Free The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School by Candace Fleming

as they seem
.

THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE FELINE
    ON THE TUESDAY AFTERNOON BEFORE spring break, there was a knock on the classroom door and Ms. Bozzetto entered, pulling her art cart behind her. Up until this year, art had always had its own room. But overcrowding had forced the school to add a second kindergarten, so art had become mobile.
    “Not unlike the nomadic Xiongnu tribe of the Gobi desert,” Mr. Jupiter had said when he’d heard about the change. “Wonderful people, the Xiongnu.”
    Now Mr. Jupiter clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Time for art,” he said.
“P-u-t
away your spelling books, please.”
    “Hey!” said Amisha.
    As the students cleared their desks, Ms. Bozzetto reached into the bottom shelf of her cart and pulled out several large reproductions of famous paintings.
    “Today,” she said, “we are going to discuss the role of the cat in art history.”
    She held up the first print. “This is a painting byMr. Pierre-Auguste Renoir called ‘Sleeping Girl with a Cat.’ Notice the intense blue of the cat’s fur, and how much cuter it is than the sleeping girl.”
    She held up the next print. “Here is ‘Geraniums and Cats,’” also by Mr. Renoir. Aren’t those tiger-striped kittens adorable? Obviously, Mr. Renoir adored cats as much as I do.”
    She held up the last print. “And here is one of my all-time favorites. It’s called ‘Kitten on a Clothesline,’ by Mrs. Sylvia Renoir.”
    “Was that Pierre-Auguste’s wife?” asked Ashlee A.
    “No, that’s my landlady,” replied Ms. Bozzetto. “But art is art, no matter who creates it.”
    Ms. Bozzetto stowed the prints, then reached into the middle shelf of her cart. She pulled out a purple velvet pillow with gold fringe …
    “Lovely,” commented Victoria.
     … and a fluffy white cat with green eyes.
    “Yeeeks!” chirped the guinea pigs from their cage. They poked themselves, wiggling, between the bars, sniffing and staring.
    In Ms. Bozzetto’s hands, the cat hung limp as cooked spaghetti.
    “Is that a
live
cat?” asked Emberly.
    In reply, the cat blinked. Then it lolled onto the purple pillow, which Ms. Bozzetto had placed on top of her art cart, yawned so widely the students could see down its pink throat, and closed its eyes.
    “Just a little catnap,” snickered Lenny.
    In answer, the cat snored,
“ZZZZZZ.”
    Ms. Bozzetto wiped away a string of drool forming under the cat’s chin. “Did you know that cats sleep seventeen hours a day? But Mr. Pickles is a particularly heavy sleeper. That’s why I chose him for today’s art project.”
    “Today’s art project?” repeated Humphrey.
    Ms. Bozzetto nodded. “Like the Renoirs, we are going to paint the feline form in all its adorable, sinuous, furry detail. Mr. Pickles will be our model.” Reaching into her cart again, she pulled out a stack of paper, some brushes, and several bottles of blue tempera paint. “And like Mr. Renoir, we will be working in this lovely ultramarine blue.”
    She passed out the supplies.
    “Rats,” grumbled Rose, having accidentally smeared blue paint on her skirt. The stain blended in with that morning’s glue-stick smudge and chocolate-pudding print.
    “Now then, boys and girls,” instructed Ms. Bozzetto. “I want you to look very closely at Mr. Pickles.”
    Emberly whipped out his magnifying glass.
    Ms. Bozzetto continued. “All objects have shape, or form. Try visualizing Mr. Pickles’s form by peeling away all the details and leaving only his framework, or skeletal structure.”
    “That’s one way to skin a cat,” quipped Lenny. He looked at Bruce for a response.
    Nothing.
    “Cat got your tongue?” asked Lenny.
    Bruce grinned.
    For the next thirty minutes, the students filled their papers with blue tails, blue paws, and blue whiskers.
    Mr. Pickles continued to snore and drool and twitch in his sleep.
    The guinea pigs kept watching.
    Then Ms. Bozzetto clapped her hands. “We’ve only a few minutes left,