READ THE STORY AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS AT THE END.
Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.
Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.
It wouldn’t have been
so bad except that just a couple of weeks before the thing with the trees, the
snakes all died. But I think that the snakes – well, the reason that the snakes
kicked off was that ... you remember, the boiler was shut off for four days
because of the strike, and that was explicable. It was something you could
explain to the kids because of the strike. I mean, none of their parents would
let them cross the picket line and they knew there was a strike going on and
what it meant. So when things got started up again and we found the snakes they
weren’t too disturbed.
With the herb gardens
it was probably a case of overwatering, and at least now they know not to
overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens and some
of them probably ... you know, slipped them a little extra water when we
weren’t looking. Or maybe ... well, I don’t like to think about sabotage,
although it did occur to us. I mean, it was something that crossed our minds.
We were thinking that way probably because before that the gerbils had died,
and the white mice had died, and the salamander ... well, now they know not to
carry them around in plastic bags.
Of course we expected
the tropical fish to die, that was no surprise. Those numbers, you look at them
crooked and they’re belly-up on the surface. But the lesson plan called for a
tropical fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do, it happens
every year, you just have to hurry past it.
We weren’t even
supposed to have a puppy.
We weren’t even
supposed to have one, it was just a puppy the Murdoch girl found under a Gristede’s
truck one day and she was afraid the truck would run over it when the driver
had finished making his delivery, so she stuck it in her knapsack and brought
it to the school with her. So we had this puppy. As soon as I saw the puppy I
thought, Oh Christ, I bet it will live for about two weeks and then... And
that’s what it did. It wasn’t supposed to be in the classroom at all, there’s
some kind of regulation about it, but you can’t tell them they can’t have a
puppy when the puppy is already there, right in front of them, running around
on the floor and yap yap yapping. They named it Edgar – that is, they named it
after me. They had a lot of fun running after it and yelling, “Here, Edgar!
Nice Edgar!” Then they’d laugh like hell. They enjoyed the ambiguity. I enjoyed
it myself. I don’t mind being kidded. They made a little house for it in the
supply closet and all that. I don’t know what it died of. Distemper, I guess.
It probably hadn’t had any shots. I got it out of there before the kids got to
school. I checked the supply closet each morning, routinely, because I knew
what was going to happen. I gave it to the custodian.
And then there was
this Korean orphan that the class adopted through the Help the Children
program, all the kids brought in a quarter a month, that was the idea. It was
an unfortunate thing, the kid’s name was Kim and maybe we adopted him too late
or something. The cause of death was not stated in the letter we got, they
suggested we adopt another child instead and sent us some interesting case
histories, but we didn’t have the heart. The class took it pretty hard, they
began (I think, nobody ever said anything to me directly) to feel that maybe
there was something wrong with the school. But I don’t think there’s anything
wrong with the school, particularly, I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. It
was just a run of bad luck. We had an extraordinary number of parents passing
away, for instance. There were I think two heart attacks and two suicides, one
drowning, and four killed together in a car accident. One stroke. And we had
the usual heavy mortality rate among the grandparents, or maybe it was heavier
this year, it seemed so. And finally the tragedy.
The tragedy occurred
when Matthew Wein and Tony Mavrogordo were playing over where they’re
excavating for the new federal office building. There were all these big wooden
beams stacked, you know, at the edge of the excavation. There’s a court case
coming out of that, the parents are claiming that the beams were poorly
stacked. I don’t know what’s true and what’s not. It’s been a strange year.
·
How
many kids did they hace?
Two
Eight
Eleven
Thirty
·
What died a couple of weeks before he trees?
Elephants
Snakes
Turtles
Leaves
·
Why did the herbs from the garden died?
Overwatering
Problem with the soil
Too much sun
Dehydration
·
What did the Little kids slipped once in a while
to the herbs?
Hardcore drugs
Dirt
Water
Mercury
·
What did the Murdoch girl found under the truck?
A giraffe
A rocket
A puppy
A lemon
·
Where did the girl bring her new found
companion?
Space camp
Home
School
Far far away land
·
What nacionality is the orphan they adopted
Mexican
Korean
Australian
Russian
·
What was his name?
Mike
Kim
Pedro
Vladimir
· What occured when Matthew Wein and
Tony Mavrogordo were playing over where they’re excavating for the new federal
office building?
Circus came to twon
Tragedy
The sun exploded
The air became chilly
