Page 105 - November 2020

105
Litterateur
November 2020

An Army of Frogs

As Greg settled himself behind his desk, he noticed Regina walking in. This
worried him. Because of the terrible importance of the day, even Regina’s
embarrassment couldn’t allow her to stay home, and she certainly had made a huge
mess the day before during the math quiz. But what really bothered Greg was that

none of his classmates (or himself, for that matter) bothered to tease her. The class
looked as if their thoughts were a million miles away.

Mrs. Worton strolled in and put on a big smile, even bigger than the smile she gave
when the class presented her with a large, multi-colored paperweight, shaped like
an egg, for Christmas. Trumella Austin’s father took the seven dollars and sixty-
four cents the kids had raised and picked it out for the class from the stationary
store he owned. Greg thought it was a beauty.

Behind his teacher’s smile Greg knew she was nervous too because she took roll
call before the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Nothing was mentioned about what
they had to do in a matter of hours.

For the first time all year the classroom hours sped by. The clock read 10:30 when
Mrs. Worton ordered them to lay down their pencils. She then distributed 11x15
sheets of construction paper to each student and told them they were to use it to
create a frog map that they would fill in as they dissected their frogs.

Greg raised his hand.

“What do you mean by a frog map? I don’t understand.”

Mrs. Worton looked sternly at Greg.

“Had you been turning in your homework regularly the past two weeks, Mr.Burton,
you would have known that the handouts I gave out in class were to prep you for
this project.”

“Why do we have to cut open a frog?” whined Regina. “What’s the point?”
“The point,” said Mrs. Worton curtly, “is to satisfy national standards for sixth
grade introduction to organs and organ systems.”