by Dan Gutman
Dedication
To Emma
Contents
Dedication
1. How Do You Like Them Apples?
2. A Surprise Guest
3. A Hundred Thousand Pizzas
4. Boats
5. Making History
6. More Eyeballs
7. But Seriously
8. The Worst Day of My Life
9. A Word from Our Sponsor
10. Sniffing Out Stories
11. Breaking News
Back Ad
About the Author and Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
My name is A.J. and I hate it when my school gets attacked by monsters.
I should explain.
It all started the other day when our new 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 knocked over the garbage can and fell on the floor. Stuff spilled all over the place.
We all ran over to help him up. Mr. Cooper had a black plastic bag in his hand and a letter A on his cape.
“It is I,” he announced. “Apple Man!”
“Apple Man?” asked Ryan and Michael.
“Whoever heard of a superhero named Apple Man?” asked Alexia, who rides a skateboard all the time.
“Today we’re going to learn about apples,” said Mr. Cooper.
“Why?” asked Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
“Because it’s part of the Common Core!” said Mr. Cooper. “Get it?”
Nobody got it. But Mr. Cooper didn’t care. He took some apples out of the bag and passed them around.
“When I was a kid, we used to say ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away,’” Mr. Cooper told us.
“You threw apples at doctors?” I asked. Then everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“Did you know there are seven thousand kinds of apples grown all over the world?” Mr. Cooper asked us. “But only one is native to North America—the crabapple.”*
“I know something about apples,” said Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair. “If you put an apple in water, it won’t sink. Apples have a lot of air in them.”
“Very good, Andrea!” said Mr. Cooper.
Andrea fist-bumped her friend Emily, the big crybaby. Then she smiled the smile that she smiles to let everybody know that she knows something nobody else knows. She thinks she is so smart. Why can’t a truck full of apples fall on her head?
Mr. Cooper told us it was time for math.
“If there are six apples on a table and you take away four of them, how many do you have?” Mr. Cooper asked.
Andrea was waving her hand in the air like she needed to be rescued from a desert island.
“Two apples!” she said. “Because six minus four is two.” Then she made her smiley smile again.
“No,” said Mr. Cooper. “If there are six apples on a table and you take away four of them, you have four of them, of course. You just took four of them away!”
“B-but . . . but . . .”
We all laughed because Andrea said “but,” which sounds like “butt” even though it only has one t.
Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.
Mr. Cooper taught us lots of interesting stuff about apples. Did you know that gravity was discovered when an apple fell on some guy’s head? Me neither.
That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. The morning announcements came over the loudspeaker.
Well, that’s not the amazing part, because the morning announcements come over the loudspeaker every morning. The amazing part was what happened after that.
I’m not going to tell you what it was.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.
But you have to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.
Our school secretary, Mrs. Patty, does the announcements every morning. We pledge the allegiance, and then she tells us the weather, what’s for lunch, and who has birthdays that day. It’s pretty boring.
At the end of today’s announcements, Mrs. Patty said, “All students and teachers, please report to the all-purpose room for a surprise assembly.”
We had to walk single file a million hundred miles to the all-purpose room. Mr. Cooper made us sit boy-girl-boy-girl so we wouldn’t sit next to anybody we liked. I had to sit between Andrea and Emily.
Our principal, Mr. Klutz, climbed up on the stage. He has no hair at all. I mean none. He used to have hair, but it fell out or something. Everybody was buzzing.
Well, not really. People don’t buzz. Bees buzz. It would be weird if people buzzed like bees. But we were all talking. Mr. Klutz held up his hand and made a peace sign, which means “shut up.”
“Thank you,” he said. “We have a very special guest at Ella Mentry School today.”
We all buzzed some more. And you’ll never believe who walked out on the stage at that moment.
Nobody! Because somebody rolled out on the stage . . . in a wheelchair.
It was Mrs. Ella Mentry!
Ella Mentry is a really old lady who used to teach at our school a million hundred years ago. She must have been a good teacher, because after she retired the school was named after her. There’s a big sign on the grass out front that says ELLA MENTRY SCHOOL.
One time when Mrs. Mentry came to our school, things got out of hand and there was a food fight. Pickle chips and meatballs and burritos and Tater Tots were flying through the air. It was cool.
We gave Mrs. Mentry a standing ovation. A standing ovation is when everybody gets up from their seats and claps their hands. When you stand up and clap your hands, it’s a lot better than when you just sit there and clap your hands. Nobody knows why.
At first I wasn’t going to stand up. But all the teachers stood up. Then a few kids stood up. And then a lot more kids stood up. And then I felt like I would look like a dork if I didn’t stand up. So I stood up.
While we were clapping, Mr. Klutz dragged out a big, white piece of cardboard. It was about the size of a door.
“Mrs. Mentry has brought a gift for the school today,” Mr. Klutz announced.
“She’s giving us a door?” I asked. “What do we need a door for? We have plenty of doors.”
“It’s not a door, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it. “It’s a check. Mrs. Mentry is donating money to our school, dumbhead!”
I wanted to say something mean to Andrea, but all I could think of was “Your face looks like a door.”
In my head, I was wondering why Mrs. Mentry’s check was so big. My parents use checks, and their checks are about the size of a dollar bill. Why would anybody need to have a check the size of a door? I can imagine how big Mrs. Mentry’s wallet is.
Mr. Klutz handed the microphone to Mrs. Mentry.
“Thank you for that wonderful welcome,” she said. “I will always have a special place in my heart for this school. And to show my appreciation, I would like to give this to you.”
Mr. Klutz turned the check around so we could see the other side. This is what it looked like. . . .
WHAT!?
“A million dollars!” I shouted.
“A million dollars!!” shouted Alexia.
“A million dollars!!!!” shouted Ryan.
In case you were wondering, we were all shouting, “A million dollars.”
Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and generally freaking out. You should have been there!
Nobody could believe Ella Mentry was actually giving the school a
million dollars. Man, that lady must have a ton of money to be giving away so much of it. No wonder she needs such big checks. There are a lot of zeroes in a million.
We gave Mrs. Mentry another standing ovation. Then Mr. Klutz made the shut-up peace sign again and we all got quiet.
“We can’t thank you enough, Mrs. Mentry,” he said. “But now we have a problem. What are we going to do with this money?”
That’s a problem? If you ask me, a problem is when you have no money at all.
“I’ll spend it for you!” shouted our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. Everybody laughed.
“Tell you what I’m going to do,” Mr. Klutz said. “We’re going to have a contest to decide what to do with the money.”
“Oooooh!” everybody oohed.
“Go back to your classrooms and think of some ideas for what we should do with the million dollars,” Mr. Klutz told us. “The class that comes up with the best idea will be the first to use whatever we buy with the money. I’ll announce the winning class at the end of the day.”
We walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom.
“So,” Mr. Cooper said when we were seated, “what do you think we should buy with the million dollars?”
“Pizza!” Ryan shouted. “We should have a giant pizza party for the whole school!”
“Yeah!” everybody yelled.
Ryan should be in the gifted and talented program for coming up with that idea. Who doesn’t like pizza?
“Do you know how many pizzas you can buy with a million dollars?” Mr. Cooper asked.
He went to the board and wrote the number 1,000,000 on it. He told us a pizza costs about ten dollars. Then he divided 1,000,000 by 10.
“A hundred thousand pizzas!” shouted Andrea.
“That’s a lot of pizza!” said Michael.
“I can only eat one or two slices,” said Emily.
“Me too,” said Alexia.
“We can freeze the rest for leftovers,” said Neil. “That’s what we do at home.”
“May I ask where we will put all that leftover pizza?” asked Mr. Cooper.
“I know,” said Alexia. “We can buy a thousand refrigerators!”
“Yeah!” everybody shouted.
“And where are we going to put a thousand refrigerators?” asked Mr. Cooper.
“In the playground!” Michael said.
“Yeah!” everybody shouted.
“As long as we’re getting all those refrigerators,” said Neil, “let’s buy a million dollars’ worth of ice cream. I like ice cream better than pizza.”
“Yeah!” everybody shouted.
“Why don’t we just buy a million dollars’ worth of candy?” I suggested. “Then we won’t need any refrigerators.”
“Yeah!” everybody shouted.
We were coming up with some really good ideas. I was sure that our class would win the contest.
“I hate to tell you this,” said Mr. Cooper, “but Ella Mentry did not give us a million dollars to buy junk food. She wants us to buy something useful for the school. We need to think outside the box.”
I didn’t see any boxes around. If I was in a box, I know what I would be thinking about—how to get out of the box.
“We could buy a racing car with a million dollars,” suggested Michael.
“Maybe we could buy a football team,” suggested Neil.
“How about a skate park?” Alexia suggested.
“Why not give the million dollars to a school that doesn’t have any money?” suggested Emily.
“Our school doesn’t have any money!” I told her.
“Well, we have money now,” said Emily. “We have a million dollars.”
“But if we gave the million dollars to a school that doesn’t have any money,” I told her, “then we would be a school that doesn’t have any money again!”
“Maybe we should put the money in the bank,” suggested Little Miss Perfect. “Then we could watch it grow.”
“Banks are boring,” I said.
“Well, what if we did something educational with the money,” suggested Mr. Cooper.
Ugh. He said the E word.
“Educational stuff is boring,” I said.
“Well, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper. “What is not boring to you?”
I tried to think of something that isn’t boring. It was hard, because most stuff is boring.
“TV,” I finally said. “TV isn’t boring.”
That’s when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world.
“I know!” I said. “We should buy one of those big flat-screen TVs for our class. That would be cool!”
“Yeah!” everybody shouted.
“A flat-screen TV doesn’t cost a million dollars,” Mr. Cooper told us. “For a million dollars we could buy a whole TV station.”
“Well,” I said, “then we should buy our own TV station.”
“That’s it!” shouted Mr. Cooper. “A.J., you’re a genius!”*
I didn’t even know you could buy your own TV station. But I guess with a million dollars you can buy just about anything.
Everybody agreed that my idea was genius and that I should get the Nobel Prize. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
Well, almost everybody agreed. Annoying Andrea had on her mean face. She was mad because I came up with a great idea and she didn’t.
Mr. Cooper wrote down my idea and sent it to the office. At the end of the day, just before dismissal, Mr. Klutz made an announcement over the loudspeaker.
“Well, we had a lot of great suggestions for what we should do with the million dollars,” he said, “but I could only pick one. So here is my decision—we’re going to start our own Ella Mentry School TV station! The winner is Mr. Cooper’s class!”
Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and generally freaking out.
Outside school the next morning we were all excited. Some men wearing overalls were carrying giant cameras, computers, lights, and TVs into the school. Somebody said that every class was going to get its own flat-screen TV.
When I got to class, one of those overalls guys was mounting a TV on the wall. That’s when we heard Mrs. Patty’s voice on the loudspeaker.
“Today is Wednesday,” she said. “Blah blah blah blah sunny and breezy outside blah blah blah blah today’s lunch will be hot dogs blah blah blah blah we have a birthday—Kerry Frew in first grade blah blah blah . . .”
She went on and on for a million hundred minutes. What a snoozefest. Nobody was listening. But after we pledged the allegiance, Mrs. Patty said something that caught our attention.
“Today will be my last day making the morning announcements,” she said. “Starting tomorrow, the announcements will be made over the new Ella Mentry School TV station!”
“Yay!” we all shouted.
“Okay,” said Mr. Cooper, “turn to page twenty-three in your math—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence, because you’ll never believe who ran 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 a lady with dark hair and big eyes.
“My name is Ms. Cuddy,” she said.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Ms. Cuddy?” asked Mr. Cooper.
That’s grown-up talk for “What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Klutz hired me to help the class start your TV station,” Ms. Cuddy said. “I’m a digital media arts teacher.”
I never heard of digital media arts, but we were all glad she was here, because none of us knew anything about cameras and lights and microphones. And besides, we would miss math.
“This TV station is going to be awesome!” said Ms. Cuddy. “Every class in the school will be able to watch the morning announcements, and people all over town will be able to tune in, too! So your parents will see you on TV.”
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“Cool!” we all said.
“Now, which one of you is A.J.?” asked Ms. Cuddy.
Everybody looked at me.
“For our first week on the air, you’re going to be the anchor,” said Ms. Cuddy.
“The anchor?” I asked. “Does that mean I get thrown off a boat?”
“No, no,” said Ms. Cuddy. “That means you get to read the morning announcements on TV.”
“How come Arlo gets to be the anchor?” whined Andrea. “I would make a great anchor.”
“You would not,” I said.
“Would too,” said Andrea.
“Not!”
“Too!”
We went back and forth like that for a while.
“The TV station was A.J.’s idea,” said Mr. Cooper. “That’s why he gets to be the anchor.”
I stuck my tongue out at Andrea. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her.
“I’m going to be the best anchor in the history of anchors,” I announced.
“Well, let’s not go overboard, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper.
Why is everybody always talking about being thrown out of boats?
Ms. Cuddy took us to the conference room, where those men with overalls were hammering and sawing and building the scenery for our morning announcements. There was a flat-screen TV on the wall. The conference room was starting to look like a real TV studio.
Ms. Cuddy told us that somebody would have to operate the camera. Michael volunteered. Alexia asked if she could be the director. Andrea said she would write the scripts. The person in charge of the lights is called the gaffer, and Ryan got that job. Neil said he would handle the microphones, props, and other stuff. Emily said she would take care of makeup. Ms. Cuddy showed us how to work all the equipment.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said, “we’re going to make history!”
We got to school early the next day so we would be ready to do the morning announcements. The conference room looked just like a real TV studio. Ms. Cuddy gave me a fancy jacket and tie to wear so I would look like an anchorman.
Michael, Ryan, and Neil ran around making sure the equipment was working. Andrea handed me the script she had written.