by Dan Gutman
Dedication
To Emma
Contents
Dedication
1. Super Vision
2. Fire Is Not Funny
3. The Thing That Wouldn’t Die
4. Stop, Drop, and Roll!
5. A.J. the Human
6. You’re Welcome!
7. Drill, Baby, Drill
8. The Truth About Mrs. Meyer
9. Mrs. Meyer Is a Liar
10. A Real Spy Mission
11. Mrs. Meyer Gets Fired
Back Ad
About the Author and Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
My name is A.J. and I hate birthdays.
Well, I don’t hate my birthday. I like my birthday. But I don’t like it when it’s somebody else’s birthday, because they get all the presents. They get all the attention. They get the first piece of cake. It’s not fair!
Monday was crybaby Emily’s birthday, so we had to spend the whole morning in Mr. Cooper’s class being nice to her.
“I’m so excited to go to your birthday party this weekend, Emily,” said Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair.
“Me too!” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says.
Ugh, disgusting! The guys and me were just happy that Emily didn’t invite us to her birthday party. It is sure to be a real snoozefest.
After lunch the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Mr. Cooper came running into the class.
Well, that’s not the amazing part. Mr. Cooper comes running into the class all the time. The amazing part was that he came running into the class carrying a big pizza box!
“Whoa!” Mr. Cooper shouted as he tripped over the garbage can and almost slammed into the whiteboard.
Mr. Cooper is the only grown-up I know who wears a cape. He told us that he’s a superhero from the East Pole.
I’ve heard of the North Pole. I’ve heard of the South Pole. But I’ve never heard of the East Pole. I think Mr. Cooper may have been yanking our chain.
“Don’t worry!” he shouted as he put the pizza box on his desk. “Everything’s fine. You’re under my supervision.”
“You have super vision?” I asked. “That is cool!”
“Did you use your super vision to heat up the pizza?” asked my friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“It’s not a pizza,” said Mr. Cooper as he opened up the box. “It’s a cake!”
Cake? I love cake! Cake is the best. There’s nothing better than cake.*
“It’s my birthday cake!” said Emily, clapping her hands together like it was her birthday or something.
Oh, wait a minute. It was her birthday.
“Emily’s mom brought the cake to the front office,” Mr. Cooper told us. “She made it with her own hands.”
Big deal. It would be a lot harder to make a cake with somebody else’s hands.
“Can I have the first piece?” asked my friend Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.
“Emily gets the first piece, of course,” said Mr. Cooper. “She’s the birthday girl.”
We all gathered around Mr. Cooper’s desk. He stuck nine candles into the cake and lit them. Then the whole class sang “Happy Birthday.”
“Make a wish, Emily,” said Andrea.
Emily closed her eyes. She was probably wishing for some girly-girl thing, like a Barbie doll, instead of something useful, like a football. Then she blew out the candles.
Or she tried to blow out the candles anyway. Emily was only able to blow out a few of them. So I decided to help her by blowing out the rest of the candles. And you’ll never believe what happened next.
I’m not exactly sure what went wrong. Maybe I blew too hard or something. But the next thing we knew, one of the candles fell off the cake and landed on Emily’s shirt!
“My shirt is on fire!” shouted Emily.
“Call the fire department!” shouted Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time.
“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
Emily was on the floor, freaking out.
“Have no fear,” said Mr. Cooper. “This is a job for Cooperman!”
I thought Mr. Cooper was going to use his superpowers to put out the fire. Like, maybe he could use his super vision to shoot microwave-freezing rays out of his eyes or something. That would be cool.
But Mr. Cooper didn’t do anything like that. He ran over to the door and grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall.
“Stand clear!” he shouted.
Mr. Cooper aimed the fire extinguisher at Emily and pulled the trigger. This white, foamy stuff shot all over her shirt. Then he sprayed the stuff all over the cake. That foamy goop was everywhere.
Fire extinguishers are cool. It would be fun to have a fire extinguisher war.
“Hooray for Mr. Cooper!” shouted Michael. “He put out the fire! He’s my hero! He’s a superhero!”
You’d think Emily would have been grateful that I helped her blow out the candles. You’d think she would be happy that she wasn’t on fire anymore. But it was just the opposite.
“My shirt is ruined! It’s all your fault, A.J.!” she shouted. “And my cake is ruined, too!”
“Your cake isn’t ruined,” I told her. “It just has more frosting on it now.”
I was just kidding about the frosting. Fire extinguisher goop probably tastes yucky. But Emily started crying, of course.
“This is my worst birthday ever!” she shouted as she ran out of the room.
Sheesh, get a grip! What a crybaby. All she did was catch on fire a little.
It was a bummer that we couldn’t eat Emily’s birthday cake. But something even worse happened the next morning. We had an assembly. Ugh. Assemblies are boring.
Our principal, Mr. Klutz, was up on the stage. He has no hair at all. I mean none. If you closed your eyes and put one hand on Mr. Klutz’s head and the other hand on a honeydew, you’d never be able to tell which was the head and which was the melon. You’d probably want to eat his head.
Mr. Klutz was wearing a T-shirt that said RIOT on the front. On the back it said READING IS OUR THING.
Everybody was chitchatting as usual, so Mr. Klutz made a peace sign, which means “shut up.” We all stopped talking.
“There was a little incident in one of our classrooms yesterday,” he announced. “It was a fire. Mr. Cooper was able to put it out, but if he hadn’t acted quickly, the fire could have gotten out of control. Can you imagine if our school had burned down?”
In my head I imagined the school burning down. I imagined fire trucks in the street. I imagined flames and smoke everywhere. I imagined kids and teachers jumping out the windows. I imagined them landing on trampolines and bouncing back up to the windows.
Trampolines are cool. They should have trampolines in our class instead of desks. Or maybe the whole floor could be one big trampoline.
Imagining weird stuff is fun. I went back to imagining that the school was burning down.
“No more school!” I shouted, jumping up from my seat. “No more school! No more school!”
I figured everybody was going to jump up from their seats and start chanting “No more school!” with me.
I looked around. Nobody else was standing. Nobody else was chanting. Everybody was looking at me.
I hate when that happens. I sat back down in my seat. It was embarrassing. I wanted to go to Antarctica and live with the penguins.
“Because of the fire,” said Mr. Klutz, “I invited a firefighter from the local fire station to come and talk to us about fire safety.”
“
Ooooh,” we all went, because firefighters are cool.
Suddenly, lights started flashing. Sirens started screaming. A lady came out from behind the curtain. She was wearing a bright yellow raincoat and a red fire hat. She was holding an ax in her hand.
Axes are cool, but I don’t know why she was carrying one. Hitting a fire with an ax wouldn’t be a good way to put it out, if you ask me. You should spray water on a fire or throw dirt on it.
One time my family went on a camping trip, and my dad said I could pee on our campfire to put it out. That was cool. Peeing on fires is fun.*
Anyway, you’ll never guess in a million hundred years what the lady’s name was, and I’m never going to tell you, and nothing you do will make me tell you.
I bet you’re on pins and needles.
If you’re on pins and needles, you should get off them and go sit on a chair or a couch or something. Sitting on pins and needles must hurt.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. It was Mrs. Meyer!
“Let’s give a nice round of applause for Mrs. Meyer,” said Mr. Klutz. We all clapped our hands in circles.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Meyer. “It will be easy to remember my name because ‘Meyer’ rhymes with ‘fire.’”*
“That’s funny,” said Mr. Klutz.
“Oh, there’s nothing funny about fire,” said Mrs. Meyer, “but when I visit schools, I always like to start off with a joke. Why did the fireman wear red suspenders?”
“Why?” we all shouted.
“To hold his pants up!” said Mrs. Meyer.
Mr. Klutz and Mrs. Meyer started laughing even though she didn’t say anything funny.
I didn’t get her joke. Suspenders? What are suspenders? If you want to hold your pants up, why not just wear a belt like a normal person? And if the fireman’s pants keep falling down all the time, maybe he should get smaller pants. Or he should get a new job that doesn’t involve so much running around. And why are the suspenders red anyhow? They could have been any color. I was confused.
If you ask me, that joke wasn’t funny at all.
Mrs. Meyer was pacing back and forth across the stage as she talked to us.
“I know kids are curious about fire,” she said, “and fire can be a wonderful thing. We use it to cook our food. We use it to warm our houses in the winter. But fire can be a dangerous thing, too. Did you kids know that every year in the United States, more than half a million houses burn down?”
“WOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
Mrs. Meyer told us that we should never play with matches, lighters, or fireworks. We should never touch radiators or heaters. We should never stick anything into an electrical socket. We should never put a blanket or a piece of clothing over a lamp.
She sure knew a lot of interesting stuff about fire. While she was talking, we were all glued to our seats.
Well, not really. That would be weird. You’d have to be crazy to glue yourself to a seat. How would you get the glue off your pants?
Anyway, Mrs. Meyer told us lots of other stuff we could do to prevent fires.
“Play with toys, kids,” she said. “Not fire.”
When she was finished talking, we walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom. Andrea was the line leader. Neil was the door holder.
“Okay,” Mr. Cooper said after we had settled into our seats, “turn to page twenty-three in your math—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence, because out in the hallway all these lights started flashing and sirens started screaming. And you’ll never believe who walked into the door at that moment.
Nobody! It would hurt if you walked into a door. But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway.
It was Mrs. Meyer!*
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Mrs. Meyer?” asked Mr. Cooper.
(That’s grown-up talk for “What are you doing here?”)
“I’m going from class to class to check all the fire extinguishers and smoke detectors,” said Mrs. Meyer.
Mr. Cooper closed his math book.
“Go ahead,” he said, but he didn’t sound all that happy about it.
“First, I’d like to tell a joke,” said Mrs. Meyer.
Another joke? I was still trying to figure out her first joke.
“What kind of crackers do firefighters put in their soup?” she asked us.
“I don’t know,” said Michael.
“I don’t know,” said Alexia.
“I don’t know,” said Ryan.
In case you were wondering, everybody was saying they didn’t know.
“Firecrackers!” said Mrs. Meyer.
Everybody laughed even though she didn’t say anything funny again. Mrs. Meyer took the fire extinguisher off the wall and looked at it. We already knew it worked, because Mr. Cooper had used it the day before to put out Emily.
Then Mrs. Meyer climbed up on a chair and carefully unscrewed the smoke detector from the ceiling.
“Smoke detectors save lives,” she told us. “Your parents should have one on every floor of your house.”
“If there was a smoke detector on every floor of our house,” I said, “we would be tripping over smoke detectors all the time.”
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Andrea rolled her eyes.
“Mrs. Meyer means the smoke detectors should be on the ceilings, Arlo!” she said.
That made no sense at all. If she meant we should have smoke detectors on the ceilings, why did she say we should have them on the floors? Floors and ceilings are opposites.
“If you hear your smoke detector start beeping, get low and get out of your house,” said Mrs. Meyer. “Repeat after me. Get low and go!”
“Get low and go!” we all chanted. “Get low and go!”
“Very good,” Mrs. Meyer said. “Any questions about smoke detectors?”
Andrea started waving her hand around like she was trying to signal a plane. What a brownnoser.
Andrea always asks questions. She thinks it makes you look smart when you ask questions. If you ask me, it’s the other way around. If you know a lot of stuff, you don’t need to ask questions. You only need to ask a lot of questions if you’re a dumbhead like Andrea who doesn’t know anything.
Mrs. Meyer called on her, of course.
“How does the smoke detector know there’s smoke?” Andrea asked.
“Yeah,” said Michael. “How can it smell if it doesn’t have a nose?”
I imagined a smoke detector that was made in the shape of a nose. That would be cool. They should definitely sell them in stores.
“Good question,” Mrs. Meyer replied. “Smoke detectors don’t need a nose. They have a light sensor in them that can see the smoke. Watch this.”
She took a book of matches out of her pocket and lit one of the matches.
“Kids, don’t try this at home,” she said. “I’m a professional.”
Then she blew out the match. Smoke started rising up from it. Mrs. Meyer held the match under the smoke detector.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! went the smoke detector.
“It looks like your smoke detector works perfectly,” said Mrs. Meyer. “Isn’t that an annoying sound?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Cooper. “I hate that sound.”
“Me too,” said everybody, because everybody hates that beeping sound that smoke detectors make.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“Can you please turn it off now?” asked Andrea. “That noise hurts my ears.”
“One second,” said Mrs. Meyer as she fiddled with the smoke detector.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
For once I had to agree with Andrea. That beeping is the most annoying sound in the history of the world.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“Maybe you should take out the battery,” suggested Mr. Cooper.
“I’m trying to take out the battery,” said Mrs. Meyer. “The little battery door on the smoke d
etector is stuck.”
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
It was horrible! I thought I was gonna die. We were all holding our hands over our ears to keep out the noise. Mrs. Meyer was having trouble taking the battery out of the smoke detector.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“My head is gonna explode!” I shouted.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“It’s driving me crazy!” shouted Emily. “We’ve got to do something!”
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
“Quick, get me the fire extinguisher,” hollered Mrs. Meyer.
Mr. Cooper grabbed the fire extinguisher and handed it to her.
“Are you going to shoot the fire extinguisher at the smoke detector to turn it off?” asked Andrea.
“Not exactly,” said Mrs. Meyer.
That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Mrs. Meyer put the smoke detector on the floor. Then she raised the fire extinguisher over her head and smashed it down on top of the smoke detector!
Smash! Crack!
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan. “She totally crushed it!”
Ryan was right. Mrs. Meyer had broken the smoke detector into pieces. That thing wouldn’t be detecting any smoke for a long time.
Busting stuff up is cool. They should have a TV channel where they just bust stuff up all day long. I would watch that channel every day.
But that’s when something even more amazing happened.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
The smoke detector was still beeping even though it was busted into pieces! Nobody could believe it!
Mrs. Meyer picked up the fire extinguisher again and slammed it down on one of the pieces of the smoke detector. Smash!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
It was still beeping! Mrs. Meyer looked really mad. She picked up the fire extinguisher and slammed it down on the smoke detector over and over again. She looked like a crazy person! It was like that horror movie I saw once, The Thing That Wouldn’t Die.
“I’m not sure I approve of this violence,” said Andrea. “It sets a bad example for children.”
“What do you have against violins?” I asked Andrea.