The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School (10 page)
Read The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School Online
Authors: Candace Fleming
The others shuddered.
“Then what happened?” asked Emberly.
Ernest paused for effect before saying in an ominous voice, “She dragged him into the jewelry store.”
“And?” prodded Emberly.
“And I bought four skeins of recycled-silk yarn and went home,” said Ernest.
“What?” cried Emberly. “You mean you didn’t shadow them? You didn’t tail them? You didn’t do any sleuthing?”
“I had to be home by two,” said Ernest.
“Argh!” wailed Emberly in frustration.
“One doesn’t need to be a sleuth to figure out what happened,” said Stanford with a sniff of superiority. “It’s obvious that Miss Turner bullied Mr. Jupiter into buying her some jewelry.”
Ham spoke up. “Poor Mr. Jupiter.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Maybe we should send him an encouragement card,” Ham went on. “My mom always sends me encouragement cards whenever bad stuff happens. One time, I ate too many chocolate crullers and threw up
and I got a card that read: ‘Things will get better, I have a hunch, even though you lost your lunch.’”
Lenny snickered. “Yeah, our card could read: ‘Unlike Ham, you didn’t hurl. Instead, you got beaten up by a girl.’”
“Get serious,” snorted Stanford. “Mr. Jupiter’s been through enough humiliation. He’s been degraded, discountenanced, and mortified. Do we really want to add to his discomfiture?”
“Huh?” said Ham.
“Quit using next week’s vocabulary words and speak English,” grumbled Calvin.
Stanford translated. “I don’t think we should let on that we know. The guy’s already been embarrassed enough. Why make it worse?”
The boys considered Stanford’s words.
Then Calvin said, “The brainiac is right. Let’s zip our lips and throw away the keys.”
Melvin pretended to do just that—with his toes.
At about the same time the boys were talking, Rose waved to the fifth-grade girls hanging around on the monkey bars.
“Yoo-hoo, ladies,” called Rose. “Have I got juicy news for you.”
The phrase
juicy news
worked just like a magnet. Unable to resist its pull, the girls gathered around Rose.
“Start at the beginning,” insisted Bernadette, flipping open her investigative reporter’s notebook. “And tell all.”
“Well,” began Rose, “on Saturday morning I woke up early, ate a bowl of Toastie Oaties, and dressed. But when I went to look for my shoes, the left one was missing, so I limped around the house looking under cushions and—”
“Hold it,” said Bernadette. “What’s so juicy about a missing shoe?”
“Nothing, unless you find it full of apple juice or something,” replied Rose. “But you told me to start at the beginning, so—”
“Just tell the juicy parts,” interrupted Bernadette. “I don’t care about your stinky shoe.”
Added Lil poetically:
“Rosy, dear Rosy, spill out the scandalous
,
But please delete how you limped around sandal-less.”
“Oh, okay,” said Rose. “So I was standing on the corner of Olympia Avenue and Delphi Street when I noticed Mr. Jupiter and Miss Turner in front of the Taste of Greece. At first they were just talking and acting normal. Then all of a sudden, Mr. Jupiter grabbed her hand and …” Rose paused again.
“And?” urged Bernadette.
“And”—Rose’s eyes twinkled—“he kissed it.”
“Oooh,” squealed Ashlee A. and Ashleigh B. in unison. “How romantic.” They swooned into each other’s arms.
“Is there anything more?” asked Bernadette. She prepared to close her notebook.
“Uh-huh,” said Rose.
“Well?” urged Bernadette.
“Well, Mr. Jupiter wouldn’t take his lips off her hand,” continued Rose. “She tried to get him to stop. She struggled to pull away, but he held on tight. And the whole time he was holding on, he was begging her to do something.”
“Do what?” asked Bernadette.
Rose shrugged. “I was too far away to hear, but I can guess.”
Ashlee A. and Ashleigh B. looked at each other and cried in unison, “Will you marry me?” They swooned into each other’s arms again.
“Do you think it’s true?” gasped Bernadette. “Do you think Mr. Jupiter proposed?”
Rose nodded, a knowing smile spreading across her face.
“Why? What do you know?” persisted Bernadette.
“I know that Mr. Jupiter got down on his knees and begged some more. That’s when Miss Turner stopped struggling. Then together they went to …” Rose paused a moment, then announced triumphantly, “ … the jewelry store.”
The girls fell silent as the words sank in. Then they exploded in an ear-shattering chorus of oohs and aahs, squeals and whoops and hollers.
Lil waxed poetic:
“My love is like a red, red rose
,
That’s newly sprung in June
,
My love is like a melody
,
That’s sweetly played in tune.”
And Jackie pretended to talk into a microphone. “There you have it, sports fans. Round one of the love match between the teacher and the librarian. Some say it’s going to be the love story of the century. Others say it’s going to be a storybook wedding. Either way, it’s love.”
“Do you think we’ll be invited to the wedding?” Ashlee A. asked.
“I can’t wait to congratulate the bride and groom,” said Ashleigh B.
“Hold up,” said Bernadette, closing her notebook. “I don’t think we should let on that we know. I mean, this is sort of a personal event. Maybe we should wait until they tell us.”
The others considered Bernadette’s words.
Then Rachel spoke up. “Pffft.”
“She’s right,” said Lil. “Our lips are sealed.”
“Sealed with a kiss,” added Rose.
The bell rang. The fifth graders—boys and girls alike—filed into their classroom.
Mr. Jupiter met them at the door. “Good morning, class,” he said. “Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Bernadette. “It was
love
-ly.”
All the girls smiled widely.
Lenny said, “Hey, Bruce, how do you think Mr. Jupiter’s weekend went?”
Bruce shrugged.
“Beats
me.”
All the boys blushed and lowered their eyes.
Mr. Jupiter studied his students a moment. “Perhaps,” he finally said, “I should tell you what happened to
me
this weekend.”
“Oh, yes!” begged the girls.
“Oh, no,” groaned the boys.
MORAL: Every story has two sides
.
MR. JUPITER ASKED THE FIFTH GRADERS
to take out their writing journals.
“Today we are going to create our own fables,” he said.
“Fables?” repeated Humphrey.
Mr. Jupiter nodded. “As you know, a fable is a short story that teaches a lesson.”
“Blech,” gagged Lenny. “I hate …”
Mr. Jupiter raised his eyebrows.
“I mean … I … um … uh …”
“Detest?” suggested Stanford. “Despise? Abhor?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Lenny. “I
abhor
stories that teach lessons. Who wants to read a sappy tale about sharing, or telling the truth, or recycling your old sneakers?”
“Not me,” said Bruce with a shudder.
“Fables
do
teach lessons,” said Mr. Jupiter, “but they are also meant to be entertaining. As a matter of fact, fables often use talking animals or magical
objects to make their point.” He looked around the room. “Does anyone remember what the point in a fable is called?”
No one answered.
“The moral,” Mr. Jupiter informed them.
“I abhor morals,” said Lenny.
“Ah, but in a fable the moral often pokes fun at foolish deeds,” said Mr. Jupiter.
“Pokes fun?” repeated Humphrey. “I’m all ears.”
Mr. Jupiter opened a copy of
Aesop’s Fables
. He read aloud the story titled “The Tortoise and the Hare.”
“So,” he said when he had finished, “what do you think?”
The students looked at each other in confusion.
Then Bernadette said, “I don’t get it.”
“Yeah,” said Jackie, frowning. “I don’t understand why the fast guy didn’t win. I know for a fact that the fast guy
always
wins.”
“What a lame-o story,” opined Emberly.
Mr. Jupiter sighed. “Let’s try another one.” He read “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”
“I don’t believe it,” declared Melvin when Mr. Jupiter had finished. “What kind of goofy writer lets
his main character get eaten by wolves, then leaves out all the good, gory details?”
“That’s right,” agreed Calvin. “You’re always telling us that good writers use good details.”
“Boy, that Aesop sure was lousy,” added Ham.
“Boooo!” cried Ashlee A. and Ashleigh B. in unison. “Boooo! Hissss!”
Stanford gave a superior sniff. “I could write a better fable than that.”
“I’m glad you think so,” said Mr. Jupiter, “because that’s exactly what you all are going to do. Using your own experiences, I want each of you to ask yourself what advice you would give to your fellow classmates. Use that advice as the moral for your original fable. Are there any questions?”
No one raised a hand.
“Then begin,” said Mr. Jupiter.
For the next half hour the room was silent as the fifth graders followed the four steps of writing—prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing.
Then Calvin slapped down his tooth-marked pencil. “Done!” he cried.
The others put down their pencils too.
Mr. Jupiter looked around the room. “Would
anyone like to share his or her fable? Ham, what did you come up with?”
Ham stood, smoothed his paper, and read:
The Camels and the Cookie
A long, long time ago, two camels went to a Chinese restaurant. They ordered wonton soup, egg rolls, beef chop suey, war mein noodles, crab rangoon, crispy jumbo shrimp with garlic and scallion sauce, and the pu pu platter for two
.
“Mmmm,” said the first camel, “pu pu.”
Finally, the waitress brought fortune cookies
.
The second camel grabbed his cookie and snarfed down the whole thing. All of a sudden, his face turned red, his eyes popped out of his skull, and he fell on the floor. Then he started clawing his throat and making choking sounds. In about a minute he was dead
.
The first camel ate the leftover pu pu all by himself
.
MORAL: Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie
.
The class clapped and whistled.
“That was much better than Aesop,” said Ernest.
Victoria flipped her hair. “Wait until you hear
my
fable.”
Standing, she read:
The Sheep and the Fashion Police
Once upon a time there was a really, really super-white sheep that pranced around all summer long
.
Prance. Prance. Prance
.
She had the whitest wool in the whole flock
.
Prance. Prance. Prance
.
Her white coat was so bright it hurt the other sheeps’ eyes
.
Prance. Prance. Prance
.
Then one day it wasn’t summer anymore. It was fall. But the really, really super-white sheep kept prancing around
.
The fashion police arrested her and put her in handcuffs
.
“What did I do?” asked the really, really super-white sheep
.
“You broke a fashion law,” said the police. “You wore your white coat in the fall.”
They dragged her off to jail
.
MORAL: Never wear white after Labor Day
.
The class clapped and whistled and stamped their feet.
Jackie looked down at her clothes. “Does that rule apply to socks and underwear?”
“You want to know about socks and underwear?” cried Lenny. “Have I got a fable for you.”
The Armadillo and the Accident
Once there was an armadillo who always went around wearing messy clothes
.
“I like this story already,” said Rose.
“Shhhh,” shushed the others.
Lenny continued:
His pants were all raggy and his shirts were all holey. “Who cares how I’m dressed?” the armadillo asked
.
“I do!” exclaimed Victoria.
“Shhhh!” the class shushed again.
Lenny went on:
One day the armadillo stepped onto the highway and—
Splat!
A semitruck ran him over
.
His blood oozed all over the road, and his guts were hanging out, but he wasn’t dead
.
“Yes!” cried Melvin.
“Shhhh!”
Lenny concluded:
The armadillo was rushed to the hospital, where the nurses and doctors ripped off his shirt and pants to fix his wounds. But guess what? His underwear was as yucky as the rest of his clothes. And he had to lie there on the emergency room table in dirty, holey underwear in front of everybody. And he died, not because he got run over by a truck, but because he was totally embarrassed
.
MORAL: Always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident
.
The fifth graders leaped to their feet. They clapped, whistled, stamped, and pumped their fists in the air.
“That fable was fantastic-o!” opined Emberly.
“It was,” agreed Ashlee A. and Ashleigh B. “It really was.” And they cheered:
“Hey, you, Aesop, get out of our way
,
’Cause fifth-grade fable writers are here to stay
.
We’re better—uh-huh!
We’re better—uh-huh!
We’re better—
“Hooray!” the whole class shouted.
Mr. Jupiter sighed.
MORAL: People often cheer an imitation and hiss the real thing
.
IT WAS THE FIRST SATURDAY IN MAY
, and sweaty-palmed contestants from eleven schools—along with their beaming parents, bored siblings, cheering friends, and hopeful teachers, as well as the superintendent, who had to be there because it was her job—crammed Aesop Elementary School’s auditorium for the district-wide spelling bee.