by Dan Gutman
Dedication
To Emily Stevenson
—D.G.
To Lisa, Cam, and Rosie
—J.P.
Contents
Dedication
1. Toenails Don’t Have Brains
2. Guess Who
3. A Writing Lesson
4. Sound It Out
5. My Brain Explodes
6. Don’t Touch Anything!
7. Germ Warfare
8. You Can’t Be Too Careful
9. This Is an Emergency!
10. Feet Are Disgusting
Back Ad
About the Author and Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
My name is A.J. and I hate germs.
Germs are ugly and gross and mean. Germs should be against the law. The police should arrest germs and throw them in jail—little germ jails. That would teach them a lesson.
When I walked into Mr. Cooper’s class the other day, all the girls were oohing and ahhing about something. I peeked to see what they were looking at. It turned out that Andrea Young—Little Miss I-Know-Everything—got a smartphone from her parents.
“Smartphones are cool!” said Emily, Andrea’s crybaby friend.
“My mom said I can use it to look things up,” Andrea told the girls.
“Why don’t you look up how to be less annoying?” I told Andrea.
“Oh, snap!” said my friend Ryan.
“Think of it,” Andrea told me. “I have all the information in the world right here in my hand, Arlo.”
Andrea calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it. She was a real smarty-pants even before she got a smartphone. Now she’s going to be an even smarter smarty-pants. Why can’t a truck full of smartphones fall on her head?*
I put my backpack into my cubby and went to my seat. Then I looked around. Something was missing. What was it?
Oh, yeah, I know. It was our teacher, Mr. Cooper!
“Where’s Mr. Cooper?” asked Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“Where’s Mr. Cooper?” asked Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time.
“Where’s Mr. Cooper?” asked Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
In case you were wondering, everybody was asking where Mr. Cooper was.
That’s when our principal, Mr. Klutz, walked into the room. He has no hair at all. I mean none. He should get a hair transplant from a hairy guy who has plenty of hair to spare.
“Where’s Mr. Cooper?” we all asked.
“Mr. Cooper isn’t feeling well today,” Mr. Klutz told us.
“Gasp!” everybody gasped.
“I hope he’s going to be okay,” said Emily, who’s always worried about everybody being okay.
“Oh no!” I shouted, just to yank Emily’s chain. “Mr. Cooper is gonna die!”
Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out.
“We’ve got to do something!” shouted Emily, and then she went running out of the room.
Sheesh, get a grip! That girl will fall for anything.
“Calm down!” said Mr. Klutz as he went to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. “Mr. Cooper told me he has . . .”
And then Mr. Klutz wrote this big, long word on the board. . . .
ONYCHOCRYPTOSIS
What?!
I couldn’t even pronounce that word.
“It sounds like a horrible disease!” said Alexia.
“I told you Mr. Cooper is going to die!” I shouted.
Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out again.
“I just looked that word up on my smartphone,” said Andrea. “It means ‘ingrown toenail.’”*
“What’s an ingrown toenail?” asked Michael.
“That’s when your toenail grows into your skin instead of out,” Mr. Klutz explained.
“Yuck!” everybody shouted. “Gross!”
“Why would a toenail want to grow into your skin?” I asked.
“Toenails don’t want to do anything,” said Neil. “Toenails don’t have brains.”
Toenails are weird.
“That sounds scary,” said Ryan. “What if Mr. Cooper’s toenail grows the wrong way, and it grows inside his body until it comes out the top of his head?”
“Ewww!” everybody started shouting. “Disgusting!”
“Relax, that’s not going to happen,” Mr. Klutz told us. “Nobody has ever had a toenail sticking out of their head.”
“There’s always a first time,” I said.
“Is Mr. Cooper really going to die?” asked Alexia.
“Mr. Cooper is super,” said Ryan. “He has superpowers, so he can’t die. That’s a fact.”
“Nobody ever died from an ingrown toenail,” Mr. Klutz told us.
“There’s always a first time,” I said again.
Emily came back to class and sat in her seat.
“Okay, everyone calm down, please,” said Mr. Klutz. “Mr. Cooper will be back to school tomorrow. He told me he’s going to see his doctor this morning. For the rest of the day, you will have a sub.”
“Sub sandwiches all day?” I shouted. “Hooray!”
“Not a sub sandwich, dumbhead,” said Michael. “A sub is a boat that goes underwater. It’s a submarine.”
I knew that. Submarines are cool. But why would we be getting a submarine all day just because Mr. Cooper has an ingrown toenail? How would a submarine fit inside the classroom anyway?
“Not a submarine, dumbheads!” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. “A sub is a substitute teacher. Right, Mr. Klutz?”
“That’s right, Andrea.”
Andrea smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know that she knows something nobody else knows.
Personally, I’d rather have a sub sandwich. Or a submarine. But it’s always great when you have a substitute teacher, because then you don’t have to do any work or learn anything. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“Will our substitute teacher be nice?” asked Emily, who always cares about how nice everybody is.
“Oh yes, she’s very nice,” said Mr. Klutz. “I think you know her already. In fact, here she is now.”
And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who poked her head into the door at that moment.
Nobody! It would hurt if you poked your head into a door! Why would anybody want to do that? But you’ll never believe who poked her head into the doorway.
I’m not going to tell you.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.
It was Miss Daisy!
“Well, hello again, third graders!” she shouted.
If you read a book called Miss Daisy Is Crazy!, you know that Miss Daisy was our teacher last year, when we were in second grade. And if you didn’t read that book, well, you should really read that book right now.
Go ahead, read it. We’ll wait here.
So did you read it yet?
Anyway, Miss Daisy used to be our teacher. Then she went and got married to the reading specialist, Mr. Macky. Then they had a baby girl named Jackie Macky. Miss Daisy took time off from teaching to take care of the baby. And now she was back as a substitute teacher.
We all ran over and hugged her.
“Miss Daisy!” shouted Emily.
“Miss Daisy!” shouted Ryan.
“Miss Daisy!” shouted Neil.
In case you were wondering, everybody was shouting, “Miss Daisy!”
“Her name isn’t Miss Daisy anymore,” said Andrea. “Now it’s Mrs. Daisy, right?”<
br />
Oh, yeah. When women get married, they change their name from Miss to Mrs. Nobody knows why.
“You can call me whatever you like,” said Miss Daisy. “Not all women change their name. Some of them keep their old name. And some of them put ‘Ms.’ in front of their name.”
That’s weird. Women should make up their mind. But Miss Daisy will always be Miss Daisy to me.
“I have to go to a meeting,” said Mr. Klutz, who’s always going to meetings. “I’ll be back in a little while to see how you’re making out.”
Ugh, disgusting! I’m not making out with anybody.
Miss Daisy took off her coat and hung it in the cloakroom.
“I missed you kids so much!” she told us. “You’re getting to be so big.”
“We missed you, too,” said Andrea, who is a big brownnoser. “How is your baby, Jackie Macky?”
Miss Daisy took out her purse and showed us about a million hundred baby pictures.
“Awwwww . . .”
“She’s cute!”
“She’s adorable!”
All the girls were oohing and ahhing over the pictures. Sheesh, it was just a baby! They were acting like Jackie Macky was the first baby born in the history of the world.
“Don’t you think Jackie Macky is cute, Arlo?” Andrea asked me.
“She looks like Winston Churchill,” I replied.
I saw some old guy on TV named Winston Churchill. He looked like a big baby. That’s when I realized something. All babies look like Winston Churchill.
“Can she walk?” asked Michael.
“No,” said Miss Daisy.
“Can she talk?” asked Neil the nude kid.
“No,” said Miss Daisy.
“So what good is she?” I asked.
“Arlo!” said Andrea. “That’s mean!”
“Jackie Macky will be walking and talking very soon,” Miss Daisy told us. “But I’m a little worried about her. Today is her first time in day care.”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” said Alexia.
“But what if something happens to her?” asked Miss Daisy. “She might fall, or one of the other kids might hurt her. I’ve never been away from Jackie Macky for more than a few minutes.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” I assured Miss Daisy. “I was in day care when I was Jackie Macky’s age, and look how I turned out.”
“You’re a mess, Arlo,” said Andrea.
“Your face is a mess!” I told Andrea.
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
Andrea and I stuck out our tongues at each other.
“Enough bickering, you two,” said Miss Daisy. “We have a lot to do today. Mr. Cooper left me a list of things you need to learn while he’s gone.”
Miss Daisy picked up a big pad of paper and showed the list to us.
•Who invented kitty litter?
•Why is the Statue of Liberty green?
•How many stomachs does a cow have?
•Which planet has the most moons?
•What is a footnote?*
Miss Daisy looked at the list for a long time. Then she did the most amazing thing in the history of the world. She ripped the list into little pieces!
“Those are ridiculous things to learn,” she said. “Do you really want to learn stuff today?”
“Yes!” shouted all the girls.
“No!” shouted all the boys.
“What do you want to learn?” Miss Daisy asked.
“I want to learn about science,” said Andrea.
“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” replied Miss Daisy.
“I want to learn math,” said Emily.
“Well, I don’t know anything about that either,” replied Miss Daisy.
“I want to learn about history,” said Alexia.
“I can’t help you there,” replied Miss Daisy.
“I want to learn about current events,” said Annette.
“I’m clueless about current events,” replied Miss Daisy.
Miss Daisy doesn’t know anything about anything! She must be the dumbest teacher in the history of the world.
“Is there anything that you do know about?” asked Michael.
Miss Daisy thought about it for a long time.
“Yes!” she finally told us. “There is one thing I know a lot about. Bonbons!”
Bonbons are chocolate treats about the size of a large acorn. They’re yummy.
“I’ll tell you what,” Miss Daisy said. “Let’s take a break from learning new things. You can have indoor recess for the rest of the day. Instead of learning, we can just sit around eating bonbons.”
“Yay!” everybody shouted.
Miss Daisy took some bonbons out of her purse and passed them around. She’s the best teacher in the history of the world!
We sat around eating bonbons while Miss Daisy kept calling her day care center to see if Jackie Macky was okay. I ate so many bonbons that I got sick to my stomach. It was the greatest day of my life.
Indoor recess is the best. Miss Daisy said we could do whatever we wanted as long as we sat at our desks without talking.
“Can we pass notes to each other?” asked Alexia.
“That’s a great idea!” said Miss Daisy. “If you kids pass notes back and forth, I can tell Mr. Cooper that we had a writing lesson!”
A few minutes later, a folded-up piece of paper landed on my desk. I opened it, and this is what it said. . . .
U R DUM
I looked around. Michael had a big silly grin on his face, so I knew he was the one who wrote the note. I turned over the paper and wrote this on it. . . .
YOU ARE SO DUMB THAT YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SPELL DUMB!
Then I tossed the note on Michael’s desk. That’s when another piece of paper came flying onto my desk from the other direction. I unfolded it, and this is what it said. . . .
A.J. IS A POOPYHEAD
I turned around to see who tossed the note on my desk, but it was impossible to tell. It was probably Ryan, so I wrote RYAN’S MOM EATS WORMS on a piece of paper and tossed it on his desk.
Passing notes is fun. Everybody was writing notes and throwing them on each other’s desks. The air was filled with flying notes.
“This is wonderful!” said Miss Daisy. “Mr. Cooper will be happy to hear that you kids are working so hard to improve your writing skills.”
I picked up a couple of notes that landed next to my desk. One of them said DIARRHEA FACE on it. The other one said STINKY BUTT.
Everybody was passing notes back and forth for a million hundred minutes. After a while I ran out of silly things to write.
THIS IS BORING, I wrote on a note to Alexia.
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? she wrote back.
I DON’T KNOW, I wrote. INDOOR RECESS IS A DRAG.
I thought I was going to die from boredom. I looked around. Everybody had pretty much finished writing notes. Miss Daisy was still sitting there, eating bonbons and sending texts on her cell phone.
“Miss Daisy,” I said, “we’re tired of writing notes. Can you teach us something now?”
She came running over to my desk and put her hand on my forehead.
“A.J., are you feeling okay?” she said. “Maybe you should go to the nurse. I’ve never heard you say you want to learn something.”
“We’re bored,” said Neil. “Can you teach us about math or something?”
“Math?” asked Miss Daisy. “I hate math! Why do you need to know math? That’s why we have calculators.”
“But we want to learn something,” said Andrea.
“Learning things is boring,” said Miss Daisy. “Let’s just talk. What do you want to talk about?”
“Can we talk about skateboards?” I suggested. Skateboards are cool.
“Yeah,” said Alexia. “Let’s talk about skateboards.”
“Great!” said Miss Daisy. “I love skateboarding. Hey, there’s something I don’t understand about skateboards. Maybe you kids can help
me.”
“Sure,” I said. “I know everything there is to know about skateboards.”
“I have these five friends,” Miss Daisy told me, “and I bought each of them a skateboard as a present. But the skateboards didn’t come with wheels on them. So I have to buy wheels for all my friends. But I don’t know how many wheels I need to buy. It’s a big problem.”
Hmmm, that was a tough one. I had to think about it.
Alexia went over and got a box of glue sticks from the back of the room.
“Let’s say each one of these glue sticks is a wheel,” Alexia told Miss Daisy. “A skateboard has four wheels on it, right?”
“I think so,” said Miss Daisy. “I’m not sure.”
Man, she is dumb!
Alexia took four glue sticks out of the box and put them on her desk.
“And you got skateboards for five of your friends, right?” Alexia asked.
“Exactly.”
Alexia took four more glue sticks out of the box and put them on the desk. Those were supposed to be wheels for the second skateboard. Then she did it again for the third skateboard. Then she did it again for the fourth skateboard. Then she did it again for the fifth skateboard. Then we all counted up the glue sticks.
“Four . . . eight . . . twelve . . . sixteen . . . twenty,” we all counted.
“You need to get twenty wheels for those skateboards,” said Alexia.
“Four times five is twenty,” added Andrea.
“That makes sense,” said Ryan.
“Hey, wait a minute!” I shouted. “This whole thing sounds a lot like you’re giving us a math lesson!”
“No, no, don’t be silly!” said Miss Daisy. “We’re just talking about skateboards. But I still don’t understand why I need that many wheels. Can somebody else explain it to me?”
Neil got a bunch of erasers and put them on the floor in groups of four to show how Miss Daisy would need twenty wheels for the five skateboards. We spent a million hundred minutes trying to explain it to her. In the end, she still didn’t get it.
I think Miss Daisy might be the dumbest substitute teacher in the history of the world.
After a while we gave up trying to explain to Miss Daisy why she needed twenty wheels for her skateboards. I’m telling you, that lady is hopeless.