Gooney Bird Is So Absurd Read Online Free PDF

Pledge of Allegiance, led by a sixth-grader named Mary Margaret O'Leary. Then they listened to Mr. Leroy's announcements.
    Then, finally, Mrs. Pidgeon explained. "The nursing home called me because my mother had had a bad night. So I went there before I came to school."
    "Oh, dear—nightmares?" asked Keiko. "I have nightmares sometimes. My mom gives me warm milk and opens my closet door to show me there aren't monsters."
    "Did she wet the bed? Some people wet their beds and it wakes them up," Malcolm said. "Even people as old as eight, sometimes." He looked at the floor.
    "Or maybe throw-ups?" asked Ben sympathetically. "I always get the throw-ups in the middle of the night. My mom says if she has to change my sheets one more time at two in the morning..."
    Mrs. Pidgeon smiled. "No, none of those things. She was just wakeful, and feeling agitated. When they called me, I went and sat with her and we talked. Then she fell asleep so I hurried on to school. I'm sorry, class, but today I didn't remember to bring one of my mother's poems."
    "What did you talk about?" Gooney Bird asked. She was at the hamster cage. It was her day to feed Harvey, the class hamster. Harvey had a diet of special pellets, but Gooney Bird felt that he needed something like a buffet to make his life more interesting. So she always arranged his pellets on different paper saucers, and she added bits of lettuce and bread crumbs that she borrowed from people's lunches. Today Harvey was having a smidgen of carrot for his salad course and a fingertip full of raspberry jam for dessert.
    "Well, as you know, my mother is very old. So she has a whole lifetime of memories. I asked her to tell me some of the childhood things she remembered as the happiest."
    "What did your mom thay?" Felicia Ann asked.
    "Let me think." Mrs. Pidgeon half closed her eyes and listed the things her mother had remembered. "Birthday cake with pink candles. A yellow hair ribbon. A kitten named Jingle. The lace collar on her mother's Sunday dress. Ruffled curtains in her bedroom. A honeysuckle vine. And fireflies."
    Gooney Bird closed and latched the door to Harvey's cage. He cleaned the leftover jam from his whiskers carefully and then went to his shredded-paper nest to take a nap. "You know what?" Gooney Bird said to Mrs. Pidgeon. "You did bring a poem of your mom's."
    "I did?"
    "Yes, you just said it. That list of memories. It was just like a poem. If you wrote the memories down on a paper and gave it a title like 'Mom's Memories,' it would even look like a poem."
    Mrs. Pidgeon thought for a moment and then smiled. "I believe you're right, Gooney Bird. Maybe today at writing time we could each do a list poem. I'll put some ideas for lists here on the board so you can be thinking in advance. But now we'll get out our spelling."
    Mrs. Pidgeon wrote four suggestions on the board:
Happy memories
These things make me laugh
Nightmares
Lunches I love
    Beside the list, she wrote the day's ten spelling words:
ready
across
thought
brave
threw
because
family
towel
clown
mouse
    The children all bent over their desks, copying the words. But they couldn't pay attention to the spelling.
    "I'm having a can't-keep-my-thoughts-on-my-work moment," Malcolm announced loudly. "I keep thinking about a list of nightmare stuff."
    "Me, too!" Beanie said. "I was trying to write the spelling words, but look!" She held up her paper and everyone could see the eraser marks. "I kept thinking about things that make me laugh!"
    "Mrs. Pidgeon, may I make a helpful suggestion?" Gooney Bird had her hand raised. Today she was wearing her diamond ring. It wasn't a real diamond, but it looked like one. It was large and sparkly. Sometimes she let the other girls borrow it. Never boys, though.
    "Of course," said the teacher. "What is it?"
    "We could combine the spelling words with the list poems. Everybody could try to include some of the spelling words in a poem. That way, we'd kill two birds with one stone."
    "Oh, no!" wailed