Even with my head tucked safely inside my shell, I could see well enough to tell that Twitch must be the squirrel, since the others were telling Twitch to run and it was the squirrel who ran up onto one of the tables where Mrs. Hinkle keeps her art supplies.
The dog jumped up there, too.
So much energy! It nearly wore me out to watch them!
Twitch leaped off the table and over to the bookshelves, pulling himself up by Art in Western Civilization, and the dog couldn’t follow, because the rope that tied him to the leg of the cart wasn’t long enough. The dog ran back and forth on the table, knocking over paints and brushes and a box of chalk. The paint was leaking and dripped off the edge of the table, making a puddle on the floor.
I liked the slow, thick way that paint dripped, dripped, dripped . . . Mmmmm . . .
Where was I?
Oh yes.
I recognized Twitch, since sometimes I’d seen him look into the window of the classroom. Still, because I’m shy, I’d never talked to him before. But now that he was in danger, I wanted to help. It’s scary when someone wants to eat you. I called over, “Excuse me? Mr. Squirrel, sir?”
This was very abrupt of me. Turtle manners call for long and slow and proper introductions. But this was an emergency. I said, “Don’t you have a hard shell you can escape into?”
“Nope,” Twitch said, springing from one book case to another. “Just fur.”
Fur is not nearly as useful as a hard shell. I asked, “Do you have a stink gland?”
“Don’t I wish!” Twitch bounded from the bookcase to Mrs. Hinkle’s desk, to her chair, to the floor.
My goodness! Could he move fast!
The dog could move fast, too. But when he jumped off the art table, his fish-tank cart swung around and knocked into my table.
My case tipped. I pulled all the way into my shell again.
My case teetered. I closed my eyes.
My case tottered. Over the edge and onto the floor my case went, landing on its side. I rolled right out of it.
By the time I decided I was still alive, Twitch had already escaped into the hall. The dog, still attached to the cart, ran out of the room, with the parrot flapping her wings at him, and the hamster, the rabbit, and the rat scurrying pretty fast, too.
The dog had left a trail of painted footprints from the table to the door. It was mean of him to want to eat Twitch. But—I do have to say—he was a very talented artist.
I decided to follow.
ANGEL
(fifth-grade corn snake)
Sassafras.
Isn’t that an absolutely delicious sounding word?
I simply love saying “SSSassssafrassss.”
Society also has succulent syllables. As does suspicious.
The society I’m in is Mrs. Shaughnessey’s fifth-grade classroom.
Suspicious is how outsiders sometimes react to me because I’m a snake. They say I’m sneaky and slithery and have slimy skin.
Sneaky and slithery, yes. But stroke my skin and see: I’m not the slightest bit slimy.
I have no fangs, no venom; I’m a simple orange and black and red corn snake, as long as a fifth-grader is tall.
Mrs. Shaughnessey’s syllabus is history. Sassafras! History is such an interesting subject—besides being an amusing thing for a snake to say! “Hisssstory.”
After classes I’m somewhat solitary. A squirrel sometimes peeks in the window, but he slinks down again as soon as he spies me. Doesn’t he know he’s too substantial a mouthful for a snake my size to swallow?
Only once a week I sup—mostly on frozen mice supplied by Mrs. Shaughnessey. Six out of seven days I could be a safe associate to all the other class pets, including the albino rat who sometimes scurries past my doorway, fast, as though suspecting I would feast on him.
It must be nice to have sensitive fingers to unfasten one’s cell as one wishes and explore the school’s silent halls.
So I was pleased one after-school afternoon when a ruckus spilled down the hall and into Mrs. Shaughnessey’s classroom.
My tongue tasted a shift in the atmosphere.
The squirrel and rat burst onto the scene, along with a hamster (another excellent word!) and a rabbit. From the hall came the sounds of a dog snarling, “Leave me alone—this has nothing to do with you!” while a parrot squawked, “Olé! Olé! Keep away!”
In the classroom, the hamster saw me and squeaked, “Yikes! This is the fifth grade—where the snake lives! Snake = danger!”
The squirrel tried to skedaddle and shoved the rabbit, who stood betwixt him and the door. But the rabbit snapped, “The snake’s locked up, but the dog isn’t—you’re safer in here.”
So the squirrel hastened for higher ground instead. Up the window blinds he scurried, though they swayed beneath his weight and smacked against the glass. From there, it was a short distance to the long narrow tube above the blackboard, where the historic maps are scrolled. The squirrel paced back and forth above “Medieval Europe” and “Renaissance Cities.”
From the hallway, we caught occasional glimpses of the dog as he sprinted from classroom to classroom, trying to escape the parrot’s beak. For some reason I could not discern, the dog was towing a fish tank on a pushcart. And from a slight distance a sociable but slow-moving voice called down the hall, “Hey, guys? Don’t move so fast.”
In Mrs. Shaughnessey’s classroom, the nervous hamster ran around in circles and said, “That turtle carries her shell around with her for protection. Protection against dogs. Protection against snakes. Could we make some sort of a shell for Twitch?”
The rabbit was looking at the shelves where Mrs. Shaughnessey keeps my supplies, including the large, lidless SNAKE TRANSPORT box. The rabbit suggested, “Or a shell to cover the dog?”
I deciphered the rabbit’s scheme. I myself do not like dogs—who snip and snarl and sometimes eat a poor harmless snake who has no poison to protect himself. So I said, “I could help.”
The squirrel had misstepped and was dangling from the cord that lowers the maps. “How?” he asked. “By eating me before the dog has a chance to?”
“I’ve had my frozen mouse this week,” I said. “My stomach is satisfied till Tuesday.”
They all said, “Yech.”
“Set me free,” I said. “I’ll distract the dog while some of you push that SNAKE TRANSPORT box off the shelf. Timed just right, it should tip over on top of him and hold him safe from eating any of us. I would never be so discourteous as to snack on schoolmates. Except, perhaps, on Tuesdays. Besides, history teaches us that we are stronger with allies.”
“Allies,” the rat repeated. “Like fish in a school.”
“Trussst,” I encouraged them.
The rat—fearless, steadfast rat—scurried to my enclosure and shoved that screen aside.
Just then the dog ran in, still attached to his cart and snarling, “Where’s that less-than-worthless squirrel?”
The squirrel tried to scamper back up the cord, unscrolling “Renaissance Cities” till Florence was on the floor.
The blue and gold macaw flew into the classroom and squawked:
“Señor Dog’s on the loose,
so move your caboose.
Everyone to your places.
Pretend you’re at the races.”
No one told the bird her meter was off.
I slithered onto the floor. Seeing me, the dog scuttled in reverse. If he could have scaled up his fish cart, I suspect he would have. He didn’t notice the squirrel, the rat, and the hamster climb onto the shelf and begin shoving at that SNAKE TRANSPORT carton. The macaw saw, and went to their support.
The box moved closer and closer to the edge of the shelf.
I hissed, posing as ferocious, causing the dog to back up closer and closer to the overhang of the shelf.
The rabbit thumped her back leg, and the vibration was the last assistance that suspended receptacle needed.
Over the edge SNAKE TRANSPORT tipped, showerin
g pine shavings on all. But the fit and our timing were flawless. The box landed just so, to trap that dog—but not the cart—inside.
“Sassafras!” I said.
GALILEO AND NEWTON
(science lab geckos)
GALILEO:
Most geckos sleep by day . . .
NEWTON:
But we are day geckos.
GALILEO:
So we sleep by night . . .
NEWTON:
And are awake during the day.
GALILEO:
Just like the students in Mr. Russell’s science lab.
NEWTON:
Well, most of them. Some of those students seem to like to sleep during the day.
GALILEO:
Our scientific family name is Gekkonidae.
NEWTON:
And our genus name is Phelsuma. We are—
GALILEO:
Reptiles.
NEWTON:
We live in a vivarium . . .
GALILEO:
Where there are plants . . .
NEWTON:
And bamboo to climb on . . .
GALILEO:
And crickets and mealworms to eat.
NEWTON:
Sometimes we get mangoes. I like mangoes.
GALILEO:
I know you do. I prefer the houseflies, which are crunchier.
NEWTON:
But not as sweet.
GALILEO:
Mr. Russell teaches science.
NEWTON:
We like science.
GALILEO:
Every year Mr. Russell has a science fair.
NEWTON:
We especially like the science fair.
GALILEO:
It’s fun and instructional.
NEWTON:
That’s what Mr. Russell says.
GALILEO:
I was quoting him.
NEWTON:
Quoting is fine, copying is wrong.
GALILEO:
I know that.
NEWTON:
The students make replicas of the solar system.
GALILEO:
And the human eye.
NEWTON:
And volcanoes.
GALILEO:
I like the volcanoes.
NEWTON:
They do experiments with helium . . .
GALILEO:
And fruit flies.
NEWTON:
Sometimes we get the leftover fruit flies.
GALILEO:
Some of the children bring their pets in and do a report on them.
NEWTON:
We’ve seen kittens.
GALILEO:
And tree toads.
NEWTON:
And mice.
GALILEO:
And worms.
NEWTON:
I don’t think the worms were pets.
GALILEO:
Sometimes they do a special report on us.
NEWTON:
We are very photogenic.
GALILEO:
We never blink when the camera’s flash goes off.
NEWTON:
That’s because we don’t have eyelids.
GALILEO:
We’ve seen demonstrations on fire safety.
NEWTON:
And the Heimlich maneuver.
GALILEO:
And how to make paper.
NEWTON:
Sometimes things go wrong.
GALILEO:
Not often.
NEWTON:
But sometimes.
GALILEO:
Sometimes things go very wrong.
NEWTON:
That’s how we knew what to do when the squirrel, the hamster—
GALILEO:
The rabbit, the rat—
NEWTON:
The macaw—
GALILEO:
And the snake! Don’t forget the snake!
NEWTON:
I wasn’t going to forget the snake.
GALILEO:
They came into our room.
NEWTON:
They said the dog was going to get loose from the box and come after them.
GALILEO:
They said it was an emergency.
NEWTON:
We know what to do in case of an emergency: Dial—
GALILEO:
Dial 911!
NEWTON:
I was going to say that.
GALILEO:
I said it already. You can say the next part.
NEWTON:
But that was the exciting part.
GALILEO:
The next part is exciting, too.
NEWTON:
Not as.
GALILEO:
Stop sulking.
NEWTON:
Dial 911!
GALILEO:
I already said that.
NEWTON:
Now we’ve both said it.
GALILEO:
Yes, Newton, now we’ve both said it. Only I said it first.
NEWTON:
So they asked: “What does Dial 911 mean?”
GALILEO:
And we showed them the telephone.
NEWTON:
I showed them the telephone.
GALILEO:
I showed it, too.
NEWTON:
I showed it first.
GALILEO:
Luckily, the hamster knows his numbers.
NEWTON:
And the snake was able to knock the phone to where the rat could reach it.
GALILEO:
The rat has dexterous fingers and pressed the buttons.
NEWTON:
The macaw yelled, “Help! Help!”
GALILEO:
The squirrel knocked some beakers on the floor, so there was the sound of breaking glass.
NEWTON:
The rabbit screamed.
GALILEO:
I never heard a rabbit scream before.
NEWTON:
Somebody should mention it in a science fair report.
GALILEO:
The emergency people came fast.
NEWTON:
They always come fast.
GALILEO:
By then the snake was falling asleep because he’s a reptile—
NEWTON:
Like us—
GALILEO:
And he needed to go back to his vivarium with the heat lamp.
NEWTON:
We like our heat lamp.
GALILEO:
And the turtle likes hers. She kept saying, “Wait for me, guys.” She didn’t catch up till—
NEWTON:
The principal came.
GALILEO:
His face was almost as red and splotchy as the snake’s belly.
NEWTON:
That means he was mad.
GALILEO:
I was telling that by showing.
NEWTON:
It took a long time to round up all the animals.
GALILEO:
Except for us, because we were still here.
NEWTON:
And the fish were still in their tank, even though their tank was in the wrong room.
GALILEO:
And the turtle wasn’t hard to catch.
NEWTON:
Neither was the snake, asleep on our floor.
GALILEO:
The squirrel ran outside during the confusion.
NEWTON:
So all that leaves is the dog.
GALILEO:
Do you know the scientific name for dog?
NEWTON:
Of course I do. It’s—
GALILEO:
Family Canidae, genus Canis.
NEWTON:
You always like to get the last word in, Galileo.
GALILEO:
No, I don’t.
NEWTON:
Yes, you do.
GALILEO:
Do not.
NEWTON:
Do. r />
GALILEO:
Not always.
CUDDLES
(the principal’s dog)
Master lives right next door to the school he owns, so I get to see him a lot. Sometimes he brings me to meet the children there. This would be a perfect place to live—except for that nasty squirrel Twitch.
Twitch acts like he owns the yard.
He eats the seeds Master puts out for the birds.
He jumps from tree to tree just out of reach and calls down to me that people like squirrels better than they like dogs. He says that’s why Master ties me to a long rope leash when I’m in the yard. He says that’s why Master puts me on a short chain leash when we go for a walk.
“No leash for me, nuh-uh,” Twitch brags.