Mostly Monty

  Meet Monty

  What Monty Got

  What Monty Saw

  What Monty Found

  What Monty Did

  This is what Montgomery Gerald Morris had:

  A nickname: Monty.

  A birthday on August 15. This year he had turned six.

  Asthma, which sometimes made it difficult for him to breathe.

  An inhaler. It was made of plastic and contained medicine. He carried it in his pocket wherever he went. If he felt that an asthma attack was coming on, he pulled it out real fast and put it in his mouth.

  This is what Monty didn’t have:

  A brother or a sister.

  A pet.

  Monty also didn’t have a best friend.

  He didn’t have any real friends at all.

  It was no wonder. Because of his asthma, he wasn’t permitted to go running around outdoors like other kids. He couldn’t join the Little League team. He couldn’t plan to go to sleepaway camp when he got older. Who would want to be friends with a boy like him?

  Monty’s parents were very protective of their son. They worried about his health. Twice in the past, he’d wakened in the night unable to breathe. Both times, he had been rushed to the hospital. It sounds exciting to ride off in an ambulance with a siren and blinking lights. For Monty, it hadn’t been exciting at all. It was scary. Monty didn’t complain about his limitations, but he didn’t like them either. Why did he have to have asthma anyhow?

  Now Monty was in first grade. Before school started, he had been very nervous. Staying at school all day seemed like a long time to be away from home. Even having his own packed lunch with a sandwich and drink, a piece of fruit, and a treat wasn’t enough to make Monty glad to be in first grade. He was used to eating lunch at the kitchen table in his own house. So on the first day of first grade, he felt scared. He sat quietly in his seat while many of his classmates chattered together. He recognized a few faces from kindergarten, but there were many new faces too. He put his hand in his pants pocket to feel for his inhaler. It was good to know that it was handy if he had an asthma attack.

  On that first morning, the teacher clapped her hands for attention. “My name is Mrs. Meaney,” she announced to the students.

  Monty shuddered. Mrs. Meaney. That sounded as if she would be a mean teacher. He glanced around to see if the other boys and girls in his class were worried about that too. Everyone sat at attention looking at the teacher, so it was hard to tell.

  For the rest of the day and the days that followed, Monty sat quietly in his first-grade classroom, answering questions only when he had to. Usually he just watched everyone else. Even at lunchtime, he sat quietly chewing his sandwich and watching the other students. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be Gregory Lawson, who could run faster than anyone in the whole grade. He wondered what it felt like to be Joey Thomas, who lived down his street and owned not one but two dogs, which he walked every day after school. And he tried to imagine being his classmate Ilene Kelly, who had a twin sister named Arlene in a different section of first grade. The Kelly sisters lived down the street from Monty too.

  It seemed to Monty that it would be more fun and more interesting to be someone else. He didn’t enjoy being Monty at all.

  There was one good thing, however. It turned out that Mrs. Meaney wasn’t mean at all. She smiled a lot. She didn’t scold when the students talked with one another when they should have been doing their work. And she didn’t shout — even when she saw Paul Freeman drawing on his arm with a blue marker.

  “What are you doing?” she asked Paul.

  “I’m making a tattoo,” Paul responded.

  “A tattoo? What in the world do you need a tattoo for?” she asked him.

  Monty looked at his classmate in amazement. No one should write on their skin. They should write on paper. Somehow, Paul hadn’t learned that in kindergarten. Monty would never do anything as silly as that.

  On Friday of the first week of first grade, Monty began to have trouble breathing. He dropped his pencil and grabbed his inhaler out of his pocket. He put it in his mouth and breathed deeply. Of course, the kids sitting near him noticed at once.

  “What is that?” asked Cindy Green.

  “Is it something to eat?” asked Paul Freeman.

  Monty didn’t answer. He just shook his head and continued breathing deeply. He was relieved when Mrs. Meaney came over. She told the students to pay attention to their workbooks and not to Monty. Then she asked Cora Rose to accompany Monty to the nurse’s office.

  “Do you feel horrible?” asked Cora Rose. She had been in Monty’s kindergarten class last year.

  Monty shook his head. Actually, he was feeling much better already.

  “Do you think you are going to die?” asked Cora Rose.

  “Of course,” Monty responded, taking the inhaler away from his mouth. “Everyone is going to die someday. But not for a long, long, long time. Don’t you remember how our class rabbit died last year when we were in kindergarten? Everyone’s got to die sometime.”

  “Me too?” asked Cora Rose.

  “You too,” Monty told her. Then he felt sorry that he had said anything. Cora Rose began to look upset. In fact, she started to cry.

  At that moment, they reached the nurse’s office. The nurse’s name was Mrs. Lamb.

  “Good morning,” she greeted the two first-graders. She looked at Cora Rose. “Don’t you feel well?” she asked her. “Where does it hurt you, honey?”

  “Monty says I’m going to die,” Cora Rose reported, sniffing back her tears.

  “But I told her not for a long, long, long time,” Monty protested.

  It took a couple of minutes for Mrs. Lamb to sort it all out. Cora Rose was not sick. And by now, neither was Monty. His slight asthma attack had passed. Mrs. Lamb assured them that they were both healthy and going to live for a long, long, long time. Then the two students returned to their class.

  Later that same day, when the children were taking turns reading aloud, Mrs. Meaney complimented Monty on his reading ability. “You are an excellent reader,” she told him. “I’ll have to find a more difficult book for you.”

  Monty beamed with pride. He had learned to read all by himself during the summer.

  He looked forward to the following week, when the class was scheduled to go to the school library. Last year, when the students were in kindergarten, they went once a week to hear stories. This year, they would hear stories, and they could borrow books to take home too. Monty loved reading, and he was looking forward to this new privilege.

  A week later, when they went to the library, Mr. Harris, the school librarian, showed the students where the picture books were shelved. “This is the section where you will find the books for your age,” he told the first-graders. “You may even recognize some of the stories that I’ve read to you. Today you can take one home and ask your parents to read it to you.”

  At once, the students began looking through the books. Not Monty. He didn’t want a storybook with pictures. He wanted a book with lots of information in it. During the summer, when he went to the public library, he had learned about the special numbers on the information books that arranged them by subject. He knew where to find science books, so this was a chance to pick out one of those. Mr. Harris didn’t say the students must borrow a storybook, but he hadn’t said anything about looking at the other books. Timidly, Monty walked across the room.

  He looked for the books about animals in the 500 section of the shelves.

  Mr. Harris saw him and came over. “I don’t think you’ll like these,” he said. “They are much too difficult for a first-grader. They’ll be waiting for you in a couple of years when you can read them.”

  Monty swallowed hard. H
e took a deep breath and reached for the inhaler in his pocket just in case he needed it. He felt his eyes filling with tears. He didn’t want to cry like a baby, but he knew he could read these hard books. Reading was one thing he could do without worrying about his breathing.

  Luckily, at that moment, Mrs. Meaney came over to them. “Monty is a wonderful reader. I think he could read almost any book he wants to,” she told the librarian.

  “Really?” asked Mr. Harris. “Good for you, Monty. You’re my kind of guy. Just show me what you want before you check it out.”

  Monty smiled at both his teacher and the librarian. Mrs. Meaney patted him on the shoulder. “Are you interested in anything special?” she asked. “Sharks, dinosaurs, planets, or something like that?”

  “I’m interested in everything,” said Monty softly.

  “Great,” said Mrs. Meaney. “That’s wonderful. Just look around, then. And if you need assistance, either Mr. Harris or I will help you.”

  Monty picked out a large book filled with pictures and information about dinosaurs. Next time, he might get a book about New York City. That’s where his mother had lived when she was his age. He thought it would be interesting to learn more about it.

  When the first-graders lined up to check out their books, Mr. Harris nodded his approval of Monty’s choice. But Joey Thomas, who was standing in line behind Monty, shook his head. “You can’t read that book. It’s too big. And it will be too hard.”

  Once again, Monty swallowed hard. He took a deep breath and blinked back the tears that he felt forming in his eyes. Even though Joey lived on his street, the two boys never played together.

  But Ilene Kelly, who was standing in front of Monty, spoke to Joey. “You’re just jealous,” she said to him. She looked at Monty. “I heard Mrs. Meaney say you’re a good reader,” she told him.

  “That’s right,” agreed Cora Rose, who was standing in front of Ilene.

  Monty knew the girls were right. He was a good reader. He was probably the best reader in his class. When the students read aloud, he’d heard the others stumble over words that he thought were very easy. He smiled at Ilene and Cora. It was nice of them to defend him. But he wished that he was good at something else, like running or playing soccer or making friends. He looked down at his library book. He looked forward to reading it at home, but he still wished he was someone else and not Monty.

  One day, the first-graders talked about their pets. Mrs. Meaney said they would write stories about them. Only three children in the class didn’t have pets, and of course, Monty was one of them. “You can write about a pet you would like to have,” Mrs. Meaney told the three petless students.

  Monty really wished he had a pet. His first choice would have been a dog. Second choice was a cat. Third was a guinea pig. Fourth was a hamster. His choices grew smaller and smaller, but his mother’s response was louder and louder. “No dog, no cat. No guinea pig. No hamster. All those animals are out,” she told him. “Animal hair will give you an asthma attack. I’m sorry, Monty,” she said. “How about some goldfish? They don’t have hair.” But you can’t cuddle a goldfish. In fact, you’d get wet when you even tried to touch a fish. So Monty turned that offer down.

  Even though his mother had said no to all the animals that he suggested, Monty kept thinking about getting a pet.

  “A baby kitten is very, very small,” said Monty. “It wouldn’t have much hair.”

  “A baby kitten would grow into a cat before long, and it would have lots of hair,” his mother reminded him. And then before Monty could begin begging once again for a guinea pig or a hamster — a pet that would start out small and never grow big — she said, “It doesn’t take much hair to start an asthma attack. Your father and I don’t want you to have trouble breathing.”

  “If hair gives me an asthma attack, how come I’m not allergic to you or Dad?” asked Monty.

  “That’s a good question,” said Monty’s mom. “The next time we see the doctor, we’ll have to ask him. Maybe he knows the answer.”

  So Monty wrote a report about a pet dinosaur.

  “Nobody can have a pet dinosaur,” said Joey Thomas when Monty read his report aloud in class.

  “If I’m writing about a pretend pet, I guess it can be anything I want,” said Monty.

  Mrs. Meaney agreed. Great job! she wrote on Monty’s paper. She drew a little smiley face on the paper too.

  One afternoon, when Monty was playing in front of his house, he noticed something crawling on the sidewalk. It was a green caterpillar with a few black hairs sticking out of its body. He stopped to watch it. Then he picked it up. He thought he’d put the caterpillar on a bush so no one would step on it. Then he had a better idea. He put it on his arm. He watched as the caterpillar moved its small head around and then slowly began walking up his sleeve.

  Monty bent his head down close to the caterpillar and took a deep breath. Nothing happened. At once, he felt a glow of delight. It appeared that he was not allergic to caterpillars. He watched as the caterpillar slowly moved up his arm.

  “I bet you think my arm is a mountain,” Monty whispered to the caterpillar.

  Of course, the caterpillar could not respond. It just kept moving slowly upward.

  When the caterpillar reached his shoulder, Monty picked it up and put it back down by his wrist. Once again, the caterpillar began its mountain climb. Walking carefully so as not to disturb the small creature that was climbing up his arm, Monty went into the house.

  “Mom!” he shouted to his mother. “I have a pet!”

  Mrs. Morris came running from the kitchen. She saw the green caterpillar just as it was once again about to reach her son’s shoulder.

  “Is that your pet?” she asked with relief.

  “Yes. It’s okay if I keep it, isn’t it?” asked Monty. “I’m not allergic to caterpillars. It hardly has any hairs at all.”

  “Of course you can keep it,” said Monty’s mom. “Let me see what we can put it in.”

  Monty followed his mother into the kitchen. From the cupboard she took an empty mayonnaise jar. “I think this will make a good home,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “I’m going to put some twigs and leaves inside the jar,” said Monty excitedly. “It will make my caterpillar feel more like he’s still outdoors.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Mrs. Morris. “Let’s see if I can make some holes in the lid so there will be enough air for the caterpillar to breathe.”

  Monty named the caterpillar Charlie. That night, Charlie slept inside his new home. At his dad’s suggestion, Monty had put a bottle cap with fresh water into the jar in case Charlie got thirsty during the night.

  Monty realized that as pets go, Charlie was awfully small. He couldn’t pet him much either because his parents thought it might disturb the caterpillar. Still, there was something special about him. Maybe it was because Monty had discovered Charlie by himself, or maybe it was because he had given him a name.

  At school the next day, he told Mrs. Meaney that he had a new pet. She seemed surprised when she heard that Charlie was a green caterpillar with black hairs. And it was Monty who was surprised when he came home from school one day to discover that Charlie was beginning to build a cocoon around himself.

  Monty checked on Charlie every morning when he woke up, then again after school, and again before bedtime. Soon he couldn’t see Charlie because he was hidden inside the cocoon. “I bet it’s nice and cozy in there,” Monty told his parents. Unfortunately, Charlie wasn’t very interesting to watch now that he was inside the cocoon.

  Then one morning several weeks later, Monty noticed that the cocoon was open. On the bottom of the jar was a moth with pale yellow wings.

  He ran with the jar into the kitchen to show his parents this new development. They were both surprised. Then Monty’s dad said, “You know, Monty, moths and butterflies have wings so they can fly. Don’t you think you should let Charlie use those new wings of his?”

  “You mean let him go?” aske
d Monty.

  Mr. Morris nodded.

  Monty studied the creature inside the jar. The wings moved slightly as he watched.

  “If I had wings, I’d want to fly,” said Monty with a sigh. “I guess Charlie should fly too.” He started to open the jar.

  “Wait! Not in the house,” said his mother. “You can open the jar just before you go to school.”

  Monty put the jar on the kitchen table and went back into his bedroom. He was still wearing his pajamas, so he had to get dressed. Then he returned to the kitchen and had his breakfast: corn flakes with milk and sliced banana.

  All the time he was eating, he watched the new Charlie. He would be a little bit sad to let him go, he thought. But he knew it was the right thing to do.

  Monty’s parents stood next to him as he took the jar outside. He removed the lid. Monty waited, but Charlie didn’t fly out.

  “Maybe Charlie wants to stay with me, even if he can fly away,” said Monty hopefully.

  “Maybe he’s not quite ready to go yet,” said Monty’s mom. “But it’s time for you to leave for school. So let’s just rest the open jar on this window ledge.”

  That seemed like a good plan. “Good-bye, Charlie,” Monty called as he picked up his backpack. “Maybe I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  “And maybe you won’t,” said Monty’s dad. “If he’s gone, you’ll know he’s off having a good time using his new wings.”

  As it turned out, Charlie was not in the jar when Monty returned home from school. But Monty wasn’t too sad about it. He thought that if he watched carefully, he might get to see Charlie flying by one day soon. He had another thought too. If he kept his eyes open, he was almost sure to find another caterpillar, which could move into the vacant jar at his house.