ley. Sadie spelled
the word right.

"Sue Brown, please spell horse," called the teacher, and Sue did not
make a miss.

"Now, Bunny, it is your turn," said the teacher, with a smile. "Your
word is cracker."

Bunny paused a moment.

"C--r--a----" he began.

Then suddenly, sounding throughout the school room, a harsh voice cried:

"Cracker! Cracker! Give me a cracker!"

Miss Bradley hurriedly stood up beside her chair. What pupil had thus
dared to speak aloud in school?

CHAPTER VI

A BUSY BUZZER

Bunny, Sue and the other children were just as much surprised as was
Miss Bradley when that strange, harsh voice called out. And it needed
but a look at the faces of her pupils to show the teacher that none of
them had broken one of the rules of the classroom.

Bunny still held his mouth open, for he was half way through the
spelling of the word "cracker." He was about to keep on, when once more
the voice called:

"Cracker! Cracker! Polly wants a cracker!"

The sound came from the cloak closet on one side of the classroom.

"It's a parrot!" cried Charlie Star. "A poll parrot!"

"Yes, I believe it is," said Miss Bradley.

"You didn't bring a parrot to school to-day, did you, Bunny?" she asked.

"Oh, no, Ma'am!" he exclaimed, so earnestly that of course Miss Bradley
believed him.

"But I know whose parrot it is," said Sue, eagerly.

"Whose?" asked the teacher.

"Mr. Winkler's! He's got a parrot and a monkey. They're always getting
loose. Maybe the monkey's in the cloakroom, too, only the monkey can't
talk like Polly," went on Sue.

"Keep your seats, children!" said Miss Bradley. "I'll look in the
cloakroom. There is no need to be excited. A parrot will hurt no one,
nor a monkey, either. Keep your seats!"

As she opened the cloakroom door the harsh voice again sounded more
loudly than before.

"Bow! Wow! Wow!" it barked. "Cracker! Cracker! Polly wants a cracker!
Let's have a song! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Then it began what I suppose the bird thought was singing.

The children laughed, and so did the teacher.

Out of the cloakroom flew the parrot, fluttering up on the teacher's
desk. There it perched, preening its feathers with its big beak and
thick, black tongue, now and then uttering harsh squawks and making
remarks, some of which could not be understood.

"Is this the parrot you meant, Sue?" asked Miss Bradley.

"Yes'm, that's Mr. Winkler's," answered Sue. "I can take it back to him
if you wan