by Dan Gutman
Dedication
To Nicole Lynch
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Judy Hutnik, Chris Emerson, Laney Richardson Berry, Julie Ruminer, and Laurie Berkinshaw Skaggs
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
1. A Giant, Man-Eating Grizzly Bear
2. The Amazing Miss Klute
3. The Magical Teachers’ Lounge
4. A Real Celebrity
5. The Fuzzy Little Bunny
6. My Brilliant Idea
7. Chess for Dogs
8. The Worst Day of My Life
9. Nah-Nah-Nah Boo-Boo on You
10. The Truth about the Teachers’ Lounge
About the Author and Illustrator
Back Ad
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
My name is A.J. and I hate reading out loud.
Every day in Mr. Granite’s class, we have ROL time—Reading Out Loud. Each of us has to stand up and read a paragraph from a book in front of the whole class.*
Reading out loud is scary, especially when you make a mistake. Last week I had to read: “I thought the road went through the town. It didn’t though.” But I said, “I through the road went thought the town. It didn’t throw.”
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“What a dumbhead!” whispered Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair.
Hey, I’m not a dumbhead. The guy who decided how to spell “thought” and “through” and “though” was the dumbhead.
I was going to say something mean to Andrea, but I didn’t get the chance. You’ll never believe who poked his head into the door at that moment.
Nobody! Why would you poke your head into a door? That would hurt. But you’ll never believe who poked his head into the doorway.
It was Mr. Macky, our reading specialist! He had a scary-looking black strap in his hand.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Mr. Macky?” asked Mr. Granite.
That’s grown-up talk for “What are you doing here?”
“The school reading scores are way down,” Mr. Macky said. “So I’m forced to take drastic action.”
Mr. Macky and Mr. Granite told us they would be right back. Everybody had worried looks on their faces. We were all on pins and needles.
Well, not really. We were sitting on chairs. If we were on pins and needles, it would have hurt.
“Drastic action?” asked Emily, the big crybaby. “What do you think he’s going to do?”
“He’s probably going to whip us with that strap,” said Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“Maybe he’s going to strap us to our seats until our reading scores go up,” said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.
“Whatever he does, it’s Arlo’s fault,” said Andrea. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it. “He probably flunked the reading test we took last week.”
“Your face flunked the reading test,” I said to Andrea.
I knew that didn’t make any sense, but it was the first thing that came to my mind. It didn’t matter, because Mr. Macky and Mr. Granite came back to the class. And this time they had company with them.
“EEEEEK!” Emily shrieked. “It’s a bear!”
It sure looked like a bear, but it wasn’t a bear. It was just the biggest dog in the history of the world. This dog was almost as big as Clifford the Big Red Dog. It was brown, and its tongue was hanging out. It was slobbering all over the place.
“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes. “The bear is gonna eat us!”
Everybody freaked out and dived under their desks. I wasn’t scared. I have a big dog named Buttons at home. But I dived under my desk anyway, just in case I was wrong and the dog was a bear.
“It’s a grizzly bear!” shouted Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time.
“It’s not a grizzly bear,” Mr. Macky said as he attached the strap to the dog’s collar. “It’s a Labradoodle. That’s a combination of a Labrador retriever and a poodle.”
“It’s a grizzly Labradoodle!” Alexia shouted.
“The grizzly Labradoodle is going to eat us!” Neil yelled. “Run for your lives!”
“Please calm down, everyone!” hollered Mr. Granite, who went over to pet the grizzly Labradoodle. “The dog is not going to hurt you. Look, it’s friendly.”
The Labradoodle sat on the floor while Mr. Granite petted it. It looked pretty tame to me. But once you start freaking out, it’s hard to stop.
“I think grizzly Labradoodles have rabies!” shouted Alexia.
“It’s a wild animal!” shouted Ryan.
“It’s an attack Labradoodle!” hollered Michael.
“Help!” shouted Neil. “The giant, grizzly attack Labradoodle is going to bite my head off!”
“I’m afraid of dogs,” whimpered Emily, who is afraid of everything. “I want my mommy!”
The rest of us started to come out from under our desks, but the dog barked and we all went back into hiding.
“I’ll read better! I promise!” said Ryan. “Just take that man-eating Labradoodle away!”
“It’s not a man-eating Labradoodle!” said Mr. Macky.
“Just take it away!” Michael shouted.
The giant, man-eating, grizzly attack Labradoodle barked again. It must have been a little freaked out by everybody freaking out. That made everybody freak out even more.
“EEEEEEEK!” Emily screamed.
“Help!” Alexia shouted. “I’m too young to die!”
It was hilarious. You should have been there.
We all made a run for the door to escape the giant, man-eating, grizzly attack Labradoodle before it could bite our heads off. But Mr. Macky wouldn’t let us out of the room.
“Stop!” he shouted, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “Everybody calm down. The dog will not hurt you. She’s here to help you with your reading.”
WHAT?!
“How could a man-eating dog possibly help us with our reading?” asked Alexia.
“She’s not a man-eating dog,” Mr. Macky told us as he leaned over to scratch the dog’s ears. “She’s a therapy dog.”
Therapy dog?
We all looked at each other. Not even Andrea knew what a “therapy dog” was, and Little Miss Know-It-All thinks she knows everything.
“What’s a therapy dog?” asked Neil the nude kid.
“Therapy dogs are dogs that are trained to help people,” said Mr. Macky.
“So you want us to read . . . to a dog?” Ryan asked.
“Sure!” said Mr. Macky.
“And you think that’s going to make us better readers?” asked Michael.
“Yes!”
Mr. Macky is wacky!*
Mr. Granite said that while we read to the dog, he would be in the teachers’ lounge for a while. That’s a secret room just for teachers where they can go to play video games, take a nap, or get a foot massage. My friend Billy, who lives around the corner, told me that the teachers’ lounge at his school has an all-you-can-eat buffet.
All-you-can-eat buffets are cool because you can eat as much as you want. That’s why they’re called all-you-can-eat buffets. They have the perfect name!
Hey, what if you went to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets and you just kept eating and eating and eating without stopping? I guess at some point they would tell you, “Okay, that’s all you can eat. Now get out of here.”
It would still have the perfect name!
I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the story. The point is that Mr. Granite went
to hang out in the teachers’ lounge.
“It’s against the rules to bring a dog to school,” said Andrea, who probably has a poster in her room with all the rules on it so she can study them in her spare time.
“Therapy dogs are allowed in school,” Mr. Macky told us. “Her name is Miss Klute. She’s four years old, and she’s really friendly, patient, calm, and gentle around people. Would you like to pet her?”
“I’m afraid,” said Emily, of course.
“Miss Klute doesn’t bite,” said Mr. Macky. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“It’s not flies I’m worried about,” Emily said. “Does she bite girls? Girls named Emily?”
“Of course not!” Mr. Macky said. “She loves people. And Miss Klute is even hypoallergenic. Does anybody know what hypoallergenic means?”
Andrea waved her hand in the air like she was stranded on a desert island and trying to signal a plane. But Mr. Macky called on me.
“That means Miss Klute is a kind of shampoo,” I said, sticking my tongue out at Andrea. I knew that because my mom told me her shampoo is hypoallergenic.
“Not exactly, A.J.,” said Mr. Macky. He called on Andrea.
“Hypoallergenic means Miss Klute won’t bother people who are allergic to dogs,” said Andrea.
“That’s right, Andrea!”
Andrea smiled the smile that she smiles whenever she’s the only one with the right answer. Why can’t a truckload of hypoallergenic shampoo fall on her head?
We all gathered around to pet Miss Klute. She seemed to like it. She didn’t bite anybody’s hand off, anyway.
“She’s adorable!” announced Alexia.
“Miss Klute is cute!” said Emily.
“I love her!” Neil said, wrapping his arms around Miss Klute and hugging her.
Wow, a minute ago Neil thought Miss Klute was going to bite his head off, and now he was saying he loved her. Neil is weird.
“Would you like me to read a story to Miss Klute?” asked Mr. Macky.
“Yes!” said all the girls.
“No!” said all the boys.
I still didn’t get it. Dogs don’t understand English. Why would anybody want to read to them? Boy, for a reading specialist, Mr. Macky didn’t know a whole lot about reading.
He pulled a book off the shelf. It was called Doug Unplugged. Mr. Macky sat on the floor next to Miss Klute, and we all gathered around him.
“This is Doug. He’s a robot,” read Mr. Macky. “Each morning his parents plug him in to fill him up with lots and lots of facts.”
I looked at Miss Klute. She was looking at Mr. Macky as he read.
“They love their little robot and want him to be the smartest robot ever,” Mr. Macky read from the book.
Miss Klute cuddled herself up into a giant ball and put her head on Mr. Macky’s lap as he read about Doug the robot. I had to admit, it was adorable.
Doug Unplugged was a cool story. It had us all glued to our seats.
Well, not really. We were sitting on the floor. Why would anybody glue themselves to a seat? How would you get the glue off?
When he got to the middle of the story, Mr. Macky reached into his pocket and pulled out a Cheerio. He gave it to Miss Klute to eat.
“You keep Cheerios in your pocket?” I asked. “That’s weird.”
“Did you run out of bowls?” asked Ryan.
“No, we had to put Miss Klute on a special diet,” Mr. Macky said, “because sometimes she eats too much.”
“My mom is on a special diet,” I said. “If she loses ten pounds, she’s going to buy a bikini.”
“Your mom is weird,” said Michael.
“If Miss Klute loses ten pounds, we should get her a bikini,” suggested Ryan.
“Yeah, Miss Klute would look good in a bikini,” said Neil.
“Dogs don’t wear bikinis!” said Alexia.
“That’s right,” Emily said. “They go swimming naked.”
“Ewww, disgusting!” we all shouted.
“Let’s stay on task, shall we?” said Mr. Macky.
He finished reading Doug Unplugged. Then he gave Miss Klute another Cheerio.
“It looked like she was really paying attention to the story,” Andrea said. “Miss Klute is amazing!”
No, she’s not. She just sat there and did nothing the whole time. Do you know what would really be amazing? If Miss Klute read a story to us.
Now that would be amazing.
Mr. Macky said he had to leave because he needed to bring Miss Klute to the other classes. But the next day, after we finished math, he poked his head into our doorway again.
“Miss Klute is here!” everybody yelled when we saw her. “Hooray!”
“Would you like to read her a story?” Mr. Macky asked.
“Yeah!” said all the girls.
“Yeah!” said all the boys.
Mr. Granite told us he would be in the teachers’ lounge for a while. I think I want to be a teacher when I grow up. That way I can go hang out in the teachers’ lounge all day and get foot massages.
“Is it true that the teachers’ lounge has a minibar filled with candy?” Michael asked Mr. Granite before he left.
“I heard that in the teachers’ lounge they have servants on roller skates who feed you grapes and give you back rubs,” said Ryan.
“That’s true,” Mr. Granite told us. “And there are hundred-dollar bills scattered all over the floor, too. You can just scoop them up and keep them.”
“WOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
“What do you do with the hundred-dollar bills?” I asked Mr. Granite.
“We use them for toilet paper,” he told us.
Ewww, disgusting!
I think Mr. Granite was yanking our chain. Nobody would ever use hundred-dollar bills for toilet paper. You would use one-dollar bills.
Mr. Macky sat on the rug in the corner with Miss Klute, and we all gathered around them. Mr. Macky had a book called Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen. It was about a guy named Uncle Willie who works in a soup kitchen. So it has the perfect name!
Mr. Macky read the first sentence in the book, and then he passed the book over to Andrea. She read a sentence and then she passed the book over to Ryan. He read a sentence and passed the book over to Michael. Each of us got the chance to read part of the story. It was cool.
No matter who was reading, Miss Klute sat and listened. Sometimes she would stare at the kid who was reading. It looked like she was really following the story. Other times she curled up in a big ball and rested her giant head on somebody’s leg.
While one of us was reading, the rest of us would pet Miss Klute’s ears, hold her paws, and feed her Cheerios. Sometimes kids grabbed her too hard or even pinched her. But Miss Klute never barked or snapped or growled. She didn’t care what we did to her.
Mr. Macky was right about one thing. It’s more fun to read when you’re reading to a dog. Some of us made mistakes, but nobody laughed. Certainly not Miss Klute. Dogs never make fun of you when you make mistakes.
After we finished the story, Mr. Macky said he and Miss Klute had to go read with another class.
“No! Don’t go!” everybody started yelling. “We want to read another story to Miss Klute!”
“Boo!”
“Please please please please don’t go,” I begged.
If you ever want something really badly, just say “please” over and over again to a grown-up. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“I thought you hated reading out loud, A.J.,” said Mr. Macky.
“I do,” I told him. “But reading is more fun when we read to Miss Klute. Please please please . . .”
“Well, as a reading specialist, I can’t resist that,” he said. “Okay, we can read one more story to Miss Klute.”
“Yay!” everybody yelled.
I tell you, it works every time.
After a few days nobody was afraid of Miss Klute anymore. Not even Emily, and she’s afraid of everything
. Our principal, Mr. Klutz, said Miss Klute had become part of the Ella Mentry School family. She came to school every day. When she wasn’t having kids read to her, her job was “hall patrol.” That meant she would walk up and down the hallway. Sometimes she would pop into our class.
Miss Klute was like a real celebrity at school. We asked Mr. Macky if we could have her autograph, so he copied a bunch of paw prints and passed them out to everyone. He also trained Miss Klute to do a cool trick. When we came into the front door in the morning, she was waiting for us. If you waved to her, she would put one paw in the air and move it back and forth. It looked just like she was waving back at you!
Wednesday was Funny Hat Day, and somebody gave Miss Klute a pair of antlers to wear. It was hilarious. You could do just about anything to her. She didn’t mind.
Miss Klute is a hoot!
The day after Funny Hat Day was Emily’s birthday. We all had to be nice to her, which was gross. But the best part was that Emily’s mom brought in chocolate cupcakes for the whole class.* I love cupcakes, and my favorite flavor is chocolate. So it’s a win-win! I would eat chocolate cupcakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if my mom would let me. There were plenty of extra cupcakes, but Mr. Granite said we could only have one each. Bummer in the summer!
Right after we sang “Happy Birthday” to Emily, you’ll never believe who walked into the door.
Nobody! It would hurt if you walked into a door. I thought we went over that already. But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway.
It was Mr. Macky and Miss Klute!
“Hooray! Miss Klute is here!” we all shouted.
Mr. Macky was carrying a book called The Fuzzy Little Bunny. We cleared off our desks and went to sit on the rug in the corner of the class with Miss Klute.
“I’ll be in the teachers’ lounge,” said Mr. Granite, taking the extra cupcakes with him.
Lucky stiff! What could be better than sitting in the greatest place in the world and eating chocolate cupcakes?
We were all petting Miss Klute and rubbing her ears.