by Dan Gutman
“No worries,” she told us. “Let’s talk about something else. How about—”
But she didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. You’ll never believe who ran into the door at that moment.
Nobody! It would hurt if you ran into a door. I thought we covered that in chapter 1. But you’ll never believe who ran into the doorway.
It was Mr. Macky, the reading specialist!
“Darling!” Mr. Macky shouted.
“Sweetheart!” Miss Daisy shouted.
Then the two of them ran toward each other and started hugging and kissing.
Ewww, gross! I thought I was gonna throw up.
“Isn’t that cute?” said Andrea. “They’re in love!”
Ugh. Andrea said that four-letter L word.
“Do you think Jackie Macky is going to be okay at day care?” Mr. Macky asked Miss Daisy.
“I just called the day care center on the phone,” she replied. “Jackie Macky is fine.”
“I’m still worried,” Mr. Macky said. “Until today she’s never been away from us for so long.”
“I’m worried, too,” said Miss Daisy. “I hope nothing happens to her.”
Sheesh! Those two need to take a chill pill.
“As long as I’m here,” said Mr. Macky, “does anybody have any questions about reading?”
Little Miss Perfect raised her hand and started waving it around like she was cleaning a giant window.
“Yes, Andrea?”
“I was reading the encyclopedia on my new smartphone,” said Andrea, who actually reads the encyclopedia for fun, “and some of the words were hard to pronounce. What do I do when that happens?”
“Oh, it’s simple,” Mr. Macky told Andrea. “If you don’t understand a word, all you need to do is sound it out. English is a very easy language.”
“I tried sounding them out,” Andrea said. “But it doesn’t always work. Like the word ‘right’ is spelled R-I-G-H-T, but there’s also W-R-I-T-E. And when I sound it out, I spell it R-I-T-E. And that’s wrong. So I’m confused.”
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Macky as he stroked his chin. Grown-ups always say “Hmmm” and stroke their chin when they’re thinking. It’s the first rule of being a grown-up.
“And what about the word ‘through’?” asked Andrea. “If I sound it out, it’s spelled T-H-R-U. And that’s wrong, too.”
“Uh, yes,” said Mr. Macky. “That’s an excellent point. I’ll have to get back to you with the answer, Andrea. Does anybody else have a question?”
Everybody started shouting out all kinds of questions.
“How come vegetarians eat vegetables, but humanitarians don’t eat humans?” asked Ryan.
“How come it’s the same thing when an alarm goes off or when an alarm goes on?” asked Michael.
“If the plural of ‘tooth’ is ‘teeth,’” asked Alexia, “how come the plural of ‘moose’ isn’t ‘meese’?”
“Wow, look at the time,” Mr. Macky said as he pointed to the clock on the wall. “I’d really like to answer those questions for you, but I’ve got to go . . . uh . . . to a meeting. Yes, that’s it. I have a meeting.”
Boy, grown-ups sure have a lot of meetings. They meet all the time.
“Mr. Macky, why are boxing rings square?” asked Neil the nude kid. “If they’re rings, they should be round.”
“How come we drive on the parkway and park in the driveway?” asked Michael.
“Why is there no ham in a hamburger and no dog in a hot dog?” asked Ryan.
“How come our noses run and our feet smell?” I asked. “Shouldn’t our feet run and our noses smell?”
“Well, this has really been fun,” said Mr. Macky as he backed out the doorway. “But I’ve got to get to that meeting.”
“Bye, sweetie pie,” said Miss Daisy, running over to him.
“Bye, honey bun,” said Mr. Macky.
“I’ll see you soon.”
“I’ll see you sooner.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Yuck! Gross! They hugged and kissed some more. That lovey-dovey stuff made me want to barf. All the girls were oohing and ahhing. All of us guys were gagging and choking and falling off our chairs.
It occurred to me that just like Miss Daisy, Mr. Macky doesn’t know anything either! No wonder they got married to each other.
“How can you and Mr. Macky be teachers if you don’t know anything?” I asked.
“We figured that kids your age don’t know very much yet,” Miss Daisy replied. “So it wouldn’t matter whether or not we know anything. Please don’t tell Mr. Klutz. If he finds out we don’t know anything, he’ll fire us.”
“My lips are sealed,” I told her.
But not with glue or anything. That would be weird.
A few seconds later, guess who came back into our room. It was Mr. Klutz.
“So how are you kids making out with Miss Daisy?” he asked.
“Ugh, gross!” Ryan said. “We’re not making out with Miss Daisy.”
“But Mr. Macky was,” Ryan told him. “They were slobbering all over each other.”
“Did Miss Daisy and Mr. Macky teach you all kinds of new things?” asked Mr. Klutz.
“Oh, yeah!” I lied. “They know lots of stuff. They’re great teachers.”
After Mr. Klutz left, Miss Daisy suggested that we have another indoor recess and eat more bonbons. But we were all sick of indoor recess and eating bonbons.
“Can we go out to the playground?” asked Neil.
“No,” said Miss Daisy.
“Can we play a game?” asked Alexia.
“No,” said Miss Daisy.
“Can I look things up on my smartphone?” asked Andrea.
“No,” said Miss Daisy. “Say, I have an idea. Let’s make get well cards for Mr. Cooper!”
“Yeah!” everybody shouted.
Miss Daisy should get the Nobel Prize for that idea.*
Making get well cards is fun. Miss Daisy went to the closet and got some colored paper, crayons, glue sticks, and scissors. She said I could be the paper passer. Ryan was the crayon carrier. Michael was the glue guy. Miss Daisy handled the scissors.
After everybody had their supplies, we got to work on our cards. Miss Daisy said we could write anything we wanted as long as we told Mr. Cooper that we hoped he felt better soon.
“I’m going to draw a picture of butterflies flying over a rainbow on my get well card,” said Andrea. “That will cheer up Mr. Cooper.”
“Good idea!” said Emily, who thinks all Andrea’s ideas are good ideas.
“I’m going to make a picture of a football player,” said Neil. “Mr. Cooper likes football, so that will make him feel better.”
I thought about what I was going to make for my card. What do you say to somebody who has an ingrown toenail? I wasn’t coming up with any good ideas. I thought and thought for a million hundred minutes. I thought so hard that I felt like my brain was going to explode.
I looked around. Everybody else was busy writing messages and drawing and cutting out pictures to put on their cards.
“Five more minutes,” said Miss Daisy. “Let’s finish up our get well cards.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast. Finally I got an idea and wrote it on my piece of paper. . . .
Dear Mr. Cooper,
I heard you have an ingrown toenail. I hope it doesn’t grow so long that it sticks out of your head and you die. I know that’s never happened before, but there’s always a first time.
Your favorite student,
A.J.
Miss Daisy told us to pass our get well cards to the front of the class. I passed mine up to Andrea.
“Arlo!” she said after looking at my card. “That’s not a nice thing to write!”
“Why not?” I asked her. “It’s the truth. Should I write that I hope Mr. Cooper’s toenail sticks out of his head and kills him?”
Andrea jus
t rolled her eyes at me. She’s always rolling her eyes at me. I hope she rolls her eyes so much that her eyes roll right out of her head.
After we finished making our cards, Miss Daisy sang the clean-up song. It goes like this. . . .
Clean up! Clean up!
Everybody everywhere.
Clean up! Clean up!
Everybody, do your share.
That song is lame. Of course, the guys and me always change the words. . . .
Clean up! Clean up!
Everybody everywhere.
Clean up! Clean up!
Even in your underwear.
When we finished cleaning up, Miss Daisy said she had a surprise for us—we were going to visit the school nurse, Mrs. Cooney.
Yay! Mrs. Cooney has blue eyes that are the color of cotton candy yogurt. She looks like some movie star, only I can’t remember her name. But every time my mom sees that movie star on TV, she asks my dad if he thinks she’s pretty. My dad always says no. Then my mom gets mad. Then my dad has to spend the next hour trying to convince my mom that my mom is just as pretty as the movie star.
Mrs. Cooney wanted to marry me last year, but then I found out that she was already married to some guy named Mr. Cooney.
Miss Daisy told us to take our lunch boxes with us, because we would go right to lunch after we saw Mrs. Cooney. Then we had to walk a million hundred miles to the nurse’s office. Mrs. Cooney was waiting for us in her nurse’s uniform.
“Good morning!” she said.
“Are you going to weigh us and measure us today?” I asked, because she weighs us and measures us every year.
“No, today I’m going to do something much more important,” she replied. “Today I’m going to teach you how to wash your hands.”
What?!
Was she kidding? I know how to wash my hands. Everybody knows how to wash their hands. Teaching us how to wash our hands is like teaching somebody how to breathe through their nose.
But Mrs. Cooney didn’t care. She had us all gather around the sink in her office.
“First, you should use warm water,” she said, turning on the faucet. “Next, lather up both sides of your hands with soap. Don’t forget your wrists, and between your fingers.”
I slapped my own forehead. I couldn’t believe that Mrs. Cooney was showing us how to wash our hands.
Andrea was taking notes on her smartphone, of course. She probably thought there was going to be a quiz at the end, or she might win a prize for having the cleanest hands.
“While I’m washing my hands,” Mrs. Cooney told us, “I always sing ‘Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.’ That way I know I’m washing my hands long enough.”
She started singing “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” while she scrubbed her hands.
Mrs. Cooney is loony.
“Finally, rinse off the soap and dry your hands with a clean towel,” she told us as she held her hands under the water. “And that’s the correct way to wash your hands!”
Well, duh!
Mrs. Cooney had us all line up to wash our hands. She even had Miss Daisy wash her hands.
After we all dried off, we sat on the benches in the nurse’s office.
“Why is washing our hands so important?” Miss Daisy asked.
“It’s all because of germs,” Mrs. Cooney told her.
“What are germs?” asked Miss Daisy, who doesn’t know anything.
“Germs are tiny invaders that can make you sick,” Mrs. Cooney said. “You can’t see them with your naked eye.”
Everybody started giggling because Mrs. Cooney said the word “naked.” Any time anybody ever says “naked,” you have to start giggling. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“Aren’t all eyes naked?” I asked. “I never saw an eyeball with clothes on.”
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“You need a microscope to see germs,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Germs are so small, if you lined up a thousand of them end to end, they could fit across a pencil eraser.”
“WOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
Mrs. Cooney showed us some pictures of scary-looking germs.
“Think about all the things you touched today,” she said. “It’s easy for a germ on your hand to end up in your mouth or nose. They creep into our bodies, and we don’t notice them. Right now there are ninety trillion microbes inside you.”
“Gross!” we all said.
“I’m scared,” said Emily, who’s scared of everything.
“So washing our hands kills the germs, right?” asked Miss Daisy.
“Not exactly,” Mrs. Cooney replied. “Plain old soap doesn’t kill germs. It just lifts them off your skin so they can be washed away. We can get rid of some of the germs but not all of them. And germs multiply very quickly.”
Miss Daisy looked really nervous. I thought she might even start to cry.
“Do . . . babies . . . have germs?” she asked.
“Oh yes, babies probably have more germs than anybody,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Especially babies who like to put their hands in their mouth.”
“Jackie Macky sticks her hands in her mouth all the time!” shouted Miss Daisy.
“Germs can cause infections,” explained Mrs. Cooney. “They can give you sore throats, chicken pox, measles, flu, and lots of other dangerous diseases that can even kill you.”
“KILL YOU?” shouted Miss Daisy. She was totally freaking out.
“I don’t mean to suggest—”
But Mrs. Cooney didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence. Miss Daisy had jumped off the bench and was heading for the door.
“Are there germs on this doorknob?” she shouted.
“Yes, absolutely,” said Mrs. Cooney.
“Kids! Don’t touch that doorknob!” shouted Miss Daisy. “Are germs on that chair?”
“Sure.”
“Are germs in my hair?” shouted Miss Daisy.
“Yes, definitely,” Mrs. Cooney replied. “They’re even floating in the air.”
“EEEEK!” shouted Miss Daisy, swatting at some invisible germs. “The germs are in the air! They’re on the chair! They’re in my hair! They’re everywhere!”
“We’ve got to do something!” shouted Emily.
“Don’t touch anything!” shouted Miss Daisy.
“We’re all going to die!” I shouted.
Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out again—again.
“Germs could kill Jackie Macky!” shouted Miss Daisy.
Then she took a tissue, turned the doorknob with it, and went running out of the nurse’s office.
It was cool. And we got to see it live and in person with our own eyes.
Well, it would be weird to see it with somebody else’s eyes.
Miss Daisy wasn’t the only one who ran out of the nurse’s office. We all ran out of there.
“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil the nude kid. “The germs are everywhere!”
As we were running out of the nurse’s office, the lunch bell rang.
BRING! BRING! BRING!*
So we all ran to the vomitorium. It used to be called the cafetorium, but last year some first grader threw up in there, and it’s been the vomitorium ever since.
Ryan grabbed the last table that was empty. We all opened up our lunch boxes.
I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Alexia had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Neil had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Emily had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. In case you were wondering, we all had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
But nobody picked up their peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“Me neither,” said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food. “Mrs. Cooney said that germs are everywhere.”
“Germs are crawling all over our sandwiches right now,” said Michael, closing his lunch box. “We can’t see them. And we can’t stop
them.”
“The table has germs on it too,” said Andrea.
“Your face has germs on it,” I told Andrea.
“Everybody’s face has germs on it,” said Emily.
“Everything has germs on it,” said Neil.
“Everything is gross,” I said.
“I’m never going to eat anything ever again for the rest of my life,” said Ryan.
“Me neither,” said Michael.
So we all just sat there for a million hundred seconds. All the kids at the other tables were eating their lunch. I guess they didn’t know about germs.
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Ryan’s foot touched my foot.
“Ewww,” I told Ryan. “Move your foot. It has germs on it. I don’t want your germs!”
“Your elbow almost touched mine,” Neil told Alexia.
“I don’t want to touch you,” Alexia replied. “I’m never going to touch anything again.”
Nobody wanted to touch anything. I felt gross just sitting there with all those germs crawling all over me. It was the worst day of my life. I wanted to go to Antarctica and live with the penguins. I bet it’s so cold there that it kills all the germs.
And you’ll never believe who walked into the vomitorium at that moment.
It was Mrs. Cooney! She came right over to our table and put her hand on my shoulder.
Ugh, gross! Her hand was probably covered with germs.
“Mmm,” she said, “those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches look really good.”
“We’re not hungry,” Michael told Mrs. Cooney. “We’re afraid of getting germs.”
“That’s too bad,” Mrs. Cooney replied. “Those sandwiches sure look tasty. It would be a shame if they went to waste.”
“You can have my sandwich,” said Emily. “I don’t want it.”
“Sure!” Mrs. Cooney said. Then she picked up Emily’s sandwich and took a big bite out of it.
“Ugh!” we all shouted. “Gross!”
“Now you have germs in your mouth!” shouted Alexia.