7. Pallies

7 Pallies We worked on our poems for the whole entire morning, almost. And ha! Mr. Scary was right! Sharing ideas did help spark our imaginations! Plus all of us got to add our own special words to our poem! And that is called good teamwork! After we got done, I printed our poem on a clean piece of paper. Lennie and José and Herb watched me real careful. "I am an excellent printer," I told them. "I can print with the best of them." Pretty soon, all of the other children in

Room One finished their poems, too. And good news! Mr. Scary said there was time to read some of our poems to the class. Lucille didn't wait to get called on. She ran right to the front of the room. And she made squinty eyes at Camille and Chenille. "I wanted to write my poem with two girls in my group," she said. "But all they wanted to write about was twins, twins, twins." She looked at them some more. "The whole world is not just about you two, you know," she grouched. After that, she fluffed her lacy dress. And she read her poem: Me. Richie Lucille. Shopping, buying, spending. Everyone's jealous of myself. Princess.

After she was finished, Mr. Scary sat there for a second. Then he smiled and nodded. "Good, Lucille. Yes. Excellent," he said. "That poem really says it all, doesn't it?" Lucille nodded. "Yes," she said. "It does." Then she did another mean look at the twins. And she sat back down. After that, May didn't wait to be called on, either. She ran to the front of the room just like Lucille. And she hollered out her poem real loud. Tin Can! Tin-tin, Can-can! I have perfect hearing! And Mr. Scary told me it was tin can! He did, he did, he really did! Mr. Scary rubbed his chin. "Yes, well, that certainly was an interesting poem idea, May. But it didn't really follow

the rules of a cinquain, did it?" he said. "You mean tin can," said May. Mr. Scary did a sigh. Then he got up from his desk. And he walked May back to her seat. After that, there was time for one more poem. My group waved our hands all around in the air.

"We have a good one!" hollered José. "Yes! A really good one!" yelled Lennie.

Mr. Scary nodded at us. And so all of us jumped up. And we stood in our group. And we read our poem with all of our voices. Pallies. Chummy, happy, Joking, gelling, sharing. Four amigos all together. Friendship.