Mr. Burke Is Berserk! (4 page)

I had to admit that breaking the class pencil to get out of doing math wasn't a bad idea. I wish I had thought of it. But that gave me another idea.

“Mr. Granite,” I said, “can I go get a drink of water?”

“Mayor Hubble turned off the water fountains,” he replied. “Remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “May I go to the boys' room?”

“Do you
really
have to go to the boys' room, A.J.?” Mr. Granite asked me. “Or are you just trying to get out of math?”

“I really have to go,” I lied.

“Well, okay,” said Mr. Granite. “Here, take some Post-it Notes with you.”

I was about to walk out the doorway when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

Brrrring! Brrrring! Brrrring!

It was the recess bell!

Yay! No math!

It was the greatest moment of my life.

When we went out to the playground for recess, two big guys were there.
^*
They were sawing off the bottoms of the monkey bars. When they finished, they picked the whole thing up and started carrying it away.

“Where are you taking our monkey bars?” I asked.

“To Rent-A-Monkey Bars,” one of the guys replied. “You can rent anything.”

They also took away our swings, slides, climbing wall, kickballs, volleyball nets, soccer goals, and jump ropes. They even took the tetherball pole out of the ground! Then they threw all that stuff into a big truck and drove away.

We were sad. There was nothing to do. What fun is recess when you have nothing to play with?

“Mayor Hubble is
mean
,” said Andrea. And for once I agreed with her.

We wandered around the playground until we saw Mr. Burke coming out of the equipment shed. He had something in his hand.

“Why is he still here?” asked Alexia. “Mayor Hubble fired him.”

“What's he holding?” asked Ryan.

“It looks like a … chain saw,” said Andrea.

A CHAIN SAW?!

We all started freaking out.

“Mr. Burke is crazy!” I yelled.

“He must have snapped,” yelled Neil the nude kid.

“He's going to kill everybody in the school!” yelled Ryan.

“It will be like that movie
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
!” yelled Michael.

Mr. Burke pulled a cord to start up the chain saw, and it made a loud noise like a motorcycle.

“We've got to
do
something!” yelled Emily.

We were about to run inside and warn the teachers when Mr. Burke went over to the biggest bush in the playground.

“Wait a minute,” said Andrea. “He's not going to kill anybody. He's going to trim the bushes!”

Andrea was right, as usual. Mr. Burke started cutting the side of the big bush with the chain saw. He carefully cut into one side and then he went around to cut the other side.

“Why is he trimming—” Emily started to say.

“He's not trimming it!” Andrea said. “He's making a
sculpture
. He's making a bush sculpture!”

She was right again. And Mr. Burke wasn't just making
any
sculpture. As he cut into the bush with the chain saw, we could see that he was making a sculpture of a
person
. And as he continued cutting, we could see that the person wasn't just
any
person.

“It's… Mayor Hubble!” shouted Alexia.

She was right, too. The bush looked just like the mayor.

“Mr. Burke is weird,” said Ryan.

Andrea had on her worried face, so I knew she was going to say something about her mother the psychologist.

“I'm worried,” she said. “My mother is a psychologist. She would say that Mr. Burke is obsessed with Mayor Hubble. He needs to move on with his life and get a new job.”

“I agree,” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says.

Mr. Burke put the finishing touches on his sculpture. Then he put the chain saw back into the shed and came out with a shovel.

“What's he doing
now
?” asked Neil the nude kid.

Mr. Burke went over to where the monkey bars used to be. Then he started digging a hole in the ground with the shovel.

“See? It's like I told you,” I said. “He must be digging up the bodies of the kids he murdered.”

“Arlo, stop trying to scare Emily,” said Andrea.

“I'm scared!” said Emily.

“Maybe he'll dig up some zombies,” said Ryan. “They'll come back to life and chase us around the playground.”

“And if they catch us, they'll eat our brains,” said Michael. “I saw that in a movie once.”

Emily started freaking out.

“Zombies don't eat brains, dumbhead,” said Alexia.

“
Cannibal
zombies do,” I told her. “Especially cannibal zombies from outer space.”

“We've got to
do
something!” yelled Emily, and then she went running away.

Sheesh, what a crybaby.

The rest of us kept watching Mr. Burke digging with the shovel. First he would dig one hole and then he would dig another hole nearby. And then another one.

“I think he's looking for something,” said Ryan.

“Maybe he's digging up the Underground Railroad,” I suggested.

We learned about that in class with Mr. Granite.

“The Underground Railroad wasn't underground, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

“Then why did they call it the ‘Underground Railroad'?” I asked.

“Because it was
hidden
,” Andrea said. “They didn't want people to know about it.”

“Your
face
should be hidden,” I told Andrea. “Then we wouldn't have to look at it.”

“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

Andrea was trying to think of something mean to say to me. But she never got the chance. Because that's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Mr. Burke's shovel hit something sharp.

PING!

He must have broken off a piece of rock. He got down on his hands and knees and picked it up. He was looking at it carefully. Then he took a magnifying glass out of his pocket and looked through it. He turned the rock over and over in his hand.

And then he stood up and yelled…

“It's GOLD!”

“Gold!” shouted Ryan.

“Gold!!” shouted Michael.

“Gold!!!” shouted Neil the nude kid.

“GOLD!!!!” I shouted.

Just in case you were wondering, we were all shouting “Gold.”

Kids from every corner of the playground came running over to see what was going on.

“Mr. Burke found gold!”

“Mr. Burke found gold!!”

“MR. BURKE FOUND GOLD!!!”

Just in case you were wondering, lots of kids were talking about how Mr. Burke found gold. Everybody crowded around him as he held up the chunk of gold.

“Well, Ah'll be dogged,” Mr. Burke said. “Mah great-great-grandpappy lived over yonder back in '48. He told me there was a heap a gold left in the ground after the big gold rush ended. And Ah reckon it was right here!”

Mrs. Jafee came running out to the playground.

“What's all the fuss about?” she asked.

“Mr. Burke found a piece of gold where the monkey bars used to be,” I told her.

“Ah always figgered there wuz gold down there,” he said, “but Ah couldn't git at it on account a them dang monkey bars. Is it okay with y'all if Ah do a little diggin' out here?”

“You betcha!” said Mrs. Jafee. “Dig, baby, dig!”

Our reading specialist, Mr. Macky, came running out of the school. He was pushing a wheelbarrow.

“Did somebody say
gold
?” he asked, all excited.

“Where did you get a wheelbarrow?” Ryan asked Mr. Macky.

“From Rent-A-Wheelbarrow,” said Mr. Macky. “You can rent anything.”

Suddenly, the other teachers came running out of the school: Ms. Coco, Miss Holly, Mr. Docker, Miss Small—all of them! They were wearing overalls and miner's helmets. Some of them were carrying pickaxes, shovels, and pans. I guess they rented them.

“Yee-ha!” they were all shouting. “Gold!”

“Uh, don't any of you have classes to teach?” asked Andrea.

“Classes?” shouted our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. “Who cares about classes? There's gold in them thar hills!”

“And Ah'm a-fixin' to fetch me some, dagnabit,” said our speech teacher, Miss Laney.

“Yee-ha!” shouted Mr. Granite.

“Why is everybody suddenly talking like it's the Wild West?” I asked.

“'Cause we got the gold fever, young feller!” said Mr. Macky. “It drives a man crazy, Ah tell you!
Crazy!
”