Who's Afraid of Fourth Grade? (12 page)

“Check out Mr. Starkey!” Emma said to Katie. “I can't believe that's really him!”

Katie smiled.

Just then, Jessica pushed her way toward them.

“Hey, make some space for me!” Jessica shouted over the music.

“You can slide right in here, Jess,” Emma said.

Katie smiled again. It looked like Jessica and Emma had made up, just like she and Suzanne had.

“Check out Mr. Starkey!” Suzanne exclaimed. “He's dressed like a rock star.”

It was true. The music teacher was wearing a tie-dyed tank top and a pair of jeans. He had a purple bandana tied around his head.

“I think he's wearing an earring,” Miriam gasped. “Look. There's a hoop in his left ear.”

“He's a really good drummer,” Jeremy added. “Check out the way he's banging those cymbals.”

“I think he must practice a lot. You can't get good at an instrument unless you do,” Katie remarked.

Kevin and his brother Ian bopped over to where the fourth-graders were standing.

“You guys are so lucky,” Ian told the fourth-graders. “Your music teacher's cool. When I went to Cherrydale Elementary, the music teacher was a real geek. He'd never play awesome music like this.”

The kids all looked at one another.

“He
is
kind of cool,” Kadeem had to admit as Mr. Starkey jammed on his drums. “It's like having a rock star right at our school.”

“I wonder if
I'll
ever be that good on drums,” Jeremy wondered out loud.

“You won't be now that you quit playing,” Katie said.

“Who says I quit?”

“You did,” Katie reminded him.

“Yeah, well . . . I un-quit!” Jeremy declared. “I think being a musician is awesome.”

“Me too,” George agreed. “You guys think I could play rock-and-roll tuba?”

Katie giggled.

At the end of the song, the audience cheered wildly. Mr. Starkey grinned and spoke into his microphone. “Thanks, Cherrydale!” he exclaimed. “The next song we're going to play is kind of new for us. But we've been practicing it a lot this week. We're dedicating this tune to a very special member of the beginning band! This song goes out to you, Clarinet.”

The kids all stared at Katie. She smiled back at them.

“One, two, three,” Mr. Starkey shouted out as he tapped his sticks in the air. The band started to play.

“I know this song from somewhere,” Becky said.

“It's really familiar,” Emma agreed.

“I don't think they play it on the radio,” Suzanne said.

“So where have we heard it?” Kevin wondered.

Katie listened to a few more notes. “Oh my gosh!” She started to laugh. “That's ‘Hot Cross Buns' . . . with a rock beat!” she declared.

Katie was really psyched to go to school on Monday morning. She couldn't wait to get to band practice, so she could work on “Hot Cross Buns.” Maybe Mr. Starkey would let the kids turn it into a rock song, just like the Downhill Slide had.

But band practice wasn't the only exciting thing happening in Cherrydale Elementary School. As it turned out, life in class 4A was pretty thrilling too.

When the kids walked into the classroom on Monday morning, they found Mr. Guthrie standing by the glass tank. “Yo, dudes!” the teacher greeted them. “Come here. The egg is starting to hatch. Look at how cool!”

Katie threw down her bookbag and ran toward the back of the room. She peered into the tank. Sure enough, their class egg was finally cracking.

“Our baby bird is coming!” Mandy shouted excitedly.

“This is amazing,” Andrew added. “I've never seen a bird hatch before.”

“Me neither,” Kadeem said.

“Do you think it will be able to fly right away?” Emma S. asked Mr. Guthrie.

The teacher shook his head. “I think that's out of the question.”

“But what if it wants to spread its wings and fly?” Katie asked. “It wouldn't be fair not to let it. Animals have rights too.”

“I agree,” Mr. Guthrie said. “But in this case ...”

“Flying isn't going to be something
this
pet will want to do, Katie Kazoo,” George interrupted. He pointed into the cage.

“Whoa!” Kadeem shouted. “It's not a bird. It's a snake!”

Sure enough, a baby snake had emerged from the egg. It was red with black, white, and yellow markings.

“Is it poisonous?” Emma W. asked Mr. Guthrie. She nervously moved away from the cage.

“It's harmless,” he assured her.

“I didn't know snakes came from eggs,” Emma S. said with amazement.

“Sure,” Mandy told her. “Snakes are reptiles, just like turtles and lizards. All reptiles hatch from eggs.”

“That's right,” Mr. Guthrie agreed. “We're going to learn a lot more about reptiles in the next few weeks. That's our new science unit.”

Kevin looked over at the beanbag chairs in the middle of the room. “No more birds, huh?”

Mr. Guthrie shook his head.

“Oh, well. There go our nests!” Kevin said.

“What should we call our new pet?”

Andrew asked.

Katie watched the snake slither out of its egg. It was cute the way he slinked around the bottom of his glass cage. “How about Slinky?” she suggested.

“That's a great name,” George told her.

“I like it too,” Kadeem agreed.

“Hey, George and Kadeem finally agree on something,” Andrew pointed out.

“Now we
have
to name the snake Slinky,” Mandy told the class.

Mr. G. grinned. “Slinky it is.”

The way Katie saw things, the kids in 4A were really lucky to have Mr. Guthrie for a fourth-grade teacher. A normal teacher would never have brought a snake egg to school. But what was so great about being normal? Forget about guinea pigs and hamsters. No animal in the whole school was cooler than Slinky!