by Dan Gutman
First, some boy came out and named all the presidents of the United States in order to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” Instead of James Polk, he said “James Pork.”
Then some girl came out and wiggled her ears while she opened pistachio nuts inside her mouth without using her hands. That was weird.
After that five boys came out and banged on some garbage cans while shouting out the word “pork.” I guess they couldn’t think of anything else to do.
It was Alexia’s turn. She came out with her skateboard, and we all gave her a big round of applause. Alexia is awesome on a skateboard. She did a bunch of cool tricks.
“I call this next trick the Sausage,” she said.
Then she did a handstand on her skateboard. It was cool, and she got more applause.
“That’s wonderful!” said Mrs. Lane.
Mrs. Lane introduced Andrea next, and Little Miss Know-It-All sang that awful “Tomorrow” song. But instead of singing about the sun coming out tomorrow, she sang, “The pork will come out . . . tomorrow.” It was embarrassing. Too bad Andrea wasn’t thrown into a tank full of sharks.
There were a few more lame acts, and then Ryan came out and ate a chocolate-covered grasshopper. Ugh, gross! Emily did her dance from The Little Mermaid, and this time she didn’t fall down. Neil the nude kid played the violin.
“Fantastic!” said Mrs. Lane after each act.
Next, a bunch of our teachers came out in giant hot dog bun costumes and put on a skit about sausages.
“That was amazing!” said Mrs. Lane. “Next up, we have a third grader in Mr. Granite’s class who is going to do magic for us. Put your hands together for . . . Michael the Awesome-nificent!”
We all cheered, even though “awesome-nificent” is totally not a word. Michael made it up by putting “awesome” and “magnificent” together.*
He came out wearing a black tuxedo. He looked like a penguin.
“Thank you,” Michael said. “Watch me stand on my head!”
He drew a big picture of a face on a piece of paper, put it on the floor, and stepped on it. Everybody laughed.
“It’s magic!” said Michael. “I will now make this ping-pong ball defy the laws of gravity.”
He stood behind a desk and made the ping-pong ball float in the air above it. It was cool, even though it was obvious that Michael was holding a hair dryer under the desk.
“It’s magic!” Michael said while everyone clapped. “You know, Porky’s Pork Sausages come from pigs. So I will now make a pig disappear.”
Michael held up a big red cloth and waved it around. Then he pulled it away like a bullfighter.
“It’s magic!” Michael said. “Want to see me do it again?”
“Hey, you didn’t make a pig disappear,” some kid in the crowd yelled.
“Sure I did,” Michael said. “It was an invisible pig.”
He took a deep bow, and then Mrs. Lane roller-skated out on the stage again.
“Let’s hear it for Michael the Awesome-nificent!” she said. “Okay, our next talented performer is another third grader from Mr. Granite’s class. Let’s give him a warm welcome. Sit back and enjoy the comedy stylings of . . . A.J.!”
WHAT?!
I thought I was gonna die.
“It’s your turn, dude,” Alexia said to me backstage. “Get out there.”
“But I’m not in the talent show anymore!” I told her. “I dropped out.”
The audience was clapping their hands. Mrs. Lane looked over at me.
“One more time,” she announced. “Sit back and enjoy the comedy stylings of A.J.!”
I wanted to run away to Antarctica and go live with the penguins.
Mrs. Lane roller-skated over to me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I don’t have an act,” I told her. “I dropped out.”
“You never told me you were dropping out,” she said.
“I forgot.”
In the audience, people were stamping their feet and chanting, “A.J.! A.J.! A.J.!”
“They want you, A.J.!” said Mrs. Lane. “You can’t let ’em down.”
“You heard my jokes,” I told her. “They were terrible. I’m afraid to go out there.”
Mrs. Lane got down on one knee and put her arm around me.
“You know what?” she said. “When I was on Are You Smarter Than a Turnip?, I was afraid to go out there. When I was on America’s Not Stupid, I was afraid to go out there. I was afraid to go out there when I was on America’s Next Top Garbage Collector, Keeping Up with the Librarians, and Who Wants to Win a Million Pizzas, too. But you know what? I went out there anyway.”
“And you won?” I asked.
“No, I lost on every one of those shows,” she told me. “But y’all are going to be a star. Now go out there and kill ’em!”
“Kill ’em?” I asked. “I don’t want to kill anybody.”
“No, no,” Mrs. Lane said. “When a comedian makes the audience laugh, they say he killed them. And when nobody laughs, they say he died out there.”
Wow, I didn’t know that comedy was so violent.
“A.J.! A.J.! A.J.!” people were chanting.
“This is no time to chicken out, A.J.,” Mrs. Lane told me. “The show must go on. Now go out there and kill ’em!”
With that, she shoved me out on the stage.
Everybody clapped.
I looked around at all the people. They were all looking back at me.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.
“Uh . . . hi everybody,” I said, tapping the microphone to make sure it worked.
“Hi!” the whole audience replied.
“I . . . uh . . . I’m not supposed to be here.”
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“This is weird,” I said.
“What’s weird?” somebody hollered.
“Everything,” I said. “The school. The teachers. The all-purpose room. Hey, why do they call it the all-purpose room anyway? It can’t be used for all purposes. I mean, you can’t go skydiving in here.”
Some people actually laughed at that! I looked around the audience and saw Mr. Klutz in the second row.
“You know what’s really weird?” I asked. “Mr. Klutz, our principal. He’s got no hair at all. I mean none! What’s up with that?”
Mr. Klutz threw back his head and laughed. Somebody put a spotlight on him, and it reflected off his shiny head.
“Help! I’m going blind from the glare!” I said, covering my eyes. Everybody laughed. “Mr. Klutz must save a lot of money on shampoo and combs. They should use his head to bounce TV signals into outer space.”
Everybody was cracking up. I looked backstage. The whole gang was behind the curtain giving me the thumbs-up sign.
“Mr. Klutz is nuts!” I continued. “Remember the time he got his foot caught in a rope, and he got stuck at the top of the flagpole? You should have been there! We were all glued to our seats. Well, not really. That would be weird. Why would anybody glue himself to a seat? How would you get the glue off?”
I had to stop for a few seconds because everybody was laughing so loud. Especially Mr. Klutz.
“But seriously,” I said, “this other time, Mr. Klutz was climbing the side of the school when he got scared and couldn’t go up or down. So our custodian, Miss Lazar, went up on the roof with a toilet bowl plunger. She stuck it on his bald head and lowered him to the ground. Miss Lazar should get the No Bell Prize, if you ask me. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.”
The audience was eating it up!
“You rock, A.J.!” somebody shouted.
I told a few more stories about the weird things grown-ups have done at our school. Like the time our groundskeeper, Mr. Burke, discovered gold buried in the playground. And the time our security guard, Officer Spence, threw all the teachers in jail for stealing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
When I couldn’t think of other weird stories to tell, I looked over at Mrs. Lane.
“Keep going!” she said.
I noticed Mr. Porky at the judges’ table. He had an angry look on his face. That’s when I remembered that every act had to mention pork sausages.
“There’s just one more thing I want to say,” I said. “I love Porky’s Pork Sausages!”
I ran off the stage, and everybody hugged me. It was the greatest night of my life.
“A.J., you killed ’em!” Mrs. Lane said.
There were a few more acts after that, but I wasn’t paying any attention to them. Everybody was coming over to slap me on the back and tell me how much they liked my comedy routine.
“You are totally going to win this thing, dude,” said Alexia. “You were awesome.”
Before that could happen, we had to have the big grand finale. Everybody who was part of the show—kids, teachers, judges, the stage crew—came out onstage. We all sang the Porky’s Pork Sausages theme song. It was loud! Some of the teachers were dancing. The crowd was clapping and stamping their feet. Cray-Z was playing bongos on Mr. Klutz’s head. It was cool.
And it was over. Mr. Klutz made the shut-up peace sign and asked Mr. Porky to come over to the microphone. He had a trophy in one hand and an envelope in his other hand.
“Thank you!” Mr. Porky said. “This has been a wonderful evening. It’s clear that you have a lot of talent here at Ella Mentry School, and you all love Porky’s Pork Sausages. But now it’s time to announce the winner of Ella Mentry School’s Got Talent.”
I hope I win. I hope I win. I hope I win. I hope I win. I hope I win.
“The winner is . . .”
Everybody got quiet as Mr. Porky tore open the envelope. You could have heard a pin drop in the all-purpose room.
Well, that is if anybody had pins with them. But why would anybody bring pins to a talent show? That would be weird.
Anyway, there was electricity in the air.
Well, not really, because if there was electricity in the air, we all would have been electrocuted.
What I mean to say is, everybody in the audience was on pins and needles.
Well, not really. They were sitting on seats. It would have hurt if they were on pins and needles.
I bet you’re dying to know who won the talent show, aren’t you?
Well, I’m not going to tell you.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.
“The winner is . . . ,” said Mr. Porky, “Mrs. Penny Lane!”
WHAT!?
“But she’s one of the judges!” Ryan shouted.
“That’s not fair!” shouted Michael.
Everybody started yelling, screaming, and freaking out. Mrs. Lane had a big smile on her face as she roller-skated over to get her prize.
“The talent show was supposed to be for kids!” complained Andrea. “Grown-ups can’t win!”
“Says who?” said Mrs. Lane as she grabbed the trophy. “Gimme that!”
“BOOOOOOOOOO!”
“My daughter should have been the winner!” shouted one of the parents in the audience. “Mrs. Lane is a fraud!”
“She must have made a secret deal with Mr. Porky!” somebody else shouted. “That’s the only reason she won!”
What a scam. Mrs. Lane took the microphone.
“I’d like to thank all the little people who made this possible,” she said. “I was the loser on Are You Smarter Than a Turnip? I was the loser on America’s Not Stupid. And I was the loser on Keeping Up with the Librarians and America’s Next Top Garbage Collector and Who Wants to Win a Million Pizzas? and Undercover Mother. But tonight I’m the winner, whether you like it or not!”
“The talent show was fixed!” shouted one of the parents. “Stop her!”
“Run for it, Penny!” shouted Mr. Porky.
A bunch of angry parents got up from their seats and came charging toward the stage. Mrs. Lane roller-skated toward the exit door, grabbing a box of pork sausages on her way out.
And that was the last we ever saw of her.
Maybe the parents will catch up with Mrs. Lane and take the trophy away from her. Maybe we’ll have another talent show next year. Maybe Mr. Klutz will stop hiding in the bushes. Maybe Mrs. Lane will stop saying “y’all” and turning her eyelids inside out. Maybe Mrs. Cooney will fix her broken hair. Maybe people will stop discriminating against different kinds of farts. Maybe Mr. Porky will get attacked by sharks, vultures, or burning lava. Maybe Andrea will finally stop singing songs from Annie. Maybe we’ll get some free pork sausages. Maybe people will stop eating bugs to get on TV. Maybe Michael will make a pig disappear. Maybe monkeys will stop dropping dead and falling out of trees. Maybe they’ll use Mr. Klutz’s head to bounce TV signals into outer space. Maybe people will stop running into doors. Maybe we’ll get to skydive in the all-purpose room.
But it won’t be easy!
About the Author and Illustrator
Photo by Howard Wolf
DAN GUTMAN has written many weird books for kids. He lives in New Jersey (a very weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. You can visit him on his weird website at www.dangutman.com.
JIM PAILLOT lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isn’t that weird? You can visit him on his weird website at www.jimpaillot.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
Credits
Cover art © 2014 by Jim Paillot
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Copyright
MY WEIRDER SCHOOL #12: MRS. LANE IS A PAIN! Text copyright © 2014 by Dan Gutman. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gutman, Dan.
Mrs. Lane is a pain! / Dan Gutman ; pictures by Jim Paillot. — First edition.
pages cm. — (My weirder school ; #12)
ISBN 978-0-06-219848-8 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-219847-1 (pbk. bdg.)
EPub Edition August 2014 ISBN 9780062198495
[1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Talent shows—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories.] I. Paillot, Jim, illustrator. II. Title.
PZ7.G9846Msg 2014
2013051282
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
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14 15 16 17 18 OPM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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* I don’t know what a liege is, but that’s what squires are supposed to say whenever knights say anything to them.
* That would be cool if there was an orchestra of armpit farters.
* Boy, she sure says “y’all” a lot.
* Well, I guess she couldn’t have given us a standing ovation if she was still sitting down.
* Look it up!
* I told him it should be “magnif-awesome,” but he wouldn’t listen to me.