Amelia Bedelia Hops to It Page 2

  Amelia Bedelia shook her head. “Oh, Daddy. How can you tell if a clam is happy or not?” she asked.

  Her father thought for a moment. “Good point. There’s no way to tell. Especially if it clams up. So what’s going on? Why are you so happy?”

  “We start our chick-hatching unit in science today. We’ll learn how to take care of the eggs when they’re delivered tomorrow!” Amelia Bedelia announced.

  “How exciting!” said her mother.

  “Well, you know what they say . . . don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” her father joked, turning to the sports page.

  Amelia Bedelia grabbed a piece of buttered toast. “There won’t be any chickens to count, Daddy. Just eggs!”

  When Amelia Bedelia arrived at school, her friends were as excited as she was. She hung her jacket in the closet and walked to her desk.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” squealed Rose, bouncing in her chair. “I’m on pins and needles!”

  Amelia Bedelia grabbed Rose’s arm. “Quick! Stand up!”

  Rose hopped to her feet and spun in a circle. “I’m so excited!” she said.

  “Me too!” said Penny.

  “Me three!” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “Okay, everyone!” said Mrs. Shauk, walking to the front of the room. “I know you are all excited about the chicks, but it’s time to sit down and begin our day. Please take out your math notebooks. Let’s start with some word problems.”

  Once everyone had their pencils out and notebooks opened, Mrs. Shauk said, “Bob owns the Big Dipper Ice Cream Shop. One day he sold one hundred and three scoops of chocolate chip, fifty-five scoops of fudge ripple, and seventy-three scoops of pink bubblegum. How many scoops of ice cream did he sell in all?”

  The class stared back at her.

  “Anyone?” Mrs. Shauk asked.

  Skip looked down at his notebook. “Um, a lot?” he said.

  Mrs. Shauk sighed and walked to the whiteboard. She uncapped her pen and was about to start writing when she turned back around to the class with a smile. “Let’s try a different approach,” she said. “Bob owns the Happy Acres Chicken Farm. He has one hundred and three hens, fifty-five roosters, and seventy-three chicks. How many chickens does he have in all?”

  After a moment, almost everyone’s hand shot up.

  “Yes, Heather?” said Mrs. Shauk.

  “Two hundred and thirty-one!” Heather said.

  “Excellent!” said Mrs. Shauk.

  The rest of the word problems that morning featured Bob and his chickens. Amelia Bedelia and her friends got them all right, and in record time too.

  “Nicely done, class,” said Mrs. Shauk. She looked very pleased.

  Clay raised his hand.

  “Yes, Clay?” said Mrs. Shauk.

  “Why do chickens lay eggs?” he asked.

  Mrs. Shauk nodded. “That’s a good question,” she said. “There are two reasons. One, to hatch baby chicks. And two, for people to eat.” She smiled.

  As long as they’re not fried, thought Amelia Bedelia.

  Clay grinned. “Actually,” he said, “chickens lay eggs because if they dropped them, they’d break!”

  Mrs. Shauk looked stern for a moment. Then she laughed. “I can’t argue with you there, Clay,” she said.

  After math class was over, Amelia Bedelia and her friends trooped into Ms. Garcia’s classroom. The incubator, a large plastic oval with a see-through top, sat on a table at the front of the room. It reminded Amelia Bedelia of a small flying saucer, like in those old black-and-white movies about alien invaders that her father liked to watch.

  Everyone gathered around the incubator excitedly. Soon it would be filled with eggs, which would soon be filled with growing chicks, pecking their way out of their shells to become living, breathing chickens. Sure, they had Hermione the corn snake and Harriet the hamster in their science classroom, but this was different.

  “I’ve never seen you so eager for science class!” said Ms. Garcia. “I have to admit, I’m pretty excited too.”

  “But are you eggcited?” asked Clay.

  Ms. Garcia laughed. “I am!”

  Once everyone was settled, Ms. Garcia said, “As you all know, we are about to start a new unit where we will be incubating and hatching baby chicks in our classroom. This is a very important job. We need to keep the eggs moist and warm, so we’ll have to monitor the temperature and the humidity of the incubator. Plus, the developing chicks need to be positioned correctly inside their shells, so we’ll be rotating the eggs three times a day. And we’ll be keeping track of everything we do and recording our observations in these egg hatching journals.” She held up a stack of journals, each with a fuzzy chick on the cover, and began handing them out to the class. Amelia Bedelia took out her favorite pen and wrote her name very carefully and neatly on the front of hers.

  “So, what can you tell me about chickens?” Ms. Garcia asked.

  “They have beaks and floppy red thingamabobs on their heads,” said Penny.

  “Combs,” said Ms. Garcia.

  “Chickens don’t need combs,” said Amelia Bedelia. “They don’t have hair.”

  “That’s right,” said Wade. “They have feathers. But they can’t really fly very far.”

  “Anything else?” said Mrs. Garcia.

  “They are called fowl,” said Joy.

  “Foul?” Amelia Bedelia asked. That couldn’t be right. Chickens were so friendly, nice, and sweet, plus they didn’t play sports!

  Ms. Garcia nodded. “Yes, fowl,” she said. “They are in the same scientific order as turkeys and pheasants.”

  “Well, I’d rather call them chickens,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “Chickens are smart and have excellent memories,” said Ms. Garcia. “And believe it or not, they are descended from dinosaurs!”

  “No way!” said Chip.

  Ms. Garcia nodded. “Chickens are the closest living relative we have to the T. rex.” She paused. “Anything else you can tell me about them?” She turned to look at the incubator. “We left out a pretty important fact.”

  “Oh,” said Amelia Bedelia. “They lay eggs!”

  “That’s right,” said Ms. Garcia. “After we set up the incubator, I’m going to pick up the eggs from Mrs. Hawthorne. Then we will label them and place them inside very carefully. We’ll have to keep track and make sure to rotate them three times a day. Can anyone guess how long it will take for the chicks to hatch?” she asked.

  “Um, nine months?” Teddy guessed.

  “Chicks grow much faster than human babies,” Ms. Garcia said. “It will take only twenty-one days for them to hatch from the time they start incubating. So, is everyone ready?”

  Amelia Bedelia and her friends cheered. Ms. Garcia smiled and picked up the incubator’s cord. Cliff began a shortened countdown that added to the suspense. “Five, four, three . . .” Ms. Garcia carefully inserted the prongs of the plug into the outlet on the wall. “Two, one . . . BLASTOFF!” The incubator lit up and glowed, humming with a static buzz that grew louder and louder. The students cheered again. Suddenly there was a flash of light and a loud POP!

  “Uh-oh,” said Ms. Garcia. “We do not have liftoff!”

  .4.

  Sit Tight or Hang Loose?

  A few seconds later, Mr. Jack was on the scene. “Everybody okay?” he asked. “Anybody hurt?” After making sure that everyone was fine and it was safe, he carefully unplugged the incubator.

  Ms. Garcia sighed. “Well, that was a disappointment,” she said.

  “The school bought this incubator right after I started working here,” said Mr. Jack. “I put it together. We go back a long way.”

  “Oh, so it was ancient,” said Ms. Garcia. “And on its last legs.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” said Mr. Jack, picking up the incubator and tucking it under his arm. “I think we’ve both got some life left in us.”

  Amelia Bedelia looked around the classroom. She wondered
if she was the only one paying attention to this odd conversation.

  Ms. Chase, the gym teacher, stuck her head in the doorway. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “What was that noise?”

  “Our incubator gave up the ghost,” said Ms. Garcia. “Dead as a doornail.”

  Amelia Bedelia’s eyes widened. She looked at her friends. Was the incubator haunted? Could they get new legs for it?

  Ms. Garcia thought for a moment. “Would you mind keeping an eye on the class?” she asked Ms. Chase.

  That sounded pretty uncomfortable to Amelia Bedelia, but to her surprise, Ms. Chase agreed.

  Ms. Garcia turned to the students. “Can you all sit tight while I’m gone?”

  They nodded. Amelia Bedelia shifted in her seat. How did you sit tight? And how was it different from the way she usually sat? She looked around at her friends. Everyone looked exactly the same, only more worried. The classroom was quiet.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” said Ms. Garcia. “Hang loose till then.”

  Amelia Bedelia was confused. Should she sit tight or hang loose? What was the difference?

  “So . . . um . . . how do chickens stay in shape?” Clay asked.

  “I don’t know, Clay,” Ms. Chase finally said. “How do chickens stay in shape?”

  “They eggcercise,” answered Clay.

  “Well, I should have known that one,” said the gym teacher.

  A few kids laughed half-heartedly.

  “Why did the chicken cross the playground?” Clay asked. “To get to the other slide! What do you call a chicken that goes on safari? An eggsplorer!”

  Even though Amelia Bedelia thought Clay’s jokes were pretty good, she was too worried to even smile.

  “What did the egg say to the clown?” Clay continued.

  “You crack me up,” came the answer from the doorway. Ms. Garcia had returned. She thanked Ms. Chase and then sat down at her desk.

  “I just went to Principal Hotchkiss’s office and told her what happened,” she explained. “I asked her if there was any money in the budget to purchase a new incubator.”

  “And what did she say?” asked Teddy.

  Ms. Garcia shook her head. “It seems the school is strapped for cash.”

  “Is that good or bad?” asked Amelia Bedelia.

  Candy turned around in her seat. “They’re out of dough,” she said.

  “So, no more Pizza Fridays?” said Amelia Bedelia. “What does that have to do with the baby chicks?”

  “It means that there’s simply no extra money for a new incubator,” Ms. Garcia explained. She shook her head sadly. “It looks like we’re not going to be able to hatch chicks after all.”

  “Awwwwww,” the class groaned.

  “I’m sorry,” said Ms. Garcia. “I know how disappointing this is.”

  Amelia Bedelia and her friends sat in stunned silence.

  Until, all of a sudden, Amelia Bedelia started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Ms. Garcia.

  “You fooled us, Ms. Garcia,” Amelia Bedelia said.

  “Did I?” asked Ms. Garcia.

  “It’s a late April Fools’ joke, right?” said Amelia Bedelia.

  Ms. Garcia sighed. “I really wish I was joking,” she said.

  “Me too,” said Amelia Bedelia, her eyes wide.

  Not even Clay had anything funny to say after that.

  .5.

  Egg on Her Face

  “I’m sorry for the disappointment about the chicks,” Ms. Garcia said the next day. “But as we all know, the show must go on.”

  That perked Amelia Bedelia up. A show would be a terrific way to cheer up the class! Everyone was still so sad about not hatching eggs in science.

  “We’re going to make rubber eggs!” Ms. Garcia continued. “It’s a great way to learn about the parts of an egg. And it’s super fun too.” She pointed to the whiteboard, where she had drawn a cross section of an egg.

  It wasn’t really a show, but it sounded interesting to Amelia Bedelia just the same. Plus, the project would take several days. First Ms. Garcia gave everyone an empty jar and a brown egg. They carefully placed their eggs inside their jars, then poured in enough white vinegar to cover the egg. Then they added one drop of food coloring and gently mixed it.

  “Do your eggs look any different?” Ms. Garcia asked, a day later.

  Amelia Bedelia had chosen to add a drop of red food coloring to her vinegar the day before. Now there was a layer of foam on the surface of the vinegar, and some larger, darker thin pieces floating in the jar. She carefully lifted the egg out of the jar with a spoon. Her egg was a pretty shade of pink, and the surface was speckled. She gently poked it.

  “My egg is starting to get soft!” she cried.

  Ms. Garcia nodded. “The shell is dissolving. It is made of calcium carbonate,” she explained. “And vinegar is a weak acid. When the calcium carbonate and the vinegar combine, it causes a chemical reaction. The calcium dissolves and floats off the egg. You can see the bigger pieces floating in the jar. And the carbonate creates carbon dioxide. That’s the foamy bubbles that you see.”

  On Monday, the eggs were ready.

  “Now carefully remove your eggs from the vinegar,” said Ms. Garcia. “We’re going to take turns gently rinsing the eggs to make sure all the shell is gone.”

  Amelia Bedelia held the egg in her hand. It felt slimy and squishy, but solid.

  “But how come there’s no shell but it’s still shaped like an egg?” asked Skip.

  “Great question, Skip,” said Ms. Garcia. “There are two membranes inside the shell—the inner and outer membranes. They hold the contents of the egg in place. The membranes protect the egg from bacteria and keep the moisture levels balanced inside. They are mainly made of protein. That’s why they did not dissolve in the vinegar.”

  Amelia Bedelia raised her hand. “Is it my imagination, or did my egg get bigger?”

  “Good observation,” said Ms. Garcia. “The eggs did get bigger. The water in the vinegar passed through the membranes to equalize the concentration of water on the inside and the outside of the egg. This process is called osmosis.”

  “I can see inside my egg!” Wade said.

  “That’s right,” said Ms. Garcia. “Without the shell, the egg is now translucent. Let’s take a closer look at what’s inside.”

  Everyone held up their eggs to the light.

  “The round part in the middle is the yolk, which provides food for the growing chick. The yolk is surrounded by the egg white, also called albumen, which is what the chick grows in. It provides protein and water. Now in some of your eggs, you may be able to see cords on either side of the yolk. They are called the chalazae, and they hold the yolk in place in the center of the shell, so it is protected.”

  “The what-lazy?” asked Amelia Bedelia.

  “The kah-LAY-zee,” said Ms. Garcia slowly.

  “Very cool,” said Dawn.

  “And now we have rubber eggs!” said Ms. Garcia. She bounced her egg gently on her desk. “Don’t squeeze it too hard, though.”

  “Even cooler!” Dawn whispered.

  Amelia Bedelia carefully bounced her pink egg on her desk. It really did bounce! She gently squeezed it, enjoying its rubbery smoothness.

  “Hey, Amelia Bedelia!” said Cliff. “Look inside my egg!” He held it up close to her face so she could take a look.

  “Be careful, Cliff,” warned Ms. Garcia. “These eggs are very delica—”

  SPLOOSH! The egg broke open in Cliff’s hand. Amelia Bedelia was splashed with a face full of egg goo.

  “EWWWW! Gross!” Amelia Bedelia shuddered.

  “I’m really, really sorry, Amelia Bedelia,” said Cliff. “You’re not the only one with egg on your face! I was sure it wouldn’t break, and look what happened.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t see any egg on your face,” said Amelia Bedelia.

  “You can both wash up at the sink,” said Ms. Garcia. “But before you do, I jus
t wanted to point out to everyone that the white part of the egg has been dyed by the food coloring, but the yolk is still its normal color, because it has another special membrane around it.”

  Amelia Bedelia headed to the sink in the back of the room. She wet some paper towels and began to scrub. It took a while to get the egg off her face and out of her hair.

  When she was done, Ms. Garcia called. “Amelia Bedelia, I forgot to freshen Hermione’s and Harriet’s water this morning. Would you mind taking care of that?”

  “Yes,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Um, I mean no, I wouldn’t mind.” She lifted the top of Hermione’s cage. The pretty orange-and-red-patterned snake picked up her head and flicked her tongue at Amelia Bedelia. Amelia Bedelia flicked hers right back. She rinsed Hermione’s bowl, filled it with fresh water, and placed it back in the cage.

  But when Amelia Bedelia reached for the door to Harriet’s cage, it opened way too easily. She realized it wasn’t fastened properly—not only that, she didn’t see Harriet. “Harriet, where are you?” she called softly. But Harriet wasn’t on her hamster wheel or in her little house. Was she hiding in the corner of the cage? Amelia Bedelia gently poked at the pile of hay and shavings, hoping to find the hamster.

  “Ms. Garcia!” she cried.

  Ms. Garcia rushed to the back of the room. “What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  “It’s Harriet!” Amelia Bedelia said. “She’s gone!”

  Amelia Bedelia and her friends stood quietly around the tree-stump table. At recess, they usually scattered, heading for the swings, the foursquare court, the jungle gym, a game of soccer. But today no one seemed to be in the mood.

  “Poor Ms. Garcia,” said Dawn. “First the incubator breaks, and now this.”

  Amelia Bedelia sighed. They had spent the rest of science class carefully moving books off shelves, searching every desk, closet, and cupboard. But there was no sign of Harriet anywhere.

  “Ms. Garcia didn’t seem too upset,” said Daisy. “She said that Harriet probably had spring fever.”

  “Oh no,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Even worse! Harriet is missing and sick!”

  “I think she’ll be okay,” said Angel. “Ms. Garcia is going to leave food on the classroom floor tonight, and she said that Harriet will probably be back in the morning.”