Too Much to Read
Monty on Stage
Monty Joins a Class
Joey’s Birthday Party
The Karate Exhibition
Montgomery Gerald Morris sounds like the name of a mighty and important person. But Montgomery Gerald Morris was the name of a quiet first-grader who was known to his family and classmates as Monty.
Still, even though he was shy and small, Monty was a mighty smart kid. He was an A+ reader. There were students in sixth grade who couldn’t read as well as he could.
In addition to books, Monty liked to read magazines. Magazines had loads of pictures, more than books. So liking magazines as much as he did, you can imagine how excited he was when his next-door neighbor offered him a stack of old magazines.
Mrs. Carlton had been getting ready to sell her house for several months now. She had been cleaning out her basement and attic and garage.
The magazines that Mrs. Carlton showed Monty seemed very interesting. Some were bright yellow with the table of contents right on the cover. Others had a bright yellow border. Monty opened a couple of the magazines and looked inside. They were all filled with page after page of articles and wonderful photographs about everything in the world. This was perfect for Monty because he was interested in lots of things: animals, foreign countries, inventions, and history, just to name a few.
“Thank you very much,” said Monty politely as he took the half dozen magazines that his neighbor offered him. He couldn’t wait to take them home and begin reading.
“Would you like some more?” asked Mrs. Carlton.
“Sure,” said Monty. “Do you have more?”
“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Carlton. “You can have them all.”
“Neat,” said Monty. “Thank you very much.”
“Most of them are in the other room,” she said, pointing toward the back of the house. “It will be a big job for you to carry all of them by yourself. Get your dad to help you. I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”
Monty knew that his neighbor was thinking about his asthma. It was a condition that he had been born with. It meant that sometimes he had trouble breathing and he had to be careful not to bring on an attack. Most of the time, however, he felt fine.
Monty didn’t think it was a good idea to ask his father for help. He might just say that Monty didn’t need so many magazines. But if he could manage to get them into his house on his own, perhaps his father, and mother too, would be more accepting.
“I’ll ask my friend Joey Thomas to help me,” said Monty.
“Well, I’ll save the magazines for you. Come back when it’s convenient.” Mrs. Carlton paused a minute. “There’s just one thing,” she said.
Monty felt disappointed. He had a feeling that Mrs. Carlton was going to ask him to pay for the magazines. He only had two dollars and seventy-three cents saved in his bank.
However, Mrs. Carlton didn’t want money. Instead, she surprised Monty by saying, “If you take the magazines, I don’t want them back.”
“What do you mean?” asked Monty.
“I’m cleaning out this house. Once something goes out, I don’t want it to come back in again. So if you take the magazines, they’re yours. You can read them or give them away. Just don’t bring them back here.”
“Okay,” agreed Monty. He thought Mrs. Carlton was being silly. Why would he want to bring them back?
In school the next day, Monty saw his friend Joey. “Would you help me carry some old magazines from my next-door neighbor’s house over to my house?” he asked shyly. Maybe Joey wouldn’t want to bother with Mrs. Carlton’s old magazines, he thought. Maybe he was busy with plans of his own.
But Joey was good-natured. “Sure,” he agreed at once. “I don’t have soccer practice today, so I’ll come over as soon as I walk my dogs.”
Monty smiled happily. He could hardly wait to get the magazines with Joey’s help.
When Monty got home from school, he saw his mother sitting at her sewing machine in the corner of the dining room. She stopped sewing and turned around to face Monty. “I’m making new slipcovers for the chairs in the living room,” she said. “Help yourself to an apple from the fruit bowl.”
Monty dropped his backpack and went to get an apple. “Joey and I are going to be busy,” he said. “I’m going to get those magazines that I told you about from Mrs. Carlton.”
“That’s nice,” called his mom over the sound of the sewing machine.
Joey met Monty in front of Mrs. Carlton’s house. The older woman opened the door when Monty rang her bell. She led the two boys inside.
The sight of the yellow magazines shocked both Monty and Joey. There were many more than Monty had imagined. They were stacked in huge piles as tall as the boys.
“You sure like to read,” said Joey to the elderly woman.
“Actually, my husband used to read these,” said Mrs. Carlton. “You are looking at more than fifty years’ worth of magazines.”
“Fifty years!” both boys exclaimed. Fifty years seemed like an awfully long, long time. Fifty years ago was like something Monty would read about in a history book.
“That’s fifty times twelve,” said Monty with amazement. He was much better at reading than at math so he couldn’t figure out the answer in his head. Neither could Joey. But they could see that fifty times twelve was a lot of magazines. Each boy took an armload and walked with them out of Mrs. Carlton’s house. Joey was stronger than Monty, so his armload was twice the size of Monty’s. Monty wished he was as strong as his friend. Still, he realized, he was lucky to have a friend with strong muscles. Maybe, he fantasized, someday in the future, he, Monty Gerald Morris, would develop the might of a superhero. He’d be Mighty Monty then.
“Where do you want to put them?” Joey asked, breaking into Monty’s daydream.
“Up in my room,” said Monty. As he spoke, he stopped to figure out where they would all fit. He could put some under his bed and make a tall pile by his chest of drawers. The boys walked into Monty’s house and up the stairs to his room. Monty started a pile by the chest, and Joey added his armload on top. Then they went downstairs and returned to Mrs. Carlton’s house.
On the fourth trip, Monty’s mother called out above the motor of her sewing machine, “Is everything all right, you guys?”
“Yes, fine,” said Monty, stopping to catch his breath. He was getting tired from going up and down stairs. He was beginning to worry too. His room was getting very crowded. He didn’t think his mother would be pleased. On the other hand, she always said reading was important. So maybe it wouldn’t be a problem after all.
An hour later, Monty was exhausted and his room was filled with magazines. They were in two tall piles on either side of the chest of drawers. There were also magazines under his bed and on the floor of his closet and on top of the chest and lying sideways on his bookshelf. And there was a pile behind the bedroom door and another by the window.
Monty and Joey sat down on Monty’s bed. “This looks like a magazine store,” said Joey, looking around in amazement. “I never ever saw so many magazines in my life.”
“Me either,” said Monty. “I guess I’m going to be very busy reading them all.”
“You won’t have any time to play or anything,” commented Joey.
Monty tried to count the magazines. But there were so many that he kept getting confused. “I have hundreds of magazines,” he finally decided.
“I never had hundreds of anything,” said Joey.
“Me either,” said Monty.
Joey shrugged. “I’m getting hungry,” he said. “I think it must be time for me to go home for supper.”
“Okay,” agreed Monty. He was feeling pretty hungry too after all his work.
He
went downstairs with Joey. Mrs. Morris was putting all her sewing away. “Have a good time this afternoon?” she asked, smiling at the boys.
“Yes,” said Monty.
Mrs. Morris went into the kitchen to prepare supper. Monty went back up to his room. He had homework to do, and he thought he ought to begin reading his magazines. It might take him the rest of his life to finish them all.
But before he could read even the first one, his father came home. Mr. Morris poked his head in Monty’s room and stopped, stunned. “What in the world is all this?” he asked.
“Magazines,” said Monty.
“I can see they’re magazines, but where did they come from?”
“Mrs. Carlton gave them to me.”
Mr. Morris could hardly open the door to walk into the room. Then he accidentally bumped into one of the tall stacks of magazines. Of course they all went tumbling to the floor and caused a tremendous noise. That was because there was no carpeting on the wood floors. The floors were bare because the lint from carpeting was not good for Monty’s asthma.
“There are too many magazines in here,” said Mr. Morris as he stooped to pick up a few of them. “You had better bring some of them back to her.”
“Okay,” Monty agreed without arguing. He’d known that his parents would not be thrilled by the way his room looked. Then he remembered something. “But Mrs. Carlton said I can’t give them back,” he told his father.
“What?”
“She said if I took them, they were mine. And she doesn’t want them back.” Monty paused while he considered the problem. “Maybe we can give them to someone else?”
“Someone who can’t give them back to us,” said Monty’s dad as he bent to pick up some more of the magazines. “Otherwise, we’ll just have to put them out with our recycling.”
Monty didn’t like that idea at all. First, Mrs. Carlton would see her husband’s old possessions going into the garbage. And second, it seemed like such a waste of good magazines.
Over supper, Monty’s parents discussed who might like receiving six hundred magazines.
“No, not all,” Monty said. “Dad told me I could keep some of them.”
“You can pick out a dozen,” his mother said. She had been doubly shocked when she had seen Monty’s room. She was amazed that it had all happened while she was busy sewing. “I didn’t notice a thing,” she said over and over to her husband.
“Maybe the school library would like them,” suggested Monty.
“I don’t think the place is big enough for all those magazines,” said Mrs. Morris.
“How about the public library?” Monty asked.
“They had a big sign up last fall when they had their annual book sale. It said, Donations appreciated. But no textbooks or magazines.”
“What about the senior center?” said Monty.
“They might take some. But no one in the world is going to want fifty years’ worth of old magazines.”
“I want them,” Monty reminded his parents.
“Impossible,” said Mrs. Morris firmly. Then, seeing the sad expression on Monty’s face, she added, “Besides, you can borrow copies from the library and you can look up lots of that information on the Internet.”
In the end, Monty selected, with great, great difficulty, twelve issues of the magazine to keep for himself. Some were donated to the senior center in town and some were donated to another senior center in the neighboring community where Mr. Morris went to work. There were still many, many magazines left.
Then Monty remembered how when he was in preschool, his class used to cut pictures out of magazines. They made alphabet books and looked for items that started with each letter from A to Z.
“Perfect!” exclaimed Mrs. Morris when Monty reminded her about it. So Monty donated all the leftover magazines to his old preschool. They could make alphabet books and collages with all the pictures. They could cut out pictures for years to come.
The next day, there was just one small pile of twelve yellow magazines in Monty’s bedroom.
“Please don’t accept any other gifts without checking with us,” Monty’s mom said.
“Hmmm. All right,” said Monty, looking up. He was very absorbed in a fascinating article all about dolphins that was in one of the magazines he had kept for himself. The article had neat pictures. No preschooler would be able to make a D is for Dolphin page in their alphabet book — they’d have to search for another picture in another magazine.
Monty’s first-grade teacher was named Mrs. Meaney. At the start of the school year, he had been nervous. A name like Meaney sounded like it was the name of a very grouchy person.
Monty had been happy to discover that his teacher was not like that at all. Mrs. Meaney smiled a lot and rarely scolded the students. She had loads of good ideas, and she made first grade a great deal of fun. In fact, Monty noticed that she used the word great very often when she spoke to the class.
One day she said, “I have some great news for you. Our class is going to put on a play for the other first-grade classes.” She smiled. “I bet some of you are great budding actors,” she added.
Monty didn’t think putting on a play was such great news. He was sure he wasn’t a budding actor. Monty was nervous about being in a play. It meant he’d have to stand on a stage in front of an audience of students, teachers, and parents. Everyone would be looking at him. Suppose he made a mistake. Suppose everyone laughed at him. He’d much rather just be a part of the audience and not an actor at all.
The play was about the environment, and Monty was cast as a tree. “What kind of a tree am I?” he asked anxiously.
“You can be any sort you wish,” said Mrs. Meaney, smiling. Then she changed her mind. “You can’t be a palm tree, however. There are no palm trees around here.”
Monty didn’t mind. He’d only seen pictures of palm trees or seen them in movies. He’d pick a different tree. But he wished he didn’t have to be a tree at all.
Mrs. Meaney gave out the other parts. One student was the rain. Another was the sun. Still others represented a river, birds, insects, and the wind. Three girls in Monty’s class who were also very shy were going to be flowers. They would speak their lines together, which was less scary than standing in front of everyone and speaking out all alone.
Monty raised his hand. “I’m an apple tree,” he announced.
“Great,” said Mrs. Meaney. “I love apples. We need lots of apple trees in the world.”
Monty learned his part: “Trees are important. They give us shade; they give us wood; they give us fruit. Their roots hold water in the soil, and their limbs provide homes for birds.”
Although Monty quickly learned his lines, he couldn’t always remember what the rain and the sun and the flowers had to say.
Often during rehearsals, the students got confused and spoke at the wrong time. Some forgot to speak at all.
“I have a great plan,” said Mrs. Meaney. “It will make being in this play very easy for everyone. All you each need to remember is the last word of the person who speaks before you. Their last word will be the cue for when to start reciting your part. Don’t speak until you hear your special word.”
The student who spoke before Monty was Cora Rose. She was the land. Her last line was “The land provides a home for plants and trees.”
“When you hear the word trees, you’ll know that it’s your turn to speak,” Mrs. Meaney told Monty. “Don’t say anything until you hear the word trees,” she repeated.
Not only did the children learn their parts; they also made costumes out of large sheets of paper. Monty cut his paper into the shape of a tree. He cut little holes in the tree trunk. That way, he could hold the paper tree up in front of him and peek through the holes at the audience. He colored the tree trunk a dark brown, and he put leaves on its branches. Then he cut out circles, which he colored red, and pasted them onto the branches. Those were the apples on his tree. The best thing about his costume was that he was hiding behind
it when he spoke.
The students held a dress rehearsal the day before the play. Each one held their costume up in front of himself or herself. Cora Rose, who was the land, had a costume that looked like a map. It was so big that Mrs. Meaney helped her make holes and tie string through them. That way, Cora Rose could put the string over her head and her costume hung down, covering all of her body except her head.
Monty listened when Cora spoke. As always, her last line was “The land provides the homes for plants and trees.” As soon as he heard the word trees, he stepped forward, peeking out of his costume, and began speaking.
“You are all great!” said Mrs. Meaney enthusiastically. “You’ll do a great job tomorrow. I’m so proud of all of you.”
The next afternoon, Monty’s parents both came to see the play. They sat in the back of the school auditorium with all the other parents who had managed to come to the school. Mrs. Meaney’s class giggled nervously. Everyone knew their parts. Everyone’s costume was ready.
Even though the day before he had felt a bit more confident, now that it was time for the play to begin, Monty felt scared all over again. Because of his asthma, Monty always carried a special device called an inhaler in his pocket. It helped him breathe if he felt he was getting an asthma attack. It was comforting to have. Now, feeling nervous about the play, Monty put his hand in his pocket and touched the inhaler.
He wasn’t the only one who felt scared. “I’m nervous,” Cora complained.
“That’s great,” said Mrs. Meaney.
“It is?” asked Patricia. It seemed a strange answer from the teacher.
“Of course. It’s great to be nervous. That means you are also excited, and it means you’ll give a great performance. In show business they always say, ‘Break a leg.’”
“That’s a mean thing to tell someone,” said Cora.
Mighty Monty Page 1
