Ms. Hannah Is Bananas!

by Dan Gutman

  We were out in the playground during recess. Me and Ryan and Michael all agreed that Ms. Hannah was weird. I mean, saving all that garbage is good for the environment and all, but it’s kind of weird, too. She doesn’t have enough garbage of her own. She has to go get other people’s garbage.

  “She’s not an art teacher,” I said. “She’s a garbage collector.”

  “I still say our real art teacher was kidnapped,” Ryan said. “She’s probably tied up to a chair in the teachers’ lounge.”

  The teachers’ lounge is on the second floor of our school. Ryan said he thought it was in a room over the playground. We looked up at the windows and found the one that was probably the teachers’ lounge.

  “Our real art teacher could be in there right now,” Ryan said, “tied up to a chair and being tortured!”

  “Too bad we’re too short to see inside,” Michael said.

  That’s when I came up with the most genius idea in the history of the world.

  I told Ryan and Michael that we might be able to see inside the window to the teachers’ lounge if we stood on top of each other.

  Michael got down on his hands and knees below the window. Ryan climbed up on top of him and hunched down. I climbed up on top of Ryan and stood on his shoulders.

  “Can you see anything, A.J.?” Michael grunted.

  “Not yet.”

  I could almost see into the window. I grabbed hold of the ledge on the window to pull myself up better.

  “Hurry up!” Michael said. “My back is going to break!”

  That’s when I saw them. The teachers! I saw Miss Daisy and Mrs. Roopy and a few of the other teachers. I was looking right into the teachers’ top-secret lounge!

  “I see them!” I shouted.

  “What are they doing?” Ryan asked, all excited.

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Is anybody tied up to a chair?” Michael asked.

  “No.”

  “Are they dancing around with each other?” Ryan asked.

  “No.”

  “Are they playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey?” Michael asked.

  “No,” I said. “They’re just sitting there…eating lunch.”

  “That’s it?” Ryan said.

  “Wait!” I told them. “Mrs. Roopy is getting something out of the closet!”

  “Is it a BB gun?” Michael asked.

  “No, it’s a paper bag,” I said. “It must be her lunch.”

  “This is boring,” Ryan said.

  “One more minute,” I said.

  “My back is breaking!” Michael hollered.

  I don’t know exactly what happened next, but all I knew was that Ryan and Michael weren’t holding me up anymore. Nothing was holding me up anymore.

  I was holding on to the ledge of the windowsill with my elbows. If I let go, I would fall. I was afraid my head would bang on the windowsill.

  “Help! Help!” I shouted.

  I was hanging there for about a million hundred minutes until some of the teachers inside the teachers’ lounge noticed me. They rushed over and opened the window.

  “A.J., what are you doing out here?” Miss Daisy said as she and the other teachers pulled me inside.

  “Uh, I was just hanging around,” I told them.

  6

  The Museum of Hanging Garbage

  For a few days, I was the star of the school. No kid had ever been inside the teachers’ lounge. I was probably the first one in the history of the world.

  Everybody wanted to know about the incredible things I saw in the teachers’ lounge. Kids were even offering me candy to tell them.

  I didn’t want to tell them the teachers’ lounge was just a boring old room where the teachers sat around eating lunch. I didn’t want to lie, either. So I just told them that the teachers blindfolded me and said they would torture me if I ever revealed what went on in the teachers’ lounge. It was cool.

  Our next art class wasn’t an art class at all. Ms. Hannah took us on a field trip to a museum.

  I hate museums. Museums are boring.

  “Why don’t we ever take a field trip to a cool place like a skateboard park?” I asked Ryan on the bus ride over to the museum.

  “What’s so great about skateboard parks?” Andrea asked from the seat in front of me.

  “Well, for one thing, you’re not there,” I said. Ryan laughed.

  Andrea made a mean face at me. “I like museums,” she said. “My mom takes me to museums all the time.”

  “Too bad she doesn’t leave you there,” I said.

  Ryan laughed.

  We walked around the museum for about a million hundred hours. Ms. Hannah was all excited. She just about ran from room to room telling us about all the wonderful art.

  It was horrible and boring, and I was hungry and my legs were tired. I looked for a place to sit down.

  There were some big boxes of soup cans in the corner, and I went to take a rest on them. But as soon as I sat down, all these loud bells started ringing and guards came running over. One of them was blowing a whistle, and he started yelling at me.

  “Get up!” he shouted. “You can’t sit there!”

  “Okay, okay!” I said, getting up fast. “I’ll sit someplace else.” What’s the big deal? I wondered.

  The guard looked like he was going to arrest me or something. Luckily Ms. Hannah ran over and rescued me. I asked her what I did, and she told me that I had sat on some art.

  “That’s art?” I asked. “I thought it was boxes of soup.”

  “It’s modern art!” she said. “That is a famous sculpture that is worth millions of dollars.”

  It looked like soup boxes to me. Ms. Hannah told me to remember that art is everywhere, so I should be careful what I sat on. She put her arm around me and kept it there for the rest of the time we were in the museum.

  We walked around and she kept pointing out the beautiful artwork all over the place.

  “Look at this!” she kept saying. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

  We stopped in front of a painting. It was just a bunch of lines and squares and box shapes. It was really stupid.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Ms. Hannah said. “It’s called ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie.’”

  “My little sister could paint that with her eyes closed,” I said.

  The next room didn’t have any paintings on the walls at all. But all kinds of junk was hanging from the ceiling.

  “Can anybody tell me what these are?” Ms. Hannah asked us.

  “That must be the museum’s garbage,” I told her. “When my family goes camping, we hang our garbage from a tree so the bears and raccoons don’t get it.”

  “They don’t have bears and raccoons in museums, dumbhead,” Andrea said. “Those things are called mobiles.”

  “That’s right, Andrea!” Ms. Hannah said, and Andrea stuck her tongue out at me. I hate her. “They are also called kinetic sculptures.”

  “What does that mean?” Emily asked.

  “It means it comes from Connecticut,” I told her.

  “No, kinetic means ‘movement,’” Ms. Hannah said. “The sculptures can move.”

  “Don’t tell me that ’s art,” I said, looking at one of those Connecticut things.

  “Not only is this art,” Ms. Hannah said, “it’s a masterpiece!”

  “Looks like hanging garbage to me,” I said. This museum was the weirdest museum in the history of museums. I was bored and hungry, and I wanted to sit down. Finally Ms. Hannah said we could go outside in the garden and have a snack.

  “Before we leave the museum,” she started, “does anybody have any questions?”

  I raised my hand. “If all of the stuff in here is art, how do they know what to throw away as garbage?” I asked. “Do they ever throw the art away by accident and leave the garbage here? How do they know which is which?”

  Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. I never did find out how they threw their garbage away.


  7

  Performance Art

  There’s a garden in the back of the Museum of Hanging Garbage. We went out there, and Ms. Hannah gave out pretzels and punch to all of us. She said we could run around and burn off some energy.

  We were munching the pretzels when Michael noticed a statue at the other end of the garden. It was a statue of a guy. He was dressed in a raincoat and he was holding an umbrella. The cool thing was that the statue guy was painted gold from head to toe.

  “Now that is cool,” I said.

  A bunch of people were standing around in a circle looking at the statue guy.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Michael said. “I just saw that statue guy move.”

  “He did not,” I said.

  “Did too,” said Michael.

  I went over to the statue guy. There was a hat on the ground in front of him, and there was money in it. That was weird. If it was a statue, why would anybody give it money?

  The statue guy wasn’t moving at all. I walked around him real slow. I said “Boo!” to him. He didn’t move. I wanted to touch him to see if he was a real statue, but I was scared.

  I looked in the statue guy’s eyes. They sure looked real, but he wasn’t moving a muscle.

  “See, I told you,” I said to Michael. “It’s just a stat—”

  But just as I said it, the statue guy suddenly picked up his hand and put it on my head!

  I screamed and jumped about three feet in the air! All the people who were watching started to laugh even though there wasn’t anything funny about it.

  I hadn’t been so scared since I went to this haunted mansion on Halloween and all these zombies were jumping out from behind the walls. When that statue guy moved, I thought I was going to die.

  Ms. Hannah came over and put her arm around me.

  “See, that’s art too, A.J.!” she said as she put some money in the statue guy’s hat. “This man has turned himself into a work of art! It’s just like I always tell you. Art is everywhere. This is called performance art!”

  Performance art? Performance art? I think maybe when I grow up, I will paint myself gold and stand around doing nothing but scaring kids all day. That performance art stuff is cool.

  8

  The Friendship Picture

  When we got back to school, Ms. Hannah took us to the art room. What a mess!

  There was more junk than ever in there. Her newspaper ball was bigger too.

  It was almost as tall as me.

  Ms. Hannah said she hoped the art we saw in the museum had inspired us to create art on our own. She passed out paper and pencils and said that today we were going to draw friendship pictures.

  “What’s a friendship picture?” Emily asked.

  “A friendship picture is a picture that two people draw together,” she said.

  “That sounds like fun,” said Andrea. “Can Emily and I work on a friendship picture together? We’re best friends.”

  “Can I draw a picture with A.J.?” asked Ryan.

  “No,” said Ms. Hannah. “I want Andrea and A.J. to work on a friendship picture together.”

  Everybody laughed even though Ms.

  Hannah didn’t say anything funny. That’s because everybody knows that Andrea and I hate each other.

  “Do I have to work with him?” Andrea asked.

  “Do I have to work with her?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Ms. Hannah. “Andrea, you love butterflies, right? A.J., you love skateboards. Let’s see the two of you draw a skateboarding butterfly.”

  We got to work. Andrea drew the butterfly and the background. I drew a helmet on the butterfly, a skateboard under it, and a bunch of ramps and stuff.

  Our friendship picture actually came out pretty good. Ms. Hannah was so impressed at how well me and Andrea worked together that she went to get Miss Daisy.

  “Hey, this is pretty cool,” I said, holding up our friendship picture.

  “Wow,” agreed Andrea, taking the friendship picture. “I’m going to take this home so my mom can put it up on the refrigerator.”

  “I want to take it home,” I said, grabbing the friendship picture away from Andrea. “My mom will want to put it up on our refrigerator.”

  “You hate art, A.J.,” Andrea said, grabbing the friendship picture back. “Why should you get to take it home?”

  “Because I want it, that’s why,” I said. I grabbed the friendship picture back from Andrea. Only this time Andrea didn’t let go.

  She pulled on one side of the friendship picture. I pulled on the other side of the friendship picture. That’s when our friendship picture ripped right down the middle.

  “You ruined our friendship picture!” Andrea shouted.

  “I did not! You did!”

  “I hate you!”

  “I hate you back!”

  I heard Ms. Hannah and Miss Daisy coming down the hall toward the art room.

  “Wait until you see how well A.J. and Andrea are working together,” Ms. Hannah said as they walked into the room. “You won’t believe your eyes.”

  9

  Mr. Klutz and the Secret Drawer

  “You two,” Miss Daisy said. “Go to Mr. Klutz’s office. Now.”

  “Oooooooooooooh!”

  I thought Andrea was going to kill me on the way to the principal’s office. She was really mad. Andrea had never been to Mr. Klutz’s office before. That’s because she never does anything wrong.

  “I can’t believe I’m in trouble,” Andrea said. “It’s all your fault, A.J.”

  “Relax,” I said. “I’ve been to the principal’s office plenty of times. Mr. Klutz is a good guy.”

  Mr. Klutz was sitting at his desk talking on the phone when we arrived. He is not only the principal of the school, but he also has no hair at all.

  Once he let everybody in our class touch his head. It was cool.

  “Are we going to be punished?” Andrea asked when Mr. Klutz hung up the phone. She was all nervous and talked in a quiet voice.

  “I don’t believe in punishing children,” Mr. Klutz said. “I believe in rewarding children for doing good things. Now tell me, why can’t you two get along?”

  “He says mean things to me,” Andrea said.

  “She thinks she knows everything,” I said.

  “He hates everything.”

  “Not everything. Just you.”

  Mr. Klutz leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his forehead. Grown-ups always rub their foreheads when they are thinking. I guess it must help their brains work better. When you get old, your brain doesn’t work as good anymore so you have to rub your forehead to get it going again.

  “What can we do to solve this problem?” Mr. Klutz asked.

  “Kick A.J. out of school.”

  “Kick Andrea out of school.”

  “I’m not kicking anyone out of school,” Mr. Klutz said. “The two of you are going to have to live with each other.”

  “In the same house?” I asked. “I thought you said you don’t punish kids.”

  Mr. Klutz laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Then he took a key and opened one of his desk drawers. The drawer was filled all the way up to the top with candy. Chocolates. Lollipops. Caramels. He had like a whole candy shop in his drawer. I decided right there that I want to be a principal when I grow up.

  “Would you like some of this?” Mr. Klutz asked us.

  Andrea and I nodded our heads and licked our lips.

  “Here’s the deal. If you two can go a full day without fighting, I will give you each a candy bar tomorrow.”

  “How about two candy bars?” I suggested.

  “One candy bar each,” Mr. Klutz said. “That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”

  I don’t like Andrea. She doesn’t like me either. But we both like candy bars.

  I would have to go one day without fighting with Andrea. One day wasn’t so long. I could handle one day.

  “Okay,” Andrea and I said.

  Then w
e all shook on it. Shook hands, I mean. We didn’t just start shaking.

  That would have been dumb.

  10

  The Big Stupid Art Contest

  The next morning I was on my best behavior. I was trying very hard to not say anything mean to Andrea.

  But it wasn’t easy, because she is so annoying. When Andrea gave an apple to Miss Daisy as a present, I wanted to say something mean. But I didn’t.

  When Andrea showed everybody the A+ she got on the math quiz, I wanted to say something mean. But I didn’t.

  When Andrea told Miss Daisy how pretty her hair looked, I wanted to say something mean. But I didn’t.

  Andrea wasn’t saying anything mean to me either. We both wanted that candy bar.

  Miss Daisy was happy that Andrea and I were being so nice to each other.

  When it came time for lunch, she sat us at the same table with Ryan and Michael and Emily. I traded Emily my banana, and she traded me her potato chips.

  “Did you all bring in your stuff for the art contest?” asked Emily. “Ms. Hannah is going to judge the winner this afternoon.”

  I had forgotten all about the stupid art contest. Michael said he made a statue out of toothpicks. Ryan said he made a papier-mâché head. Emily made a collage. Andrea made a mobile with hanging butterflies (of course!).

  I was the only one who didn’t bring in anything. I hate art. Art is stupid.

  “Did you see the art room?” Andrea asked. “When I brought my mobile in, the place was just a big mess.”

  “Of course it’s a big mess,” Ryan said. “Have you ever seen Ms. Hannah throw anything away?”

  “She can’t throw anything away,” Michael said. “She doesn’t have a garbage can.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Andrea said. “Ms. Hannah just gets more and more stuff, and never throws anything away. My mother is a psychologist. She helps people with their problems. And my mother says that people who can’t throw anything away have a problem.”