whangdoodle
\ HWANG-dood-l, WANG- \ , noun;
1. a fanciful creature of undefined nature.
****************************8
“Ok, class, it’s time for art.” Heather said. “Get out your crayons, markers, or colored
pencils.” She waited a bit for the
children in her first grade class to rummage through the supplies on hand to
get out the needed materials. Quiet
chatter filled the room as a few of the children found their art supplies
lacking, and tried to ‘borrow’ some from those next to them. “If you don’t have any you can use, then
there’s plenty for everyone at the coloring table.” She said.
A group of students got up and went to what had been called the coloring
table. It was a small, round plastic
table where Heather had dumped all the loose art supplies that had been lost over
the years. Once the children had laid
claim to as many art supplies as their small hands could manage, they sat down.
“Now
then, everyone have what they need?
Good.” She continued, “Ok, let’s
start then. Now, who wants to pass out
drawing paper to the class?” She looked
around. She already knew there would be two
or three that were eager to volunteer for anything. Sure enough, three hands shot up into the
air, all three belonging to the more helpful or eager to please children. “Ok, how about…Jimmy, why don’t you do it?” A short, chubby boy quickly stood up and went
over to Heather. He smiled as she gave
him a stack of blank white paper. He immediately
set out to distribute the stack to his classmates.
“Now,
once everyone has their paper we can begin.
For today, let’s try something new, alright? Draw a new kind of animal that you made
up. If you can’t think of anything, draw
an animal someone in your family made up.
After that, write a little about your animal, like its name, where it
lives, and what kind of food it eats.”
“Can it
really be anything we want?” Said one of
the students, a young boy with a very hopeful look.
“Yes it
can. As long as it’s something you or a
family member made up, it can be anything.
Now, let’s get started.”
The
room was again filled with quiet chatter as the students got to work drawing
whatever their young minds could think of.
Heather went around the room, examining their work, asking the occasional
question about the more interesting creations.
This kind of thing was one of the more enjoyable times for her, mostly
since it was the closest thing she had to a break during the school day. Since she taught first grade, she couldn’t
really leave them alone for very long, even during lunch and recess, so assignments
where she didn’t actually need to do much were godsends for her.
As she
was going around the room, one drawing in particular caught her eye. It wasn’t any better than those the other
student’s made, since it was just as crude and messy as one could expect from a
first grader. It was what the picture
was of. It looked to be a deer with a technicolor
body, and what seemed to be slippers on its feet. To most people, it would probably be nothing
more than a child’s attempt to create something when they couldn’t think of
anything. But Heather had been doing her
job for too long for that. She knew what
it was supposed to be.
“That’s
very nice, Nichole, what do you call it?”
She said to the girl who was busy drawing the antlers with a thick brown
crayon.
“It’s a
Whangdoodle. My brother made it up. I wanted to make something on my own, but I
couldn’t, so I used this one.”
“I see.” Heather said.
She knew Nichole’s brother well.
She had taught him several years before.
He was a very creative boy, but all his creativity seemed to be focused
entirely on lying. “Are you sure you’re
brother made it up? Because I think it
was made up by someone else a long time ago.”
She said, trying to be gentle about it.
“Nuh-uh. He made it up. He said so.”
Nichole said, remaining focused on her drawing.
“Well,
what if he was wrong about that?”
Heather said. She couldn’t just
say the boy was lying to his younger sister, so she had to come up with other
ways of saying it.
“I don’t
think so. If he was, he’d say so. He always says to tell when you get something
wrong.” Nichole said, finally looking
away from the paper. That didn’t sound
like the same boy, but at least he was trying to set his sister on the right
track.
“Well, what
if he read about it somewhere and forgot?
Then he might have thought it was his idea without knowing it.” She was treading on thin ice. If she said the wrong thing, Nichole could
erupt in a fit of tears.
“Um,
maybe.” The girl said. “But if it’s not his, then does that mean I
have to start over?” She asked.
“No, I
think you’re alright to finish this one.”
Heather said. She couldn’t have
one student finishing a drawing after all the others had completed theirs. Although this particular drawing did fall out
of the rules she had set, it was at least an attempt. And if she didn’t, then it would probably
spawn a slew of questions, that might result in her calling Nicole’s brother a liar,
which was exactly what she was trying to avoid.
As long as none of the other kids knew about it, it should be fine. Instead of pressing the issue further, she
let Nichole finish the drawing, and made a mental note to bring the appropriate
reading materials to her attention.
********************
Anyone other than me remember this book? Anyone? Anyone at all? It's a fun little book for children, it really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment