Whiskers Second Adventure

Whiskers, Stinky and Nancy were walking to their school. They were excited about meeting new friends. .

“I wonder who we will meet today,” exclaimed Whiskers.

Nancy was skipping ahead when she replied, “I just hope we have some new girls in our class”.

Stinky spoke up, “I hope we do not have Billy Badger in our class, he is mean.”

“Fuzzy Bear is too, he tripped me and made me fall hard on the sidewalk,” said Nancy.

“I do not think Fuzzy Bear meant to hurt you Nancy.  I think he was just being silly.”
Whiskers protested, “I think he just misses his Dad and he is mad at everyone.”

Whiskers looked ahead to their school while hoping that he did well in his classes this year.  Grandfather promised to take him camping if he did a good job.

Nancy was thinking about her dance classes while Stinky was watching for Billy Badger.
The threesome heard the school chimes and rushed ahead not to be late.

“Good morning children, I am Miss Foxx she announced. “Please be seated and I will call the roll. Please raise your paw when I call your name so I will know who you are.”

“William Badger, William Badger.  Is William not here today?” she asked the class.

Whiskers raised his paw and said, “Billy was not outside this morning Miss Foxx.”

The children all started whispering among themselves.  Miss Foxx quickly called the class to order and continued with the roll call.

“James Bear, please raise your paw?” Miss Foxx requested.  Fuzzy raised his paw and replied to Miss Foxx, “Everyone calls me Fuzzy.”

“Thank You, Fuzzy. If anyone else would prefer to be called by another name than what is on the attendance roster, please let me know now.” Miss Foxx looked back down at the attendance roster. “Okay, let’s see…Jonah Rabbit, III?” Whiskers raised his paw and said, “Please call me Whiskers.”

“Thank You, Whiskers. Nancy Rabbit?” Nancy raised her paw and said, “I’m okay with Nancy, Miss Foxx”.

Miss Foxx smiled as she looked at Nancy, and continued. “Stanley Skunk? “ Stanley raised his paw and replied, “I am here Miss Foxx, and everyone calls me Stinky.” There was a short outburst of laughter throughout the room at this comment. Miss Foxx brought order back to the room and continued the roll call. The remaining students raised their paws and provided their preferred names to Miss Foxx. They included the twin sisters, Karen and Sharon Squirrel, Nikki Raccoon, Rick Raccoon, and Gray Wolf.

When the roll call was complete, Miss Foxx placed the attendance roster back down on her desk and replied to the class, “Thank you children.  I need to let the Principal know that William Badger is absent. Stinky would you take a message to the office?”

Stinky was surprised that Miss Foxx was giving him such an important job on the very first day of school. He stood-up promptly from his desk and exclaimed, “Yes Miss Foxx, I would be happy to go.”

“That’s wonderful, Stinky. Now class, while Stinky runs this to the office for me, would you please take out your history books and start reading, in silence, the first chapter.” The students began to pull out their history books and began reading. Meanwhile, Miss Foxx took out a slip of paper, wrote a note concerning the absence of William Badger, and handed the note to Stinky.  Stinky immediately departed the room for the office.

After a few moments, Miss Foxx notice that several of the children were whispering. From what she could hear, it appeared that the children were wondering why they had to read such old stuff.  The wars were over a long time ago, so why read about them today?

Miss Foxx spoke up and instructed the children to continue reading until Stinky returned.  That way he would not miss any of their discussion.

When Stinky returned, Miss Foxx asked a question of the class.  “How many of you had a family member fighting in the war?”  Just about all the children raised their paws.

Miss Foxx noticed one student was silently crying and she went immediately to his desk. She bent down and whispered, “Fuzzy, is something wrong?  May I help you in some way?” she asked. 

Fuzzy put his head on his desk and started to cry harder. Whiskers spoke up, “Miss Foxx, Fuzzy’s Dad died in the war.”  Miss Foxx patted Fuzzy’s back until he stopped crying and sat up again.  “Fuzzy, we are all so sorry for your loss.  Is there anything we, as a class, can do to help you and your Mother?” she asked softly.

Fuzzy looked up at Miss Foxx saying, “I do not know, maybe you should ask my Mother, she might know of something.”

“I will make it a point to visit your Mother on my way home this afternoon.  Please wait and walk with me so that I may find where your home is located.”  Miss Foxx returned to the front of the class and asked the class, “As a class project, what could we do to help the surviving families of the war?” Several members of the class started talking aloud about different ideas they had. Soon the class, with many different conversations and ideas, was energized about a class project.

Miss Foxx went to the whiteboard and starting writing down all of the different ideas that the students presented. After a few moments, there were over a dozen good ideas.

Miss Foxx thanked the class and then asked, “Why do you think it is important to learn about history?”

Whiskers raised his paw and said, “My Grandfather read me something from an old book. He said that it is important that we learn from our mistakes so that we do not make them again. If we understand the reasons behind the war and why it started, maybe there won’t be anymore wars.”

Miss Foxx was very impressed with Whiskers response. “Very good, Whiskers, history teaches us very valuable lessons. But we cannot learn these lessons unless we study really hard.”

Many of the students nodded their heads in agreement. “Good, now let’s start learning.  Please resume your reading of the first chapter from your history book.”

Most of the classes that Whiskers, Stinky, Gray and Nancy attended their first day of school were fun, but not nearly as interesting as their history class.  When the school bell rang, the three of them rushed out of the front door and headed for home. Looking over his shoulder, Whiskers noticed that Fuzzy and Miss Foxx were heading off together down the path toward Fuzzy’s home.

***

Mrs. Bear came into the living room when she heard a strange voice.  Miss Foxx introduced herself and told Mrs. Bear how her class would like to do something for the Bear family.  Mrs. Bear began to cry softly and Fuzzy ran to her side, giving her a hug.

Mrs. Bear finally stopped crying and told Miss Foxx about her husband, Robert. “My husband was an Intelligence Operator on the front lines.  His job was to report on the enemy and what they were doing; how many there were; what equipment they had”

Miss Foxx asked if she could bring the class to Mrs. Bear’s home on Friday, “The class would like to do something to honor Mr. Bear.”  Mrs. Bear wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “Of course you can, I will bake a large batch of cookies for them.”

The next morning Miss Foxx told the class what happened at Fuzzy’s home and if the class wished to participate further, they would need permission from their parents to visit Mrs. Bear in her home the next afternoon.  Miss Foxx gave permission slips to each student.  They were to take the permission slips to their parents, explaining why they needed the slips and what the class wanted to accomplish.  Whiskers rushed home to talk
to his mother, filling her in on the class project and why he needed the permission slip. She immediately signed the permission slip and gave it back to Whiskers with a smile.

***

When class ended on Friday, the children who had a signed permission slip, walked with Miss Foxx and Fuzzy to his home. 

Mrs. Bear met them at the door and welcomed them to her home.  “Please come in. I have made a batch of cookies and a large pitcher of lemonade for the class.  Please, make yourselves at home and enjoy your snack.  We will talk when you are finished eating.”

Whiskers spoke up, “We want to help, tell us what we can do.”

All the children began speaking at once. They were expressing some of the ideas they first raised in class two days ago, most of them so crazy they all started laughing.  Mrs. Bear and Miss Foxx joined in their laughter.

Finally, they all settled down, and Mrs. Bear began to speak.  “When Robert was a young cub, he always wished he could attend summer camp, but it was too expensive.  Maybe there would be a way to help children attend the camp in his name.” The class began talking about the idea of helping other students attend summer camp.

Miss Foxx commanded the attention of the class and said they would leave and talk more about this on Monday.  She further requested the class to write down different ways to accomplish the goal.

As the class left, each of them gave Mrs. Bear a hug and said they would come up with something to honor Mr. Bear.  They would let her know very soon.

* * *

Later that evening, when Whiskers had finished his dinner and homework, he walked over to his Grandfathers house.  Whiskers knew his Grandfather had been in the first war, but he did not know what his job had been.  Whiskers’ Father had been in the last war, but, he was out of town, so, he would have to ask his Grandfather for ideas. 

Whiskers knew that in a week, his Grandfather, Jonah Rabbit, Sr., would be retiring as the Police Chief and his replacement would be Russell (Russ) Wolf.  Russ had earned his promotion by being an excellent police officer.  Russ had also served in the last war as a Military Policeman (MP).  By having the experience of working as a soldier and a civilian police officer, Whiskers thought he would be an excellent Chief of Police.

Whiskers and his Grandfather talked for quite a while about the project.  Whiskers wrote down everything they thought of as a money raising activity.  Whiskers thanked his Grandfather for his help and walked home to get ready for bed.  He had the weekend to finish his report due on Monday.

* * * 

Saturday and Sunday were wonderful, fun filled days for all the children in the neighborhood.  More children came to the park to play and visit.  All the boys got together to play ball, while the girls made new clothes for their doll collections.

On Monday morning, Whiskers, Stinky, Nancy and Gray met at the corner and walked to school together.  On the way to class, they talked about the project and the ideas they gathered over the weekend.  As they went in to their classroom, the other students started talking about their ideas too.  Miss Foxx called the room to order and took the roll call.  Billy Badger was still missing from class and no one knew where he could be. Of course, as the class bully, they did not worry about him. 

Miss Foxx wrote down all the ideas the children had brought in on the whiteboard.  That way they could see their choices.  They could not decide between three events, so, they held a vote and chose to do a talent/variety show.  That way they could charge everyone admission and raise money to send several students to camp.

To Miss Foxx’s amazement, several students in the class either sang or played an instrument.  They decided to have the event one month from today. This allowed them the time to advertise and get other students interested enough to help.  It would be held in the large gym at the school because it had a stage and lots of seating.

Many of the students at the school pitched in to help.  The big event was going to be held on a Saturday evening and everyone was very excited.  Miss Foxx and her class had no idea there were so many talented students attending their school.

* * *

The big day of the talent show has finally arrived.  Since Whiskers could neither sing nor play an instrument, his job was to introduce each act to the audience.  Stinky was going to take care of opening and closing the stage curtains.  Gray was to escort the guests to their seats. 

When Mrs. Bear arrived, Gray escorted her to a reserved seat on the front row.  Mrs. Bear was thrilled with the honor of a front row seat.  After looking around, Mrs. Bear gave a warm smile to her fellow honored guests who had lost their loved ones too.

Mrs. Bear and the entire audience cheered and applauded every act.  They really did appreciate all the hard work the students had done, not just to entertain them, but for a good cause, honoring those who had fallen in time of war. 

At the end of the final act, all the students who had participated came out on stage for a huge round of applause and a final bow to their audience.  Mrs. Bear was standing, smiling and applauding.  She was so proud of all the students with their good hearts and kindness.  Miss Foxx joined the students on stage and made the following announcement.

“Because of your support in attending this show, the school has enough money to send at least twelve students to summer camp and twelve more next year.  On behalf of all the students, I would like to thank you for your generosity, but, more importantly, your attendance and support of all the students and this project.  We, as a class, wanted to honor our fallen troops in some way.  The children chose this way, to help children of our fighting men and women who have fallen in battle.  Again, thank you so very much.”

When Miss Foxx had finished her announcement, Fuzzy walked up to the stage and read aloud a patriotic poem that he dedicated to his father.

Whiskers looked from the stage toward the audience and noticed that many people appeared to be crying, yet they were smiling. This confused Whiskers. He then looked over at his Grandfather and noticed that he was crying and smiling.  He wondered how a person could be sad and happy at the same time. Then he realized how this could happen.  After all, he was happy for Fuzzy and all of the other kids that could now go to summer camp, but he was sad for their loss. A small smile formed on his face and he nodded his head in acknowledgement. This realization made perfect sense to him.
                                                         
***

After school that Monday afternoon, Whiskers, Stinky, Gray and Fuzzy walked over to Billy Badger’s home.  They found the house dark and locked.  It appeared that no one was there.  Now they had a mystery to report to Whiskers Grandfather, Chief Rabbit, and Miss Foxx the next day. However, that is another adventure.