by Dan Gutman
None of us could believe that Mr. Burke had been fired. Who would mow the lawn? Who would trim the bushes? Who would rake the leaves in the fall and shovel the snow in the winter?
Mr. Burke didn’t say a word. He just stood up and walked slowly out the doorway.
When we got back to class, I looked out the window and saw Mr. Burke sitting all by himself on the monkey bars in the playground. It was sad.
“Okay, it’s time for math,” said Mr. Granite. “Get out your pencils and turn to page twenty-three in your math books. Do the first problem and write the answer in your notebook.”
Ugh. I hate math.
“I don’t have a pencil,” said Ryan.
“Me neither,” said Michael.
“My pencil is gone!” said Neil the nude kid.
“Somebody stole my pencil, too!” said Alexia.
“Somebody took all of our pencils!” said Andrea.
It was true! All of our pencils were gone. Our glue sticks, tape, erasers, and rulers were gone, too.
“Somebody stole our stuff!” I shouted.
“Who would steal school supplies?” asked Andrea.
“Mayor Hubble!” said Mr. Granite. “He’s probably going to sell our school supplies on eBay so he can balance the budget.”
“Wow,” I said, “he didn’t waste any time.”
“Mayor Hubble is mean!” said Emily.
“That may be true, but we still have to do math,” said Mr. Granite. “There’s one pencil on my desk. We’ll just have to share the class pencil.”
“Can I use the class pencil first?” asked Little Miss Perfect. “I already know the answer to the first problem.”
Andrea always knows the answer to every problem. I hate her.
“I want the class pencil first!” I shouted. “Please, Mr. Granite?”
I didn’t even want the dumb pencil. I just didn’t want Little Miss Know-It-All to get it.
“Andrea and A.J. may share the class pencil,” said Mr. Granite. “Then pass it down to the next person.”
“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are going to share the class pencil. They must be in love!”
“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.
If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.
Andrea snatched the pencil from Mr. Granite before I could get it. I grabbed the other end of the pencil.
“I get to use the class pencil first, Arlo!” said Andrea.
“No,” I shouted at her, “we’re supposed to share it.”
“Me!”
“No, me!”
“Both of you! Knock it—”
Mr. Granite didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence. Because at that moment the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.
SNAP!
The class pencil broke in half.
“Look what you did, Arlo!” shouted Andrea. “You broke the class pencil!”
“I didn’t break it,” I shouted back at her. “You broke it!”
“I did not!”
“Did too.”
“Now we can’t do math,” said Michael.
“Yay!” said Ryan. “No math!”
“Mr. Granite, Arlo broke the class pencil on purpose so he wouldn’t have to do math!” Andrea yelled.
“I did not!”
“Did too!”
Andrea started hitting me, and I hit her back.
“Stop!” shouted Mr. Granite. “I will not have violence in my classroom!”
“What do you have against violins?” I asked.
“Not violins, Arlo!” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. “Violence!”
“Oh. That sounds a lot like violins to me.”
“Forget the class pencil,” said Mr. Granite. “We’ll use the whiteboard. You kids will not get out of doing math this time.”
I had to admit that breaking the class pencil to get out of doing math wasn’t a bad idea. I wish I had thought of it. But that gave me another idea.
“Mr. Granite,” I said, “can I go get a drink of water?”
“Mayor Hubble turned off the water fountains,” he replied. “Remember?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “May I go to the boys’ room?”
“Do you really have to go to the boys’ room, A.J.?” Mr. Granite asked me. “Or are you just trying to get out of math?”
“I really have to go,” I lied.
“Well, okay,” said Mr. Granite. “Here, take some Post-it Notes with you.”
I was about to walk out the doorway when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.
Brrrring! Brrrring! Brrrring!
It was the recess bell!
Yay! No math!
It was the greatest moment of my life.
6
Mr. Burke Goes Berserk
When we went out to the playground for recess, two big guys were there.* They were sawing off the bottoms of the monkey bars. When they finished, they picked the whole thing up and started carrying it away.
“Where are you taking our monkey bars?” I asked.
“To Rent-A-Monkey Bars,” one of the guys replied. “You can rent anything.”
They also took away our swings, slides, climbing wall, kickballs, volleyball nets, soccer goals, and jump ropes. They even took the tetherball pole out of the ground! Then they threw all that stuff into a big truck and drove away.
We were sad. There was nothing to do. What fun is recess when you have nothing to play with?
“Mayor Hubble is mean,” said Andrea. And for once I agreed with her.
We wandered around the playground until we saw Mr. Burke coming out of the equipment shed. He had something in his hand.
“Why is he still here?” asked Alexia. “Mayor Hubble fired him.”
“What’s he holding?” asked Ryan.
“It looks like a … chain saw,” said Andrea.
A CHAIN SAW?!
We all started freaking out.
“Mr. Burke is crazy!” I yelled.
“He must have snapped,” yelled Neil the nude kid.
“He’s going to kill everybody in the school!” yelled Ryan.
“It will be like that movie The Texas Chain Saw Massacre!” yelled Michael.
Mr. Burke pulled a cord to start up the chain saw, and it made a loud noise like a motorcycle.
“We’ve got to do something!” yelled Emily.
We were about to run inside and warn the teachers when Mr. Burke went over to the biggest bush in the playground.
“Wait a minute,” said Andrea. “He’s not going to kill anybody. He’s going to trim the bushes!”
Andrea was right, as usual. Mr. Burke started cutting the side of the big bush with the chain saw. He carefully cut into one side and then he went around to cut the other side.
“Why is he trimming—” Emily started to say.
“He’s not trimming it!” Andrea said. “He’s making a sculpture. He’s making a bush sculpture!”
She was right again. And Mr. Burke wasn’t just making any sculpture. As he cut into the bush with the chain saw, we could see that he was making a sculpture of a person. And as he continued cutting, we could see that the person wasn’t just any person.
“It’s… Mayor Hubble!” shouted Alexia.
She was right, too. The bush looked just like the mayor.
“Mr. Burke is weird,” said Ryan.
Andrea had on her worried face, so I knew she was going to say something about her mother the psychologist.
“I’m worried,” she said. “My mother is a psychologist. She would say that Mr. Burke is obsessed with Mayor Hubble. He needs to move on with his life and get a new job.”
“I agree,” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says.
Mr. Burke put the finishing touches on his sculpture. Then he put the chain saw back into the shed and came out with a shovel.
“What’s he doing now?” asked Neil the nude kid.
Mr. Burke w
ent over to where the monkey bars used to be. Then he started digging a hole in the ground with the shovel.
“See? It’s like I told you,” I said. “He must be digging up the bodies of the kids he murdered.”
“Arlo, stop trying to scare Emily,” said Andrea.
“I’m scared!” said Emily.
“Maybe he’ll dig up some zombies,” said Ryan. “They’ll come back to life and chase us around the playground.”
“And if they catch us, they’ll eat our brains,” said Michael. “I saw that in a movie once.”
Emily started freaking out.
“Zombies don’t eat brains, dumbhead,” said Alexia.
“Cannibal zombies do,” I told her. “Especially cannibal zombies from outer space.”
“We’ve got to do something!” yelled Emily, and then she went running away.
Sheesh, what a crybaby.
The rest of us kept watching Mr. Burke digging with the shovel. First he would dig one hole and then he would dig another hole nearby. And then another one.
“I think he’s looking for something,” said Ryan.
“Maybe he’s digging up the Underground Railroad,” I suggested.
We learned about that in class with Mr. Granite.
“The Underground Railroad wasn’t underground, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
“Then why did they call it the ‘Underground Railroad’?” I asked.
“Because it was hidden,” Andrea said. “They didn’t want people to know about it.”
“Your face should be hidden,” I told Andrea. “Then we wouldn’t have to look at it.”
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
Andrea was trying to think of something mean to say to me. But she never got the chance. Because that’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Mr. Burke’s shovel hit something sharp.
PING!
He must have broken off a piece of rock. He got down on his hands and knees and picked it up. He was looking at it carefully. Then he took a magnifying glass out of his pocket and looked through it. He turned the rock over and over in his hand.
And then he stood up and yelled…
“It’s GOLD!”
7
Gold Fever
“Gold!” shouted Ryan.
“Gold!!” shouted Michael.
“Gold!!!” shouted Neil the nude kid.
“GOLD!!!!” I shouted.
Just in case you were wondering, we were all shouting “Gold.”
Kids from every corner of the playground came running over to see what was going on.
“Mr. Burke found gold!”
“Mr. Burke found gold!!”
“MR. BURKE FOUND GOLD!!!”
Just in case you were wondering, lots of kids were talking about how Mr. Burke found gold. Everybody crowded around him as he held up the chunk of gold.
“Well, Ah’ll be dogged,” Mr. Burke said. “Mah great-great-grandpappy lived over yonder back in ’48. He told me there was a heap a gold left in the ground after the big gold rush ended. And Ah reckon it was right here!”
Mrs. Jafee came running out to the playground.
“What’s all the fuss about?” she asked.
“Mr. Burke found a piece of gold where the monkey bars used to be,” I told her.
“Ah always figgered there wuz gold down there,” he said, “but Ah couldn’t git at it on account a them dang monkey bars. Is it okay with y’all if Ah do a little diggin’ out here?”
“You betcha!” said Mrs. Jafee. “Dig, baby, dig!”
Our reading specialist, Mr. Macky, came running out of the school. He was pushing a wheelbarrow.
“Did somebody say gold?” he asked, all excited.
“Where did you get a wheelbarrow?” Ryan asked Mr. Macky.
“From Rent-A-Wheelbarrow,” said Mr. Macky. “You can rent anything.”
Suddenly, the other teachers came running out of the school: Ms. Coco, Miss Holly, Mr. Docker, Miss Small—all of them! They were wearing overalls and miner’s helmets. Some of them were carrying pickaxes, shovels, and pans. I guess they rented them.
“Yee-ha!” they were all shouting. “Gold!”
“Uh, don’t any of you have classes to teach?” asked Andrea.
“Classes?” shouted our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. “Who cares about classes? There’s gold in them thar hills!”
“And Ah’m a-fixin’ to fetch me some, dagnabit,” said our speech teacher, Miss Laney.
“Yee-ha!” shouted Mr. Granite.
“Why is everybody suddenly talking like it’s the Wild West?” I asked.
“’Cause we got the gold fever, young feller!” said Mr. Macky. “It drives a man crazy, Ah tell you! Crazy!”
“Ah’m crazier than a run-over coon!” shouted our health teacher, Ms. Leakey.
“Ah’m crazier than popcorn on a hot stove!” shouted Mr. Granite.
“Yee-ha!” shouted Ms. Coco.
Grown-ups are weird.
The teachers started digging holes all over the place and saying words I never heard of, like “tarnation” and “varmint” and “ornery.” Me and the other kids just watched them. At least it was better than going to class.
“Ah found me a nugget, y’all!” Miss Holly suddenly shouted. “Yee-ha!”
“A chicken nugget?” I asked.
“No, a gold nugget!”
That’s funny. I always thought nuggets came from chickens. We all gathered around to look at Miss Holly’s nugget.
“Look at the way it shines!” she said.
“That there nugget is as purty as a snake on stilts!” said Mrs. Roopy.
“Ah reckon this may be the biggest gold strike in over a hundred years,” said Mr. Burke.
The teachers let out a big “yee-ha” and started digging all over the place with even more excitement.
“Ah found one, too!” shouted Miss Small.
“So did Ah!” said Mr. Granite.
They were all uncovering gold. That’s when a big black car pulled up to the playground. And you’ll never believe who got out of it.
It was Mayor Hubble! And he was coming over.
Suddenly, all the teachers stopped digging. Mayor Hubble was staring at the teachers. The teachers were staring at Mayor Hubble. The kids were staring at the teachers and Mayor Hubble. Everybody was staring at each other. You could hear a pin drop.*
I was sure Mayor Hubble was going to tell them to stop digging and go back to class. But he didn’t.
“Dig!” he hollered. “Keep digging!”
8
Gilver
When I got to school the next day, the front door was locked. I went around to the playground, and it was filled with teachers. They were digging holes with shovels, pickaxes, and all kinds of mining equipment.
I met up with the guys and Alexia. Mrs. Roopy came by on a donkey.
“Where did you get a donkey?” Alexia asked her.
“It’s not a donkey,” Mrs. Roopy said. “It’s a burro. His name is Jose.”
“Where did you get a burro?” Michael asked.
“From Rent-A-Burro,” she said. “You can rent anything.”
As we got closer, we saw the weirdest thing in the history of the world. Mr. Macky, Mr. Burke, Mr. Docker, and Officer Spence all had long beards on their faces! None of them had beards the day before.
“How did you grow a beard so fast?” Ryan asked Mr. Macky.
“It’s the gold fever!” he replied, a crazy look in his eyes. “It does that to a man.”
We sat and watched the teachers digging. They were all shouting “Yee-ha” and calling each other “pardner.” That’s when annoying Andrea and Emily came over.
“This is terrible!” Andrea said. “The teachers should be inside the school helping us learn things, not out here digging for gold.”
“That’s right,” said Emily.
What is their problem?
“Can you possibly be more boring?” asked Alexia.
Mr. Burke seemed to know a lot about gold mining, and he was telling the teachers where to dig and what to do.
“Ah reckon we need to dig a deeper hole to git at the gold,” he told them. “Fetch me the dynamite, fellers!”
“They’re going to blow a hole in the playground?” asked Andrea. “That sounds dangerous. Is violence really necessary?”
“What do violins have to do with it?” I asked.
“Not ‘violins,’ Arlo! ‘Violence’!”
Mr. Burke and Mr. Macky dug a deep hole where the monkey bars used to be and put sticks of dynamite in there. Then they stretched a wire from the hole to the other end of the playground.
“Y’all cover yer ears now,” Mr. Burke hollered. Then he yelled “Fire in the hole!” and pushed down on this handle thing that looked like a bicycle pump. We all covered our ears.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
There was a huge blast. Rocks and dirt went flying all over the place. It was awesome. We got to see it live and in person. You should have been there!
“WOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
Blowing stuff up is cool. There should be a TV channel that shows nothing but stuff being blown up all day long.
The explosion blew a giant hole in the ground. The teachers all ran over yelling “Yee-ha.” They climbed into the hole with their shovels and picks.
“You kids wanna come down into the mine with me and poke around?” Mr. Burke asked us.
“Yeah!” said me and the guys and Alexia.
“I don’t want to get my school clothes dirty,” said Andrea.
“Me neither,” said Emily.
“Can you possibly be more boring?” asked Alexia.
The rest of us climbed into the mine with Mr. Burke. It was dark down there, but some of the teachers had lights on their helmets, so we could see.
They were digging for a long time, but nobody found any gold. And then Mr. Burke suddenly hit something sharp with his shovel.
“Ah think Ah found somethin’!” he said.
“Is it gold?” I asked.
“No.”
“Is it silver?” asked Alexia.