by Dan Gutman
“Okay, okay,” I said. “When I snap my fingers, Andrea, you will wake up.”
But I didn’t get the chance to snap my fingers, because at that very moment…
BRRRRING! BRRRRING!
Recess was over.
10
Little Miss Not-So-Perfect
When the bell rang, we all ran inside the school. Andrea looked like everything was normal.
But I knew something was wrong. When she went running inside, Andrea didn’t even ask for her necklace back. I put it in my pocket.
And she wasn’t acting normal either. As soon as we got into Mr. Granite’s class, Little Miss Perfect put her feet up on her desk, leaned back in her chair, and put both of her hands behind her head. Andrea never sits that way. She always sits with her hands folded and her feet on the floor.
“Andrea,” said Mr. Granite, “sit correctly, please.”
“Make me,” Andrea replied.*
Well, everybody’s jaws dropped open. Andrea never says “Make me.”
“I beg your pardon, Andrea?” asked Mr. Granite.
“I said, Make me!” Andrea shouted. “Why don’t you clean the dirt out of your ears so you can hear?”
“Oooooooooooooooooooooh!” everybody oooooohed.
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Andrea is usually such a big brownnoser. She never talks back to grown-ups.
“Are you feeling okay, Andrea?” asked Mr. Granite. “Do you know who you are?”
“My name is Andrea, and I hate school,” Andrea said. “Following rules is for losers.”
“Maybe you want to go see Mrs. Cooney, the school nurse,” said Mr. Granite. “Maybe you need to lie down.”
“Maybe you need to shut your face!” said Andrea.
“Oooooooooooooooooooooh!” everybody oooooohed.
“She’s in a trance!” Emily shouted. “A.J. hypnotized her on the playground. And now she thinks she’s a mean kid!”
“You should shut your face, too,” Andrea told Emily. “You’re an annoying little crybaby.”
“Oooooooooooooooooooooh!” everybody oooooohed.
Andrea suddenly got up, knocking her chair over. “I’ve had enough of this dump,” she said. “I’m outta here!” Then she stormed out the door.
It was the most amazing thing in the history of the world! And we got to see it live and in person. You should have been there!
But what happened next was even more amazing. A few seconds after Andrea stormed out of the classroom…
BRRRRING! BRRRRING!
“Oh no!” Mr. Granite said. “What a terrible time for a fire drill.”
“It’s not a fire drill!” Ryan shouted. “I think Andrea pulled the fire alarm in the hall!”
“We have to leave the building,” Mr. Granite announced. “Everybody line up in single file. Michael, you’re the door holder. Emily, you’re the line leader.”
We all lined up and started filing out of the room. The other classes were in the hallway, too.
“A.J., you’ve got to stop Andrea!” Michael whispered as we marched out of the building. “You’re the one who hypnotized her.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“You just have to snap your fingers and she’ll come out of the trance,” Neil the nude kid said.
Neil was right. Me and the guys rushed out onto the playground. The whole school was there. I looked all around for Andrea so I could snap my fingers and bring her out of the trance.
But she was gone.
11
A Very Dangerous Situation
Mr. Klutz and our vice principal, Mrs. Jafee, came running out onto the playground. They were followed by Dr. Brad, who was huffing and puffing.
“Vut’s going on?” Dr. Brad shouted.
“Somebody pulled the fire alarm, by golly!” said Mrs. Jafee.
“It was Andrea Young,” Mr. Granite said.
“Are you sure?” asked Mr. Klutz. “That’s not the Andrea I know. I’m sure Dr. Brad will be able to calm her down.”
“Vere is Andrea?” asked Dr. Brad. “I must speak vis her.”
“We don’t know where she is,” I told them. “She ran out of the school. She could be anywhere.”
At that moment, the strangest thing in the history of the world happened. We heard a voice from above our heads.
“I’m up here, you dumbheads!”
I looked up. And there, standing on the roof of the school, was Andrea!
“WOW!” everybody said, which is “MOM” upside down.
It was a real Kodak moment. Kids started pointing at Andrea and yelling.
“She’s crazy!” “She’s nuts!” “She’s loopy!” “She’s bananas!” “She’s off the wall!” “She’s out of her mind!” “She’s loony!” “She’s bizarre!” “She’s off her rocker!” “She’s not normal!” “She’s loco!” “She’s bonkers!” “She’s losing her marbles!” “She’s screwy!” “She’s out of control!”
“How did you get up there, Andrea?” shouted Mr. Klutz.
“How do you think I got up here, you big doofus?” yelled Andrea. “I climbed.”
“Oooooooooooooooooooooh!” everybody oooooohed.
I couldn’t believe Andrea called the principal a big doofus!
“My feet smell like rotten cabbage!” Andrea yelled.
I snapped my fingers to make Andrea come out of her trance. But she was too far away to hear.
“What should we do, Dr. Brad?” asked Mr. Klutz. “You’re the school counselor!”
“Zees ees a very dangerous situation,” Dr. Brad said. “I must talk to Andrea and show her kindness, caring, and understanding.”
“That won’t do anything!” Michael said. “A.J. hypnotized her. She’s only going to listen to him.”
“Ees zees true, A.J.?” asked Dr. Brad. “You hypnotized Andrea?”
I didn’t have the chance to answer his question, because at that moment a bunch of fire engines and police cars pulled up to the school with their sirens screaming. Somebody must have called 911!
A policeman with a bullhorn got out of one of the cars.
“Get down from there, young lady!” he shouted.
“Come and get me, coppers!” yelled Andrea.
“We don’t want you to get hurt,” another policeman shouted.
“You’ll never take me alive!” yelled Andrea. She picked up a tennis ball off the roof and threw it at the police car.
“Let’s get her, men!” the cop with the bullhorn shouted. The cops started moving toward the wall.
“Vait!” Dr. Brad shouted. “Zees ees a very dangerous situation! Do not go up on zee roof. Zare ees only vun person here who can rescue zees girl.”
Dr. Brad looked at me. Mr. Klutz looked at me. Mrs. Jafee looked at me. The cops looked at me. Everybody was looking at me!
I was faced with the hardest decision of my life. If I didn’t save Andrea, something horrible might happen. And if I did save Andrea, the guys would say I was in love with her. I was thinking so hard that my brain hurt.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.
“I’m going up,” I said.
Everybody cheered as I dug my sneaker into the little space between the bricks. There were a few windowsills I could step on, too. It was hard, but soon I reached the top of the school. I was a few feet from Andrea.
“Get out of my face, A.J.!” she yelled.
I took Andrea’s necklace out of my pocket and dangled it in front of her eyes. She stared at it.
“You will do everything I say,” I told her.
“Everything you say…” Andrea mumbled.
“You’re a good girl,” I said. “You never do anything wrong. You love school and books and learning and being nice to grown-ups. When I snap my fingers, you’ll wake up and go back to the way you used to be.”
“The way I used to be…” mumbled Andrea.
SNAP!
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Andrea was startled. She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Then she looked around.
“What am I doing up here on the roof, Arlo?” she asked.
“You…uh, went a little crazy,” I told her. “Let’s climb back down now, okay?”
“Okay,” said Andrea.
Me and Andrea carefully climbed back down the wall of the school. When we reached the ground, everybody cheered. Andrea gave me a big hug.
“You saved my life, Arlo!” she said.
“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. saved Andrea’s life. “They must be in love!”
“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.
If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.
12
The Moment of Truth
As soon as I got to Mr. Granite’s class the next morning, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker.
“Please send A.J. to Mr. Klutz’s office.”
Everybody looked at me. We all knew what was about to happen. I was going to find out whether or not they would send me to Dork School. Everybody got up to shake my hand, even Mr. Granite.
“It’s been nice knowing you, A.J.,” said Ryan.
“Good luck, dude,” Michael said. “I hope we’ll still be friends.”
“We’ll miss you,” said Neil the nude kid.
Andrea came over. I thought she was going to hug me or kiss me or do some other disgusting thing.
“I’ve been thinking about it, Arlo,” Andrea said. “Maybe it would be good if you went to Dirk. It might be better for both of us if we went to different schools.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I agreed.
I walked down the hall more slowly than I had ever walked down any hall. A glacier could have beat me to Mr. Klutz’s office.* But finally, I got there. It was the moment of truth.
I put my hand on the doorknob.
I turned the doorknob.
I opened the door.
And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who was sitting there.
It was Dr. Brad. And he was crying. Big tears were rolling down his face.
“It vuz all my fault,” he blubbered. “If Andrea had fallen off the roof, I don’t know vut I vould have done.”
“There, there,” said Mr. Klutz and Ms. Coco as they patted Dr. Brad on his back. “Everything turned out fine.”
They were trying to comfort him, but it was no use. Dr. Brad fell to the floor and started weeping like a baby.
“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Sheesh, get a grip!
“Dr. Brad has gone mad,” Ms. Coco told me. “We don’t know what to do.”
“We thought you might be able to help, A.J.,” said Mr. Klutz. “You seem to be good at this sort of thing.”
“Maybe Dr. Brad isn’t a counselor at all,” I told them. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe he kidnapped our real counselor and stuffed him in the trunk of his car. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”
“I don’t think that’s it, A.J.,” said Mr. Klutz.
I tried really hard to think of a way to make Dr. Brad snap out of it. I thought so hard I was afraid my head was gonna explode. And then I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world.
“We must resort to drastic measures!” I shouted.
I rushed out of Mr. Klutz’s office and ran down the hall to Room 104. The Ping-Pong paddles were still on Dr. Brad’s desk. I scooped them up and ran back to Mr. Klutz’s office. Dr. Brad was still on the floor, freaking out.
“Are you going to give me electric shocks?” he asked.
“No, no, no,” I told him. “We’re gonna play Ping-Pong!”
We helped Dr. Brad up and gave him a paddle. Mr. Klutz and Ms. Coco picked up paddles and went to the other side of the table.
“Volley for serve,” I said.
I hit the ball to Mr. Klutz. Mr. Klutz hit the ball to Dr. Brad. Dr. Brad hit the ball to Ms. Coco. Ms. Coco hit the ball to me.
“I feel better already!” said Dr. Brad.
“Ping-Pong is great for getting rid of stress,” said Mr. Klutz.
The four of us had a blast! Instead of learning boring stuff like math, science, and social studies, I got to play Ping-Pong all morning with Dr. Brad, Mr. Klutz, and Ms. Coco. It was the greatest day of my life!
Well, that’s pretty much what happened. Maybe Dr. Brad will get better. Maybe he’ll comb his hair and stop looking up my nose with a magnifying glass. Maybe he’ll remove my brain and replace it with a monkey brain. Maybe I’ll have to pee into a cup and they’ll send me to Dork School. Maybe I’ll cut down a tree so I can make a reading log. Maybe Ms. Coco will stop crying over my lame poems and saying I’m a genius. Maybe Andrea will go crazy again and climb up on the roof. Maybe the girls will stop accessorizing our action figures. Maybe me and the guys will have another War of the Barbies. Maybe the boys and girls at Ella Mentry School will learn to stop fighting, respect one another, and live in peace and harmony.
But it won’t be easy!
About the Author and the Illustrator
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 author.
Credits
Cover art © 2009 by Jim Paillot
Copyright
MY WEIRD SCHOOL DAZE #7: DR. BRAD HAS GONE MAD!. Text copyright © 2009 by Dan Gutman. Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-193386-8
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* When people want something really bad, they rub their hands together. Nobody knows why.
* If you read this with a grown-up, ask the grown-up to read Dr. Brad’s lines. It will be hilarious.
* If you say “please” enough times, grown-ups will give you whatever you want. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
* Just like “duty” and “doody.” It’s impossible to hear the word “duty” and not think of “doody.”
* That’s what you say when you really want to be obnoxious. Make me. Anybody who says “Make m
e” is asking for trouble.
* That is, if there were glaciers inside schools.