Free Horsing Around by Nancy Krulik

Chapter I
    “Okay, dudes, it’s time for us to turn over a new leaf,” Mr. Guthrie said as he greeted class 4A early Monday morning.
    Katie Carew started giggling the minute she saw her teacher. Mr. Guthrie was wearing brown shoes, brown pants, and a brown long-sleeved shirt. He had red, yellow, and brown leaves taped all over his arms and chest. He looked just like a fall tree—if fall trees wore glasses and had ponytails.
    The Mr. G. tree totally fit in with the 4A classroom today. The whole room looked like a forest. There were colorful construction-paper leaves taped to the floor and construction-paper trees on the walls. Small stuffed animal squirrels and chipmunks were in the corner behind some leaves.
    Katie put her backpack down and plopped into her beanbag. All of the kids in class 4A sat in beanbag chairs. Mr. G. thought kids learned better when they were comfortable.
    “Let me guess. We’re studying fall today,” Kevin Camilleri said as he sat down.
    “Oh, I’ll get an A in that,” George Brennan announced. He ran across the classroom, tripped over his shoelace, and fell face-first into his beanbag chair.
    Katie giggled. She knew George had fallen down on purpose. George was always doing funny things like that.
    “Maybe we’d better call this our autumn leaves learning adventure,” Mr. G. suggested. “To avoid more accidents.”
    “So do we get to decorate our beanbags now?” Andy Epstein asked.
    Katie was sure they would. Mr. G. let the kids decorate their beanbag chairs every time they started a new learning adventure.
    But today Mr. G. said, “Not yet. First you’re going to decorate yourselves.”
    The kids all stared at their teacher. What was he talking about?
    Mr. G. pulled a huge garbage bag out of the classroom closet. Katie and her friends ran to see what was inside.
    “It’s just a bag of old leaves,” Kevin said. He sounded disappointed.
    Katie understood why he felt that way. Mr. G.’s surprises were usually really wild. Like the day he had the class pretend to be birds and dig through chocolate mud for gummy worms.
    Or the time he brought in an egg as the class pet. The kids had all figured there was some sort of bird inside. But instead, Slinky the class snake had popped out. Slinky was definitely the greatest—and weirdest—pet in the whole school.
    And Katie would never forget when Mr. G. wore a Japanese bathrobe to school and fed them all green tea cakes for snack, just because their class was Japan in the school Olympics. Katie hadn’t really liked the green cakes, but she still thought it was cool that Mr. G. was pretending they were in Japan.

    Compared to all that, a bag of leaves wasn’t very interesting.
    Mr. G. handed each kid a different leaf. Katie’s was shaped like a hand with three fingers. On it was a sticker that said SASSAFRAS.
    “If you’re going to be in this forest, you have to be a tree,” Mr. G. told the kids. “And at this time of year, many trees have colorful leaves. I want you to find the other leaves of your tree and then tape them to your clothes.”
    One by one, the kids searched inside the garbage bag for the leaves that matched the one in their hand.
    “I’m a maple,” Andy told the class.
    “I’m an oak,” Mandy Banks shouted out.
    “I’m a dogwood,” Emma Weber said.
    After Katie found the other sassafras leaves in the bag, she cut strips of brown and black construction paper and wove them in and out like a basket.
    “It’s an empty nest,” she told Mr. G. as she taped the basket to her shoulder. “All the birds have flown south.”
    Mr. G. laughed. “Very creative, Katie,” he complimented her.
    “Hey, my yellow leaf just fell off,” Emma Stavros complained.
    “So did my orange one,” Kevin added.
    “That’s what they’re supposed to do,” Kadeem Carter told them. “Why do you think they call this season fall?”
    “Can anyone tell me why the leaves turn different colors in the fall?” Mr. G. asked his forest