Maggie & Abby and the Shipwreck Treehouse by Will Taylor

Author:Will Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

Maggie

The awful hubbub of the rise-and-shine loudspeaker shattered my sleep again the next morning. I sat up, blinking. It felt like five minutes, tops, since Charlene and I got back from our art cabin adventure.

And speaking of Charlene, her bunk was already empty, the sheets and blankets tucked in all neat and crisp. Whoa? Why was she up? Did she change her mind and decide to go tattling on me to Director Haggis? Was I in serious trouble here?

But I was wasting my worries. Charlene stomped in a few minutes later, and I heard her telling the counselor she’d been doing early-morning Litter Patrol. She shot me a disappointed look as she came over.

“I went out to check the moose trap,” she whispered, although there was so much yelling in our cabin in the mornings there was no point. “And nothing. Even with all those new cantaloupes I added!”

“Boo,” I whispered back. “That’s rough. Once we have Abby back, I’ll work up a real plan for you.”

Charlene shrugged grumpily and headed out to brush her teeth.

Roll call took forever. Breakfast took even longer.

Finally, after an unending eternity of scene rehearsal in drama class—though I was sort of having fun playing the king, the lady with the string, and the monster all at once—we were on our way to arts and crafts.

I checked the back of the room as soon as we walked in. Phew! Our forts were still there. Ms. Sabine clapped her hands as we all settled into our seats.

“Attention, please,” she said. “Before we begin today, I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to these extraordinary art pieces at the back of the classroom! Will the artists please reveal themselves?”

Charlene and I raised our hands. The other kids looked at each other in surprise.

“I was just blown away when I saw these here this morning,” Ms. Sabine said. “I’d love it if you’d both share your artistic inspiration with the class!”

I glanced over at Charlene. What were we supposed to say? But she was smiling. She gave me a nod that clearly said I got this.

“Well,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It was your whole direction of ‘collage’ that gave us the inspiration, Ms. Sabine. . . .” And she was off. She talked for three whole minutes about our artistic perspective, our reflective intention, and our form-focused interpretive analysis. It was seriously impressive. The more Charlene talked, the more Ms. Sabine lit up, and by the end she was practically clapping with delight.

“Oh, I can’t even tell you! I just . . . I am overwhelmed with excitement!” Ms. Sabine declared, making the glassy-eyed class jump. “And now I would love it if Maggie could share with us the part about the fabulous letters!”

The what? Charlene looked just as confused as me this time.

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“The letters!” said Ms. Sabine. “I took the liberty of examining your art installation just before class, and I discovered the absolutely brilliant meta-narrative you’ve created within the piece. Forget the moon, children, I am over the solar system about these! You must read them out to us.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.