"I think I must have—my reading book isn't here," went on Noodle, sort of flustered like.
"Teacher! Teacher!" cried Joie Kat, snapping his paws like anything. "Teacher! Teacher!"
"Well, what is it?" asked Professor Rat.
"Maybe Noodle's book is under his tail—he may be sitting on it," said Joie, all excited like.
And this may have been so, for beavers have very broad, flat tails, you know, and something might easily have been hidden under Noodle's.
Noodle lifted his tail up, when Joie Kat said that, but no reader book was there.
"No, I must have left it home," said Noodle.
"Well, then you had better go home after it," said Professor Rat, though not at all crossly. "Hurry along, Noodle, and you may read the lesson when you get back."
"Oh-o-o-o-o!" cried all the other animal girls and boys. And Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, said to his brother Johnnie, in a whisper, of course:
"Say, I'm going to leave all my books home tomorrow."