Beth Louise Mansfeld, age 8, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for her question:

What is a rooney bird?

Andy searched and searched to find a rooney bird. Perhaps there is one, but no bird would admit that this was his name. But here is a bird that has a name very much like it. He is called the gooney bird. Perhaps you thought that somebody said rooney bird when they really said gooney bird. In any case, the real gooney bird is a most remarkable fellow who soars over the sea.

Some people call him the albatross and everybody agrees that he has the widest wings in the bird world. In olden days, he followed sailing ships over the great oceans. Sailors admired the big white bird as he soared aloft on wings that spread almost 12 feet from tip to tip. Sometimes he landed on deck, hoping for scraps. of food. But when time came to take off again, the great bird was very clumsy. That's when the sailors named him the gooney bird    which in those days meant the goofy bird.