"Sitting on wire, they lift their wings

"and sail off into billowy clouds."

When she paused she looked at the girls, who nodded approvingly. She realized that she'd been staring at the thick pelt of wheat and ignoring her audience.

"Are you nervous?" Shannon asked.

"Don't ask her that," Beverly warned. "Bad luck."

No, Melanie explained, she wasn't nervous. She looked out again at the fields that streamed past.

Three of the girls were drowsing but the other five were wide awake and waiting for her to continue. Melanie began again but was interrupted before she'd recited the first line of the poem.

"Wait – what kind of birds are they?" Kielle frowned.

"Don't interrupt." From seventeen-year-old Susan. "People who interrupt are Philistines."

"Am not!" Kielle shot back. "What is that?"

"Crass dummy," Susan explained.

"What's 'crass'?" Kielle demanded.

"Let her finish!"

Melanie continued:

"Eight little birds high in sky,

"They fly all night till they find sun."

"Time out." Susan laughed. "It was five birds yesterday."

"Now you're interrupting," lean tomboy Shannon pointed out. "You Philadelphian."

"Philistine," Susan corrected.

Chubby Jocylyn nodded emphatically as if she also had caught the slip but was too timid to point it out. Jocylyn was too timid to do very much at all.

"But there are eight of you so I changed it."

"Can you do that?" wondered Beverly. At fourteen, she was the second-oldest student.

"It's my poem," Melanie responded. "I can make it as many birds as I want."

"How many people will be there? At recital?"

"One hundred thousand." Melanie looked quite sincere.