Gooney Bird on the Map Read Online Free PDF

Bird, who was a walker, called toward Malcolm's bus as its door hissed closed.
    "William Henry Harrison never even
had
a map when he was eight years old!" she said. "Moment of silence!"
    But through the bus window she could see that Malcolm wasn't listening. He was using his rolled-up map as a weapon and had begun a swordfight with a fifth-grader, who was stabbing back at him with a ruler. The driver, a gray-haired woman, got up from her seat with an impatient look and went down the aisle to separate the two boys before she began to drive.
    Bruno yawned and lay down with his tail end on Antarctica and his head very, very close to the border but obediently not touching the map. While Mr. Furillo put a few pale blue finishing touches on the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, and the yellow school buses left the driveway one by one, Bruno slept.

6.
    The next morning, the entire school was talking admiringly about the second-graders' playground snow map. Overnight the Pacific and Atlantic oceans had frozen into shimmery blue. The United States was a lovely vast landmass, and Mrs. Pidgeon, in doing the outline, had even shoved some snow to create a ridge down the center, where the Rocky Mountains would be.
    Hawaii was tiny hard bumps of snow out in the Pacific, and a plastic palm tree from the turtle bowl in the classroom was now wedged onto it. Humphrey the turtle had died in October, and the children had never gotten around to creating a memorial for him. They felt, now, that Humphrey would be proud to be part of Hawaii.
    "Moment of silence for Humphrey," Gooney Bird announced, and they all stood reverently for a brief period, staring at the palm tree and remembering what a happy life Humphrey had had in his plastic bowl with its small island until he got the mysterious fungus that had ended it all.
    "I brought this," Ben announced, and showed them the small artificial snow-covered pine tree that he'd taken out of his backpack. "It's from my train set."
    "What's it for?" asked Malcolm.
    "Well, I thought I'd put it in Vermont. There are a whole lot of pine trees there. I'm going to be snowboarding down trails that wind in and out among a zillion pine trees. So..." Ben stepped over the border of the second grade territory, walked carefully up into the Atlantic Ocean, crossed onto land at New York, and began to head north with his little tree.
    "Wait!" Gooney Bird commanded, and Ben stopped where he was, with one foot in Connecticut and the other in New York State.
    "What?" he asked.
    "We have a beautiful map here, and I think it cheapens it to set up this fake plastic stuff. If you put your tree in Vermont, then next I bet anything Beanie will—" She glanced over at Beanie, who had already taken something out of her jacket pocket.
    "Hold it up, Bean," Gooney Bird said with a sigh.
    Beanie held up a Mickey Mouse with long thin black legs and huge white feet. "It's not plastic; it's rubber," she said defensively.
    "It's junky," Chelsea said, wrinkling her nose.
    "If we let Ben stand his tree in Vermont," Gooney Bird said, "and Beanie put her rubber mouse in Florida, then everyone will bring some vacation thing, and—let's see, we can make a math problem here..."
    "Good point, Gooney Bird. Eleven second-graders," Mrs. Pidgeon said, "plus me, because I'm part of this class. That makes twelve. And if three people—Barry, Beanie, and Ben—have already put their, ah, vacation objects down, how many more vacation souvenirs—"
    "—will it take to ruin our beautiful map?" Chelsea said.
    "Twelve minus three!" shouted Malcolm.
    "NINE!"
    "It would be a mess. Let's not do it," Tricia said.
    "Can we leave the palm tree?" Barry asked.
    "Yes," Gooney Bird said. "In memory of Humphrey."
    "In memory of Humphrey," all of the children said mournfully.
    "Well, all right." Ben reluctantly returned his little pine tree to his backpack. Beanie sighed and folded her rubbery mouse so that he would fit in her pocket again.
    "Instead," Gooney