Chapter four, in which the Children of Mahoe show they can save our world.
(The Day the Children of the Mahoe Tree Rescued Dave the Cleaner.)
As we learned in the last chapter, Dave the Cleaner decided he need to find out how much the 5-year old children in Mahoe classroom knew about the ways of the universe.
“What is the most important thing a person needs to understand about the ways of the universe?” he asked himself.
He imagined the sun, the stars and the moon in the vast, wide heavens. “Yes, they are always moving. They are always changing.”
He imagined a fluffy white cloud appearing out of the invisible blue sky, slowly growing and turning dark until it falls as drops of rain down to the ground. “Yes, clouds never stop changing their shape. They are constantly turning into solids like snowflakes and hail and then into liquid rivers and oceans and all these turn back into invisible gases in the sky.”
Dave the Cleaner stood up, stretched his body, took a deep breath and…and… “thirrrpthpth” or was it “pipipppippifut”?
Its hard to write in words the sound he made. “Whoops,” he exclaimed looking around. “Goodness me, I have just farted. Whew. I am so glad no one else is around. A little of me has just changed back into being a bit of the sky again. Just shows, I am a human being like everyone else”.
This was the moment a great idea occurred to Dave the Cleaner. Indeed he leapt up with such excitement he nearly made one of those “thirrrpth” sounds again.
“Yes,” he cried, “yes, everything is always changing. Even my own body is always changing and it too is made of solids, liquids and gases. In fact when I think about it, over half my body is water. What if something terrible happened and my whole body turned completely into a liquid? Would the children of the Mahoe class know how to save me?”
He knew most 5-year old children only know how to read or write a few words. So he could not test them by asking them to write down what they know.
He was shy and a very slow thinker. He knew many of the children are like him. So just asking the class questions would tell him little because quiet, shy people need lots more time to offer answers. How? How? How to find out if they could save him? Dave the Cleaner sat up at night puzzling until “GLING!”, an idea occurred to him.
Here is his brainwave.
Dave the Cleaner got a black felt pen, four sheets of blank paper and he drew four pictures showing what first happened the scary night he dreamed he turned into a liquid.
He sits up late at night creating four pictures. He is imagining what might happen if he dreamed he really turned into a liquid.
The very next day he took the four drawings, his pen and some more sheets of blank paper to Lizzie’s classroom.
When he arrived, he found her seated in a chair with all the children sitting cross-legged on a group on the floor listening to her. The Sun was shining through the windows and he could hear birds of Aotearoa singing outside in the Pohutukawa tree. The air in the classroom was warm and fuggy. The children had just been running round their lunch hour and now some of them looked decidedly tired and sleepy. Maybe they would get so bored with him they would all go to sleep in front of him. How he wished they could all go outside in the sparkling air under the Pohutukawa tree and talk about his great problem there.
He felt more than a little nervous when he took over the chair of Lizzie the Teacher. He need not have worried. The children became alert and their eyes lit up as soon as they understood the situation. They set about solving the problem with focus and enthusiasm from the very first drawing.
The first picture showed Dave the Cleaner sitting up at night drawing the four pictures and the title page of the story.
The second picture showed the children of the Mahoe tree what happened in his dream when he turned into a liquid.
The third picture showed his mum coming into his bedroom next morning to wake him up. You can imagine her surprise when she did not see his head nestled in the pillow snoring away as usual. She looked all around the room. He was nowhere to be seen. He seemed to have vanished in the night like a cloud in the sky on a hot, sunny day.
The fourth and last picture showed Dave’s mum about to sit on the bed while she puzzled about his strange disappearance. He always told her and his Dad when he was going when he visited them for a few days. She was about to lower her bum onto the bed when she heard a loud chorus of children’s voices calling and shouting, “No! No! Stop! Don’t sit down! Look behind you!” Of course, you know whose voices they were.
It was lucky for Dave the Cleaner that his mum heard the children of the Mahoe tree calling and managed to stop herself on sitting KERBUMPH down on the bed. You can understand her relief when she turned around and realised she had nearly sat in a very large, very strange puddle. “Goodness me,” she exclaimed, “what is this piddlely pool? What is this puny pond? There must be a leak in the roof.” She looked up and studied every inch and millimeter of the ceiling but could not see not a sign of the drip or a crack anywhere. Besides, she knew it had not rained in the night.
It was then she again heard a chorus of children’s voices calling. They seemed to be saying, “It’s Dave the Cleaner. He has turned into a liquid.” Then she heard a distant voice she knew so well. It gurgled, ” Mum, Mum, its me, Mum. I gluggle glug have turned into a liquid.”
Well, you can well imagine her shock and dismay when she heard this very familiar voice and realised it was the puddle speaking to her.
“Help! Help!” she cried, “don’t worry, my darling, my squidgy little lake, I will rescue you somehow.” However, as hard as she thought, no ideas came to her. She just stood there saying, “Woe, oh woe, how can we save my darling Dave?”
The children of the Mahoe tree heard her pleas for help and now they sat in silence. It was no ordinary silence. It was a listening silence. It was the silence that happens when they are thinking and wondering and puzzling. It is the silence that occurs when they are putting their minds to solving the problem.
After a time, which might been two minutes or two hours, one girl slowly, so slowly raised a wavering, wondering hand with her big finger bent like a question mark. “What if?” she asked in a small wondering voice, “What if? What’s say Dave’s Mum is strong, like really, really strong and she can wring the mattress out like my Mum wrings out the dishcloths?”
Dave the Cleaner look a blank piece of paper and drew a picture of his Mum with the enormous muscles.
It so happens, for no reason he knew of, he had also brought a damp kitchen sponge with him that now sat on the table beside. He now picked it up and asked the girl, “Aha, you mean she can wring out the mattress like this?” And he was about to twist it when a chorus of voices instantly interrupted him, “No! No! Stop! Stop! Don’t wring Dave out of the mattress over the carpet. He will soak into the carpet. Yes and everyone will walk on Dave! Yes, and we will sit on him and soak him up into our clothes!
Again there was one of those deep silences when lots of thinking is going on. Then, after a quick chat among themselves, the children of Mahoe decided it would be safe for Dave’s Mum to wring him out on the table because they knew its surface was very hard and waterproof.
Dave the Cleaner squeezed some of the water out of the kitchen sponge onto the table top to see if the children were right. Not only were they correct, they were also wise because some of them now said, “Dave is still not safe… He could spill over the edge of the table… Someone could put books on him… Someone could accidentally wipe him up.”
Even as these children warned of such dangers, two mischievous boys sneaked around from the back of the group, dipped the tip of their fingers in the water on the table and sneaked back chortling, “Hehehe, we’re drinking Dave. We’re drinking Dave.”
Now Dave the Puddle was so worried that ripples of worry raced all around his watery face. He imagined the worst happening to him.
Since days of old people have been saying that most of our worst worries never happen.
Have you ever worried so much about what someone might say to you that you tripped over your own two feet and hurt yourself?
Or worries kept piling up on your mind like big, dark thunderclouds and then they all vanish when a friend pops by and says “Hello”?
Or monsters are about to gobble you up when “piff”, you wake up and find it was only a dream?
Sometimes it is difficult to know the difference between worrying and being concerned and careful. What can you trust? Who can you trust in times of danger, especially if you feel helpless, as Dave the Puddle did.
He was very worried because he did not know if he could trust the children of the Mahoe Tree. Did they understand the ways of the universe enough? Were they wise enough to rescue him?
He did not have long to wait for an answer. To his great relief, he heard a child suggest “Hey, we could put Dave in a jar?” and others say, “ Yeah, yeah, he will be safe there.” and before he knew it, he was poured into a glass jar.
They were right again. He felt so much safer here. He swam around in it touching all the sides with a huge smile on his face. Though the jar was tight-fitting, it felt comforting and strangely familiar. “Ah, I remember now,” he murgurgled to himself, “The jar feels rather like the skin I used to wear before I turned into a liquid.”
For some moments everyone, including Dave the Liquid, appeared very satisfied with this solution. What could possibly go wrong now? However after a while several children began screwing their faces up in deep inquiry. It appeared as though they were looking around inside their head for possible problems. Then, as though something bopped them all on the back of their head at the same, their mouths popped open, their eyes widened as big a scooter wheels and their arms shot up in the air like an instant forest.
“Remember that jar of water someone left on the window sill one night…”
“Yes, yes and remember the water got less and less each day…”
“ Yes, until it all disappeared…”
“Yes, we have to put a lid on the jar to save Dave…”
(What the children of Mahoe classroom did not know was Dave the Cleaner had sneaked the mysterious jar of water onto the window sill one night a month or two ago while cleaning the school. At the time he did not know why he did it. He had just seen the jar in his Cleaner’s cupboard and thought it might be fun to fill it with water and put it in the classroom just to find out if anyone noticed it. The children had not only noticed it. It was evident now that they had studied what happened to it. Now that jar of water might just save his life.)
The children agreed it was wise to screw a lid on the jar holding Dave the Liquid. He certainly felt safer after they did this. The children of the Mahoe tree had been right again. However everything did feel strange now because their voices were less clear, more muffled. Nor could he sense their breaths and all the other smells of Mahoe classroom any more. He had not noticed before how much he smelled the world around him all the time. He felt quite cut-off from the whole wide world now with the lid on the jar. All he could do was swirl around in the jar with a big silly smile on his face to show his gratitude for their kindness and care.
It was then he noticed not all the children were content with this solution to the problem. A few were clearly still thinking about his safety, one boy in particular.
Part of him was glad. This part sighed with relief, “Ah, it is so good the children are caring for me best they can.”
Another part of him rippled and swirled with worry. This part shushed, “Oh dear, someone might think up a reason why I am not safe in the jar with the lid on.”
It was this part of him that warned him, “Don’t look! That thoughtful boy is putting his hand up to speak. Don’t listen! He is only another five-year-old. They know nothing!”
The boy scratched his head hard. Slowly, ever so slowly he began to speak, “You know… er… You know how everything is made of tiny, tiny, tiny things that never stop moving…” He paused. Several other children immediately continued for him,” Yes, yes, they are called atoms.”
The boy continued, “What’s say some of Dave’s tiny atoms can still escape out of the lid. What if we turned Dave into a solid so his atoms don’t move around so much.”
Other children understood this suggestion and joined in, ” Yes, yes, lets freeze him.”
And before he knew it, the children of the mahoe tree had stored him in a freezer.
It was dark as black and cold as ice inside the freezer. There was no sound except for the occasional, distant rumble of the freezer motor.
Dave the Iceblock knew ice can last millions of years and this knowledge made him feel safer. However, he also knew when water freezes it expands with such force that it can break glass jars with lids on. So he tried to hug his molecules as tight as he could. All that happened was he soon began to get very tired and grumpy.
He grumbled so loudly the children of Mahoe could hear him grumbling, “Hey, this is no fun! Oh Man, it’s all dark! I can’t see anything! Oh dreary me, it’s so still in here! Maybe I’ll never sniff the breeze or sing or dance again. THIS IS SO BORING!”
When they heard this the children felt pity for Dave the Ice Block. They set about finding an even better way of rescuing him. They thought and scratched their heads and thought and rubbed their chins and thought and frowned. One or two thought so hard they almost went cross-eyed thinking.
One boy had sat hunched and silent up all this time. He now straightened upright and raised his hand. He spoke in a serious voice though a small smile played around his face, “ What’s say we get lots of pipes that look like Dave’s bones…and maybe we can find a way to connect them all up like Dave’s body … and then we pour Dave into them…and we seal them up with special caps that won’t let his atoms get out…”
Well, it did not take long to draw a picture of Dave the Pipe Person and that is exactly how long it took to take him out of the freezer, warm him up to melt him, pour him into the pipes and seal them up with special caps. He stretched his pipe arms and stood up on his pipe legs. “Yahoo, this is so much better,” he exclaimed, “I feel free again. I can run. I can skip. Thank you so much, children of the Mahoe tree”.
Dave the Pipe Person could not clearly hear or see their faces to know if they could hear him. So he tried to do a dance to show how happy he was with what they had done for him. He thought he heard them giggling and laughing. “Whoops,” he said, “perhaps I had better sit down. I am not yet the best dancer in the world.” So he felt around for his chair with his pipe fingers and sat down again.
The children had indeed been giggling and laughing at his dance though in a kind way. We can know they cared for him because again they became silent and lost in thought about how best to care for him. Just when it seemed the children of Mahoe had run out of ideas, a hand crept up into the air. It was someone who had not spoken before.
Some people are like the Kiwi bird of Aotearoa. Kiwis quietly sit on their eggs two or three times longer than other types of birds sit on their eggs because they are hatching such enormous eggs. The owner of the hand that crept up into the air in Mahoe Classroom was like the Kiwi. Silent up to now, it seems she had been quietly hatching a big idea.
She was a shy girl who spoke with such a quiet voice that everyone had to strain to hear her. “I have heard that doctors in hospitals can move skin from one part of our body,” she said pointing to her wrist. “I have heard they can move that skin and make it grow somewhere else like here,” she said pointing to the top of her arm. “Maybe we can get doctors to make a special skin to cover all of Dave?”
We can only imagine how teams of doctors grew special skin and sewed it together so it completely covered Dave the Pipe Person. In fact the children of the Mahoe tree barely recognized him when they saw a picture of him in his new skin.
The shape looked much more like Dave the Cleaner but many of the children immediately pointed out problems.
“ He needs a special waterproof hole for his mouth so he can eat and drink and breathe air…”
“Yes and he needs a holes in his nose so he can breathe air and smell the air…”
“Yes and he needs holes for his ear so he can hear all the sounds in the air…”
They were still pointing out problems when Lizzie the Teacher returned and announced it was time for the children of Mahoe to get ready to go home. Suddenly the classroom was all hustle and bustle with children clearing their desks, packing their bags, putting on their jerseys and coats and then, silence in Mahoe classroom, they were all gone, vanished.
Do you think the children of the Mahoe tree saved Dave the Puddle? And did they rescue Dave the Iceblock? What about Dave the Pipe Person? Do you think he was a good idea? And can you imagine what might happen if the doctors and other experts are be able to give him eyes, ears, nostrils and other parts so he looks exactly just like Dave the Cleaner?
So what might happen now. Will he disappear -POP!- because Dave the Cleaner wakes up in his bed and realizes he was just having a bad dream?
And might it happen his dream continues with two identical Dave the Cleaners?
Perhaps we can only find out if there is another chapter in this story of how the children of the Mahoe tree saved Dave the Cleaner when he dreamed he turned into a liquid.
Here is the big question Dave the Cleaner was really asking. Many adults are confused about the ways of the universe and so are unable to properly care for the air we all breathe. Is it possible our 5-year old children understand and care enough about how everything is always changing that they can teach us all how to better care for the air?
End Chapter Four
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Please note: this is a first draft script (Jan 2020) and prototype format of How the Children of the Mahoe Tree Saved Our World. I plan to create illustrations to complement each chapter as soon as possible.
Please enjoy tolerance – my diplopia means I struggle to read what I write.
This story is based on a true event. A class of five-year olds created the central plot (See Chapter 4). In the process they showed young children, unlike many adults, retain the vital spirit of inquiry and comprehension of the fundamental thermodynamics required to care for Earth’s atmosphere.
Some grand ideas and questions from Chapter Four
Idea: Pending
Question: Pending
Chapter five, in which Dave the Cleaner is filled with a new spirit
Chapter three, in which Dave the Cleaner and the Children of Mahoe had Fun with Air