by Dan Gutman
The next day was Saturday, and me and the guys met up at Michael’s house. Our moms gave us pillowcases to hold the food we collected. Then we went door-to-door around the neighborhood asking for food.
“We’re collecting food for hungry people,” we said at the first house we visited.
The lady gave us a can of tomato sauce.
“We’re collecting food for hungry people,” we said at the next house.
A man gave us a can of beans.
We went to a bunch of houses, and everybody was happy to give us some food. The pillowcases were starting to get heavy.
When we came to the next house, you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who answered the door.
Nobody. You can’t answer doors, because doors don’t talk. But you’ll never believe who opened the door.
It was Mr. Klutz!
“Ah!” he said. “I see you boys are collecting food for the food drive. Good work! Here’s a can of soup.”
“Thanks, Mr. Klutz!” we said.
“Remember, if you kids collect 3,000 pounds of food, I’ll jump out of a plane in an ape suit and land on the roof of the school.”
“How will you be able to see the roof of the school from the sky?” Michael asked.
“There’s a big red circle on the roof,” Mr. Klutz told us. “I should be able to land right on it unless there’s a lot of wind that day.”
Before we left, Mr. Klutz gave all of us cookies. We ate them as we walked down the street.
“Y’know,” Ryan said as we ate our cookies, “this is almost like Halloween! We just knocked on Mr. Klutz’s door, and he gave us treats.”
That’s when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. When Ryan knocked on the next door and a lady opened it, I held out my pillowcase and yelled, “Trick or treat!”
“Isn’t Halloween in October?” the lady asked. “That was months ago.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.
“You know how really good movies have sequels?” I said. “Well, they decided that really good holidays should have sequels, too. Today is the sequel to Halloween.”
“The sequel to Halloween?” the lady said. “Hmmm, I never heard of that.”
“Oh, it was in all the newspapers,” I told her.
“But you boys aren’t even wearing costumes,” she said.
“Oh, costumes aren’t allowed on the sequel to Halloween,” I told her. “Everybody knows that.”
“Well . . . okay,” the lady said. “Let me see if I have any candy.”
She came back a minute later with four Hershey bars.
“Thanks!” we all said. “Happy Halloween!”
What a scam!
As we walked down the street eating our Hershey bars, the guys all told me I was a genius for coming up with the sequel to Halloween.
We stopped off at a few more houses, yelled “Trick or treat!” at each one, and told the people all about the sequel to Halloween. I got a Crunch bar, some M&M’S, and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. By the time I got home, I was sick to my stomach. I thought I was gonna throw up.
It was the greatest day of my life.
Food drives are cool.
Chapter 6
The Land of No Toilets
When I got to school on Monday morning, everybody was putting cans of food into big cardboard boxes by the front office. The kids at our school collected a lot of food.
And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what happened at school that day.
Nothing.
No, really! I mean it. I’m not just saying that. Nothing happened. It was the most boring day in the history of the world.
But at the end of the day, I went to the ASKK room with the guys. A few minutes later Mr. Tony showed up. He wasn’t jumping on a pogo stick and juggling this time. He was jogging with a spoon in his mouth, and there was an egg on the spoon.
“Mr. Tony reporting for duty!” he said after he took the spoon out of his mouth. We all giggled because he said “duty” again.
“Mr. Tony, why were you holding a spoon in your mouth with an egg on it?” Andrea asked.
“I’m trying to get into The Guinness Book of World Records for egg-jogging,” Mr. Tony told us. “The record for running a mile while holding a spoon in your mouth with an egg on it is over eight minutes. I’m trying to break it.”
“And that’s going to help you quit smoking?” Andrea asked.
“Yes!” Mr. Tony said. “As long as I have a spoon in my mouth, I can’t smoke.”
Mr. Tony sure comes up with weird ways to quit smoking.
“Hey, how about we play a word game today?” he said. “Who can use the word ‘spaghetti’ in a sentence?”
Andrea got all excited and was waving her arm in the air like it was on fire. But Mr. Tony called on me. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.
“Abraham Lincoln gave the Spaghettisburg Address,” I said.
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address, Arlo!” Little Miss Perfect said, rolling her eyes. “Not Spaghettisburg!”
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
“Try another one, A.J.,” Mr. Tony said. “Can you use the word ‘toiletries’ in a sentence?”
“Sure,” I said. “Out in the forest there were some oak trees, some maple trees, and some toilet trees.”
Everybody laughed again even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“There’s no such thing as a toilet tree, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes again.
“Yeah, toilets don’t grow on trees,” said Emily. “Toiletries are what you bring in a little bag when you go on vacation.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Why would you take a toilet with you on vacation? Where do you go on vacation anyway? The Land of No Toilets? When I go on vacation, they have toilets there already. I don’t have to bring one with me.”
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
I was just yanking her chain, but Emily looked like she was going to cry, as usual. Sheesh, get a grip! That girl needs to go to the drugstore and buy a chill pill. She’ll cry at the drop of a hat.
Actually, it’s true. One time after school I took Emily’s hat and dropped it in a puddle. She started crying, of course.
“No arguing in the ASKK room,” said Mr. Tony. “I have an idea! Let’s play Simon Says!”
“I hate Simon Says,” I said.
“Well, we’re going to play Simon Says, A.J., and I want you to be Simon,” said Mr. Tony. “We will do anything you tell us to do as long as you say ‘Simon Says’ first.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“Anything,” Mr. Tony said.
“Anything?” I repeated.
“Anything,” Mr. Tony repeated.
We went back and forth like that for a while.
“Okay,” I said. “Simon Says we stop playing Simon Says and make a pizza instead.”
“Yeah!” everybody shouted. “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
“Okay! Okay!” Mr. Tony said. “You win. And because you kids are so smart, we’ll make two pizzas today.”
“Yay!”
We made pizza just like last time, but Mr. Tony gave us some mushrooms, sausage, and bacon to put on one of them. He says you can put anything on a pizza.
While we ate, we asked Mr. Tony about pogo-juggling and egg-jogging. He said he hadn’t broken any records yet, but he was working on it. His goals were to get into The Guinness Book of World Records someday and to stop smoking.
“Wouldn’t it be great to be the best person in the world at something?” he asked us.
“That would be cool,” I agreed.
Mr. Tony told us that you didn’t have to be a great singer or athlete or superstar to break a world record. Regular people can break records, too.
“A man in England smashed forty eggs against his head in a minute,” he told us. “He’s in The Guinness Boo
k of World Records for that.”
“WOW!” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
“And there’s this man in New York who pushed an orange for a mile with his nose in 22 minutes and 41 seconds.”
Mr. Tony told us more stories about crazy people who were in The Guinness Book of World Records. There was a guy in Australia who put on twenty pairs of underpants in one minute to set the world record for putting on underpants in one minute. Can you believe that? And some other guy smashed forty-six wooden toilet seat lids with his head. And then somebody in Texas got into a bathtub with eighty-seven rattlesnakes to set a world record. It was hilarious.
If you ask me, people who try to set records are weird.
Chapter 7
My Genius Idea
My mom told me that her catering company wasn’t doing very well. The Six Moms still didn’t have any customers, and nobody wanted to buy their fancy sandwiches. Mom said it was because of the economy, whatever that means.
But the food drive at school was going great. Every morning there was more food in the cardboard boxes by the front office. And then, finally, one morning we saw a big sign on the wall . . .
WE DID IT! WE COLLECTED 3,000 POUNDS OF FOOD! GREAT JOB, ELLA MENTRY SCHOOL STUDENTS!
At lunchtime I sat in the vomitorium with the guys. Andrea and her girlie friends sat at the next table so they could annoy us. Me and Michael had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (that weren’t fancy at all). Ryan and Neil the nude kid bought the school lunch. Ugh, disgusting!
“When is Mr. Klutz going to jump out of a plane in an ape suit?” asked Neil the nude kid.
“I hope he does it when we’re at ASKK,” said Michael.
“Hey, do you think Mr. Tony will pogo-juggle or egg-jog today?” asked Ryan.
“Who knows?” said Neil. “He sure is a weird guy.”
“Maybe Mr. Tony isn’t really the ASKK director at all,” I told the guys. “Did you ever think of that?”
“What do you mean, A.J.?” asked Michael.
“Well, maybe Mr. Tony is an evil genius who wants to take over the world,” I said. “Maybe he kidnapped our real ASKK director and has him tied up to some railroad tracks. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”
At the next table, Andrea looked all worried.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her. “Are you afraid that our real ASKK director is tied to the railroad tracks?”
“No, Arlo,” Andrea said. “I’m worried about Mr. Tony.”
“What about him?” I asked.
“My mother is a psychologist,” she said. “She told me that some people are so desperate to be famous that they’ll do just about anything to draw attention to themselves and make people like them. Like those parents who said their son was up in a hot-air balloon last year. And those two people who crashed a party at the White House.”
“You think Mr. Tony is crazy?” I asked.
“No,” Andrea said. “But it’s sad that he thinks he has to do such crazy things so people will like him. My mom thinks that’s why he’s addicted to cigarettes, too.”
“I know how to solve this problem,” I said.
“How?” asked Emily.
“It’s simple,” I told them. “We just need to make Mr. Tony famous.”
“And how are we going to do that, Arlo?” Andrea asked.
We all thought and thought and thought for a million hundred seconds. That’s when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. It was like a lightbulb appeared over my head.4
“Mr. Tony is great at making pizza, right?” I asked.
“Right,” everybody replied.
“Well,” I said, “what if he made the biggest pizza in the world? That would make him famous. Maybe he would get into The Guinness Book of World Records. And if your mom is right, maybe Mr. Tony would stop smoking, too.”
“That just might work, Arlo!” Andrea said.
“A.J., you’re a genius!” said Michael.
I should get the No Bell Prize for that idea.
That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
Chapter 8
The Biggest Pizza in the World
Instead of going out for recess, we all rushed over to the school library. Our media specialist, Mrs. Roopy, was in there eating her lunch.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” she asked.
That’s grown-up talk for “What are you doing here?”
“We need to see The Guinness Book of World Records right away!” I told her. I was all out of breath.
Mrs. Roopy put her hand on my forehead.
“A.J., are you feeling okay?” she asked. “I’ve never heard you say you wanted to read a book before. Maybe I should call an ambulance and get you to the hospital.”
“He’s fine,” said Neil the nude kid.
“We need to do some research, Mrs. Roopy,” said Andrea. “We want to find out how big the biggest pizza in the world is.”
Mrs. Roopy got The Guinness Book of World Records off a shelf, and we all gathered around her to look at it.
“Let’s see,” she said, leafing through the book. “Here’s a man who balanced a refrigerator on his teeth for ten seconds. That’s remarkable! And here’s a man who ate a whole bicycle. That’s amazing!”
“Nothing about giant pizzas in there?” asked Ryan.
Finally Mrs. Roopy found the section on food, and there it was: the biggest pizza in the world was made in South Africa in 1990. It was 386 feet around, and it had 1,764 pounds of cheese and 1,985 pounds of tomato sauce on it.
“WOW!” Michael said, which is “MOM” upside down. “That’s a big pizza!”
“How could we possibly make a pizza bigger than that one?” asked Ryan.
That’s when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world.
“Our school collected over 3,000 pounds of food,” I said. “We could use the food from the food drive to make our pizza!”
“The food we collected is for hungry people, A.J.,” Mrs. Roopy said. “It would be wrong to use that food just to break a world record.”
“Nobody puts beans or soup on pizza anyway,” said Ryan.
Okay, so maybe my idea wasn’t so great after all.
We all thought and thought and thought. I thought so hard that I thought my head was going to explode. Suddenly, Andrea got this gleam in her eye.
“I know!” she said. “The Six Moms can supply the ingredients for our pizza! Our school could be the first customer of our moms’ new catering company!”
“Yeah!” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says.
It was a good idea, I had to admit. But there wasn’t any lightbulb over Andrea’s head, and I wasn’t about to admit out loud that she had a good idea.
“That’s the dumbest idea in the history of the world,” I said.
Chapter 9
The Greatest Day of My Life
“I love it!” Mr. Tony said when we told him about our idea. “Why didn’t I think of making the biggest pizza in the world? That will be a lot easier than pogo-juggling and egg-jogging!”
Everybody was excited about getting into The Guinness Book of World Records. But Little Miss Perfect had on her worried face.
“What’s the matter, Andrea?” asked Mr. Tony.
“How will we put the pizza in an oven?” she asked. “To make the biggest pizza in the world, don’t we need the biggest oven in the world?”
“Andrea’s right!” said Emily, who always thinks Andrea is right.
“No problem,” said Mr. Tony. “I’ll take care of that. We’ll heat up the tomato sauce and cheese first and then spread them on the pizza crust. We’ll have to make the pizza out in the playground, because it will be too big to fit in here.”
“But there’s another problem,” Andrea said. “What will we do with the pizza after we make it? We can’t eat a pizza that big. And it would be terrible to throw it away, espe
cially after our food drive. What a waste of food.”
“I know! We can give the pizza to a food bank so they can feed hungry people!” I suggested.
“A.J., you’re a genius!” Michael said.
No wonder I’m in the gifted and talented program.
Everything was falling into place. Mom said that The Six Moms would be happy to supply the ingredients for our giant pizza. Ms. LaGrange, our lunch lady, said she would help us heat up the sauce in the kitchen and put the pizza together. Mr. Tony called The Guinness Book of World Records people, and they said they would send someone over to see our pizza in person and prove it was the biggest one in the world.
“Let’s not tell anyone else about our giant pizza,” Mr. Tony told us. “Not even Mr. Klutz. If the word gets out that we’re making the biggest pizza in the world, somebody might try to steal our idea and make a bigger pizza than ours.”
My lips were sealed. But not with glue or anything. That would be weird.
Finally, the day came to put together our giant pizza. During recess, three huge trucks drove up onto the playground. One had a ton of cheese in it. One had a ton of tomato sauce in it. And one had a huge pizza crust. Guys wearing overalls got out of the trucks and started unloading all the stuff.
“How did The Six Moms get a truck full of tomato sauce?” I asked my mom.
“We went to Rent-A-Truck-Full-of-Tomato-Sauce,” she said. “You can rent anything.”
Everybody pitched in to help. Ms. Hannah, our art teacher, put gigantic pieces of cardboard down on the playground. We all unrolled the giant pizza crust onto the cardboard. It was the size of a swimming pool!
Then Mr. Tony came out of the school. He was carrying this thing that looked like a big Super Soaker. There was a tank strapped to his back, like the kind scuba divers wear.
“What’s that thing?” Ryan asked.
“It’s a flamethrower,” said Mr. Tony.