[I]

Monkey Minky is the smallest kid in Mrs. Donkey Dinky’s class. Except he is obviously not the slowest, or, the easiest.

It is project time of the day again. Each kid had a job they picked out of Mrs. Dinky’s list and agreed on finishing, in 20 minutes.

As soon as Mrs. Dinky handed out the projects and clapped her hands setting the kids on a start, little Minky disappeared, as always.

That’s how come Mrs. Dinky, as always, had to search throughout the classroom for Minky the smallest boy. 

Minky is not the easiest, as we have already known. He would of course not pick any easily spotted hiding place to make this too short a game. To better entertain all his beloved classmates, and hopefully Mrs. Dinky, he had spent the whole morning peeking around for the best location he’s able to get to before anyone notices. And now, he’s right there, in the laundry hamper. He even carefully covered himself with some dirty clothes from kids unknown. And guess what? The navy blue socks right in front of his nose stunk!

Mrs. Dinky hurried all over the room searching for Minky, while she shook her head like a drowning hen to-be. “I swear I’ll never enroll a single monkey in my class, never ever again!” said Mrs. Dinky, moving as fast as she could, but still, slow and clumsy, bumping into the parrot cage and made the whole class laugh.

Too bad for Minky, his laughter was the loudest, although he is obviously not the biggest kid of the class.

Out of the hamper Mrs. Dinky grabbed Monkey Minky and made him sit at the far corner where there are neither kids nor toys to distract him. As the teacher turned around reaching for the project contract signed between her and Minky, the smallest little Monkey hopped up the bumper bed next to him speedy quick, before jumping right back down, in a flash. He’s even counting 1 to 10 very loudly while doing this, for he knew that this counting thing is Mrs. Dinky’s favorite trick to put kids on time-outs if they fail to do what they are told to. Not this time though, for Minky was so fast that he zoomed back to Mrs. Dinky before he finished counting all 10 numbers for his teacher.

“What a good boy! ” Minky hollered, as he sit quietly by Mrs. Dinky and smiled like a young gentleman who never dashed all over the place with his ever running little feet.

[II]

“Why do I always get the biggest job, Mrs. Dinky?” Minky asked as he finally leaned over the desk to preview his project of the day.

“Oh, that’s because you are so good at working on projects, and I believe you are able to do bigger ones with no problem at all.”

“Yipi!” Minky was extremely encouraged that he was not able to contain himself any more. He started on his project right away and finished copying the map information from the book within minutes.

“Now what, now what, Mrs. Dinky?” he looked at his teacher eagerly, waiting for her nice comment on his smartness again. But Mrs. Dinky simply nodded her head and said: “good. But you are not done yet. You might also want to color the forest of our nation green, and rivers blue, and houses red, as the instruction told you to. How about that?”

“Not again! Coloring is the most boring job in the whole wide world!”

“Minky, be quiet please, and finish your project now, before you are allowed to talk. Plus also, you are not supposed to talk like that. Understand?”

“Ok. Except I do not like this boring project at all!” Minky went back to his paperwork, very reluctantly, of course. Being so far from the center of the classroom where other kids were gathered, little Minky felt lonely and sad. But he did not have to stay sad for too long, because Mrs. Dinky had other kids to take care of. That’s why.

That’s how come before Mrs. Dinky moved back to the rest of the class and tried to provide some assistance with their projects, Minky was already there, taking on his teacher’s role.

“Hey, have you ever seen a sun in purple? That is so wrong… Oh man, that eraser won’t wipe it off. Here, yes, you might want to try this one instead. Just please let me know if it does not work either.”

“And you.  Rain and King do not rhyme. Don’t you feel lucky that I found out your mistake before Mrs. Dinky does?”

Minky busied himself with every single kid while shaking his head the way Mrs. Dinky does all the time, exactly like a drowning hen to-be.

[III]

“Not again!” moaned Minky, when he opened his lunch bag and spotted a banana in there.

“Why do I have to eat banana all the time? I would like grass, or popcorn, or spiders, I believe, if Mom ever packed them in my lunch box. Actually, I like anything but bananas.”

“Minky, please sit and eat your food.” Mrs. Dinky’s eyes were still on his plate of salad while she said that. No one could figure out how she managed to learn that Minky was standing while talking!

Anyway, she knew, for sure, and Minky was not happy about that. He sat down per her request, making faces to the other kids, simply ignoring his food.

And guess what? Mrs. Dinky even knew about the funny faces part without looking up from her salad! “Minky, stop making faces please. Eat your food or you’ll get very hungry in the afternoon.”

Of course Minky is a smart boy, and he stopped, but only to talk without making faces.

He is a social little creature, after all. Mrs. Dinky had no way to stop his social activities, until the whole class started to talk out so loud over their food that Mrs. Dinky had to come up with a way to interfere with this class-wide socialization no matter what.

So she did.

“Mr. Minky, did you see that clock on the wall?”

“Yes, Mrs, Dinky. Except that I think one of the eyes of that Mickey Mouse is falling off, because it’s not moving as fast as the other eye.”

“Well, that’s not what I am asking you about the clock for. I just would like you to know that when the longer hand of the two points to six, we’ll have to wrap up and go outside. If you do not finish your lunch by then, you are not allowed to eat anything any more. Not even bananas.”

“Six? Do you really mean six? It is three now. Can you please tell me how long is it from three to six?”

“That’ll be 15 minutes.”

“But how long is 15 minutes?”

“It’s about the time from when we sit here and started our lunch, to this minute now.”

“Oh, no! I am running out of time!”

Minky got so worried that he could not keep his eyes off the clock. And, since he’s such a warm-hearted social little boy loved by the whole class, all the kids got concerned.  The whole gang stopped eating, and started staring at the clock, till the longer hand of the two pointed to six.