Gooney the Fabulous by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A

surprise,

    oh yes we do ...
He collected his crumpled paper napkin and an empty plastic cup. Then he shuffled over to the trash can, still chanting. Bruno, the Saint Bernard, lay dozing nearby.
    "But first," Malcolm announced, rising from the table, "ME! My turn! I'm doing my fable next!"
    With Malcolm eagerly leading the way, the second-graders walked back to the classroom. Bruno yawned, stood up slowly, and followed behind, hoping not to miss anything. His antlers were a little tilted.

11.

    When the class was settled at their desks and Gooney Bird had announced that it was his turn to present his fable, Malcolm picked up a thick red marker and colored his own nose.
    "A clown?" Keiko murmured.
    Then Malcolm stood and attached something to his belt, twisting it around to the back. The children all watched, puzzled.
    He walked to the front of the room.
    Then, with his back turned to the class, he began to write on the board. The children were all still puzzled by the costume: his bright red nose and the sheet of purple construction paper dangling from his belt in the rear.
    "Why is your nose red?" called Tricia.
    "Why is your backside all purple?" asked Ben.
    "Shhhh!" Mrs. Pidgeon said, holding up her quiet-please finger. "Let's see Malcolm's animal, and then maybe we'll understand his costume."
    Carefully Malcolm wrote an uppercase M. Then an A. Then an N.
    "NO FAIR!" Tyrone called. "He can't be a man!"
    "You have to be an animal, Malcolm!" Barry said loudly. "Remember you thought I was Thomas Jefferson and it wasn't an animal? Isn't that right, Mrs. Pidgeon? Isn't that right, Gooney Bird?"
    Malcolm had turned around and was looking impatiently at the second-graders.
    "Well," Gooney Bird said, "a man is a mammal. Maybe a fable can be about any mammal."
    "But mine wathn't a mammal," Felicia Ann pointed out. "Flamingo ith a bird."
    "Neither was mine!" Tricia announced. "I was a tortoise. That's not a mammal."
    "You're right." Gooney Bird looked as if she were thinking. "I don't know if there is a rule about fables. If we can have a bird, or a tortoise, or a T. rex, as the main character, maybe we could have a man."
    "I wonder what Aesop would say," Mrs. Pidgeon said.
    "And anyway, what's that purple thing on your backside, Malcolm?" Chelsea asked. "It's weird. So is your nose."
    Malcolm grinned. He wrinkled his nose and wiggled his bottom. Then, when the class grew quiet, he turned and added some more letters on the board.
    DRILL
    He turned back to the class, wiggled his bottom again, then

    lifted one arm and scratched with the other. "Oooh, oooh, oooh," Malcolm said, making an odd hooting sound.
    "Mandrill!" Gooney Bird announced. "Malcolm is a mandrill!"
    "But he's acting like a chimp, or a monkey," Beanie pointed out. Now Malcolm was leaping about, his legs bent, still making the sound.
    "A mandrill is a kind of monkey, sort of," Gooney Bird explained. "Like a baboon, I think. I've seen them at the zoo. They're the ones with red noses and—"
    "Oh, no!" Keiko squealed. "The ones with the yucky bright blue and pink bottoms! I
hate
those!" She made a face.
    Malcolm stopped jumping around. He announced his fable's title.
The Mandrill and Its Young
    Once there was a female mandrill who was expecting a baby. She got very fat. Then one day her baby was born. It was pretty cute. She liked it.
    But then, suddenly, she had
another
baby.
    And then, suddenly,
another.
    Well. That was pretty surprising. Now she had three mandrill babies. They were very noisy. They wanted to be fed every minute. They made a big mess. They threw things and broke things.
    The father mandrill was never home. Sometimes the mother was so nervous and tired that she screamed.
    And the worst thing was, the mother mandrill didn't have any time to take care of her older mandrill child.
    "Oh, I wish I could get rid of a couple of these babies," she said. "Maybe I can sell them."
    She asked all around the jungle, but no one wanted to buy a baby