Mr. Granite Is from Another Planet! (2 page)

After the assembly Mr. Granite led us to our new classroom. There were posters all over the walls with pictures of rocket ships and stars and planets. It was cool. But the weird thing was, instead of desks, the room was filled with exercise bicycles!

“Why are there bikes in here?” asked
this annoying girl named Emily, who is Andrea's crybaby friend.

“It's part of my new P.A.L. program,” said Mr. Granite. “Pedal And Learn. Instead of burning coal or oil to get electricity to run our school, we're going to pedal these exercise bikes. So we'll learn new things, save energy, and get exercise all at the same time. It's a win-win!”

We get to ride bikes in school? Cool! Bikes are fun. I have a trick bike at home.

I hopped on a bike between Michael and Ryan.

“In third grade we're going to learn a lot about space,” Mr. Granite told us. “So start pedaling, P.A.L.s!”

“I know a poem about space,” I said as I started to pedal my bike. Mr. Granite said I could recite it. It goes like this:

“That's not nice, Arlo!” said Andrea.

“Neither is your face.”

As we pedaled our bikes, Mr. Granite told us lots of stuff about the planets and stars. Did you know that Venus is the hottest planet? It can get up to nine hundred degrees there! I hope they have a lot of swimming pools on Venus. Because when I get really hot, I want to jump in a pool.

Did you know that a day on Jupiter is less than ten hours long?

Did you know that astronauts are a little taller in space because there's no gravity to push their bones together?

Did you know that the ancient Greeks called our galaxy the Milky Way because
they thought it was made of drops of milk?

Those Greeks were weird.

“It takes eight minutes for the sun's light to reach Earth,” Mr. Granite told us. “So if the sun exploded right now, we would still have eight minutes to live.”

Emily jumped off her bike and started freaking out.

“Eight minutes to live?” she yelled. “We've got to
do
something!” Then she went running out of the room.

Emily is weird.

“At night,” Mr. Granite told us, “you can see over a thousand stars with your naked eye.”
^*

Everybody started giggling because Mr. Granite said the word “naked.” Any time anybody says “naked,” you have to giggle. That's the first rule of being a kid.

“Now,” Mr. Granite said, “let's learn about Uranus….”

Everybody giggled again. It's hard to learn stuff when your teacher keeps saying words like “naked” and “Uranus.”

After a while my legs started to feel tired. Riding a bike isn't nearly as much fun when you're just staying in one place and learning stuff. I started to pedal slower.

That's when something weird happened. The lights went out. Suddenly, the class was dark.

“EEEEEEEEKKKK!” screamed all the girls, as if they'd never been in the dark before.

“Who turned out the lights?” Michael asked.

“YOU did!” said Mr. Granite. “You need to pedal faster!”

We all started pedaling faster, and the lights went back on.

“Keep pedaling!” shouted Mr. Granite.

I thought I was gonna die!

Boy, Mr. Granite wasn't kidding about making Ella Mentry School green. Everybody was doing their part to save energy and help the environment.

Miss Lazar, our school custodian, put solar panels up on the roof to collect the sun's rays and turn them into electricity.
Miss Lazar is bizarre!

Ms. Hannah, our art teacher, hates throwing stuff away. She told us to bring in plastic bags from home instead of throwing them in the garbage. She showed us how to make plastic bags into butterflies, kites, and dream catchers. Ms. Hannah is bananas!

Mr. Docker, our science teacher, is off his rocker. He has a car that runs on potatoes instead of gas. Mr. Docker converted the school bus to run on potatoes, too. And he helped Mrs. Yonkers, our computer teacher, to hook up potatoes to power the school computers. So now she says that “PC” stands for “potato computer.” Mrs.
Yonkers is bonkers!

Mrs. Cooney, our school nurse, brought a giant tube of toothpaste to school one day. It was about the size of a first grader! Mrs. Cooney is loony! She said that when you buy large sizes of stuff, you don't have to go shopping so often. There's less waste, and you save money, too.

Ms. LaGrange, our lunch lady, told us to pack our lunches in reusable containers instead of in paper bags so we'd have less garbage. She also brought in a bunch of cows to graze on the grass in the field behind the school. Now the lawn doesn't need to be mowed anymore. And we get free milk, too!

I don't know where Ms. LaGrange got the cows. I guess she went to Rent-A-Cow. You can rent anything. Ms. LaGrange is strange.

Mrs. Roopy, our librarian, read us a book about how trees give off oxygen (which is good stuff) and absorb carbon dioxide (which is bad stuff). Then she helped us plant a tree in the middle of the library. Mrs. Roopy is loopy!

And Mr. Klutz, well, he put up a giant windmill in the field behind the school. When the wind turns the blades of the windmill, it makes electricity.

The whole school was going green! Part of the reason was that we all knew it was
good to save energy and reduce waste. The other part was that we all like chocolate cake.

“Do any of you have
other
ideas to help the environment?” Mr. Granite asked us while we were pedaling to nowhere.

Little Miss I-Know-Everything was waving her hand in the air like she was trying to signal a boat across the ocean. But Mr. Granite called on me instead. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.

“I know a way to save energy,” I said. “You should close the school down and let us stay home all day. Then we could sit around and do nothing. That would save a lot of energy.”

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

“How about you, Andrea?” asked Mr. Granite. “Can
you
think of another way we can help the environment?”

“We could use both sides of every scrap of paper,” Andrea said. “And then we could recycle it.”

“That's an excellent idea, Andrea!” said Mr. Granite.

Andrea stuck out her tongue at me. What is her problem?

“Oh, snap!” whispered Ryan. “Andrea stuck her tongue out at you, A.J. Are you gonna take that?”

“At Andrea's house,” I told the class,
“they use both sides of the toilet paper…and then they recycle it!”

“That's gross, Arlo!” Andrea said.

“So is your face,” I told her.

“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

We were just about to get on our exercise bikes the next morning when the school secretary, Mrs. Patty, made an announcement over the intercom.

“Teachers, please do not throw your teacups around the teachers' lounge. Thank you.”

That was weird.

“Okay, P.A.L.s,” said Mr. Granite, “it's time for language arts. So start pedaling!”

We all started pedaling. But we didn't learn anything about language arts. Because you'll never believe in a million hundred years who walked into the door at that very moment!

Nobody! Because if you walked into a door, it would hurt. But you'll never believe who walked into the door
way
.

It was our old teacher, Mrs. Daisy! She was with her husband, Mr. Macky, who is our reading teacher. We hadn't seen Mrs. Daisy since we graduated from second grade in June.

“Mrs. Daisy!” we all shouted.

“Mrs. Daisy,” said Mr. Granite, “to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

That's grown-up talk for “What are
you
doing here?”

“I missed my kids,” she replied.

“We missed you too!” said Andrea, the big brownnoser.

Mrs. Daisy was holding something in her arms, but we couldn't see what it was because it was wrapped up in a pink blanket.

“Did you bring us a present?” I asked.

“Not exactly…,” said Mr. Macky.

“It's a
baby
, dumbhead!” shouted Andrea. “Mrs. Daisy had her baby!”

All the girls rushed over to look, as if having a baby is a big deal.

“What's her name?” Andrea asked.

“Jackie,” said Mrs. Daisy. “Jackie Macky.”

“What a lovely name!” Emily said. “She's beautiful!”

“She's adorable!” Andrea said.

“She stinks,” I said, holding my nose.

“I think Jackie just pooped,” said Mr. Macky. “We'll change her diaper in a minute.”

I wasn't gonna go
near
that thing, especially after it pooped. But all the girls were coochie-coochie-cooing and saying “Goo-goo gah-gah” to Jackie Macky. All babies say “Goo-goo gah-gah.” Nobody knows why. It must be the first rule of being a baby.

“I think Jackie looks just like
you
, Mrs.
Daisy!” said Emily.

“No,” said Andrea. “I think Jackie looks just like
you
, Mr. Macky.”

“I think she looks just like Mr. Klutz,” I said. “She's as bald as a balloon.”

“Arlo, that's mean!” said Andrea.

Well, it was true! All babies look alike anyway.

Jackie Macky started drooling, and then she started blowing spit bubbles. Then she put her foot in her mouth and started sucking on her toes. I thought it was pretty disgusting, but the girls thought it was cute. I know that if
I
started drooling in school, blowing spit bubbles, and sucking on my toes, nobody would think
it was cute. I would probably get kicked out of school.

“WAAAA!” Jackie Macky cried. “WAAAA!”

“I think she bit her own foot,” I said.

“Jackie might be pooping some more,” said Mrs. Daisy. “We'd better go now.”

Babies are weird.