Ollie! Ollie! OLLIE!! GET OUT HERE!"
Ollie stirred and wiggled and pulled himself from the middle of a book on snakes and lizards, frogs and turtles, and had a bit of toad photo hanging from his mouth when he peeked out. "Yeah, Squig?"
"Mr. Li is getting ready to go on a field trip!"
"Where to?"
"The Minnesota Land Escape Breetum."
Ollie laughed. "Oh, THAT. I saw it on his calendar, Sis. It's the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum."
"What's a Landscrape Breetum?" Squiggles asked, her eyes narrowing slightly because if there's one thing Squiggle hates, it’s not knowing something, and if there’s one thing she hates even more than that, it’s not knowing something that Ollie DOES know.
Ollie said very slowly, very clearly--maybe a little TOO slowly and clearly, because it almost seemed like he was making fun of his sister, "LandSCAPE ARboretum. That's a place that has all kinds of plants. Grasses, flowers, trees, vegetables, hedges, all that. And of course the animals that go with the plants, like hummingbirds and bees and gophers and carp."
"Carp!"
"Well. I imagine if they have any water plants, there could be carp."
"Oh. Right. So I guess we don't get to learn stuff from Mr. Li today, huh?" Squiggle said a little disconsolately.
Ollie got an expression that said he was up to something--or thinking about getting up to something.
"Unless we stowaway."
"What is 'stowaway'?" Squiggle asked, afraid that once again, her brother knew something she didn't yet.
"I might be using that wrong," Ollie said. "What I mean is, maybe we can sneak into something that Mr. Li carries with him, and go along on the field trip with the kids. All of his students are going on this one, so we could see them all together. Sound fun?"
"It sure does," Squiggle said. "But what the heck can we 'stowaway' in?"
Ollie looked around the room, and his eyes fell on the desk, which was sort of a neat mess. Piles, yes, but carefully stacked piles that seemed arranged so that the person who made them could extract what he wanted with ease. And on the shortest pile near the computer, the pile of things that Mr. Li used often, at the very top, flopped open to today's page, was Mr. Li's journal and appointment book.
Squiggle must have noticed it at the same moment, because she and Ollie looked at each other and smiled and nodded together. They both noticed, too, that there was just enough space for a couple of not-very-large bookworms to hide out in the thick zip-up cover--which had one finger-poke size hole that could be used for exits and emergency escapes.
The plan worked. The drive was long and dark and it was hard to hear the kids talk in the car, although they did catch them singing "Happy" from Miserable Me 2 at one point, with Mr. Li joining in at the top of his lungs. He got most of the words wrong, which made the students laugh for the rest of the trip.
Good thing Mr. Li carries his journal with him wherever he goes. Ollie and Squiggle are safe inside, carried along, until Mr. Li sits down at a picnic table with the students to discuss the day. It is then that Squiggle pokes her head out of the hole and looks around. After giving Ollie the "all-clear," she inches the rest of the way out of the book into Mr. Li's backpack pocket. Now she can look around of without being seen.
One of the things they--Mr. Li, his students, Ollie and Squiggle--did was to take the tram that circles the arboretum, with a guide pointing out the many kinds of plants along the trail.
There were many flowers in full bloom, and thanks to all the rain, the trees and bushes were lush and beautiful. But the tour guide kept saying things like, "You should have seen this area in the spring, around Mother's Day, when the lilacs were in full bloom," and "Wait until fall when all these maple trees will be brilliant crimson." Mr. Li smiled, but it seemed like he might have been happier not to know how nice the place was during the times he and his students were not there.
Even if other times of the year might be better for this or that reason, there is ALWAYS something unusual and memorable to see at the arboretum. They saw dragonflies chasing other insects, and bees and butterflies flitting among the flowers, pollinating them. And there was an exhibit that showed how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly.
"Ugh," said Squiggle.
"What?" asked Ollie.
"Why would anyone want to turn from a beautiful worm-like animal into a...a...GARISH butterfly?"
"What does 'garish' mean?" Ollie asked.
Finally. Squiggle knew something that Ollie did not.
"Look it up," she said.
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