Seeing Orange Read Free

picture?”
    â€œLeland, you aren’t in grade two to draw pictures,” Mr. Carling says as he unwraps a candy. I would like a candy.
    Sammen stink , I write.
    The bell rings. The kids stomp in, big and loud and smelling like the wind.

Chapter Seven
    Mr. Carling lets me go to Goldstream after all. It’s a long, bumpy ride on the orange school bus. At the park, a biologist cuts open a dead salmon. She teaches us not to say Yuck! but rather, How interesting! The salmon’s heart is a deep red-purple. Its liver is purple-brown. Its brain is white! The biologist tells us that a salmon’s eye weighs more than its brain does! It makes me wonder if salmon think with their eyes. I sometimes feel that I do.
    The biologist holds one of the fish’s eyeballs between her thumb and finger, and we take turns looking through it. Everything is upside down! The fish’s brain turns everything right-side up again. The biologist says our brains do the same thing.
    I go into the woods and lie down along the long trunk of a fallen tree. I stretch my head back so everything is upside down. I just lie there listening, watching the tree branches take root in the blue sky. I close my eyes. The moss and leaves smell good. Then I hear heavy footsteps.
    I open my eyes. Mr. Carling is right beside me.
    â€œLeland! Are you hurt?” He speaks quickly.
    â€œI’m fine,” I say.
    â€œThank goodness,” Mr. Carling says. He wipes his forehead with his hand. Then he asks sharply, “Why are you off the trail?”
    I spy a bright piece of garbage in the brush.
    â€œMy granola-bar wrapper blew away,” I lie. “I was getting it. I…I tripped.”
    I get up. Mr. Carling brushes dirt and leaves from my jacket.
    â€œWe have to catch up to the others,” he says, heading back to the trail. Then he falls.
    â€œOuch!” he yells. He stays on the ground, rubbing his foot. “Oh. Oh.” He tries to stand and winces.
    â€œLeland, I need you to hurry to the nature house,” he says. He points through the woods, to a building with a red roof. “Tell Madame Maillot that I’ve twisted my ankle.” Madame Maillot is a teacher that is helping him today. “Tell her I’ve gone to the bus.” Mr. Carling gives me a serious look. “Don’t get lost, Leland. Don’t forget what you need to tell Madame Maillot.”
    I nod and hurry to the path. I look back once to see Mr. Carling hopping toward the bus. He stops to rest every few hops.
    I chant:
    Madame Maillot, Madame Maillot Madame Maillot has got to know

    I cross a little bridge. The stream below sounds like xylophone music. I crouch and peer through the slats of the bridge. The water under the bridge wrinkles and unwrinkles as it moves. It never stops. I drop a stick over the rail, then run to the other side and watch it pop out. The stick bobs along. It gets smaller and smaller until I can’t see it anymore. I grab a handful of leaves and toss them down. They bounce along on the back of the stream, like little canoes. The stream burbles. I put my hand to my ear to listen. It says:
    Madame Maillot, Madame Maillot
    I forgot! I run like mad. In the nature house, Madame Maillot is talking to the class. I grab her sleeve. “Not now, Leland,” she says.
    But I say, “Yes, now. Mr. Carling fell in the forest. He twisted his ankle. He will wait for us on the bus.”
    â€œThank you, Leland,” Madame Maillot says. She gets down on her knee and looks me in the eye. “Well done,” she says.

    Mom doesn’t usually answer the phone during supper, but tonight she jumps up when it rings.
    She listens for a moment. “Yes! Great! Thank you!” she says. She hangs up and sighs. “That was no help. The caller saw Pumpkin on our street—five days ago.”
    We’re quiet as we clear the table. Mom opens the window and shakes out the tablecloth, which she does every night.