Answers on page 242.
Hummingbirds have the highest metabolic rate of any animal on earth.
STAR SECRETS
Uncle John has a talking dog named Porter who can’t keep a secret. Last week, he told the mailman all about Uncle John’s collection of purple polka-dot underwear. Here are some more secrets that just couldn’t stay hidden.
SMARTY PANTS Actor Matt Damon was such a good student in high school that he was accepted to Harvard University. He attended the college for four years (from 1988 to 1992), but never graduated. He dropped out to become an actor instead.
THE MUSIC MAN
Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk loves to play the violin. He started when he was about six, the same time he got his first skateboard, and played until he was nine. But his two hobbies took up a lot of time, and eventually, he had to make a choice. So he gave up the instrument and concentrated on skateboarding. He always missed playing music, though, so he picked up the violin again as a young adult and has played ever since.
TOP-SECRET INGREDIENT
Cookbook author and television chef Julia Child was doing a lot more than learning to whip up dinner before she became famous. She was a secret agent. During World War II, Child worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the predecessor of the CIA. One of Child’s jobs involved inventing shark repellent; the animals sometimes bumped into underwater explosives and set them off. This let the German submarines know in advance where the bombs were—not so sneaky. So Child and a few other spies got together and made a repellent to coat the bombs and keep the sharks away.
Johnny Depp used to suffer from coulrophobia—fear of clowns.
BEFORE THEY WERE FAMOUS
These celebrities also had odd jobs in their younger days:
•Whoopi Goldberg was a bricklayer, funeral makeup artist, and garbage collector.
•Pink cleaned toilets at McDonald’s.
•Barack Obama scooped ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.
•Colin Ferrell taught line dancing in Ireland.
•Hugh Jackman worked as a clown. (He didn’t have it so bad, though—he often made $50 per hour.)
•Ellen DeGeneres dried cars at a car wash.
Year of the first television broadcast in the United States: 1928.
WHO AM I?
If teachers really wanted students to look forward to quizzes, they’d ask questions that test our knowledge of important things…like cartoon characters. (Answers are on page 241.)
1.These days, I have a good life in Hawaii (even though swimming was hard for me to learn), but I had to dodge a whole bunch of aliens to stay on earth.
2.Gary kept me up all night with his meowing, and then Patrick told me we couldn’t be friends anymore because I was so crabby from lack of sleep that I ate all of his kelp fries. (I’ll apologize after a nap.)
3.My dad got fired again today. Mr. Spacely is so rude! But Mom is sure things will be all right again tomorrow. (Psst…Astro says hi.)
4.I have trouble choosing my wishes, but I do my best! It’s hard to follow all the instructions in “Da Rules.”
5.Hiiiigh-Ya! Fighting Tai Lung made me so hungry that I ate all of the noodles in Dad’s cart.
6.We’ve got a great idea for next summer vacation…if only Candace will keep her big mouth shut!
7.I’m the forgotten middle child, and much smarter than the rest of my family. Only my saxophone keeps me sane.
8.I love to go on adventures, but wish my cousin Angelica would leave me alone.
In France, students are not allowed to bring a lunch to school but they get a two-hour lunch break in the cafeteria.
WELCOME TO WORMTOWN
This town’s squirmy population keeps a whole lot of people in business.
THE WORMS CRAWL IN…
Wiscasset, Maine, is known for two things: It’s a summer tourist town often called “Maine’s prettiest village” because of its historic homes and buildings. It’s also famous for its worms.
Wiscasset was originally a shipbuilding town, but in the 1920s, that business started moving to larger cities in the Northeast. That left many people with no jobs. But fortunately, the town had another resource that put people back to work.
THE WORMS CRAWL OUT…
Billions of worms—most notably, fat bloodworms and sandworms—lived in mucky marshes along the coast. At first, residents of Wiscasset considered them to be a nuisance because bloodworms sting and sandworms pinch…painfully.
But by 1930, so many people were out of work and looking for a new way to make money that they began to see the worms differently. Sport fishermen all over New England needed worms for bait, and they’d pay twice as much per dozen for the juicy worms from Wiscasset than for skinnier worms from other places.
So men around town pulled on rubber hip boots and trudged out into the mud to dig up the worms. On a good day, they could bring in as many as 1,000, and in 1937, the total harvest was about 2.5 million.
GOLD IN THEM THAR WORMS!
Today, men and women in Wiscasset are still in the worming business. And it’s not a bad job. Wormers work just four or five hours a day. They have to get to the marshes during low tide, when the water doesn’t cover up the worms. And their season lasts only from April to October.
The state’s worm population has decreased since the 1930s—because of all the harvesting—but people can still dig up 300 to 500 worms a day. They generally make 15 cents for each sandworm and 25 cents per bloodworm. (The bloodworms are bigger, longer, and juicier…all the better for luring fish.) So if you really like digging around in muck (and who doesn’t?), then you too can head to Maine and get your hands dirty.
Bart Simpson’s middle name is Jo-Jo.
OLD RULES
Ever wonder how your teacher would do in
a 19th-century schoolroom? Here’s the way
most teachers lived in the “good old days.”
•In the early 1800s, schoolteachers were almost all male. But that changed when school boards realized that women were willing to work for less money than men. In 1849, the Littleton, Massachusetts, school committee wrote: “It seems…very poor policy to pay a man $20 or $22 a month for teaching children the ABCs, when a female could do the work more successfully at one third of the price.”
•Teachers hardly ever had their own homes. Most lived with the families of their students. This room and board was part of the teacher’s pay.
•A teacher’s moral character was considered very important. An 1872 set of rules from New Hampshire said, “Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, [or] frequents pool or public halls…will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.”
•Female teachers had to remain unmarried. In the 19th century, the San Francisco Board of Education said it would fire “any female teacher who may commit the crime of marriage.”
•Teachers dealt with 19th-century “emergencies,” too. Around 1890, a teacher in California described one problem in a letter to her family: “There are many openings in the walls of our school that admit birds, lizards, mice, and snakes. During one lesson, a snake appeared, sticking his tongue out at us. I disposed of him amidst great applause.”
Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat contains just 220 words.
•Teachers in the 19th century were allowed to punish their students physically…and they did. An 1860 set of rules for students spelled out the punishments:
Children who are caught writing with their left hand: 1 ruler rap on the knuckles.
Talking in class: 1 whack with a rod.
Chewing tobacco or spitting: 7 whacks.
* * *
KEEP YOUR LIPS TO YOURSELF, PLEASE
In February 2009, the Warrington Bank train station in northwest England erected an unfriendly sign: a silhouette of a man and woman puckered up, with a slash through it…no kissing! According to station authorities, the ban was necessary because many commuters took too long kissing their lo
ved ones hello and good-bye—it made the platform crowded. But when word of the ban reached the managers at London’s High Wycombe train station, they retaliated with their own sign, proclaiming “Kissing is welcome here! We would never dream of banning kissing!”
Ants are found on all continents except Antarctica?
FAIRY TALE
About a century ago, two young girls from England walked out of the forest with an amazing story: fairies were real, they said…and they could prove it.
THE CASE OF THE FAIRY PHOTOS
One day in 1917, two cousins—16-year-old Elsie Wright and 10-year-old Frances Griffiths—came home from a walk in the woods. The girls had been playing near a stream on Elsie’s parents’ property, and Frances had slipped into the water. Her shoes and stockings were wet. Polly Wright, Elsie’s mother, was angry when she saw the girls; she’d told them to stay away from the stream. But just as she was about to scold them, Elsie and Frances told an incredible tale: they’d gone to the stream, the girls explained, because they’d met a group of fairies in the woods and had been playing with them. And to prove it, the pair borrowed a camera and rushed back into the forest to take a photo.
GNOME SWEET GNOME
The next day, Elsie’s father Arthur developed the picture. In it, Frances posed behind a small mound of dirt while several small creatures that appeared to be fairies danced on branches in front of her. A few months later, the girls went back to the woods and came home with more pictures: Elsie playing with a gnome, a fairy leaping toward Frances, a fairy handing Elsie a flower, and one photo of a group of fairies dancing alone. Arthur developed all the pictures. Despite the girls’ insistence that they were real (Elsie even described the gnome’s wings as “more mothlike than the fairies’”), he considered them child’s play, put them in a drawer, and forgot about them.
World’s longest tunnel: Japan’s Seikan Tunnel, at 33.5 miles.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST
Elsie’s mother, though, didn’t forget. Polly Wright was a member of the Theosophist Society, a group that believed in the existence of elves, gnomes, and fairies. At a society meeting two years later, Polly told the group the girls’ fairy tale and showed everyone the old photos.
The head of the Theosophist Society was a man named Edward Gardner. After examining the photos, he declared them real and…people just believed him. Suddenly, adults all over England were talking about the pictures and the girls’ encounter with the fairies.
ENTER SIR ARTHUR
One of the people most excited about the photos was writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. By 1920, he was already famous for his Sherlock Holmes mysteries. He was also well known for his interest in Spiritualism, a religion whose followers believe in the supernatural, especially ghosts. So the fairy photos grabbed his attention.
Doyle never questioned the girls’ sincerity, but he did initially question the photos. He showed them to various “fairy experts” (Spiritualists who specialized in identifying fairies). Some of them considered the pictures to be fakes, but others felt they were genuine. Edward Gardner even went to the girls’ home with his own camera and asked them to take more pictures to “prove” they’d been right all along. The girls ventured into the woods and returned with more photos of their fairy friends.
Are you a gymnosophist? That means someone who contemplates philosophy—while naked.
Doyle used the original pictures in a magazine article and then, in 1921, wrote a book about the girls and the fairies. Controversy soon exploded on both sides of the fairy fence: Some people were convinced the girls had faked the photos, but they couldn’t prove how. Others were sure the pictures were authentic. Either way, the debate continued for many years. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930. The girls grew up, married, had children of their own, and eventually became grandmothers. And through the decades, Elsie and Frances stuck to their story.
HAPPILY NEVER AFTER
Then, in 1981, Elsie and Frances finally confessed. The now-elderly women admitted they’d used paper cutouts and pins to pull off the fairy photos. Elsie had copied the images from a popular children’s book of the time.
It had all started out as a prank to fool Elsie’s mother, they said, but then it got completely out of control. The girls never imagined their pictures would end up circulating all over England, or that they’d be able to fool someone as famous as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Finally, the mystery was solved…or was it? The cousins had come clean about faking the photos, but they always insisted that they really had seen fairies on that long-ago summer day.
* * *
“Kids are great. That’s one of the best things about pro basketball, all the kids you get to meet. It’s a shame they have to grow up to be regular people and come to the games and call you names.”
—Charles Barkley
On average, twins are born 24 days earlier than single babies.
HOW TO MAKE A SPITBALL
There’s so much for kids to learn that we sometimes worry they’re forgetting the important things. You may know how to do this, but in case you don’t, here are some tips in the art of spitballing.
What you need: Paper, of course, something not too stiff and not too soft. Notebook paper is great. (Hey, you’ve got plenty of that). You’ll also need a lot of spit. (You’ve got plenty of that, too.)
What to do:
1. Tear off a square piece of paper that’s two inches long and two inches wide, and crumple it into a small ball.
2. Stick that paper ball in your mouth. (Don’t swallow it.) Chew it up, tenderizing it with your teeth and saliva. You’re done when the paper is slimy and saturated with spit, but not quite falling apart.
3. Take it out of your mouth and reshape the paper/spit chunk into a ball by rolling it in the palm of your hand. If it doesn’t stay in the ball shape, chew some more.
4. Launch it! The classic way is to put it on your thumb and flick it with your forefinger. You can also stick it into one end of a straw and blow hard in the other end. And please, whatever you do, don’t shoot it at your little brother.
Q: What would you get if you crossed a galaxy with a toad?
A: Star Warts.
BIZARRE RECORDS
Here at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute, we love records—and the weirder, the better. These are some of our favorites.
MOST PINS IN A HUMAN HEAD
In 2004, a Chinese doctor named Wei Sheng stuck 1,790 pins in his head to earn a record for the “most pins in a human head” from Guinness World Records. Four years later, to celebrate the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Sheng pierced his body with 2,008 pins in the five colors of the Olympic rings. Technically, that didn’t beat his own record, though, because the 2008 stunt included his head and shoulders. Maybe next time.
MOST PEOPLE INSIDE A SOAP BUBBLE
In 2007, Englishman Sam Heath set a world record by gathering 50 elementary school children and encasing them in a giant soap bubble. Heath—who is a professional “bubbleologist,” someone who specializes in the science of soap bubbles—built a special wooden wand for the event, and the kids stood on a round platform surrounded by soapy water. He gently dipped the wand in the soap and pulled it around the platform until the 5-foot-tall, 11-foot-wide bubble encircled all the kids.
It wasn’t Heath’s first attempt at breaking the soapy record. In 2006, he put 19 children inside a bubble. One of the girls at that event said, “It was really exciting. I really wanted to clap but we had to stay so still.”
Beware rare castor beans—they’re highly poisonous. Eating just one can be fatal.
MOST FINGERS AND TOES
This one’s a tie—four-year-old Pranamya Menaria and 14-year-old Devandra Harne, two kids from India, share the title. Both were born with 12 fingers and 13 toes. Having more than 10 fingers and 10 toes is a condition called polydactylism. It affects about 25 percent of people worldwide, but it’s not dangerous or deadly.
HEAVIEST CAR BALANCED ON A HUMAN HEAD
Eng
lishman John Evans calls himself a “professional head balancer,” but until 1999, he stuck mostly to books and people. However, in May of that year, he earned a world record for balancing a Mini Cooper car (it weighed more than 3,000 pounds) on his head for 33 seconds. Why? He loves to break records and says he’ll keep trying for more.
LONGEST FEMALE BEARD
Vivian Wheeler from Illinois holds this record. She was able to grow a beard as a kid, but never did because her dad always encouraged her to shave it off. But in 1993, she stopped shaving, and today her beard is an incredible 11 inches long.
Julius Caesar suffered from ailurophobia—fear of cats.
THE REAL RED BARON
In the Peanuts comics, Snoopy often imagines himself atop his flying doghouse, battling a fiendish foe called the Red Baron. But…who was the Red Baron?
ACE OF ACES
Manfred von Richthofen never intended to be a pilot. Born in 1892 in Germany, he was the son of a Prussian nobleman. His father was in the military, so it made sense that Manfred would be, too. The boy excelled at horseback riding, and when World War I began in 1914, Manfred thought he’d be going to battle on horseback. But mounted soldiers were being replaced by a new vehicle…the airplane.
Von Richthofen enrolled in aviation school and made his first solo flight after only 24 hours of training. He crash landed that first time out, but eventually passed his exams and took to the skies to attack Germany’s enemies—the French, Canadians, and English. On September 17, 1916, he shot down his first enemy plane—and began a string of aerial victories that remains unmatched to this day.
Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Page 3