Some of the Kinder Planets by Tim Wynne-Jones

Author:Tim Wynne-Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2013-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

THE ASSIGNMENT topic was “What I did on my summer vacation.” Amelia had petted a stingray in the Monterey Aquarium. Graham had caught a foul ball at a Blue Jays game. He had the ball to prove it.

Then it was time for Tobias to read about his summer vacation adventure. He read “Tweedledum and Tweedledead: An Eyewitness Report.” In only two pages, Sergeant Steele arid the Desperate Throng wiped out Wonderland without a hitch. It was brutal. They turned the caterpillar into cater­pillar dust, stuffed the Mad Hatter into his own hat and left the rabbit who had started the whole thing twitching in a ditch. Steele kept the rabbit’s gold watch. Tweedledum and Tweedledee tried to round up some help from beyond the looking-glass, but they got wasted by one of the commandos, Mad Clyde and his flame-thrower. Alice was spared. She was carried home in a basket by the Desperate Throng and put in a special zoo with Winnie-the-Pooh, Wilbur the pig and the Cat in the Hat.

Nervously, Tobias looked at Ms. Julia Peach to see if she approved of his revised ending. She gave him the thumbs up.

Ms. Knieppe, however, did not. She invited Tobias to the front, took the story from him and reread it to herself.

She said she was appalled.

She asked if anyone knew what appalled meant. The class nodded its head. They could tell what she meant from the look on her face. But Ms. Knieppe didn’t stop there. With Tobias still standing at the front, she got the class to try to spell it.

Amelia got it right. Amelia got to look it up in the dictionary: appall v.t. to fill with dismay or horror; terrify; shock.

Which was exactly what the class had seen on Ms. Knieppe’s face.

Ms. Knieppe scribbled a note and invited Tobias to take his story to Mrs. Armitage, the principal, to see what she thought of it. Tobias snuck a peek at Peach as he left the room. She was rolling her eyes to beat the band.

Tobias sat outside the principal’s office in a little dead-end hallway off the main office. In the main office the fall sun streamed through the window. One of the secretaries, Mrs. Devlin, was chatting to a man in a uniform who had delivered some packages. She was having a coffee and telling him about the trouble she was having with her K-Car. It turned out that the man in the uniform had had the same kind of trouble.

The school nurse smiled at Tobias as she got some stuff from her mailbox. And Ms. Rowanook of the orange hair was typing something with a Sony Walkman on, bobbing her head to the music.

It gave Tobias a nice cheery feeling to see everybody having a good time. It gave him hope.

Mrs. Armitage, meanwhile, was on the phone. Tobias could just make her out through the pebbled glass of her door. He could hear bits and pieces of what she was saying. Mrs. Devlin had taken in “Tweedledum and Tweedledead” with the note from Ms.

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