Mrs. Calliope woke up with a headache because a woodpecker was
tapping outside her window all night.
When she walked into her classroom that morning, the children were having a
Terrible, Horrible, Boisterous, Noisy morning!
Patty and Penny were playing basketball with library books,
throwing them into the trash can.
Pansy and Peri were the cheerleaders and you could hear their
"Hoorays" ten rooms away.
Tim and Tom were yelling all of the silly words they could
think of. Tom yelled, "You silly willy noodle bump!"
Tom yelled even louder, "Ha, you are just a wumple, bumple, zimbling,
mipple snapper."
Tiny little Mindy was turning all of the desks over and
stepping on the crayons.
Worst of all, all of the children were taking off all of their shoes and socks
and putting them into a big, jumbled pile.
Mrs. Calliope walked into this terrible mess and said,
"Oh me, oh my, I can just tell, this is going to be a
Terrible, Horrible, Noisy, boisterous, Noisy Day!"
"Children, children!" she shouted, but no-one heard
a thing-
they were too noisy.
She shouted, "Go to your seats immediately!
There will be no recess today!"
But the children still kept up their noise.
Maryanne looked at Mrs. Calliope and smiled,
then stomped on her teacher's foot.
Zack started to paint the wall with green paint.
Henry splashed water on the wall.
Little green rivers of paint and water started to run down the wall, onto the
floor,
and toward the carpet filled with the towering shoe and sock mountain.
Mrs. Calliope put her hands on her hips and said firmly,
"That's enough! There will be no more of this foolishness.
Everyone stop right where you are!"
Twenty pairs of eyes found their teacher.
Forty shoes and thirty-nine socks started too roll away from
the shoe mountain.
The little green rivers crept closer and closer to the carpet.
"Well, children, I can see that this started to be a
Terrible, Horrible, Boisterous, Noisy day.
But no more.
Now it is clean-up time.
After that we will have a surprise spelling test."
Slowly and quietly the children started to clean the room.
The rivers disappeared in to a mop; the wall was scrubbed clean.
Somehow all of the shoes and all of the socks, except one, made it back to the
right feet.
The library books were put back on the shelf-all standing up straight.
Crayons were put back into their boxes.
Desks were straightened, then a wonderful thing happened,
Mrs. Calliope's headache began to fade away.
The children started to talk in quiet voices and even said
words like "Please" and "Thank you," and "I'm
sorry."
Smiles took the place of sad, frowning faces,
and the day turned into a Nice, Friendly, happy, Helpful Day-
and all of the children got A+ on their spelling tests.
When Mrs. Calliope went home, she looked outside and said,
"Woodpecker, go to another tree. I need a long nap."
Mrs. Calliope took
Quiet, Restful, Peaceful, Sleepy nap.
