Gooney Bird and the Room Mother (6 page)

"Our costumes are all made," Tricia added.

"I'm very concerned about the costumes," Mrs. Pidgeon said. "I'm not really a costume designer, and they seem—"

"Slapdash?" asked Tyrone.

"Maybe a little," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "and ill-fitting."

"We know our lines," Nicholas said. "Mine is 'Thank you, good friend Squanto!' I know it by heart."

"I'm concerned about the lines," Mrs. Pidgeon said.

"But you wrote the lines, Mrs. Pidgeon!" Tricia pointed out.

"I know. And I'm not really a writer. The lines are slapdash."

All of the children looked at Mrs. Pidgeon. She looked very sad. Felicia Ann, the most bashful person in the class, went to her and gave her a hug. "You're a very good teacher, Mrs. Pidgeon," she said. "You don't have to be a writer, or a songwriter, or a costume designer, or even a Muriel maker. Because you're a
teacher.
You taught me to
read!
"

"Me too!" called Tyrone. "I couldn't read worth
nuthin'
when I came to this class! Now lookit! I can read a whole dictionary!"

"Me too!" called Ben. "I only could read baby books before, but now I can read whole long words!"

"We all can!" the other children shouted.

Mrs. Pidgeon began to cheer up. She smiled at the children. "Thank you," she said. "I'm sorry that I was depressed for a minute. It's just that the story of the first Thanksgiving is such a truly wonderful story, about becoming friends, and helping one another, and being thankful. I wish I could have presented it better, instead of writing a dumb song about succotash."

"Mrs. Pidgeon?" Gooney Bird Greene said. "I have an idea."

It was the day before Thanksgiving vacation—the day of the pageant. The school janitor, Lester Furillo, had used masking tape to attach the mural to the wall of the multipurpose room, and he had set up folding chairs for the audience. At the back of the large room, a table covered with a yellow paper tablecloth held two large platters of cupcakes and two pitchers of lemonade.

"These cupcakes are spectacular!" Mrs. Pidgeon had said when she opened the boxes that held them. "Look at this! Little turkeys and Pilgrim hats on the frosting! How did she ever do that, Gooney Bird?"

"She didn't do it," Gooney Bird replied. "You saw who brought them. You saw the name on the van. I think it's on the boxes too."

"
Creative Catering,
" Beanie read from the lid of one box.

"I thought the room mother was supposed to make the cupcakes herself," Tricia said.

Gooney Bird shook her head. "I just told her to
provide
cupcakes. Remember the dialogue from when I told the story about getting the room mother? She asked what the room mother had to do, and I said provide cupcakes. You all know what
provide
means. We don't even need to get out our dictionaries."

"Well," Mrs. Pidgeon said as she arranged the cupcakes on a platter, "she certainly did a good job of providing, didn't she? But I wish she had brought them herself. I'd like to thank her."

"She's coming to the pageant," Gooney Bird assured her.

***

And now, in the afternoon, the guests were arriving. The second-graders were all in the small adjoining room, peeking out, watching the chairs in the multipurpose room fill up.

"There's my mom!" Tyrone said in an excited voice. "Lookit! She's got such a cool dress on!

"Mom!" he called. "I'm back here!" Tyrone's mother looked over with a grin and waved.

"Shhh!" the other children said. "Nobody's supposed to see us yet!"

"This is the dressing room!" Ben explained. "We're back
stage! We have to be quiet. Hey!" he added. "Look! There's
my
mom!"

"My daddy came!" Keiko said, peeking out. "He must have closed the store for the afternoon! Look—there he is with my mom. And see? That's my auntie! Hello, Oba-chan!" she called, and a woman laughed and fluttered her fingers in a wave.

Mrs. Pidgeon had been at the door of the multipurpose room, greeting the guests. Now she came back to where the children were waiting. "I hear some giggling back here!" she said with a smile.

"Are you all ready?" she asked. "We'll start in a few minutes. Not quite everyone is here yet. The room mother hasn't arrived."

"She said she might be a little late," Gooney Bird explained. "She said we could start without her. Oh, look!" Gooney Bird pointed. "There's my mom! See? She's the one in jeans, with a smiley face sweatshirt."

She wiggled her fingers in a wave, and her mother waved back and took a seat.

There was a sudden commotion at the door of the multipurpose room, and several people got up from their seats to help. Malcolm looked, and groaned. "It's my mom," he said, "with the triplets." He covered his eyes. "I'm not going to look," he said.

Mrs. Pidgeon put her arm around Malcolm. She and the
other children watched while the janitor and several others helped to maneuver the huge triple stroller through the doorway.

"Are they asleep?" Malcolm asked, still hiding his eyes. "Please, please, could they be asleep?"

"Yes, they seem to be sleeping, Malcolm. It's okay. You can look. Don't worry," Mrs. Pidgeon told him. "We won't even mind if they wake up. We
like
babies."

"I love babies," whispered Felicia Ann. "I hope those triplets wake up so I can hold them."

"They always smell bad," Malcolm whispered back. He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes.

***

Mrs. Pidgeon went to the piano at the front of the multipurpose room and played a few chords to make people stop talking. It was what she did in the classroom, and it always worked there. It worked here too, with the grownups. They all became silent.

Mr. Leroy walked to the front of the room. The multipurpose room didn't have a stage. But he stood in front of the audience, wearing a necktie today with a plump turkey on it, and he spoke in a loud, clear voice, just the way Mrs. Pidgeon had told the children that they should.

The second-graders listened from behind the cracked-open door to their dressing room.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," Mr. Leroy said. "I'm delighted to see so many parents here today, and some grandparents, I see, and even a few little brothers and sisters."

"And an auntie," whispered Keiko.

"Are your triplets brothers or sisters?" Felicia Ann asked Malcolm.

"Shhh," Malcolm said. "I'm not saying."

"And perhaps our new room mother as well?" Mr. Leroy said in a cheerful voice, looking around the audience. "Would the second-grade room mother like to stand?

"Maybe she's a little shy," he went on when no one stood. "But she certainly did provide wonderful refreshments, which we will enjoy after the performance.

"Speaking of the performance, I would like to mention that this is the fifth and final Thanksgiving pageant today. I watched the kindergarten children this morning—they did quite a lively dance during which they gobbled like turkeys and flapped imaginary wings. It was a little noisier than we had expected, but we got it under control after a bit, and I think we learned quite a bit about how dangerous wing-flapping can be, actually. For those of you who heard about it and are worried, incidentally, little Chloe McAllister is going to be fine. Nothing more than a fat lip."

Mr. Leroy straightened his tie. "After that," he went on, "the fourth grade performed quite an impressive play about
Captain Miles Standish, who arrived on the
Mayflower,
and the great Indian Massasoit who became his friend.

"Unfortunately, Jason Carruthers and Jeffrey Hall, who were to play the roles of Miles Standish and Massasoit, are both absent today because there seems to be a stomach virus making the rounds. The other fourth graders, though, did a great job of explaining what the play would have been like if the leading characters had been available.

"Next, the first grade had worked very hard on learning all the words of the traditional Thanksgiving song 'We Gather Together,' and they sang it with remarkable enthusiasm for the audience. Unfortunately their teacher had not taken into account how difficult the lines '
He chastens and hastens his will to make known, The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing
...' would be for people whose front teeth had recently fallen out, and I believe that was fourteen of the eighteen first-graders. But their gusto made up for their pronunciation.

"Then, finally, just an hour ago, we had the third grade's very colorful reenactment of the first Thanksgiving dinner. The third grade is so fortunate that one father provided large cardboard cartons, one for each performer to wear, with their heads of course emerging from the tops of the cartons, and each decorated as a type of food—squash, corn, potatoes, and the like. The third graders got most of the way through a recitation and demonstration of the various courses of that
dinner. I think, actually, that it might have been the food descriptions that brought on an onslaught of the stomach virus mid-performance, so that we had some unfortunate events, during which we had to extricate several children quickly from their cartons, and we ended up with a very slippery floor—"

"Both of the DeMarco twins threw up," Barry Tuckerman announced to the other children. "Identical throw-ups. I heard the janitor telling Muriel Holloway."

"Oh, no!" wailed Keiko.

"Shhh," Gooney Bird said.

"—but our hardworking custodian, Lester Furillo, has taken care of that," Mr. Leroy went on, "and with the help of some air-freshener I think we're in good shape for our final performance of the day from Mrs. Pidegon's second grade.

"Thank you again for coming. I see someone else is just arriving. Is that another stroller?" He peered toward the back. "My goodness! So many vehicles today! Lester Furillo will help you in. There are still some seats in the back. Please make yourself comfortable." Mr. Leroy gestured toward the chairs in the back as more people entered. Then he turned to the piano and said, "Mrs. Pidgeon? It's all yours!"

Mrs. Pidgeon smiled. She played a verse of "We Gather Together" to call the crowd to attention and create a Thanksgiving mood. Then she nodded to Gooney Bird, who was in the doorway waiting for her cue to enter.