Welcome to the story of "The School" - By Donald Barthelme (visuals by Ananyaaa!!)
Well, we had all these children out planting trees, because we figured that was part of their education. And the trees died. They were orange trees. I don't know how they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possible or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn't the best.
With the herb gardens, it was probably a case of overwatering, and at least now they know not to overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens and some of them probably...you know, slipped them a little extra water when we weren't looking.
Of course, we expected the tropical fish, gerbils, white mice, and the salamander to die, that was no surprise, Well, now they know not to carry them around in plastic bags
We weren't even supposed to have a puppy. It was just a puppy the Murdoch girl found under a Gristede's truck one day. I don't know what it died of. Distemper I guess. It probably hadn't had any shots. I got it out of there before the kids got to school. I gave it to the custodian.
And then there was this Korean orphan that the class adopted through the Help the Children program, all the kids brought in a quarter a month. It was an unfortunate thing, the kid's name was Kim and maybe we adopted him too late The cause of death was not explained in the call we got.