," Beanie said.
"Oh," Ben said. "I get it."
The class sat silently for a moment. Then Mrs. Pidegon said, "All right. Let's get ready to work some more on our snow map. I want you all to do some research and find an interesting, little-known fact about your state."