So today we finished reading aloud Charlotte's Web. The Criminals have been glued to the rug every morning for our chapter and had begun begging for another chapter in the afternoon, so on the final day I obliged with the last TWO chapters in the afternoon. For days, we've been reading and talking and asking questions like, "Miss Victoria, what's manure? Miss Victoria, what's a fair? What's a barn swallow? How come the little girl takes care of the pig? She live on a farm? What that broken egg smell like, poo? Ha ha Miss Victoria that so funny!" Insert twenty little helium laughs here. In the chapter where, "the geese cheered," every two seconds, the Criminals cheered too.
Today though, you pretty much could've heard a pin drop, except when they were yelling "MISS VICTORIA WHAT'S A MAGNUM OPUS???" before I could get to Wilbur asking the same question. Charlotte explains everything just like Miss Victoria does, except she doesn't yell "STOP SHOUTING!" first.
And then they began to look suspicious when Charlotte seemed to be tired a LOT lately. And then Wilbur and Templeton packed up the egg sac and went home without Charlotte. And then, just as E. B. White says in the book...Charlotte died.
You would've thought I had killed these childrens' own mothers. Hot glares, shaking fingers, "Noooo no no bad Miss Victoria!" And Miss Victoria, wiping her own tears, said, "Well, it was Charlotte's time. But let's see what happens next."
And, God was in His heaven, all was right with the world: The baby spiders began to appear. After the first set, there was cautious applause. Then louder after the next, and when all 514 arrived, a thunderous ovation. The thunderous ovation continued intermittently until the very last sentence of the book.
Mr. White, I hope you were listening. In case you missed it, Stuart Little starts tomorrow.
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