by Dan Gutman
My Weird School #5
Miss Small Is off the Wall!
Dan Gutman
Pictures by
Jim Paillot
To Emma
Contents
1 Fizz Ed Is the Coolest
2 Smarty-pants and Dumbhead
3 Fun, Fun, Fun with Miss Small
4 A Dumb Balancing Act
5 Howdy, Pardner!
6 The Truth About Miss Small
7 Fizz Ed Is Dumb
8 Ghost in the Graveyard
9 Fit as a Fiddle
10 Cooties and Clog Dancing
11 Grown-ups Are Weird
About the Author and the Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Fizz Ed Is the Coolest
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
Well, I hate that reading and writing and arithmetic part of school, anyway. That stuff is for the birds!
There’s only one thing about school that I like.
Fizz Ed.
Fizz Ed! I love Fizz Ed! Fizz Ed is the coolest! Fizz Ed isn’t even like school at all. Fizz Ed is what you would be doing if you didn’t have to go to school. If you ask me, school would be cool if we could just have Fizz Ed all day long and forget about all that boring reading and writing and arithmetic stuff.
Well, actually, to be honest, I’ve never had Fizz Ed. At my school, the Ella Mentry School, we didn’t have Fizz Ed last year when we were in first grade. But my friend Billy around the corner goes to a different school. Billy’s in third grade, and he told me that at his school they play dodgeball and basketball and football in Fizz Ed. They get to do anything they want.
Man, I wish I could go to Billy’s school instead of boring old Ella Mentry School. I’ve been waiting forever until I got to second grade, when we would have Fizz Ed.
“Okay, everybody, it’s time to line up,” my teacher, Miss Daisy, announced one morning after we pledged the allegiance.
“Line up for what?” we all asked.
“Fizz Ed!” Miss Daisy said. “We’re going to meet Miss Small in the gym.”
“Yippee!”
2
Smarty-pants and Dumbhead
“Yippee!” I shouted.
“Hooray!” shouted my friends Ryan and Michael. We all whooped and hollered and high-fived each other. Finally we could go to Fizz Ed and leave all that reading and writing and arithmetic behind for a change. Miss Daisy gave each of us a name tag so Miss Small, the Fizz Ed teacher, would know who we were.
“What’s Fizz Ed?” asked this girl who has red hair named Emily (well, actually the girl is named Emily, not her hair). “Are we going to learn about soda pop?”
Me and Ryan and Michael slapped our own heads. We couldn’t believe it. That was like the stupidest thing anybody ever said in the history of the world.
“Fizz Ed is gym class, dumbhead!” I told Emily. “Everybody knows that.”
Emily looked all upset like she was going to start crying. That girl cries at any old thing.
“A.J.!” Miss Daisy said with her mean face. “Hold your tongue!”
“Okay.”
So I stuck out my tongue and held onto it. Everybody laughed. Well, everybody but Emily and Miss Daisy.
The whole class lined up in size order so Miss Daisy could walk us over to the gym, which is all the way at the other end of the school. Ryan was the line leader.
“I bet Miss Small will let us play football and baseball and hockey and dodgeball,” Michael whispered to me as we walked. Michael and Ryan are really good at sports. They’re the best athletes in the second grade.
“Sports are cool,” I said.
“Except for curling,” said Michael. “That’s just dumb.”
“That’s not even a sport,” I said. “Curling is what girls do to their hair.”
This girl with curly brown hair named Andrea Young must have heard me, because she laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“Curling is too a sport,” she said. “I saw it in a book about the Olympics. They take this big rock and slide it down the ice while somebody sweeps the ice in front of it with a broom.”
Andrea thinks she is so smart. She probably goes home after school and reads the dictionary for fun. That way she can brag about how much she knows.
“You don’t know anything about sports,” I told Andrea.
“Do too,” Andrea said back at me. “I take a dance class every day after school. I’m learning ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, and clog dancing.”
Andrea is one of those kids who takes lessons in everything. All she has to do is sneeze and her mother probably signs her up for sneezing lessons.
“Dancing is not a sport,” I said. “Dancing is dumb.”
“A little less chitchatting in the hall, please,” said Miss Daisy as we walked to the gym.
“Do we really have to go to Fizz Ed, Miss Daisy?” asked Andrea. “Isn’t it more important for us to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic?”
“Strong mind, strong body,” said Miss Daisy.
Ha-ha-ha! Smarty-pants Andrea Young was gonna to have to do something she didn’t like for a change. She wouldn’t be the best in the class for a change. Welcome to my world, Andrea!
I couldn’t wait to beat Andrea at basketball. Beat her at baseball. Beat her at football. This was going to be the greatest day in my life!
Andrea Young probably doesn’t even know the difference between a football and a footprint.
Finally, after walking about a hundred miles, we reached the gym. It’s this giant room with a basketball hoop at each end.
“Miss Small?” called Miss Daisy. “Are you here?”
Nobody answered, but there was an echo in the gym so we could hear Miss Daisy’s words over and over again when they bounced off the walls.
“Miss Small?…Miss Small?…Miss Small?…Miss Small?…Are you here?…Are you here?…Are you here?”
It was cool.
“Hello!” I yelled.
The gym yelled back, “Hello!…Hello!…Hello!…Hello!…Hello!”
“Echo!” yelled Michael.
“Echo…echo…echo…echo,” yelled the gym.
“A.J. is stupid!” yelled Ryan.
“A.J. is stupid!…A.J. is stupid!…A.J. is stupid!…A.J. is stupid!” yelled the gym.
I was gonna yell, “Ryan is a dumbhead,” but instead Miss Daisy yelled, “Stop that, boys!”
“Stop that, boys!…Stop that, boys!…Stop that, boys!” yelled the gym.
It was cool.
At that very moment, somebody came running out of the office at the other end of the gym. It was the most amazing thing any of us had ever seen.
It was Miss Small.
3
Fun, Fun, Fun with Miss Small
Miss Small was carrying a basketball, a football, a soccer ball, a kickball, and just about every other kind of ball you could name. She ran out and climbed up on the bleachers. Then she jumped off the bleachers and jumped on one of those little trampolines on the floor.
She did a flip, went flying through the air, and tried to dunk all those balls in the basketball hoop. One or two of them went in, but mostly they went flying all over the place.
So did Miss Small. She landed in a heap on the floor.
Miss Small is off the wall!
“Are you okay?” we all asked as we gathered around her. I was afraid she might have broken something, because she was just lying there without moving.
“I’m fit as a fiddle!” Miss Small replied. “I just wanted to show you how you’re not supposed to behave in the gym. In Fizz Ed, safety is our biggest concern.”
M
iss Daisy said she had to go back to class, and she left. Miss Small stood up slowly. It was amazing! Nobody could do anything except stare at her with their mouth open.
“Wow!” we all said.
The amazing thing was that Miss Small was really tall! Like, she was a million inches big. Her head just about reached the basketball hoop. It was like a giant had walked into the room. She must be the tallest person in the history of the world!
Miss Small was the opposite of her name. It was like a fat guy was named Mr. Thin or a dumb guy was named Mr. Smart or a really handsome guy was named Mr. Ugly or…well, you get the idea.
Miss Small blew into the shiny silver whistle that was hanging around her neck.
“Hey, kids! Are you ready to have some fun?”
“Yeah!” we all hollered.
“We’re going to have lots of fun in Fizz Ed!” she said. “Fun fun fun, all the time! That’s my motto.”
“What’s a motto?” asked Ryan.
“I don’t know,” Miss Small said. “What’s a motto with you?”
Then she laughed.
“Do you like to play games?” Miss Small asked. “I love playing games!”
“I like to play video games,” one of the boys said.
“Those aren’t the kind of games I’m talking about,” said Miss Small. “Real games are even more fun. I’m talking about running and jumping and chasing games. We’re going to play Red Light Green Light, Red Rover, Spud, Mother May I, Duck Duck Goose….”
“Those games are lame,” Ryan whispered in my ear.
“Kids can get hurt when they run and jump and chase each other,” said Andrea. “My mother told me to always be careful so I don’t get hurt.”
“Can you possibly be any more boring?” I asked Andrea.
She is gonna make a great grown-up when she grows up. She’s only eight, and she’s already mature, which is a fancy way to say boring.
“Do we have to play games where somebody loses?” asked that crybaby Emily. “I think the team that loses should win too. My dad told me I’m a winner whether I win or lose.”
“Your dad is weird,” I said, even though Emily looked like she might cry again. “If everybody wins, what’s the point of playing the game? That’s why you play. To beat the other team.”
“Competing is icky,” said Andrea.
“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, A.J. It’s how you play the game that counts,” said Miss Small. “In Fizz Ed, our goal is to have fun and build strong, healthy bodies. But most of all, by the end of the term, I want you all to have cooties.”
“Cooties!” everybody shrieked.
“Girls have cooties!” shouted all the boys.
“Boys have cooties!” shouted all the girls.
I never really knew what cooties were, but I knew they were something horrible that you wouldn’t want to get.
“Everybody should have cooties,” said Miss Small. “Cooties stands for COOperation, TEAmwork, and Sportsmanship.”
Oh. I didn’t care much about that stuff. I just wanted to beat Andrea Young at something because she thinks she is so smart. Besides, words that are made from the letters of other words are dumb.
Miss Small blew her whistle again.
“Before we do anything, we have to stretch.”
Miss Small got down on the floor again and did some push-ups. Then we had to do push-ups. She did some sit-ups. Then we had to do sit-ups. She did some windmills and arm circles. Then we had to do windmills and arm circles.
“See if you can touch your toes,” Miss Small said. “Now see if you can touch the sky. You want to be loose as a goose in a caboose.”
Stretching was boring, and dumb, too. Nobody can touch the sky. After we stretched, Miss Small made us do about a million hundred jumping jacks.
“Isn’t this fun?” Miss Small asked when we were finished.
I thought I was gonna throw up.
She blew her whistle again.
“Okay, now that we’re all as loose as a goose in a caboose, who wants to play a game?”
“I do!” we all shouted.
Finally!
4
A Dumb Balancing Act
“Are we gonna play football?” I asked Miss Small.
“No,” Miss Small said.
“How about basketball?” asked Ryan.
“Nope.”
“Soccer?”
“Not even close.”
“Baseball? Hockey? Tennis?”
“No. No. No.”
“Curling?” I asked.
“No.”
“I thought you said we were gonna have fun,” Michael complained.
“I did,” said Miss Small.
“So what are we gonna do?” I asked.
Miss Small went to a box near the bleachers and pulled out some giant feathers that were as long as her arms.
“We’re going to balance these peacock feathers,” she said.
“What!” I asked.
“Whoever can balance a feather on their finger the longest is the winner,” Miss Small said. She took a feather and balanced it on her finger. “See, it’s easy!”
She gave each of us a feather. I put the feather on my finger. It fell off right away. I put it back on my finger, and it fell off again. I tried moving my finger back and forth like Miss Small did to hold the feather up, but it fell off anyway.
Balancing feathers was not fun. It was dumb.
I looked up to see if Ryan could balance his feather. But his fell off. I turned around to see how Michael was doing. His feather fell off too.
In fact, there was only one kid in the whole class who was still balancing the dumb feather.
It was Andrea Young! Her dumb feather was just standing up all straight on her dumb finger like it was glued there.
“Good job, Andrea!” said Miss Small. “You have excellent balance.” And she gave Andrea a certificate that said she was a feather-balancing expert.
“Thanks, Miss Small,” Andrea said. “Maybe Fizz Ed won’t be so bad after all!”
I hate her.
5
Howdy, Pardner!
After we were finished with that dumb stuff, Miss Small collected all the feathers and blew her whistle.
“Okay, let’s have all the boys line up on one side of the gym and all the girls line up on the other side.”
“All right!” I whispered to Ryan. “We’re gonna play dodgeball.”
Dodgeball is this cool game where you get to throw balls at the kids on the other side of the gym and try to hit them. It’s the only game I know of where the object of the game is to hurt people. Dodgeball rules!
“Watch this,” I told Ryan. “When I get the ball, I’m gonna wham Andrea Young right in the head.”
Me and Ryan high-fived. Then we switched places so I could be right across from Andrea. That way I could get a good shot at her.
The only problem was that Miss Small didn’t go get any dodgeballs. When all the boys and girls were lined up on opposite sides of the gym, she went over to a boom box on the floor and turned it on. This annoying hillbilly music blasted out of the boom box. Miss Small put a big straw hat on her head and started dancing around like a lunatic.
“Yee-haw!” she hollered. “I reckon it’s time for some square dancing!”
“What!” I shouted. “We’re not supposed to dance in Fizz Ed. We’re supposed to play ball and stuff. Square dancing is dumb.”
But nobody could hear me because the girls were all whooping and squealing like they were opening their birthday presents or something.
“Everybody sashay to the middle of the gym and honor your partner!” Miss Small shouted. She was clapping her hands to the music.
I looked for Ryan and Michael, but they had already sashayed to the middle of the gym with the rest of the boys. I didn’t want to be the only one standing there on the line, so I sashayed to the middle too.
“Howdy, pardner!” Andrea Young said to me, and she did one of those courtesy t
hings girls do with their skirts.
No way I was gonna bow and say, “Howdy, pardner.” I didn’t want to honor Andrea. I wanted to nail her in the head with a dodgeball.
“Swing your partner round and round!” shouted Miss Small.
Andrea grabbed my elbow and swung herself around me about a hundred million times.
“Hey, look!” Ryan shouted. “A.J. and Andrea are in love!”
“Shut up, Ryan!”
Then we all went back to our boy and girl places. I thought I was gonna throw up from all that spinning.
“Clap your hands!” ordered Miss Small.
“Circle left!” ordered Miss Small.
“Circle right!” ordered Miss Small.
“Now do-si-do!” ordered Miss Small.
“Do-si-what?” we all asked.
Miss Small showed us how to do-si-do, which is sort of like walking around somebody like you’re pretending you don’t see them. It was dumb.
I couldn’t believe it. Instead of playing dodgeball or something cool with my friends, I had to do-si-do with Andrea Young. It wasn’t fair.
“Isn’t Fizz Ed fun, A.J?” Andrea asked the next time we had to meet in the middle.
Why can’t an asteroid fall on her?
After the square-dance disaster, Miss Small had us do the Chicken Dance. Now I don’t know if they do the Chicken Dance where you live, but it’s the dumbest dance in the history of the world.
Everybody has to stand in a big circle and tuck their thumbs into their armpits. Then you have to flap your elbows like a chicken and cluck. Then you have to wiggle down to the floor and sing, “I don’t want to be a chicken. I don’t want to be a duck. So I shake my butt.”