by Dan Gutman
Mrs. Jafee gave Ryan a piece of hardtack. He bit into it.
“It tastes like cardboard,” he said.
Only Ryan would know what cardboard tastes like. Who eats cardboard? Ryan is weird. The rest of us told Mrs. Jafee that we didn’t want any hardtack. She said she had to go back to her office.
“I can’t wait until Civil War Week is over,” Michael said.
“Yeah, and Mr. Klutz will get back from Principal Camp,” said Neil the nude kid. “Mrs. Jafee is weird.”
“Maybe Mrs. Jafee isn’t a real vice principal,” I said. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, “maybe she kidnapped our real vice principal and has her trapped in a bamboo cage that’s hanging from a tree in the jungle. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”
“Stop trying to scare Emily,” said Andrea at the next table.
Emily looked like she was going to cry. As usual.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Ryan. “Mrs. Jafee is trying to take over Mr. Klutz’s job. She didn’t send him to Principal Camp so he would be a better principal. She sent him to Principal Camp so she could have him murdered!”
“No!” said Emily. “It can’t be true!”
“I saw that in a movie once,” said Michael. “I’ll bet Mrs. Jafee is sitting in her office right now stroking a cat and plotting how to murder Mr. Klutz. Villains always stroke cats while they plot how to murder people.”
“We’ve got to do something!” Emily said, and then she went running out of the vomitorium.
And do you know what? For once in her life, Emily was right. We did have to do something.
We all scraped off our trays. Instead of going out for recess, we slinked down the hall to the office. We were slinking around like secret agents. It was cool.
Finally, we got to Mrs. Jafee’s office. The door was open a crack. We peeked in. And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what Mrs. Jafee was doing in there.
She was stroking a cat!
“See?” Michael whispered. “I told you she’s plotting to murder Mr. Klutz!”
“Howdy, guys and gals!” Mrs. Jafee suddenly said. “Come on in! Meet my new kitten. His name is Mister Fur Columbus.”
“He’s adorable!” Andrea said, running over to pet the cat.
“No, he isn’t!” I said. “That cat is evil! And you, Mrs. Jafee, will stop at nothing to turn your evil plan into reality!”
“Huh?” Mrs. Jafee said. “What evil plan?”
“You want to be principal, don’t you?” asked Michael.
“Well, someday maybe, yes, I suppose,” said Mrs. Jafee.
“Aha!” Ryan said. “So you admit it! You sent Mr. Klutz away to be murdered so you could take over the school!”
“That’s silly,” Mrs. Jafee said. “I told you. Mr. Klutz is at Principal Camp.”
“Liar!” I shouted.
“Here, I’ll prove it to you,” Mrs. Jafee said, pulling a piece of paper from her desk drawer. This is what it said.
Dear Mrs. Jafee,
I’m having a wonderful time at Principal Camp. This morning we made lanyards. We also had rock climbing, archery, and parachuting. I hope to learn how to swim tomorrow. I never learned when I was a boy. Tell the kids I miss them.
Sincerely,
Mr. Klutz
There was also a photo of Mr. Klutz paddling a canoe.
“See!” I said to Andrea. “I told you they have canoes at Principal Camp!”
“Well, I guess you’re not planning to murder Mr. Klutz after all,” Michael said.
“Of course not!” said Mrs. Jafee.
We all stroked Mister Fur Columbus before we left. But I didn’t trust either of them for one minute. I was sure Mrs. Jafee had something up her sleeve.
And not just an arm.*
9
The Greatest Moment of My Life
On Thursday morning we were doing math in our class when Mrs. Patty’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Mr. Granite, please send A.J. to Mrs. Jafee’s office.”
Bummer in the summer!
“Ooooh!” Ryan said. “You’re in trouble, A.J.”
“Maybe you’ll get kicked out of school for all the mean things you’ve said to me, Arlo,” said Andrea.
“Your face should get kicked out of school,” I told her.
I walked down the hall real slowly, just in case I was in trouble. If you ever get called down to the principal’s office, walk as slowly as you possibly can. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“Am I in trouble?” I asked when Mrs. Jafee opened her door.
“Heavens no!” Mrs. Jafee said. “Come on in.”
And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what she had on her desk.
I’m not gonna tell you.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.
Mrs. Jafee’s desk was filled with cake, cookies, candy, and a tub of ice cream!
“You gave me an idea yesterday, A.J.” Mrs. Jafee told me. “You said guys and gals would learn better if they ate ice cream, cookies, cake, and candy. So, doggone it, I decided to do an experiment to see if that was true.”
“You mean I get to eat all this?” I asked.
“You betcha! Have a seat.”
This was even better than the time Mr. Klutz gave me a candy bar! This was the greatest moment of my life.
I sat down, and Mrs. Jafee handed me a book called Civil War Stories for Kids. She told me to read the first chapter.
“Can I have a cookie while I read?” I asked.
“You betcha!” Mrs. Jafee said. “That’s the whole idea of the experiment. Eat as many cookies as you want.”
I took a cookie from the plate and ate it while I read the first page of the book. I hate reading, but it wasn’t so bad because I had a cookie.
“Can I have some candy?” I asked when the cookie was done.
“Okeydokey!” Mrs. Jafee said. “Eat up!”
I gobbled down some M&M’s, jelly beans, and a KitKat bar while I read from the book. I couldn’t wait to tell everybody in class that Mrs. Jafee gave me junk food. They would be so jealous!
“Have a hunk of cake,” Mrs. Jafee said.
“Don’t mind if I do!” I said.
I kept reading chapter one in the book while I ate. It was about a drummer boy who had to fight in the war.
“How about some ice cream?” Mrs. Jafee asked. “It’s Moose Tracks.”
“My favorite flavor,” I said.
Mrs. Jafee put a big scoop of ice cream in a bowl and gave it me. It was great, but I was starting to get full.
“More candy,” Mrs. Jafee said.
“No, thank you,” I told her. “I’m going to take a little break.”
“I wasn’t askin’ you if you wanted more candy, A.J.,” she said. “I was tellin’ you that I’m givin’ you more.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Can I bring some of it home with me to eat later?”
“Nope, sorry,” Mrs. Jafee said. “The experiment must be completed on school grounds.”
I took a Twix bar and ate it. My stomach was starting to feel a little funny.
“More cake,” said Mrs. Jafee.
“But—”
“I said, ‘MORE CAKE’!” shouted Mrs. Jafee. She stuck a fork full of the stuff into my mouth like I was a baby.
“More ice cream!” she said, taking a big scoop with a long spoon.
“Do I have to?” I asked with some of the cake dribbling out of my mouth.
“YOU BETCHA!”
I swallowed the ice cream. I was starting to feel sick.
“MORE CANDY!” she said.
“No more!” I begged. “Please! Stop! I’ll do anything!”
“EAT IT!” Mrs. Jafee yelled. “You must eat all this junk food to complete the experiment.”
I thought I was gonna die.
10
The Un-Civil War
Well, I know one thing—studies do not s
how that kids learn better if we eat lots of ice cream, cookies, cake, and candy. After the experiment in Mrs. Jafee’s office, I had to go home and lie down for the rest of the day. I may never eat junk food again. Or at least, not for a few days.
The next morning was Friday, the best day of the week.* I was a little late getting to school. By the time I arrived, everybody was in the playground. I ran over there and found the kids in my class.
“What’s going on?” I asked Ryan.
“Beats me,” he replied.
That’s when two guys in army uniforms marched out of the gym. One of them was that guy Stonewall Jackson, who I’m pretty sure was really our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. The other one was wearing a blue uniform and a beard. But it was obviously Mrs. Jafee.
“You guys and gals gave me an idea the other day,” she said. “Studies show the best way to learn is to do the thing you’re learning. So I thought the best way to learn about the Civil War would be to reenact it, right here at Ella Mentry School!”
“WHAT?!”
“We’re gonna have a war in the playground?” one of the fourth graders asked.
“You betcha!” Mrs. Jafee said. “I will be General Grant of the Union army. And you know General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederate army. Any questions?”
“Are we going to use real guns?” Andrea asked. “Guns are dangerous.”
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Jafee. “We will act out the war with water guns.”
The teachers came out of the gym and passed out Super Soakers to everybody. It was cool.
Mrs. Jafee told everybody in second and third grade to go to one end of the playground and everybody in first and fourth grade to go to the other end. The kindergarten kids were given drums to play on the side, because they’re too little to handle Super Soakers.
Stonewall Jackson led us to our end of the playground. We all gathered around him, I mean her.
“Kids,” she said, “we, the people, have nothing to fear but fear itself. Four score and seven years ago, the torch was passed to a new generation. And now, it’s morning in America.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Charge!” Mrs. Jafee suddenly yelled from across the playground.
I looked up and saw about a hundred kids screaming as they ran toward us with Super Soakers. I thought I was gonna die!
“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” Stonewall Jackson shouted.
After that it was all pretty confusing. Kids were running all over the place, screaming and shooting water everywhere. Some of those fourth graders were big kids. They were drenching our second graders. We were all getting soaked. Kids were falling down, freaking out, and calling out for their mothers.
“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil the nude kid.
“Retreat! Retreat!” hollered Stonewall Jackson, and we all gathered around her again at the back of the playground.
“Listen up,” she said. “Those Yankees are beating us badly.”
“Yankees?” I asked. “Why would we fight a baseball team?”
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Andrea rolled her eyes.
“I thought this was supposed to be a civil war,” she complained. “It doesn’t seem very civil to me.”
“What are we gonna do, General Jackson?” asked Michael.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” Stonewall Jackson said. “We need to capture Mrs. Jafee, I mean General Grant.”
“WHAT?!”
“It’s our only hope,” Stonewall said. “I need two volunteers.”
Andrea waved her hand in the air, of course, so she got picked. I looked at my shoes so Stonewall wouldn’t call on me.
“Andrea,” Stonewall said, “I need you and A.J. to go on a very dangerous mission.”
“Why me?” I protested.
“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are going on a dangerous mission together! They must be in LOVE!”
“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.
“Shhhhhhh!” Stonewall Jackson said. “I need you two to sneak through the woods in the back of the playground, come up behind enemy lines, and capture Mrs. Jafee.”
“How are we gonna do that?” I asked.
“With this,” Stonewall said, pulling out a big cloth sack.
“Yes, sir!” Andrea said, taking the sack and saluting.
“Good luck,” said Stonewall Jackson. “We’re counting on you two. Don’t let us down.”
Me and Andrea sneaked off into the woods. It was a long walk to the other side of the playground.
“I’m scared, Arlo,” Andrea said. “Hold my hand.”
“Soldiers don’t hold hands,” I told her.
“We could get ambushed by the enemy out here,” Andrea said. “Hold my hand, Arlo.”
“No!”
“Please, Arlo?”
“I’m not holding your hand, and that’s final,” I said.
That’s when I spotted Mrs. Jafee. She was all by herself, leaning against a tree and taking a drink from a water bottle.
“Look!” I whispered to Andrea. “There she is!”
“Shhhhhh!”
We sneaked up behind the tree. We were just a few feet away from Mrs. Jafee. I could hear her breathing. Andrea lifted the sack in the air and pulled it down over Mrs. Jafee’s head.
“What the—”
But Mrs. Jafee didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence. She was in the sack.
11
Arurahruhmrah
“Quick!” Andrea shouted. “Take her legs, Arlo!”
We picked up the sack with Mrs. Jafee in it and rushed back through the woods.
“Help!” Mrs. Jafee shouted. “Put me down, doggone it! I’m your vice principal!”
“No,” I said, “you’re a prisoner of war! And in the words of Abraham Lincoln, ‘Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.’”
“Arlo, I don’t think Abraham Lincoln ever said that,” Andrea told me.
“Well, he should have.”
Andrea and I finally made it back to our side of the playground. We dumped the sack on the ground in front of Stonewall Jackson.
“Great work!” Stonewall said. “Put a gag in her mouth to keep her quiet. I mean him.”
Ryan and Michael wrapped a rag around Mrs. Jafee’s mouth and tied it in the back.
“What do we do now?” asked Neil the nude kid.
“Tie her up with this rope!” Stonewall Jackson said.
Neil tied up Mrs. Jafee. Everybody started yelling and cheering as word got around that our side had captured General Grant.
“We won!” kids were shouting. “We won the war!”
We were all yelling and screaming and celebrating when the strangest thing in the history of the world happened.
A plane flew overhead.
Well, that wasn’t the strange part, because planes fly overhead all the time. The strange part was that something was falling out of the plane.
“What’s that?” Emily yelled.
“It’s a parachute!” yelled Stonewall Jackson.
“They didn’t have parachutes during the Civil War,” Andrea said. “They didn’t have planes either.”
It didn’t matter what they had during the Civil War because the parachute was coming down right over our heads.
“It’s a man!” Ryan shouted.
“It’s a man with no hair!” Michael shouted.
“It’s Mr. Klutz!” Neil shouted.
“Hooray for Mr. Klutz!” everybody started shouting. “He’s back!”
Everybody was happy to see Mr. Klutz again. But there was just one problem. His parachute was heading straight for the swimming pool at the side of the playground.
SPLASH!
It was a real Kodak moment. We saw it live and in person. Everybody ran over to the swimming pool.
“Help!” Mr. Klutz yelled. “I can’t swim! Glub glub glub glub!”
Stonewall Jackson jumped into the
pool and fished out Mr. Klutz before he drowned.
“Why didn’t you go to the airport?” Ryan asked him.
“Well,” Mr. Klutz said, “I saw the school out the window of the plane; and since I learned parachuting at Principal Camp, I thought that jumping out of the plane would be a lot faster than going to the airport.”
Mr. Klutz is nuts.
“We missed you so much!” said Andrea, the big brownnoser.
“I missed you all too,” Mr. Klutz said. “Where did this swimming pool come from?”
“Rent-A-Pool,” I said. “You can rent anything.”
“But why is it in the playground?” he asked. “I nearly drowned.”
“It was Mrs. Jafee’s idea,” Ryan said. “She said studies show kids learn better underwater.”
“Where is Mrs. Jafee?” asked Mr. Klutz.
“She’s, uh…tied up,” I said.
That’s when Mrs. Jafee came hopping out of the woods. She was still tied up in the sack. It was hilarious.
“What’s the meaning of all this, Mrs. Jafee?” asked Mr. Klutz.
“Arurahruhmrah,” said Mrs. Jafee.
Or at least I think that’s what she said. It was hard to tell because she had a gag in her mouth.
“I thought I told you I wanted everything to be nice and calm while I was away,” Mr. Klutz said. “It looks like there’s a war going on out here.”
“Arurahruhmrah,” Mrs. Jafee replied.
Well, that was pretty much the end of Civil War Week. Mr. Klutz helped us untie Mrs. Jafee and take the gag out of her mouth. Maybe she’ll stop trying to teach us her weird ways to learn. Maybe Mr. Klutz will learn how to swim. Maybe Swami Havabanana will get a job as a fizz ed teacher in India. Maybe Miss Small will get her job back. Maybe Mrs. Jafee will stop saying weird stuff like “You betcha!” and “okeydokey.” Maybe I’ll get to eat more cake, cookies, ice cream, and candy. Maybe we’ll be able to talk Mr. Klutz into going to the airport like a normal person instead of jumping out of planes.
But it won’t be easy!