by Dan Gutman
I hate her.
We moved on to round two. I had to say “I saw a saw in Arkansas that could out saw any other saw I ever saw.” Andrea had to say “Fred fed Ted bread, and Ted fed Fred bread.” Ryan had to say “If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?” Emily had to say “I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won’t wish the wish you wish to wish.”
After three rounds I thought my tongue was gonna fall out. Miss Laney gave us water so our mouths wouldn’t catch on fire.
“The judges are almost finished tabulating their results,” said Miss Laney. “Today’s winner is…Andrea!”
“Yay!” yelled Andrea.
“Congratulations,” Miss Laney said. “You can take any prize you want from the mystery treasure chest.”
Miss Laney opened up one of the stall doors, and there was a treasure chest inside. Andrea chose a solar-powered calculator. The rest of us were allowed to take a lollipop.
“Thanks for playing I Bet You Can’t Say This!” Miss Laney said. “That’s our show for today. You’ve been a wonderful audience. Don’t forget to order your copy of Miss Laney’s Amazing Zany Brainy No Painy Speech Fixer Upper! Good night, everybody!”
Cheering came out of the boom box again.
Miss Laney is weird.
5
Problem Solved
The next day me and the guys were waiting in line for lunch in the vomitorium when we saw some kids nearby sobbing and crying and freaking out. They were talking with Mr. Loring, the music teacher, and Ms. Hannah, the art teacher. Both of them were carrying big cardboard boxes.
“What’s going on?” asked Neil the nude kid.
“We’re going home,” Ms. Hannah replied. “We just got fired. We wanted to say good-bye.”
“WHAT?!” I said. “I thought the school wasn’t closing until June.”
“That’s right,” said Mr. Loring. “But they’re starting to fire the teachers now.”
“Art and music are always the first to go,” Ms. Hannah told us. “Some people think the arts aren’t important.”
“What are you gonna do now?” asked Ryan.
“I’m going to make dresses out of old pot holders and sell them on eBay,” said Ms. Hannah.
“I might get back together with the guys in my old rock band and go on tour,” said Mr. Loring.
It was hard to believe that Mr. Loring used to be in a rock band. He’s like a million hundred years old.
“What was the name of your band?” I asked.
“The Rolling Stones,” he said.
We took our trays and found seats next to Andrea and her annoying friends. They looked like they had been crying. Everybody was sad about the teachers being fired. Nobody was in the mood to eat lunch. Not even Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food. One time he took a bite out of the cushion on the school bus.
We were sitting there quietly when those two guys in overalls carried this big thing out of the vomitorium.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s the salad bar,” said Andrea.
“Is that like a candy bar made out of salad?” I asked. Andrea rolled her eyes.
“You probably never tasted salad in your life, Arlo,” she said.
“I did too,” I told her. “I tasted a salad once. Then I spit it out.”
“I don’t care if they take away the salad bar,” Michael said, “as long as they don’t take away the monkey bars.”
All of us looked out the window toward the playground. And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what we saw. That’s right! Two guys in overalls were moving the monkey bars!
“They’re taking the school apart while we’re sitting here!” yelled Andrea.
“It’s not fair!” yelled Ryan.
“We’ve got to do something!” yelled Emily, and then she went running out of the room.
Sheesh! Get a grip! What a crybaby!
But Emily was right for once in her life. We did have to do something. The question was, What?
I thought and thought and thought and thought.* I thought so hard that I thought my head was gonna explode. But that’s when I thought of the greatest idea in the history of the world!
“Hey,” I said. “Mr. Klutz told us it would take a million dollars to keep the school open, right?”
“Right,” everybody said.
“So if we could get a million dollars, we could save the school!”
“A.J., you’re a genius!” said Michael.
“No wonder you’re in the gifted and talented program!” said Neil the nude kid.
So the solution to our problem was simple. All we had to do was get a million dollars.
6
How to Get a Million Dollars
After lunch we went outside for recess. Me and the guys went to the playground where the monkey bars used to be. Andrea, Emily, and some of their girly friends came out there too. Everybody was complaining about what was happening to our school.
“Stop whining,” I told them. “All we need to do is get a million dollars.”
“How are you going to get a million dollars, Arlo?” asked Andrea. “Are you going to rob a bank?”
“Of course not!” I said. “I’ll just go to the bank and get the money from the cash machine. That’s what my mom does.”
Andrea rolled her eyes.
“You have to put money into a bank if you want to take it out, dumbhead!” Andrea said.
“You’re the dumbhead!” I told her. “What’s the point of putting money in the bank if you’re just gonna take it out?”
“Let’s see how much money we have right now,” Michael suggested.
We emptied our pockets. I had a nickel and three pennies. Ryan had a quarter. We put all the coins in a pile, and Andrea counted it.
“It comes to $1.04,” she said. “And a Life-Saver.”
“That’s not even close to a million dollars,” said Neil.
“Sure it is,” I told him. “If we just did that a million more times, we’d have a million dollars.”
“That’s ridiculous, Arlo,” Andrea said.
“So is your face,” I told her.
“We could bake cookies,” Emily suggested. “If we sold a million cookies for a dollar each, we’d make a million dollars.”
“You’re not gonna sell a million cookies,” said Ryan.
“What if we sold just one really big cookie and charged a million dollars for it?” I suggested.
“Maybe we could borrow a million dollars from our parents,” said Michael.
“We would have to pay it back,” Andrea said. “So we would still have to get a million dollars.”
“I know!” I said, snapping my fingers. “We could clean couches.”
Everybody looked at me like I was crazy. But it made perfect sense. My mom is always picking loose change out of the back of our couch. She calls it her secret couch money. We could go around town asking people if we could clean their couches and keep all the secret couch money.
“I don’t think so, dude,” Michael said.
“We could sell my little brother,” suggested Neil the nude kid.
“That’s against the law,” said Andrea.
“It is not,” I said.
“Is too,” said Andrea.
We went back and forth like that for a while. Suddenly, Mr. Tony came over. He’s a big guy with a mustache who runs the after-school program.
“Hi, Mr. Tony!” we all said.
“What are you doing here?” asked Michael. “School doesn’t let out until three o’clock.”
“Because of the budget cuts,” he said, “they told me I have to be on duty for recess.”
We all giggled, because Mr. Tony said “on duty,” which sounds exactly the same as “on doody.” The weird thing is, it’s okay to say “duty,” but you’re not supposed to say “doody.” Nobody knows why. So, any time anybody says “duty,” you
have to giggle because it sounds like they said “doody.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.
Mr. Tony asked us what we were talking about, and we told him some of our ideas to get a million dollars. He gathered us around him, like we were having a football huddle.
“I have a better idea,” Mr. Tony whispered. “Here’s the plan. We tell the government we have a thousand kids at our school. Yeah, that’s it. And we tell ’em our school is ten stories high. We tell ’em our school is the biggest school in the whole country.”
“Why would that get us a million dollars?” asked Andrea.
“Simple,” Mr. Tony said. “If the government thinks our school is the biggest school in the country, they’ll think it’s too big to fail. They’ll have to bail us out.”
We all looked at Mr. Tony.
“How can they bail us out?” I asked. “We’re not boats.”
Why is everybody always talking about boats? If you ask me, Mr. Tony is full of baloney.
7
Spooch
After recess we went back to Mr. Granite’s class. He was talking about saving energy, like always. It was really boring. If you ask me, Mr. Granite should save energy by not talking so much about saving energy.
I ripped a sheet of paper out of my notebook and wrote this on it…
Ask if we can go see Miss Laney.
I folded my note up until it was tiny and passed it to Ryan. He looked at it and raised his hand.
“Mr. Granite,” Ryan asked, “can I go to the girls’ bathroom?”
Everybody laughed.
“Miss Laney will call for you if she needs to see you, Ryan,” said Mr. Granite.
“Please? Please? Please? Please?” Ryan begged.
Any time you want something really badly, just say “please” over and over again until grown-ups can’t stand it anymore. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“No, I’m sorry, Ryan,” Mr. Granite said.
That’s when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. I raised my hand and Mr. Granite called on me.
“I need to go to spooch,” I said.
“‘Spooch’?” Mr. Granite asked. “What’s ‘spooch’?”
“You know, spooch,” I told him. “That thing Miss Laney teaches.”
“Do you mean ‘speech,’ A.J.?” Mr. Granite asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “spooch.”
“Why are you saying ‘spooch,’ A.J?” he asked.
“I didn’t say ‘spooch,’” I told him. “I said ‘spooch.’”
“A.J. has a spooch in president,” said Ryan.
“You mean a speech impediment?” asked Mr. Granite.
“Yeah, that thing,” Ryan said.
Andrea raised her hand.
“Mr. Granite,” she said, “I think my tongue is broken. Glub glub glub glub.”
“Help!” yelled Emily. “I forgot how to talk!”
“I think it’s contagious!” Ryan hollered. “The whole class might catch it!”
Mr. Granite looked like he was worried. I grabbed my throat and pretended to be choking. So did Ryan, Andrea, and Emily.
“It’s an epidermis!” I yelled.
“You mean an epidemic?” asked Mr. Granite. “This sounds like an emergency to me! Okay, A.J., Andrea, Ryan, and Emily, I want you to go see Miss Laney right away! Hurry!”
Ha-ha! What a scam. Grown-ups will fall for anything. I knew it would be way more fun to play cool games with Miss Laney than to sit in Mr. Granite’s class and learn how to save energy.
“A.J., you’re a genius!” Ryan said as we walked down the hall to the girls’ bathroom. “You should get the No Bell Prize for that one.”
That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
8
What’s in the Stall?
When we got to the girls’ bathroom, Miss Laney was combing her hair in the mirror.* She didn’t notice us at first.
“Shampoo,” she said to herself. “Shampooooo. Shamp ooooo. Sham. Poo. Poo sham. Poosh ham. Poo—”
Miss Laney is weird. We started fake coughing so she would notice us.
“Oh, hello!” she said. “I was just practicing my ooo sounds while I fixed my hair.”
“Is your hair broken?” I asked.
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Miss Laney asked us.
(That’s grown-up talk for “What are you doing here?”)
“We came to play I Bet You Can’t Say This! again,” Ryan said.
“Let’s play a different game!” Miss Laney said as she put some weird puppet thing on her hand. “Meet Ollie the Octopus! He’s your friend! He likes to play a game called Name the Letter.”
“How do you play?” Emily asked.
“Don’t ask me!” said Miss Laney. “Ask Ollie!”
“How do you play, Ollie?” Emily asked the puppet.
“First, I tell you what to do with your mouth,” Ollie said. “Then you tell me what letters you can make. For instance, what letters can you make if you push your lips together?”
I went through the alphabet silently, trying to figure out what letters I could make by pushing my lips together.
“B…M…and…P!” shouted Andrea.
“Very good!” said Ollie the Octopus. “You’re winning, Andrea!”
“Yay!” shouted Andrea.
I hate her.
“Okay, next question,” said Ollie. “What letters do you make when you push air through your teeth?”
I went through the alphabet in my head.
“C…and S!” I yelled.
“Good, A.J.!” said Ollie the Octopus. “Next question. What letters do you make by putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth?”
“D, N, and T!” I yelled.
“Right!” said Ollie. “And what letter do you make by sticking your tongue through your teeth?”
“L!” I shouted before anybody else. I totally rule at Name the Letter.
“Correct!” Ollie said. “And what letters can you make by vibrating your throat?”
“Can I phone a friend?” asked Ryan.
“V and Z!” I yelled.
“That’s it!” Ollie said. “The winner is…A.J.!”
Andrea looked all mad. Ha-ha-ha! In her face! It was about time I won something. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her. It was the greatest day of my life.
Miss Laney—I mean Ollie the Octopus—said I could pick a prize from the mystery treasure chest. I chose a paddle that had a ball attached to it with a rubber band. It was cool.
“Okay, A.J.,” Ollie said, “it’s time to play a new game called…What’s in the Stall? You can keep that paddle, or you can have whatever is in Stall Number One, Stall Number Two, or Stall Number Three. It’s your choice. Maybe there’s a skateboard in one of the stalls. Or maybe there’s a BRAND-NEW CAR!”
“You can’t fit a car into a bathroom stall,” Andrea said.
“It could be a very small car,” Ryan pointed out.
“Pick Stall Number One, A.J.!” Emily yelled.
“Pick Number Three!” yelled Ryan.
“Keep the paddle, Arlo!” Andrea yelled.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I had to think fast. This was the hardest decision I had to make in my life. My brain hurt.
“I’ll take what’s in Stall Number Two,” I finally said.
“Is that your final answer?” asked Ollie.
“Final answer.”
Miss Laney took away my paddle and opened the door to Stall Number Two.
“Oh, sorry!” Ollie said. “You won a toilet bowl plunger. Better luck next time, A.J.”
“That’s not a prize!” I complained. “That thing was in the stall anyway!”
“Sorry!” Ollie said. “The decisions of the judges are final. Thanks for playing What’s in the Stall?”
I don’t like that game.
9
/> Plays Are Boring
The next day me and Ryan were walking up the front steps to school.
“Maybe Miss Laney isn’t a real speech teacher,” said Ryan. “Maybe she’s just some crazy person who loves game shows.”
“Yeah,” I said, “maybe she kidnapped our real speech teacher and locked her in a grass hut on a desert island. Stuff like that happens all the time, y’know.”
When we got to Mr. Granite’s class, two guys in overalls were taking the whiteboard off the wall.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Granite shouted.
“Sorry, pal,” the guys said as they carried the whiteboard away. “Budget cuts.”
“Mr. Granite, you’ve got to do something!” Emily said.
“I don’t want to rock the boat,” said Mr. Granite sadly.
What boat?
I didn’t get the chance to ask why everybody’s always talking about boats, because guess who came running into the door at that moment?
Nobody, because if you ran into a door it would hurt. But guess who came running into the doorway?
It was Miss Laney! She had a laundry bag over her shoulder.
“I just thought of how we can save the school!” Miss Laney shouted excitedly. “We can put on a play! People would pay to get in. All your parents and friends would come. We could make a million dollars!”
“I love plays!” said the girls.
“I hate plays,” said the boys.
“Plays are boring,” I said. “Especially plays where people start singing for no reason.”
“It doesn’t have to be a musical,” Miss Laney said. “We can put on a Shakespeare play.”
“I love him!” said Andrea. “Over the summer I memorized The Complete Works of Shakespeare!”
What is Andrea’s problem?
“Maybe the kids could do Romeo and Juliet,” suggested Mr. Granite. “That’s my favorite play.”