Free Maybelle Goes to School by Katie Speck

 
    6
    Eight Legs

    Maybelle didn’t know where she was going, but she intended to keep going there until she found Henry.With her heart pounding, she skittered out of the lunchroom, down a hall, and into the first room she came to.
    â€œEyes on your work please, children,” the teacher said.
    Small humans! Lots of them! Luckily they paid no attention to Maybelle as she ducked into a row of cozy dark cubbyholes.
    â€œHenry? Are you here?” she called softly. No answer.
    Maybelle began to explore. In one cubby there was a little red race car sticking out of a backpack. In another was— sniff —a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a brown paper bag. She was on her way to a third cubby when she noticed a terrarium on the shelf above her. A sign said ROSIE THE TARANTULA .
    â€œMy, my. Aren’t you a lovely, plump thing,” Rosie said. “Come a little closer and let me have a look at you.” Rosie was very large and very hairy.

    Maybelle crept nearer. “Have you seen a flea named Henry or a Golden Retriever?”
    â€œSorry, dearie. I can’t hear you. You’ll have to come closer.”
    Maybelle crawled to the side of the terrarium and spoke as loudly as she dared. “I need to find Henry. I want to go home,” she said.
    â€œWhat was that, darling?” Rosie said.
    Rosie’s eyes were black and beady. Maybelle didn’t like the look of her. But she climbed to the top of Rosie’s home, squeezed through the wire cover, and went right up to the spider’s face. Rosie could surely hear her now.
    â€œHave you seen a Golden Retriever?” Maybelle shouted up at her.

    Rosie crouched ever so slightly on her eight legs. “Humm,” she said. Or was it more like …
    â€œYUM!”
    Rosie sprang. Maybelle turned and fled back the way she had come as fast as her six legs could carry her.
    Just then, the lunch bell rang. Clang! Maybelle dove into the brown bag she’d passed earlier and waited in the peanut butter and jelly to see what would happen next.

 
    7
    Henry Under Glass

    In the lunchroom, Beau Snodgrass wound up his little red car and raced it down the table. Next to him, Samantha Snerdly set out her lunch. While Samantha blew her straw wrapper across the table, Maybelle poked her head out of Samantha’s sand-wich and wiped the peanut butter from her eyes. And there, right in front of her, was a stuffed golden dog. It was under the arm of the little human in the next chair. Could it be a Golden Retriever?
    â€œHenry, are you there?” Maybelle said.

    Henry’s head popped up out of the plush fur. “Golden Retrievers are a big disappointment,” he said. “They are very dr—”
    â€œWow!” Samuel Snerdly said. He reached over, plucked Henry from the dog’s head, and then ran off.
    â€œOh no!” Maybelle said.
    She couldn’t go home without Henry. But what had happened to him?
    She soon found out.
    Samuel Snerdly came back holding a plate with an upside-down drinking glass on it. A little sign scribbled on a napkin said FLEA CIRCUS: DRESSED FLEA .
    Henry was under the glass. And he was wearing pants!
    That was bad enough. But little humans were leaning over and peering at Henry. Maybelle almost fainted with the horror of it.

    â€œDon’t worry, Henry, I’ll get help!”
    Henry didn’t hear her. He stood gazing down at his pants.
    Maybelle wasn’t big enough to knock the glass over and free Henry. But she knew someone who was. Someone with stripes.
    Clang! Bang! Squeak, squeak!
    â€œChildren! Eat every bite of your food if you want to grow up big and strong,” the Lunch Lady said.
    It was then that Samantha noticed her sandwich had antennae. Yuck! She threw it under the table. She could grow up big and strong another day.

    Maybelle struggled out of the sticky peanut butter and set off across the lunchroom. She had to get to Ramona. But she couldn’t