They Didn't Teach THIS in Worm School! Read online

  for a long time. When I was waiting for your

  next direction, I must have fallen asleep. I might

  have been flying for days, or weeks, or even years.

  And now look: this looks very much like the

  Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya! I can’t

  believe that you knew the way, and that I flew

  us here.”

  “I can’t believe it, either,” I said to Laurence.

  114

  I had a feeling inside my body that I’d never

  experienced before. It was like a million happy

  butterflies were fluttering their wings while

  singing a pleasant song. I wasn’t even worried

  about how we would get home; I could probably

  figure that out while taking an afternoon nap.

  It was Laurence’s dream to travel here, and

  together, without even trying, we’d actually

  done it . . . while dreaming!

  “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” Laurence was

  shouting at the giraffe.

  The giraffe looked at us with her very big eyes.

  “COULD YOU GIVE US A RIDE?” he said

  slowly, this time doing a little mime.

  The giraffe smiled and lowered her head so

  that we could climb on. She circled one of the

  tall trees, with Laurence and me balancing on

  her head.

  Laurence turned to look at me. “This is great,

  isn’t it?”

  Chapter

  Nine

  116

  It really was. I’d never

  even dreamed of traveling,

  but now here I was, balancing

  on a giraffe’s head in Kenya.

  Beyond the trees, behind a

  low fence, there were lots of

  children with their moms and

  dads. They were all pointing and

  laughing and having fun.

  117

  The giraffe lowered her long neck to the

  ground, and Laurence and I hopped off.

  “THANK YOU VERY MUCH,”

  he shouted, doing a bow to show

  how grateful he was. “Are you

  all right, Marcus?” Laurence

  asked. “Your skin . . . it looks a little dry.”

  I’d been enjoying myself on the giraffe so much

  that I hadn’t noticed that my body was shriveling

  in the dry heat of the sun. I tried to answer

  Laurence but couldn’t move my mouth to speak.

  “We’d better find some

  mud for you to cool

  off in.” Laurence

  picked

  me up in

  his beak

  and flew

  over some

  bushes and trees.

  “There’s a swamp!” he said,

  forgetting that I was in his beak

  and accidentally plopping me

  headfirst into the mud, which was

  cold and gloopy like thick dark

  chocolate frosting on a birthday

  cake. I sank to the bottom, and it

  felt totally wonderful.

  I heard Laurence call to me with

  a muffled voice. “Everything OK

  down there?”

  “Fine and dandy,” I said,

  emerging from the swamp and

  feeling like new again.

  A big piglike creature watched

  me wriggle out of my muddy bath.

  119

  “Hello, piggy,” I said, trying to be friendly

  just in case he thought I was a chocolate-covered

  snack.

  He snorted in my direction, giving me a shower

  that washed away the mud.

  “Thanks, piggy,” I said, keeping the

  conversation going just in case he now thought

  I was some kind of savory snack.

  “That’s not a pig, it’s a pygmy hippo,” said

  Laurence, who was reading a sign. “I must say,

  it’s very organized here in the Maasai Mara with

  these informative signs.”

  There were signs everywhere. And there were

  also neat paths edged with little fences. It did look

  quite different from Laurence’s Africa books.

  Laurence must have been thinking the same

  thing.

  “It’s not how I imagined it would be here,” he

  said, hopping along a path. “I do like it; it’s very

  tidy. In my safari books, there were a lot more open

  spaces and dusty plains. It seemed more natural.”

  “I said it before, and I’ll say it again, Laurence.

  That’s progress for you.”

  Laurence nodded. “That must be what it is.”

  I remembered that I was great at navigating,

  and I had the butterflies-in-my-tummy feeling

  again. “LAURENCE,” I said, a little too

  enthusiastically.

  “Yes?”

  “Let’s go and find that Lake Nakuru.

  It can’t be far from here.”

  Laurence gasped.

  122

  “We can meet the flamingos,” I said.

  His eyes lit up. I wondered whether I needed

  to be asleep to find the way, or whether I might

  be able to find it just by using my worm instincts.

  “Maybe one of these signs will direct us to the

  lake,” Laurence said, hopping speedily along the

  path. “Ooh, there’s a map here as well,” he called

  out. “Can you come and look at it?”

  Silly Laurence, he had obviously forgotten

  that I don’t need a map to navigate.

  “Psst,” said the pygmy hippo. “If you’re

  looking for the flamingos, they live in the

  middle of the lake on the other side of

  the giraffes’ house.”

  He lifted his head

  to point out the direction to go.

  “Thank you very much,” I said. Even though

  he’d told me the way, I probably could have

  figured it out with my natural worm instincts.

  The hippo gave me another spray of water.

  123

  It didn’t have quite the same impact, but

  hopefully he appreciated the gesture.

  I rejoined Laurence, who

  looked like he was using

  all of his bird brain to try

  to understand the map.

  It lifted me along the path like a water

  slide. This water spraying thing

  was probably a local

  custom. I filled my

  cheeks with water from

  a puddle and sprayed

  him back.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’m the navigator.”

  I jumped up onto his back without waiting for

  him to lower his neck. I missed and slid down the

  side of his wing. Laurence picked me up with

  his beak and threw me onto my usual seat.

  We flew up past the

  tall building, over some

  lions and a group

  of penguins.

  In geography

  class at worm school,

  we learned that

  penguins lived in

  cold countries.

  Why were there

  penguins here in

  Africa? Maybe they were

  on a safari. That was probably it.

  125

  “Oh, I see,” Laurence answered.

  Just then, I could see something

  glistening in the distance.

  “They’re on vacation,” I said

  confidently. “They’re on the same

  safari as the penguins.”

  “Oh, look, there are k
angaroos over there,”

  said Laurence as we flew over a big hill. “I

  didn’t expect to see kangaroos here. I thought

  they only lived in Australia.”

  126

  “Laurence! There it is. . . . It’s over there. I

  can see it! I can see it! We’ve made it! It’s Lake

  Nakuru!”

  We landed at the edge of the lake next to some

  tall trees. To celebrate this moment, Laurence

  was singing a song. I think it was a song; I didn’t

  recognize the tune or the words, but he looked

  like he was enjoying the strange noises that were

  coming from his beak.

  I was about to do a happy

  dance, when, from the corner of my eye,

  I saw a squirrel. It was a familiar-looking

  squirrel. It looked just like the one with

  the awful teeth who was friends with

  the evil mole.

  I had a funny feeling in my belly.

  “What are you looking at?” Laurence asked.

  The squirrel had darted away, and I was

  staring at an empty branch.

  “Do you remember that squirrel from before?”

  “Ooh, yes,” said Laurence, doing a weird body

  shake. “That was when we were almost a stew!”

  “I think that I just saw her, Laurence.”

  “Why would she be here in Africa?” Laurence

  asked. “You must have imagined it.”

  “Yes,” I said, laughing. I laughed even though

  it wasn’t funny.

  I looked up at the tree again, to double-

  check. No squirrels. It must have been my silly

  imagination.

  Chapter Ten

  I turned back to Laurence. He was staring

  straight ahead with his beak open. He looked

  like he’d just seen something spectacular, like a

  unicorn or a pile of nachos with cheese on top.

  “What is it?” I asked, looking to see if there

  was a unicorn, or cheesy nachos.

  “It’s them! My flamingo family!” he said with

  a soft, crackly voice.

  132

  Laurence was looking at a small group of pink

  birds with long, thin legs who were standing on

  an island in the middle of the lake. A tear was

  rolling down his cheek.

  They really were flamingos. We stood in

  silence, watching from a distance. We stared at

  them for so long that I started to wonder if the

  flamingos were actually real. They were bright

  pink with unusual beaks and legs that looked

  like twigs. Maybe they were made out of plastic

  and twigs?

  Then one of the flamingos gracefully bent

  down, scooped a fish out of the water, and gulped

  it down.

  “I think they are real,” I said out loud.

  Laurence sighed. “This is where I belong. It’s my

  true home. I can’t believe that we actually made it

  here,” he said, staring ahead.

  I couldn’t believe it, either. I looked at Laurence

  and then at the flamingos and then at Laurence

  again. He still looked like a chicken — a little, fat,

  round one. I thought about telling him. Maybe

  he hadn’t noticed. But then I remembered about

  trying to be kind and that in Laurence’s mind

  he was a flamingo. It was probably best to try to

  support Laurence in whatever he believed. That’s

  probably what a friend would do.

  “I’ve always dreamed of meeting other

  flamingos, and now it’s finally happening,”

  Laurence continued. “I’m one of them.”

  “Yes, you are,” I said, lying to Laurence.

  “Shall we go and meet them?” Laurence asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  134

  We flew to the island

  in the lake and landed

  next to a small group

  of flamingos. I couldn’t

  help staring at their legs.

  Up close they looked

  even more like twigs.

  Laurence must have

  been taking a good look

  as well, because one of

  the flamingos said to

  him, rudely, “What

  are you staring at,

  little bird?”

  “All of you,” he said

  boldly, pushing his chest out.

  I think he was trying to make himself look a little

  taller. “My companion and I,” Laurence said in a

  formal voice, “have traveled many, many miles

  from a distant land to meet all of you.”

  135

  He extended his wing to

  include me in the conversation.

  He sounded and looked a little

  like the Queen of England.

  O

  o

  h

  !

  I cleared my throat and sat up straight,

  to appear more regal.

  He continued, “All of my life I’ve dreamed of

  meeting flamingos and finding true friendship,

  happiness, and a sense of belonging. Now that

  time has come. As you can probably

  tell, I am a flamingo, and it is my

  honor to be reunited with all of

  you, my brothers and my sisters.”

  Laurence’s speech was

  actually pretty good.

  The flamingos didn’t

  say anything at first.

  They looked at us

  with their beaks

  open. I had a

  feeling that they

  might not be very friendly.

  I was right, because then

  something horrible happened:

  a small flamingo with a scratchy voice started

  laughing. It wasn’t the type of nice laughing that

  you get when children are running around on a

  beach, splashing in the waves. No, it was a cruel,

  mocking sound. It made my skin hurt. All of the

  other flamingos joined in.

  I wanted Laurence and me to be somewhere

  else, far away from these horrible birds. I imagined

  us being in Paris on a tandem bicycle with two

  freshly baked baguettes in the front basket. That

  made me happy, being somewhere else.

  And then I remembered again that I can’t ride

  a bicycle. I felt sad.

  Normally in a situation like this, I would have

  found an excuse to wriggle away, but because

  I was with Laurence and he was standing there

  like a bronze statue with its beak wide open

  in shock, I had to stand there as well, to try to

  be supportive.

  The first flamingo lowered his head to

  Laurence’s level and whispered, “You’re not one

  of us. You’re just a common, plain bird. No one is

  interested in your type.”

  140

  He and his friends turned their backs to us and

  walked away on their twigs. I couldn’t believe

  how rude he was. I felt really angry. I wanted to

  do something that would make a difference. I

  powered up my worm brain to think of something

  that would help Laurence.

  “Should I go and hit him?” I asked.

  “No, don’t do that,” Laurence said.

  I was glad, because I’d never hit

  anyone before. That was another thing

  that they didn’t teach us in worm school.

  As I stood there
, feeling like a tiny,

  helpless worm, I remembered Robert the Bruce.

  Well, not Robert, but the spider who inspired him

  to never give up. If that spider were here now, he’d

  probably tell me to go and stand up for Laurence.

  With that in mind, I wriggled over to the

  group of flamingos and said in my boldest voice,

  “And WHAT do you THINK you are DOING?”

  The flamingos turned to look at me.

  try

  try

  try

  again

  141

  They looked confused. “I said, WHAT DO YOU

  THINK YOU ARE DOING?”

  The flamingos looked at the ground with

  sullen faces, suddenly

  ashamed. I couldn’t believe

  that they were listening

  to me! I felt as big as

  a tall building.

  “We’re not doing

  nothing,” mumbled the

  one with the scratchy

  voice.

  “You’re not doing ANYTHING,” I said,

  correcting his grammar while wriggling

  slowly and deliberately in a circle around the

  four of them.

  “What’s he doing?” asked a flamingo with

  a big beak, who was now looking pretty worried.

  “I heard the way that you spoke to this bird,

  Laurence.” Laurence flew and stood by my side.

  building

  me

  “YOU flamingos have been very RUDE and

  DISRESPECTFUL to him.”

  One of the flamingos looked up for a moment,

  her face full of indignation.

  “I want you to apologize,” I said.

  The birds crossed their wings and huffed

  and muttered under

  their breaths. “I’m

  not going to

  apologize,” one of

  them mumbled.

  143

  “NOW!” I said, pretending that I was as big as

  a skyscraper.

  “Sorry, Laurence,” they said in unison.

  That was good, I thought. I liked being a

  skyscraper. “And WHY are you sorry?”

  “For being rude and disrespectful,” they all

  said together.