by Dan Gutman
Dedication
To Kaden Li
Contents
Dedication
1. The End of the World
2. The Standoff
3. Our New Principal
4. The L Word
5. Art Is Like Pulling Teeth
6. The Perfect Food
7. I Think, Therefore I Am
8. Mrs. Hall Is a Goofball
9. Release the Dogs!
10. Big Surprise Ending
Back Ad
About the Author and Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
My name is A.J. and I hate it when an asteroid crashes into the earth and wipes out all life on our planet. Don’t you hate when that happens?
Our science teacher, Mr. Docker, told us that an asteroid crashed into Earth a million hundred years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs. Ever since then I’ve been worried that an asteroid is going to crash into Earth and wipe us out. But then, Mr. Docker is off his rocker.
Speaking of weird grown-ups, I was putting my backpack into my cubby at school the other day when our teacher, Mr. Cooper, came flying into the room. And I do mean flying. Mr. Cooper thinks he’s a superhero. But he’s not a very good one, because he tripped over an umbrella and fell on the garbage can.
“Are you okay?” we all shouted.
“I’m fine,” he said, picking the garbage off his pants.
But then something even weirder happened. Mr. Cooper grabbed his coat and went flying out of the room.
“Gotta run!” he shouted. “Have a nice day!”
WHAT?!
“Aren’t we going to pledge the allegiance?” asked my friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“Will we have a substitute teacher today?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.
“No time to talk!” shouted Mr. Cooper.
And then he was gone.
“That was weird,” said Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
“What’s weird about it?” asked Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair. “Superheroes always appear and disappear for no reason.”
“Mr. Cooper is probably in a hurry to prevent an asteroid from wiping out all life on Earth,” I told everybody. “That’s what superheroes do.”
“I’m scared,” said Emily, who’s scared of everything.
“What should we do now?” asked Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time. “We have no teacher.”
NO TEACHER?!
I looked at Michael. Michael looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Neil. Neil looked at me. Then all four of us snapped into action. We got up and shook our butts at the class.
“Boys!” said Andrea, rolling her eyes.
We thought that was the end of it, but you’ll never believe who came running through the door at that moment.
Nobody! You can’t run through a door. Doors are made of wood. But you’ll never believe who ran through the doorway.
It was two girls from the other third-grade classes.
“Is your teacher gone?” one of the girls asked.
“Yes!” we replied.
“Our teacher is gone too!” the first girl said.
“Our teacher is gone too!” the second girl said.
“Our teacher is gone too!” kids were shouting in the hallway.
In case you were wondering, everybody was shouting that their teacher was gone.
“All the teachers are gone!” shouted Andrea. “Where would they be going first thing in the morning?”
“They must know something we don’t know,” guessed Alexia.
“The asteroid is on its way!” I shouted.
“The world is about to end!” Ryan shouted.
“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil.
“We’ve got to do something!” shouted Emily, and then she went running out of the room.
Sheesh, get a grip! That girl will fall for anything.*
Before we could go running for our lives, I went to the window to see if an asteroid was heading for the earth. What I saw outside was even weirder. There was a long line of teachers out there. They were marching up and down the sidewalk. I called everybody over, and we leaned out the window to get a better look.
Mr. Cooper was on the sidewalk. So were our librarian, Mrs. Roopy; our art teacher, Ms. Hannah; and our gym teacher, Miss Small. All our teachers were outside, marching back and forth. Even our principal, Mr. Klutz, was out there. He was holding a big sign that said ON STRIKE.
“The teachers are on strike!” said Andrea, as if we couldn’t read the sign.
“Mr. Klutz, why are you on strike?” I hollered out the window. “Are you demanding higher pay?”
“No!” yelled Mr. Klutz.
“Are you asking for more vacation time?” asked Andrea.
“No!” yelled Mrs. Roopy.
“Shorter hours?” asked Ryan.
“No!” yelled Ms. Hannah.
“Then why are you on strike?” asked Michael.
“We want coffee!” yelled Mr. Klutz.
Coffee?
Maybe I didn’t hear that right.
“What did you say?” I hollered.
“We want coffee!” repeated Mr. Klutz.
“WE WANT COFFEE! WE WANT COFFEE! WE WANT COFFEE!” chanted all the teachers on the sidewalk.
I noticed that some of the other teachers were holding up signs. Our music teacher, Mr. Loring, had a sign that read I’M A MEANO WITHOUT MY CAPPUCCINO! Our computer teacher, Mrs. Yonkers, had a sign that read HECK NO! I NEED A CUP OF JOE! Our Spanish teacher, Miss Holly, had a sign that read I WON’T TEACH THE BAMBINOS WITHOUT A FRAPPUCCINO!
“Two, four, six, eight! What do we appreciate?” the teachers started chanting. “Coffee! Coffee!! COFFEEEEE!!!”
Man, grown-ups sure love their coffee. They go a little crazy if they don’t have it every morning. That must be the first rule of being a grown-up.
I don’t get it. I tried coffee once. It was yucky.
“Don’t they have a coffee machine in the teachers’ lounge?” asked Neil the nude kid.
That’s right. The teachers’ lounge is a magical room that has hot tubs, a bowling alley, a helicopter pad, and free back massages. I heard that some first grader snuck in there one time, and he never came out. Nobody knows what happened to him.
“Don’t you have a coffee machine in the teachers’ lounge?” Andrea hollered out the window.
“It’s broken,” shouted the school secretary, Mrs. Patty.
“I bet Mr. Harrison can fix it,” hollered Alexia.
Mr. Harrison is the tech guy at our school. His job is to fix the computers, printers, and copy machines when they break down. He can fix anything.
“I tried to fix it!” shouted Mr. Harrison. “The left flange dingle is on the fritz, and the mini–thermal circuit logic board is full of corrosion.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“We need a new coffee machine,” Mr. Klutz shouted, “but the Board of Education won’t get us one. So we’re on strike.”
“I’m bored of education,” I said.
“You always say that, Arlo,” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.
“I always say it because it’s always true,” I told Andrea.
Outside, the teachers were chanting louder.
“WHAT DO WE WANT?”
“COFFEE!”
“WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”
“NOW!”
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. A tank came rolling down the street.
That’s right, a tank. It was one o
f those army tanks they have in war movies.
“WOW!” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
The tank stopped in the middle of the street, right in front of the teachers. The top of the tank opened up, and you’ll never believe in a million hundred years whose head popped out.
It was Dr. Carbles, the president of the Board of Education!
“Where do you think Dr. Carbles got a tank?” Ryan asked.
“From Rent-A-Tank,” I told him. “You can rent anything.”
Dr. Carbles had a bullhorn in his hand.
“Attention, Ella Mentry School teachers!” he shouted. “Put down those signs and return to school. I have called in the police and the fire department.”
“Will you buy us a new coffee machine?” hollered Mr. Klutz.
“No!” shouted Dr. Carbles. “Go back to work!”
“No brewing? Nothing doing!” shouted Mr. Klutz.
“NO BREWING! NOTHING DOING!” chanted the teachers. “NO BREWING! NOTHING DOING!”
“If you teachers don’t return to work right now,” shouted Dr. Carbles, “I will be forced to use . . . uh . . . force.”
“He’s bluffing,” said Michael. “Dr. Carbles would never attack our teachers.”
The tank started to inch forward. The teachers took a step backward. It was exciting!
And that’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Mr. Klutz went over and stood right in front of the tank!
He put his hand in the air.
The tank stopped.
“Move out of the way, Klutz!” shouted Dr. Carbles. “I’m warning you. I will crush your rebellion!”
“No!” Mr. Klutz shouted back. “I’m not moving until you buy us a new coffee machine for the teachers’ lounge.”
“Mr. Klutz is so brave,” Andrea said. “When I grow up, I want to be just like him.”
“He’s my hero,” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says.
At that moment we heard sirens coming down the street. A bunch of police cars and fire trucks pulled up and screeched to a halt.
“I’ll give you one last chance, Klutz,” shouted Dr. Carbles. “Go back to school now, or else!”
“Not until we get a new coffee machine!” Mr. Klutz shouted back.
“Okay, you asked for it, Klutz!” shouted Dr. Carbles. “Turn on the water hoses, men! Release the dogs!”*
A bunch of firefighters jumped off the fire truck with hoses, and they started spraying water at Mr. Klutz and our teachers. The teachers were yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out. Then a bunch of dogs jumped out of the police cars and started barking and chasing the teachers down the street!
Did you ever see that movie Ratatouille? This was like that scene when the people come in the kitchen, and the rats scatter in all directions. You should have been there! It was hilarious. And we got to see it with our own eyes!
Well, it’s pretty hard to see stuff with somebody else’s eyes.
“Ooh, I don’t like to see this,” said Andrea, shaking her head. “I don’t like violence.”
“What do you have against violins?” I asked.
“Not violins, Arlo! Violence!”
I knew that. I was just yanking Andrea’s chain.
In a few minutes Mr. Klutz and the teachers were gone. The firefighters packed up their hoses. The policemen rounded up the dogs and left.
“That will teach them to rebel against me,” Dr. Carbles said. “My work is done here.”
Then he closed the hatch and drove the tank away.
Dr. Carbles is losing his marbles.
“Well, that was weird,” I said.
“What are we supposed to do now?” asked Alexia. “Should we just go home?”
Hmmm. All the teachers were gone. There was no point in shaking our butts at the class, because we already did that. There was nothing to prevent us from leaving school.
No more school! And it wasn’t even a snow day. This was the greatest moment of my life!
“NO MORE SCHOOL!” I chanted. “NO MORE SCHOOL! NO MORE SCHOOL!”
I figured everybody was going to start chanting “No more school!” with me.
I looked around. Nobody else was chanting. Everybody was just looking at me.
I hate when that happens.
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. A yellow bus pulled up outside the school.
Well, that’s not the weird part, because yellow buses pull up outside our school all the time. The weird part was what happened next.
A bunch of grown-ups got out of the yellow bus. The first one was a tall guy with really long hair. He had a bullhorn, just like the one Dr. Carbles was carrying. I guess grown-ups really like talking into bullhorns.
“Yo!” the tall guy hollered up at us. “To all you students looking out the windows. My name is Mr. Nick. I will be the replacement principal while Mr. Klutz and your teachers are on strike. Everybody, please report to the all-porpoise room.”
The all-porpoise room?
“Don’t you mean the all-purpose room?” somebody shouted.
“Oh, yeah,” Mr. Nick hollered. “Please report to the all-purpose room.”
That was weird. There’s no such thing as an all-porpoise room. How would we be able to use the room if it was filled with porpoises? And why would porpoises come to school in the first place? Don’t they need to live in water? Who would feed them? I’ve heard of schools of fish, but this is ridiculous.
There was no time to worry about porpoises. We walked a million hundred miles to the other side of the school. Even though we didn’t have a teacher, we went in single file anyway. Neil was the line leader. Alexia was the door holder.
When we got to the all-purpose room, Mr. Nick and a bunch of other people were up on the stage. After all the kids were seated, he made a peace sign with his fingers. In our school a peace sign means “shut up.”
Everybody stopped talking.
“Hey, how come you all stopped talking?” asked Mr. Nick.
“You made the shut-up peace sign,” I yelled.
“No, that was a real peace sign,” Mr. Nick said, holding up his fingers again. “I just wanted to say peace, man. Everybody chill. If we could just have more peace in the world, we wouldn’t have so many problems like this. The world would be a better place. Can you dig where I’m coming from?”
I can dig, but I had no idea where he was coming from. So I didn’t know where he wanted us to dig. Mr. Nick talked funny.
“When will our regular teachers be coming back?” somebody shouted from the back of the room.
“My staff and I will be here for at least a week,” Mr. Nick said, “or until the strike is over. Any other questions?”
Little Miss Perfect was waving her hand in the air like she was trying to hail a taxi. So of course Mr. Nick called on her.
“You’re a grown-up,” Andrea said. “Don’t you need to drink coffee in the morning like our regular teachers do?”
“No, man,” Mr. Nick replied. “That stuff will mess with your body. I drink in the sunshine, baby! That’s my caffeine. Mr. Klutz and your old teachers need to mellow out, man. They drink too much coffee. That’s why they’re so uptight all the time.”
Huh! I always wondered why all the teachers at our school were so weird. Now I knew the truth: it was all that coffee they drank every morning!
“From now on we’re gonna do things differently at Ella Mentry School,” said Mr. Nick. “If you want to learn stuff, that’s cool. And if you don’t want to learn stuff, that’s cool too. We go with the flow. If you want to stare out the window and just groove on the vibes, that’s cool. Different strokes for different folks. No more pencils. No more books. No more teacher’s dirty looks. Right? No more rules. That’s my attitude, man.”
Wow, Mr. Nick sounded like a cool guy!
Andrea had on her mean face, and I knew why. She loves pencils and books an
d teachers and rules and learning stuff.
“I think rules are a good thing,” she said. “If people don’t follow the rules, you end up with chaos.”
I didn’t know what chaos was, but it didn’t sound like a good thing.
“Well, I do have one rule,” announced Mr. Nick. “You all have to go back to your classrooms now and meet your new teachers.”
We walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom. Everybody was excited to see who our new teacher would be.
“I hope she’s nice,” said Emily, who always hopes everybody will be nice.
“She might not be a she,” said Andrea. “Maybe she will be a he. Mr. Cooper is a he. Our old teacher Mr. Granite was a he.”
“I think Mr. Granite is still a he,” said Ryan.
As it turned out, our new teacher was a she. But she didn’t look much like a teacher. She looked really young. She had flowers in her hair and a tie-dyed shirt. She wrote this on the whiteboard . . .
MY NAME IS MOONBEAM STARLIGHT.
Huh? What kind of a name is Moonbeam Starlight?
“You can call me Miss Moon,” she told us as we took our seats. “I’m Mr. Nick’s girlfriend.”
“Are you a teacher too?” asked Alexia.
“Aren’t we all teachers?” Miss Moon replied with a smile.
“Where do you live?” asked Neil.
“Mr. Nick and I live in a yurt,” said Miss Moon. “Does anybody know what a yurt is?”
I raised my hand. Miss Moon called on me.
“A yurt is ‘yogurt’ without the OG in it,” I said.
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
Andrea was waving her hand in the air like she was cleaning a big window. Miss Moon called on her.
“A yurt is a big, round tent,” Andrea said.
“That’s right, Andrea!”
Andrea smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know she knows something nobody else knows. She probably looked up “yurt” on her smartphone. What is her problem? Why can’t a truck full of yurts fall on her head?
“Mr. Nick and I live off the grid, and we grow wildflowers,” said Miss Moon. “We’re planning to open up a vegetarian bookstore.”