Amazing Monty

  A Sign in the Office

  Three Surprises in One Day

  Come Back, Yankee

  An Unexpected Shower

  Two More Showers in One Day

  At Last: The Fourth Surprise

  Montgomery Gerald Morris, known to all as Monty, was an amazing reader. Most of the other first-graders in his class were still sounding out words or trying to remember their sight vocabulary. Monty was way ahead. He was already reading fourth- and fifth-grade level books. Because he was a good reader, he wasn’t limited to books in the classroom. He could read everything, and that’s exactly what Monty did. He read all the road signs when he went driving with his parents. He read the cereal boxes at breakfast and the advertisements that came in the mail. He read the comic strips in the newspaper and he read the letters that his grandmother sent him. It was because he was such a good reader that it all happened.

  One morning it was his turn to take the attendance sheet to the school office. While there, he began reading the notices that were posted on the back wall. There were three people in line ahead of him waiting to speak to the school secretary. That gave Monty time to read the notice about the next scheduled meeting for teachers. It was to be held on Thursday at 3:30. He read about the fundraiser that the parents’ association was holding in another month. It would be a bake sale. Then he read a sign that made him jump to attention. This is what it said:

  Monty reread the notice two more times. As he stood there, his tongue kept pushing his loose bottom tooth. Monty was one of only three classmates who had not yet lost a tooth, so he thought about it a great deal. But now his mind was not on teeth. A parakeet was a small bird. Monty wondered which lucky teacher would get the free parakeets.

  “What can I do for you, Monty?” asked Mrs. Remsen, the secretary. Monty turned to face her. Without realizing it, he had reached the head of the line.

  “Here,” he said, presenting her with the class attendance sheet.

  “Why, thank you,” she said, smiling at him over her glasses. “Have a good day.”

  Monty didn’t move. Behind him were two other students with sheets that they were waiting to deliver, too. Monty knew that he should go back to his classroom, but he suddenly had a thought. Just because the notice was hanging in the school office didn’t mean that it was addressed only to teachers. No where on it did it say, I have two birds to give away to a teacher. Couldn’t anyone get those birds? Couldn’t he get them? It was a wonderful thought.

  Just to be certain, however, he asked Mrs. Remsen, “Can I call that person who wants to give away the parakeets?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Mrs. Remsen. “Better clear it with your parents first, however,” she added, smiling at him.

  Monty nodded in agreement. He turned to leave the office but stopped and studied the sign. He repeated the telephone number to himself twice. He didn’t want to forget it.

  As soon as he got to his classroom he wrote it down in his notebook. His heart was beating rapidly with the excitement of possibly getting the cage with the birds. But even though his breathing was affected slightly, he knew it wasn’t an asthma attack. This was a happiness attack, he thought, though of course he didn’t have the birds yet.

  Having a pet of his own had long been a dream of Monty’s. Because he had asthma, he couldn’t own a dog like his friend Joey. Joey actually had two dogs! Monty could not have a cat or a hamster or a guinea pig. His friends Ilene and Arlene Kelly, who were twins, had recently acquired a pair of ferrets. Monty couldn’t have one of those long furry animals either. All animals with hair seemed to affect his breathing. For a short while he’d had a caterpillar for a pet. It had lived in a jar in his bedroom until it turned into a cocoon and then into a moth and flew away.

  Birds could fly away, too, but not if they were in a cage. And best of all, birds did not have hair. Monty couldn’t wait to ask his parents about calling the number. But as it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning, he had to wait till after school. It was a long, long day. Monty sat in his seat imagining the cage with two birds in his house. Would he keep the cage in his bedroom, or downstairs in the living room? He wondered if the birds already had names. Suppose he didn’t like the names they had? Would he be able to give them new names? Or would that confuse the birds?

  “Monty,” said Mrs. Meaney.

  Monty looked up with a start.

  “You seem to be a hundred miles away this morning.”

  The first-graders laughed. Monty was sitting right in his seat. How could he be a hundred miles away?

  Monty blushed. “I was thinking about something,” he said softly.

  “Something good, I hope,” his teacher said. “How’s that tooth of yours these days? Is it ready to come out yet?”

  “Not yet. But soon,” said Monty. Yesterday his loose tooth had been the most important thing in the world. This morning, he had practically forgotten all about it because he was so busy thinking about getting two birds.

  “Try to remember to keep your fingers out of your mouth,” suggested Mrs. Meaney. “Your tooth is going to come out any day now. You don’t have to keep wiggling it.”

  All the students in Monty’s class had loose teeth. They all spent a lot of time wiggling them even though Mrs. Meaney kept reminding them not to.

  The first-graders did their math work. They did reading. They went to the gym. The day seemed to be moving very slowly to Monty. He had never before noticed how long a day of first grade could be.

  Eventually the children went to lunch and played outside during recess. Then back in the classroom, Mrs. Meaney read aloud for half an hour. She was reading a very good book called My Father’s Dragon. Listening to the story, Monty forgot about the birds and the cage for a little while. Then the students went off to the art room, where they were working on life-size self portraits. The only things about Monty’s portrait that looked like him were the blue pants and the red-and-white-striped shirt. He was not very good at art. He had written his full name across the shirt. It read Montgomery Gerald Morris, and it was such a long name that it took two lines. It was a good thing that on his schoolwork he could just write Monty.

  Finally the school day was over. Monty’s friend Joey lived right across the street from him, so the two boys walked home together.

  “You’re walking extra fast today,” said Joey. “I guess you’re in a hurry to get home.”

  “I am,” Monty agreed.

  “How come?”

  Monty was just about to tell Joey about the two birds and their cage when he remembered something that Mrs. Meaney had taught the class. They had been talking about proverbs, and one of them was, “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.” Some of the students found this very confusing.

  “I don’t have any chickens,” said Cora Rose.

  “Me neither,” agreed Joey.

  “Of course you don’t have chickens,” Mrs. Meaney had said. “You don’t live on a farm.”

  “So I can’t count them if I don’t have them,” said Cora Rose.

  It took a long time until everyone understood about “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.” But Monty had understood the saying immediately. And now, walking home from school with Joey, he knew that even though the two birds he wanted weren’t chickens and they had already hatched, he shouldn’t count on them until he had permission from his parents.

  “It’s a secret,” he said. “But I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you tell me now if you’re going to tell me tomorrow?” Joey wanted to know.

  Monty shook his head. “Tomorrow,” he said again.

  They had reached their street. “See you tomorrow,” he shouted to Joey, and he ran to his house.

 
“I’ve something very, very exciting to tell you!” he shouted to his mother.

  “What is it?” asked Mrs. Morris.

  So Monty told her all about the sign in the school office. “Birds wouldn’t affect my asthma, would they?” he asked. “And they even come with a cage. It would be perfect.”

  “And who is going to clean out the cage?” asked Mrs. Morris, raising her eyebrows.

  “I’ll do it,” said Monty.

  “Well, first of all, I don’t know if it’s healthy for you to clean out the cage yourself.”

  “I’d wash my hands a hundred times afterward,” Monty promised.

  “And second of all,” continued his mother. “We should discuss this with your father.”

  “You mean I can’t call right now?” asked Monty. “Maybe someone else will call before me if I don’t hurry.” He thought a moment. “I know. I’ll call him at work.” He’d never called his father at work before, but he’d never had such an important reason either.

  “Now just keep calm,” said Mrs. Morris. “Your dad will be home in a couple of hours. You don’t have to bother him at work. Why don’t you go play outside with Joey?” she suggested.

  “Today is one of his soccer days,” Monty pointed out.

  “Well then, you could ride your scooter up and down on the sidewalk or read your library book or help me fold the laundry,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “I’ll read my library book,” Monty told her with a sigh. This seemed to be the longest day of his life. Waiting. Waiting.

  Finally, finally, Monty’s father came home. Once again, Monty repeated the news about the sign in the school office.

  “What do you think about it?” Mrs. Morris asked her husband.

  “Please, please say yes,” Monty begged his father.

  Mr. Morris was quiet for a moment as he thought. “I suppose if it didn’t work out, Monty could make a new sign and put it up in the school office and someone else could take the birds,” he said.

  “That’s a yes!” shouted Monty. He knew that once he got them, he’d never, ever give the birds away.

  Monty ran and got his notebook with the telephone number. Then he went to the phone and carefully pushed each button. He didn’t want to call the wrong person.

  He heard the phone ring three times and was beginning to worry that the owner of the birds was not home. As he waited, holding the telephone receiver in his left hand, he wiggled his loose tooth with his right hand. Then he heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello.”

  Monty took a deep breath, and then he began speaking. “I saw your sign in the office at my school. Would you give your two birds and the birdcage to a boy like me? I’d take very, very good care of them even though I’m not a teacher.”

  “Well you see . . .” The voice on the other end said.

  “My teacher could tell you that I am responsible,” he said, using a big word that he hoped would impress the birds’ owner.

  “What is your name?” asked the voice.

  Monty told her.

  “Well, Monty,” the woman said. “You sound very grown-up and very responsible. However, I’m afraid I’ve already promised to give my birds to someone who called before you.”

  “Oh,” said Monty. He was filled with disappointment, and his eyes filled with tears. He tried to think of something to say. “What are the names of the birds?” he asked in a quivering voice.

  “Yankee and Doodle,” said the woman.

  “Are they red, white, and blue?” asked Monty.

  The woman laughed. “No, they are green,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Monty. “Good-bye.”

  He hung up the phone. He noticed that his parents were standing on either side of him. “Somebody else called first,” he said. “They got the birds.”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” said Mrs. Morris, putting her arms around her son. Then she said, “Monty, what’s that you’re holding in your hand?”

  Monty looked at his hands. There was nothing in his left hand, but in his right hand there was a tiny white tooth with the littlest bit of blood on it.

  “It came out!” he shouted in amazement.

  “I think you pulled it out when you were talking on the telephone,” said his father.

  “I didn’t even notice,” said Monty. He ran to the bathroom mirror to see what he looked like without his bottom tooth.

  That night Monty went to bed knowing that he would not become the lucky owner of a pair of birds. But he still had the pleasure of putting his first lost tooth under his pillow. There would be a surprise, maybe a quarter, for him in the morning. He’d also noticed that next to the empty space in his mouth there was another loose tooth. Wouldn’t Joey be surprised tomorrow when he showed it to him.

  As he dozed off, Monty had a thought: if he lost enough teeth and got enough money, maybe someday he could buy a cage and at least one bird for himself.

  When Monty awoke the next morning, he found not one but two shiny new quarters under his pillow. He ran to show them to his parents before he got dressed for school. The quarters looked so new it seemed as if no one had ever touched them before. Monty knew that most money was spent and re-spent by hundreds of people before and after him.

  He brushed his teeth carefully so as not to hurt the little empty space where his tooth used to be. Unless it was toothpaste, he thought he could see the beginnings of his new grown-up tooth peeking through the gum. He wiggled his other newly loose tooth. Monty was good at math, so he knew that two more quarters would mean he would have a dollar. He remembered that he wanted lots of money so that he could buy a bird, and that made him a little sad. If only he had called earlier, he might already be the owner of two birds and a cage too.

  Joey was a good friend to Monty. So even though he had already lost three teeth himself, he looked with interest into Monty’s mouth when the boys met to walk to school.

  “Nice hole,” Joey said. He didn’t ask about the secret that Monty had mentioned the day before. Maybe he had forgotten, or maybe he thought the lost tooth was the secret.

  “And I have another loose tooth,” Monty showed him. “Maybe I’ll catch up with you.”

  “I have two more loose teeth already,” said Joey. “So you probably won’t.”

  He opened his mouth and showed off his wiggly teeth.

  “I’ll catch up by the time we’re grown-ups,” said Monty.

  “I guess so,” agreed Joey.

  They arrived at the school building and went to their classroom. Monty was eager to tell Mrs. Meaney and his classmates about how he had finally lost his tooth. But everyone who was already there was crowded together in the back of the room.

  “What’s up?” shouted Joey, racing to join the others.

  “Look what we got!” yelled Cora Rose.

  Monty pushed through the crowd of classmates to see what it was that they had gotten. To his surprise it was a birdcage with two small, green parakeets inside.

  “I thought you’d all enjoy having a class pet,” said Mrs. Meaney.

  “These are class pets,” Joey corrected their teacher.

  Monty stood staring at the birds. He was absolutely certain that these were the very two birds he had wanted for himself. It was hard to believe such a coincidence. The birds were not going to be living with a stranger at all. He would see them every day.

  “Let’s all take our seats, and after I get the attendance we can talk about the birds,” said Mrs. Meaney.

  The students all sat down, but most of them kept turning their heads. They wanted to see what the two green parakeets were up to.

  “We’re the only class with birds,” one of the other kids pointed out after attendance was taken. “There are two classes with guinea pigs, and there are three classes with fish. These birds are very special.”

  “Don’t forget that class 1-B has a turtle,” Ilene said. Her twin sister, Arlene, was in class 1-B.

  “Not a turtle. They have a tortoise,” someone corrected her.

&
nbsp; “Birds are more interesting than that old tortoise,” said Cora Rose, and everyone agreed. The tortoise in class 1-B had been fast asleep the two times their class had gone to visit him. He could have been a toy made out of plastic for all they knew.

  “Can we name the birds?” asked Joey.

  “They already have names,” explained Mrs. Meaney. “I’m not sure they recognize their names, but I don’t want to confuse them by giving them new ones. Let’s see if you can guess their names.”

  Of course Monty already knew the names, and he was about to blurt them out when Mrs. Meaney said, “Whoever can guess their names can be the first class monitor to care for the birds.”

  “I know. I know,” shouted Cora Rose. “Rumple and Stiltskin.” Everyone laughed. Just last week the students had seen a puppet show in the library about the girl who guessed the name of an imp who had helped her by spinning straw into gold.

  “Rumple and Stiltskin,” others shouted out in agreement.

  “Good guess,” said Mrs. Meaney, laughing, “But it’s not the right answer.”

  Monty raised his hand. “I know,” he called out softly.

  “All right, Monty. What’s your guess,” asked the teacher.

  “Yankee and Doodle,” he said.

  “That’s amazing!” shouted Mrs. Meaney. “You are 100 percent right. You will be the bird monitor for the next two weeks.”

  “Lucky duck. How did you guess?” Joey called out.

  Monty blushed. “It wasn’t a guess. I saw the sign in the office about the birds,” Monty explained. “I called yesterday after school. But they told me someone had called before me. I didn’t know it was you,” he said to his teacher. “Is it cheating that I knew the answer because I called?”

  “It’s not cheating at all,” said Mrs. Meaney. “In fact it’s an extra good reason why you should be the first bird monitor. Later I’ll show you where I’m going to keep the birdseed. I’ll be the one to clean out the cage, but you can sweep up the seeds or husks that land on the floor.”