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Authors: Suzy Kline

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Sidney answered right away, “Harry is bossing everyone around.”

“Is that true?” the teacher asked us.

Song Lee shook her head. “We talk. Harry listen. Now Harry has good idea for skit.”

Miss Mackle smiled and moved on to the next group.

“Look Sidney,” Harry said. “If you want to be a king you have to be willing to die. The king in this skit dies.”

Sidney looked like he was going to cry. “Can the king just be wounded? I could play a wounded king.”

“The king dies, Sidney,” Harry replied.

“Then I won't be one,” Sidney said.

“Can I play the piano?” Mary said with her hands folded.

“Yes. And we will need two angels,” Harry added.

Ida jumped up and down. “Good! I get to be an angel.”

Sidney shook his head. “I'm not going to be any angel. Girls are angels. Not boys.”

Mary disagreed. “There are boy angels and girl angels. Heaven is a fair place.”

Harry continued, “We'll need three blankets and three crowns for the kings and halos and sheets for the angels.”

“Some choice,” Sidney complained. “A dead king or a dumb angel.”

Mary put her hands on her hips. “Angels are not dumb. They are perfect beans.”

“Kidney or lima beings?” Sidney asked. And then he cackled and giggled.

“Have you made your choice?” Harry asked Sidney when he was through cackling.

“Yeah, I'll be a kidney bean.”

Nobody said anything. Just Sidney. He laughed by himself.

We brought the props and costumes in the next day. Song Lee brought in gold garland for the halos, and aluminum foil and buttons and sequins for the crowns.

“My mother sew,” Song Lee said. “She has many thing.”

We worked hard on the props the next day. We practiced the singing part of our skit at recess because we wanted it to be a surprise.

Friday afternoon, we had a little theater. Miss Mackle called on the four groups to perform. When it was our turn, Harry introduced us.

“And nowâ” he said. “We are happy to present âThe Deadly Skit.' ”

Miss Mackle backed up against the blackboard. A piece of chalk fell and shattered into tiny pieces.

Harry, Song Lee, and I stood in front of the class. We had blankets around us and crowns on our heads. They sparkled with sequins.

Mary started to play on the piano.

We began to sing: “We three kings of Orientar, tried to smoke a smelly cigar....”

Then we started puffing on a Tootsie Roll. (Harry had brought those in.) Song Lee fell to the ground coughing and choking and rolling over until she died.

Harry and I continued singing. Mary continued playing. “We two kings of Orientar, tried to smoke a smelly cigar....”

Then I fell down to the ground coughing and choking and rolling over until I died.

Harry was the only king left. “I the king of Orientar, tried to smoke a smelly cigar....”

When Harry fell down to the ground coughing and choking and rolling over, the two angels entered.

They had white sheets draped around them with garland halos pinned in their hair. Sidney didn't look very happy with bobby pins in his hair.

After Harry died, Ida and Sidney sang, “Silent Night, Holy Night. All is calm. All is bright.”

Miss Mackle began clapping her hands. “They certainly got the message across that smoking shortens your life! Bravo!”

Everyone in the class joined her.

Mary took a special bow from the piano.

Thanks to Harry, our skit about something horrible was the best one in
the class.

Invasion of the Cobwebs

One morning Harry came into Room 2B and put his head down on his desk.

“You sick?” I asked.

“Yeah, Doug. I'm sick of South School. Nothing ever happens around here. The place is getting boring.”

Just as Harry closed his eyes, Miss Mackle walked in. She pulled up her reading chair and sat in front of the class. “I'm going to begin our day by finishing our book,
Charlotte's
Web.”

Everyone cheered. The best part of the day is when Miss Mackle reads to us. She chooses good books.

When Miss Mackle came to the part where Charlotte was dying, she started to get tears in her eyes. “I have to stop for a moment, class,” she said.

I looked over at Song Lee. She had a flowered hanky out. When I looked over at Harry, I was shocked. One big fat tear rolled out of his eyeball and down his cheek.

Suddenly Harry blurted out, “Why does Charlotte have to die?”

Miss Mackle put her book down on her lap. “We all do sometime. Dying is a part of life. A spider just doesn't live very long.”

“Now Wilbur will be all alone,” Ida whimpered.

“The story is not over,” Miss Mackle replied as she picked up the book. “Wilbur is going to have some new friends. You'll see.”

Everyone listened as Miss Mackle finished the book. When she read the last page, everyone just stared into space smiling.

Miss Mackle stood up and placed the book on her desk. As she looked out the window at the snow flurries, she thought aloud, “After you read a great story like
Charlotte's Web,
you don't feel like just doing the next thing....”

And then she looked down at her lesson plans. “... reviewing plurals and action words,” she mumbled.

I raised my hand.

“Yes, Doug?”

“Why don't we celebrate
Charlotte's Web?”
I said.

Miss Mackle looked up from her lesson plans. “Why don't we! Let's take the entire morning doing an activity that shows our love for Charlotte!”

“What can we do?” Sidney asked.

Just then Harry stood up and acted like he had the biggest idea in the whole world. “I got it! Let's plan an invasion of South School!”

Oh boy, I thought. Harry and his horrible ideas.

Miss Mackle put her hands on her hips. “WHAT does an invasion have to do with celebrating
Charlotte's Web?”

“Everything!” Harry replied as he waved his hands in the air. “We each make a cobweb and put it somewhere around the school. We could launch an invasion of the cobwebs!”

Miss Mackle thought about it. “Hmmmm.... An invasion of cobwebs. I LOVE IT!”

Harry beamed.

“Let's get busy,” she said, “and let South School know how much we loved the book!”

We cheered and clapped as Miss Mackle passed out black construction paper, scissors, and white chalk.

We spent a lot of time making the cobwebs. Some people put Charlotte or her grandchildren in the web. Song Lee remembered the cobwebs in the story and wrote what Charlotte did,
HUMBLE.
Mary and Ida copied Song Lee. They made webs with
RADIANT
and
TERRIFIC
in the middle.

Harry put something different in the middle of his web. He made a spider rolling up a fly and sucking its blood.

“This one is for the principal's office,” he grinned.

Sidney cackled.

I used a ruler when I made my web. Then I made Charlotte's egg sacâher magnum opus hanging down from the web.

Miss Mackle walked up and down the aisles. You could tell she was pleased. She said something nice about each one. Even Harry's.

“Spiders have to eat too,” she said.

When everyone was finished, the teacher said, “Now let's line up and put our cobwebs all around the school. But, we must go quietly. This is a secret mission!”

“Yeah!” Harry blurted out.

Miss Mackle motioned for him to come to the front of the line. “Harry can be our line leader since this invasion was his idea.”