8

Science

Twenty-nine hands were raised.

There were only twenty-eight kids in Mrs. Jewls’s class, but Joy stretched both her arms high in the air. She figured it doubled her chance of being chosen. She waved them back and forth, and around in circles.

“Pick me, pick me!” begged Bebe.

“Pick me, Mrs. Jewls,” urged Calvin, sitting next to Bebe.

“Sorry, Calvin, you’re too heavy,” Mrs. Jewls told him. “And your toes are too tiny, Bebe.”

Todd sat behind Joy but Mrs. Jewls couldn’t see him behind Joy’s helicopter arms.

“Okay, Joy!” said Mrs. Jewls.

Everyone else groaned.

Joy was all smiles. “You lose, losers!” she said as she headed toward the door.

This week, for science, they would be studying clouds. Luckily, Mrs. Jewls’s class was on the thirtieth floor. It was the classroom closest to the sky.

Last week, they studied dirt. That wasn’t so lucky. By the time they made it down to the ground, science was over, and they had to turn around and trudge back up.

Everyone brought their science notebooks and gathered just outside the door, by the closet that wasn’t there.

Mrs. Jewls put her hands around Joy’s waist. “Alley-oopsy!” she called out, and lifted Joy straight up.

Joy giggled.

This was why Mrs. Jewls hadn’t chosen Calvin. He was too heavy for her to lift.

Mrs. Jewls set Joy on top of the closet. Just above her, a trapdoor led to the roof. Joy stood on her tiptoes and pushed it open. This was why Mrs. Jewls hadn’t chosen Bebe. Her toes weren’t long enough.

A rope ladder tumbled down.

One by one, the children climbed the rope ladder to the roof.

“Be sure to stay away from the edge,” Mrs. Jewls called up to them.

There was a safety railing around the edge, but it was for taller people. Mrs. Jewls was afraid her students could slip right under it.

She was the last one up through the trapdoor. When she reached the roof, she saw everyone standing at the edge.

“What did I just say?” she demanded.

Everyone stared blankly at her.

“Alley-oopsy?” asked Dameon.

“Well, at least somebody was paying attention,” said Mrs. Jewls. She told everyone to take two steps back, and to sit on their bottoms.

“But then we’ll be farther away from the clouds,” Mac complained.

“Sometimes, safety is more important,” said Mrs. Jewls.

She pointed out the clouds to her class. “That one there is a cumulus cloud.”

Some of the students wrote it down in their notebooks. Bebe drew a picture of a sleeping giant. The cumulus cloud was his pillow.

“And that’s a cirrus cloud over there,” said Mrs. Jewls.

Bebe drew a picture of flying angels. Hundreds of white feathers had fallen from their wings and had swirled into a cloud.

Bebe could draw really fast.

“What kind of cloud is that one, Mrs. Jewls?” asked Benjamin.

He was pointing at a dull, dark cloud way off in the distance.

Mrs. Jewls gasped.

If Bebe were to draw it, her picture would look exactly like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag, while the vacuum was still on.

But Bebe had never seen the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag while the vacuum was still on. So she couldn’t draw it.

“Everyone back to the classroom!” Mrs. Jewls shouted. “Double quick!”

The children scrambled to the trapdoor.

“Hurry!” ordered Mrs. Jewls.

Some fell right through. Others got rope burns.

Mrs. Jewls didn’t worry about little things like that.

She was the last one through the hatch. Sitting atop the closet that wasn’t there, she tossed the ladder back on the roof and locked the trapdoor.

She climbed down, stepping onto the chains and steel bar.

The children were waiting quietly inside the classroom, hands folded on their desks.

Mrs. Jewls walked to the side of the room and looked out the window. Either the cloud was moving closer, or it was getting bigger.

Or both.

“What kind of cloud is it, Mrs. Jewls?” asked Leslie.

There are times when adults hide the truth from children, so as not to worry them. But Mrs. Jewls was a teacher. And this was science.

“Take a good look, boys and girls,” she said, pointing out the window. Then, with a slight tremble in her voice, she said, “That is a Cloud of Doom.”

The room darkened.