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grinning, with her top teeth missing.
    "I'll give you each your own photo, and you'll paste it onto your flag. Carefully cut out your face so that it just fits on your flag, okay?"
    The children nodded. They had all gotten their scissors out.
    "You too, Mrs. Pidgeon. You'll have a flag, too." Gooney Bird handed the teacher her photograph.
    Mrs. Pidgeon looked at it and made a face. "My hair looked awful that day," she said.
    "When your flag is done, with the picture on it, then we'll use the stapler to attach it to the flagpole," Gooney Bird explained. "I've already tested this. See?" She held up her own flag. Her chopstick had a purple rectangle attached to it, with Gooney Bird's picture carefully glued to the purple. "My hair looked awful that day too, Mrs. Pidgeon," she said. "I had a bad case of hat hair.
    "Okay, start cutting out your faces, and your flags. Mrs. Pidgeon will come around with paste, and then we'll do the stapling really carefully. And be sure to put your flag on the square end! We need the pointy end to stick into the snow."
    Chelsea looked up from her photograph, from which she was carefully cutting out her head. "Where are we going to stick them?"
    "We'll each plant our flag at the place where we'll be spending our vacation! Barry?
Whiz Kid
? Yours will be right beside Humphrey's palm tree!"
    "YES!" said Barry.
    The class became very quiet. Everyone, including Mrs. Pidgeon, was carefully creating a flag.

7.

    Toward the end of the day, the playground was empty. Two crows sat on the limb of a bare tree and watched as the class, each person carrying a flag, made their way to the snow map. One of the crows made a cawing sound as if he were annoyed at the interruption. Then he and his partner lifted their large wings and flew away.
    "Look! A piece of Humphrey's palm tree broke off! Hawaii's all messed up!"
    "I bet a bear walked through and broke it while we were having lunch," Tricia said.
    "Really?" asked Keiko nervously. "A bear?"
    "No,
Sweet Thing,
" Gooney Bird reassured her. "I think those crows snapped it off. They're probably looking for nest material."
    "Let's get started, class!" Mrs. Pidgeon suggested. "We'll use up all our time just talking and our feet will get cold. How shall we do this, Gooney Bird? Who'll go first?"
    Gooney Bird thought for a moment. "Alphabetical," she decided.
    "Yay!" Barry shouted. "I always go first alphabetically!"
    "I always go last," Tyrone said with a pout.
    Felicia Ann went shyly over to Tyrone. "
It maybe be a blast, when you always goin' last,
" she said to him, softly, and Tyrone's face brightened.
    "
Run my engine pretty fast, 'cuz I be always goin' last,
" he replied with a grin.
    "
Cool Dude,
" Felicia Ann added.
    Barry plunged his chopstick in the snow beside the broken palm tree. "Ta-da!" he said. "Hawaii for
Whiz Kid
!" He wiggled his hips in a brief hula.
    "Okay. Who's next?" asked Mrs. Pidgeon. "Let me think. Barry, Beanie, Ben, Chelsea..."
    "Beanie!" Gooney Bird called. "You next,
Sunshine
!"
    Beanie, carrying the little flag with her photograph on it, stepped forward onto the map and found Florida. "M-I-C-K-E-Y!" She sang the letters. "M-O-U-S-E!" She leaned down and poked her flag into the snow in the center of Florida.
    "Ha! Barry and Beanie both get really bad sunburns," Malcolm said loudly, "and Beanie, she has to wear stupid mouse ears!" Mrs. Pidgeon put her hand gently on Malcolm's shoulder.
    "Do you think William Henry Harrison used sunscreen at the beach?" Keiko asked in a curious voice.
    "William Henry Harrison never even
went
to the beach, poor guy," Gooney Bird said.
    Without any announcement from Gooney Bird, the second grade observed a moment of silence. Poor President Harrison.
    Ben went next. He was well prepared, because his family had been planning their ski trip for a long time. Ben knew exactly how to find Sugarbush, Vermont, on their packed-snow map.
    "There," he said, after he had poked his flagpole into the snow. "If I had a lot of