Miss Laney Is Zany! (4 page)

When we got to the girls’ bathroom, Miss Laney was combing her hair in the mirror.
*
She didn’t notice us at first.

“Shampoo,” she said to herself. “Sham
pooooo
. Shamp
ooooo
. Sham.
Poo
.
Poo
sham.
Poosh
ham.
Poo
—”

Miss Laney is weird. We started fake coughing so she would notice us.

“Oh, hello!” she said. “I was just practicing my
ooo
sounds while I fixed my hair.”

“Is your hair broken?” I asked.

Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Miss Laney asked us.

(That’s grown-up talk for “What are
you
doing here?”)

“We came to play
I Bet You Can’t Say This!
again,” Ryan said.

“Let’s play a
different
game!” Miss Laney said as she put some weird puppet thing on her hand. “Meet Ollie the Octopus! He’s your friend! He likes to play a game called
Name the Letter
.”

“How do you play?” Emily asked.

“Don’t ask me!” said Miss Laney. “Ask Ollie!”

“How do you play, Ollie?” Emily asked the puppet.

“First, I tell you what to do with your mouth,” Ollie said. “Then you tell me what letters you can make. For instance, what letters can you make if you push your lips together?”

I went through the alphabet silently, trying to figure out what letters I could make by pushing my lips together.

“
B
…
M
…and…
P
!” shouted Andrea.

“Very good!” said Ollie the Octopus. “You’re winning, Andrea!”

“Yay!” shouted Andrea.

I hate her.

“Okay, next question,” said Ollie. “What letters do you make when you push air through your teeth?”

I went through the alphabet in my head.

“
C
…and
S
!” I yelled.

“Good, A.J.!” said Ollie the Octopus. “Next question. What letters do you make by putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth?”

“
D
,
N
, and
T
!” I yelled.

“Right!” said Ollie. “And what letter do you make by sticking your tongue through your teeth?”

“
L
!” I shouted before anybody else. I totally rule at
Name the Letter
.

“Correct!” Ollie said. “And what letters can you make by vibrating your throat?”

“Can I phone a friend?” asked Ryan.

“
V
and
Z
!” I yelled.

“That’s it!” Ollie said. “The winner is…A.J.!”

Andrea looked all mad. Ha-ha-ha! In her face! It was about time I won something. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her. It was the greatest day of my life.

Miss Laney—I mean Ollie the Octopus—said I could pick a prize from the mystery treasure chest. I chose a paddle that had a ball attached to it with a rubber band. It was cool.

“Okay, A.J.,” Ollie said, “it’s time to play a new game called…
What’s in the Stall?
You can keep that paddle,
or
you can have whatever is in Stall Number One, Stall Number Two, or Stall Number Three. It’s your choice. Maybe there’s a skateboard in one of the stalls. Or maybe there’s a BRAND-NEW CAR!”

“You can’t fit a car into a bathroom stall,” Andrea said.

“It could be a very
small
car,” Ryan pointed out.

“Pick Stall Number One, A.J.!” Emily yelled.

“Pick Number Three!” yelled Ryan.

“Keep the paddle, Arlo!” Andrea yelled.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I had to think fast. This was the hardest decision I had to make in my
life. My brain hurt.

“I’ll take what’s in Stall Number Two,” I finally said.

“Is that your final answer?” asked Ollie.

“Final answer.”

Miss Laney took away my paddle and opened the door to Stall Number Two.

“Oh, sorry!” Ollie said. “You won a toilet bowl plunger. Better luck next time, A.J.”

“That’s not a prize!” I complained. “That thing was in the stall anyway!”

“Sorry!” Ollie said. “The decisions of the judges are final. Thanks for playing
What’s in the Stall?
”

I don’t like that game.

The next day me and Ryan were walking up the front steps to school.

“Maybe Miss Laney isn’t a real speech teacher,” said Ryan. “Maybe she’s just some crazy person who loves game shows.”

“Yeah,” I said, “maybe she kidnapped our real speech teacher and locked her in
a grass hut on a desert island. Stuff like that happens all the time, y’know.”

When we got to Mr. Granite’s class, two guys in overalls were taking the whiteboard off the wall.

“What’s going on?” Mr. Granite shouted.

“Sorry, pal,” the guys said as they carried
the whiteboard away. “Budget cuts.”

“Mr. Granite, you’ve got to
do
something!” Emily said.

“I don’t want to rock the boat,” said Mr. Granite sadly.

What
boat
?

I didn’t get the chance to ask why everybody’s always talking about boats, because guess who came running into the door at that moment?

Nobody, because if you ran into a door it would hurt. But guess who came running into the door
way
?

It was Miss Laney! She had a laundry bag over her shoulder.

“I just thought of how we can save the
school!” Miss Laney shouted excitedly. “We can put on a
play
! People would pay to get in. All your parents and friends would come. We could make a million dollars!”

“I love plays!” said the girls.

“I hate plays,” said the boys.

“Plays are boring,” I said. “Especially plays where people start singing for no reason.”

“It doesn’t have to be a musical,” Miss Laney said. “We can put on a Shakespeare play.”

“I love him!” said Andrea. “Over the summer I memorized
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
!”

What is Andrea’s problem?

“Maybe the kids could do
Romeo and Juliet
,” suggested Mr. Granite. “That’s my favorite play.”

“Great idea!” said Miss Laney.

I didn’t like where this was going. Miss Laney would probably make me play Romeo. Andrea was sure to be Juliet. And then the guys would make fun of me and say I love Andrea.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Is there gonna be kissing in this play?”

“No,” Miss Laney assured me. “In fact,
Romeo and Juliet
is a very violent story. At the end Juliet stabs herself and dies.”

“Andrea should play Juliet,” I said.

“Arlo, that’s mean!” Andrea said.

“And Romeo drinks poison and dies,” Mr. Granite added.

“Well, Andrea should play him too,” I suggested.

“You can’t have the same person play Romeo
and
Juliet!” Emily said.

“We have to hold auditions,” Miss Laney said. “That will make it fair.”

She dumped out her laundry bag and made us put on weird clothes with puffy shoulders that nobody in their right mind would ever wear. At least I got a sword, which was cool. Then Miss Laney passed out scripts and made us each read a line out loud.

“Good night, Good night!” Michael said.
“Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

“What’s in a name?” said Emily. “That
which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!” said Neil the nude kid. “O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!”

After we all read a few lines, Miss Laney made her decision.

“Andrea will be Juliet, and A.J. will be Romeo,” she announced.

I
knew
it!

“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are going to be Romeo and Juliet. 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.

Miss Laney gave out the rest of the parts, and then we had to start rehearsing.

“O Romeo, Romeo!” Andrea said. “Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

“I’m right here, dumbhead,” I replied.

“That’s
not
the line, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

We practiced the play for a long time when suddenly, guess who walked into the room?

It was Mr. Klutz!

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Mr. Klutz?” asked Miss Laney.

“Did you get a million bucks to save the
school?” asked Michael.

“No,” Mr. Klutz replied, “it looks like we missed the boat.”

What boat? Why is everybody always talking about
boats
?!

“Do you have more bad news for us?” asked Mr. Granite.

“Yes,” Mr. Klutz said sadly. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but Miss Laney…you’re fired.”

“WHAT?!”

Everybody freaked out. Andrea collapsed on the floor and started sobbing.

“O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!” she said. “Never was seen so black a day as this. O woeful day!”

We couldn’t believe it! Miss Laney had just been hired, and now she was fired! It took us about a week to get over the shock.

Teachers were getting fired left and right that week. Mrs. Yonkers, the computer teacher, was the next to go. Then Ms. Coco, the gifted and talented teacher,
got fired a few days later. Even our vice principal, Mrs. Jafee, lost her job. It was depressing saying good-bye to them all.

We were in class when Mrs. Patty announced that everybody had to go to the all-purpose room for a surprise assembly. When we got there, Mr. Klutz was up on the stage. He looked serious. Nobody was cracking jokes.

“I just wanted to say how proud I am of you kids,” he told us. “You’ve been working very hard to raise money to save the school. But it wasn’t enough. I’m very sad to tell you that today is my last day at Ella Mentry School. I just got fired.”

“NO!” we all shouted.

Mr. Klutz couldn’t be fired! How can you have a school with no principal? Everybody was freaking out.

That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Mrs. Patty came running into the all-purpose room.

“Turn on the TV!” she shouted. “Turn on the TV!”

We hardly ever get to watch TV at school. The custodian, Miss Lazar, wheeled a big TV on the stage and turned it on.

“Welcome back to
Win Money or Eat Bugs
! I’m your host, Dickie Blinkbarker!”

The studio audience cheered.

“That’s my favorite show!” I yelled.

The TV camera pulled back. There was a lady sitting in a chair. She had dark hair. I leaned forward to see the TV better. The lady was…

Miss Laney!

“Miss Laney’s on TV!” we all started shrieking. “Miss Laney’s on TV!”

Everybody was yelling and screaming and freaking out.

“Okay! Miss Laney won ten
thousand
dollars in round one,” said Dickie Blinkbarker, “and she didn’t have to eat a single bug.”

“Yay!” we all shouted.

“I hear you’re a speech teacher, Miss Laney, and you
love
game shows.”

“Yes, Dickie,” said Miss Laney, “and I want to say hi to all the kids at Ella Mentry School. That’s who I’m playing for today. Every dollar I win goes directly to the school.”

She waved at the camera. We waved back at the TV screen.

“That’s fantastic!” said Dickie Blinkbarker. “Miss Laney, you know the rules to
Win Money or Eat Bugs
. You can eat one bug at the start of round two and walk away with the ten thousand dollars you already won. Or you can keep going. But if you get a question wrong from now on, you’ll lose the money you won,
and
you’ll have to eat a whole
plate full of bugs
.”

“EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”
everybody said when they showed a plate full of bugs.

“The questions get harder in round two,” Dickie added. “So, what do you want to do?”

“Eat the bug!” some kids yelled.

“Keep going!” other kids yelled.

“I’m going to keep going, Dickie,” said Miss Laney. “I want to win a million dollars.”

“Miss Laney is gonna win enough money to save our school!” Michael shouted.

“YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

Mr. Klutz made the shut-up peace sign with his fingers so we could hear.

“Okay, she’s going to risk it all!” said
Dickie Blinkbarker. “Here’s your first question, Miss Laney. What is the longest word in the English language?”

“Oh no!” I whispered to Michael. “Nobody knows that. Miss Laney’s gonna have to eat all those bugs.”

“Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” said Miss Laney.

“That’s right!” Dickie Blinkbarker yelled. “Hardly
anybody
knows that! Miss Laney, you just won
fifty thousand dollars!
”

“YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

“Next question,” said Dickie Blinkbarker. “Why are manhole covers round instead of square?”

I had no idea why manhole covers were
round. I was sure Miss Laney would get it wrong and have to eat a plate full of bugs.

“Square manhole covers could fall into a manhole,” said Miss Laney. “Round ones can’t.”

“That’s right!” shouted Dickie Blinkbarker. “Miss Laney, you just won
one hundred thousand dollars!
”

“YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

“She’s gonna win a million! She’s gonna win a million!”

Everybody was jumping up and down and hugging each other. You should have been there!

“Okay, here’s your final question, Miss
Laney,” said Dickie Blinkbarker. “This would put you over the top. For one
million
dollars—what is the science of sound called?”

“A cue stick!” I yelled.

“Acoustics!” yelled Andrea. “Miss Laney is going to win a million dollars!”

“Uh…,” said Miss Laney.

“Acoustics!” everybody screamed as if Miss Laney could hear us through the TV.

“Uh…uh…”

“She doesn’t remember!” I groaned, slapping my head.

“Uh…uh…uh…”

“She’s got brain freeze!” groaned Ryan.

“Gee!” said Dickie Blinkbarker. “I never heard of a speech teacher who was speechless!”

“I know the answer,” said Miss Laney frantically. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”
everybody groaned.

“I’m
soooooo
sorry, Miss Laney,” said Dickie Blinkbarker. “The correct answer is ‘acoustics.’ Speaking of the tip of your tongue, bring out the bugs!”