Mrs. Jafee Is Daffy! (2 page)

When I came into the school on Tuesday morning, I saw the strangest thing in the history of the world: four grown-ups sitting in chairs playing violins!
*
And they were all dressed up in black suits and dresses! Mrs. Jafee was watching them.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Mr. Klutz told me he wants everything to be nice and calm while he’s away,” said Mrs. Jafee. “So I hired a string quartet. Studies show that children can relax and learn better when they listen to soothing music.”

“I think we would learn better if we ate lots of ice cream, cookies, cake, and candy,” I said.

“Hmmmmm,” said Mrs. Jafee.

Grown-ups always say “Hmmmmm” when they’re thinking. Nobody knows why.

That’s when Little Miss Brownnoser waltzed into the hallway.

“Oh, I just
love
classical music,” Andrea
announced (as if anybody asked her). That’s Violin Concerto number 5, by Mozart. I learned about it in the music appreciation class I take after school.”

Andrea takes classes in
everything
after school. If they gave a class in picking lint out of your belly button, Andrea would take that class so she could get better at it. Why can’t a truck full of violins fall on her head?

The hall was filling up with kids and teachers listening to the boring music.

“Man, that’s the fattest violin in the history of the world,” I said. “That lady can’t even hold it up.”

“It’s a
cello
, dumbhead!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

“Well, it looks like a violin that needs to go on a diet, if you ask me,” I said.

Everybody clapped after the boring
song was over. Then the musicians started playing some other boring song.

“Can you feel the tension
oozing
out of your pores?” Mrs. Jafee said, taking a deep breath. “I learned in graduate school that listening to classical music increases the flow of blood to your brain.”

“Ugh, disgusting!” I said. “I don’t want blood flowing to my brain.”

“Arlo,” Andrea said, “if blood didn’t flow to your brain, you would die.”

I was going to say something mean to Andrea, but I realized that Mrs. Jafee had just said the most amazing thing in the history of the world.

“Wait a minute,” I said to her. “Did you just say you went to
graduate school
?”

“You betcha!” she said. “After I finished college, I went to graduate school so I could learn more.”

I slapped my forehead. Was she out of her mind? Why would anybody want to go to school after they graduated from school? What is Mrs. Jafee’s problem?

“After I graduate,” I told her, “I’m not going anywhere
near
a school.”

“Well, I spent four years in graduate school studying how children learn,” Mrs. Jafee told me. “I’m looking forward to trying some of those new and exciting ideas right here at Ella Mentry School this week. We’re going to think outside the box.”

Huh? Why would anyone be thinking
in a box to begin with? If I was in a box, I know what I would be thinking about: how to get out of that dumb box! Mrs. Jafee was weird. If she was really a learning expert, she would have learned that after you graduate, you don’t have to go to school anymore.

“The music is
soooooooo
beautiful!” Andrea said. “Don’t you think so, Arlo?”

“Yeah, just the opposite of your face,” I said.

I wanted to say “So is your face.” But that would have meant that Andrea is beautiful. And if the guys ever heard me say that, they would say I was in love with her.

So don’t ever say “So is your face” after somebody says a word like “nice” or “pretty” or “beautiful.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.

The bell rang, and everybody rushed to their classrooms. We pledged the allegiance with Mr. Granite. Then our computer teacher, Mrs. Yonkers, came into the classroom.

“I have bad news,” Mrs. Yonkers told us. “There’s no computer class this week.”

“Why not?” asked Emily. “I
love
computer class!”

She looked as if she was gonna cry, like always.

“As you know, this is Civil War Week,” Mrs. Yonkers told us, “and kids didn’t have computers during the Civil War.”

“They didn’t?” Ryan said. “How could they get on the internet?”

“There
was
no internet,” Mrs. Yonkers said.

“WHAT?!”

“No internet?” I said. “No YouTube?”

Sometimes me and my friends go on YouTube and search for “people falling down” or “hamsters playing the piano.”

I could watch that stuff for hours.

“What a horrible world it must have been without computers,” Ryan said.

Mrs. Yonkers told us that during the Civil War there were no calculators, no DVD players, no iPods, no airplanes, no cars, no lightbulbs, and no video games.

“Did they have cell phones?” asked Neil
the nude kid.

“Cell phones?” Mrs. Yonkers said. “They didn’t even have
regular
phones!”

“How about big-screen TVs?” asked Michael.

“Big-screen TVs?” Mrs. Yonkers said. “They didn’t even have
small-screen
TVs!”

“WHAT?!” We were all amazed.

“No TVs?” I said. “Those poor kids! How did they survive?”

“Back in Civil War days,” Mrs. Yonkers told us, “kids would actually go outside and play.”

“Play? Outside?” Ryan asked. “Why would anybody want to do a crazy thing like that?”

“That reminds me,” Mr. Granite suddenly said. “We have to go. It’s time for fizz ed.”

Fizz ed! Yay!

Fizz ed is my favorite part of the day because we get to play sports and games and run around the gym instead of learn boring stuff. Our fizz ed teacher, Miss Small, is off the wall.

We walked a million hundred miles to the gym. But when we got there, Miss Small wasn’t around. And the gym smelled funny.

“What’s that weird smell?” I asked.

“I think it’s incense,” said Andrea.

I never heard of that stuff, but it stinks.
I thought I was gonna throw up.

In the far corner of the gym, there was a guy lying on the floor. We all ran over to see if he was okay. That’s when I saw that the guy wasn’t really lying on the floor. He was lying on a bed made of nails!

A bed made of nails?!

The guy got up. He was wearing a turban on his head.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said in a squeaky voice. “I was just taking a nap.”

“On nails?” Neil said. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not at all,” he said. “It is very comfortable. Studies show that children learn faster when they sleep on a bed of nails.”

Those kids are weird. I know what I would learn if I slept on nails. I would learn to get off those dumb nails and go to sleep in a
real
bed.

That’s when Mrs. Jafee came into the gym.

“Okeydokey!” she said. “I want to
introduce you guys and gals to Swami Havabanana. He’s from India.”

“Good day,” Swami Havabanana said as he bowed to us. “It is a most beautiful morning in which to be alive, is it not?”

“Where’s Miss Small?” we all asked.

“Oh, her?” said Mrs. Jafee. “I fired her,
by golly! Swami Havabanana is our new gym teacher.”

“WHAT?!”

“Miss Small just wanted to play sports and silly games,” said Mrs. Jafee. “What a waste of time. Studies show that sports and games don’t help kids learn. Swami Havabanana has some different ideas. Don’tcha, Swami?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “we are going to learn about yoga.”

“YOGA?!”

“You mean we’re gonna learn about that little dude in
Star Wars
?” I asked.

“That’s Yoda, dumbhead,” said Andrea, rolling her eyes.

“I knew that,” I lied.

“My dad told me there was a guy named Yoga who played for the Yankees,” said Michael.

“That’s Yogi, dumbhead,” said Ryan.

“Yoga is a way to achieve inner peace and tranquillity by performing specific body positions.”

I didn’t know what the swami guy was talking about.

“This is the camel pose,” he said, getting down on his knees and leaning his head all the way back. “And this is the cobra pose. And this is the fish pose.”

Swami Havabanana twisted himself up into a bunch of weird positions.

“Can we do the football pose?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“I never heard of that one,” Swami said. “But who wants to try a yoga pose?”

“Me! Me! Me! Me!” shouted Andrea, waving her hand around like she was washing a window.

Andrea volunteers for everything so teachers will like her. If a teacher said they needed a kid to jump off the roof, Andrea would volunteer.

Of course Swami Havabanana picked her.

“I need a boy, too,” he said.

Me and the guys looked at our feet so we wouldn’t get picked. If you look at your
feet, the teacher will never call on you. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

The only problem was that Ryan, Michael, and Neil were all fake coughing into their hands and muttering “A.J…. A.J…. A.J.”

“Where is A.J.?” asked Swami Havabanana.

“Over there!” all the guys said, pointing at me. Michael gave me a shove, and Swami told me to stand next to Andrea.

Mrs. Jafee said she had to go check on the other classes.

“I betcha Swami Havabanana will have you guys and gals very relaxed!” she said. “Okeydokey, I’ll be back in a jiffy to see
how A.J. and Andrea are making out.”

“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are going to be making out! 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.

Swami Havabanana told me and Andrea to stand back-to-back and link our elbows together.

“Ewww, disgusting!” I said. “Her butt is touching my butt.”

“Oh, be quiet, Arlo,” said Andrea.

“This is called the double chair pose,” Swami said. “As you lean against each
other, take a few small steps forward.”

I leaned against Andrea and took a tiny step forward. Andrea took a tiny step forward. I took another step forward. Andrea took another step forward. After a few more steps forward, it was like me and Andrea were sitting on back-to-back chairs, except that there were no chairs! It would have been cool if it had been anybody except Andrea.

“See?” said Swami Havabanana. “They are like matching chairs.”

“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are like matching chairs! They must be in
love
!”

“Yoga means ‘to join,’” Swami Havabanana said, as he helped me and Andrea up. “It will take us on a journey of discovery as we go in search of the life force that will awaken every cell and balance our mind, body, and spirit.”

“Can we just go play football?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“Football is a game of violence and aggression,” the swami said.

“Yeah,” I told him. “That’s why we want to play it.”

Swami told us all to sit on the floor with
our legs crossed. Then we had to take our feet and sort of cross our legs
again
. I thought I was gonna
die
. Now I know what it feels like to be a pretzel.

“Very good!” said Swami Havabanana. “That is called the lotus position.”

He taught us a bunch of other positions, like the downward dog, the roaring lion, the flying crow, and the sleeping tortoise.
*
Swami Havabanana said we could invent our own poses, too.

“Look, I can touch my toes,” said Emily.

“I can crack my knuckles,” said Michael.

“I can crack my nose,” said Neil.

“I can make my eyelids turn inside out,” I said.

“Yoga is fun, is it not?” Swami asked.

“Yes!” said all the girls.

“No!” said all the boys.

Next, we had to lie on the floor and practice breathing, which made no sense at all because any dumbhead knows how to breathe. Breathing is way overrated.

“Breathe in…and breathe out,” said Swami Havabanana. “Are you breathing?”

“Yesssssssssssssss…,”
we all said.

Swami told us that deep breathing calms the nervous system. What’s up with that? It’s called the
nervous
system.
It’s
supposed
to be nervous.

“Let go of the tension in your muscles,” he said. “Are you relaxing?”

“Yesssssssssssssss…”

“Feel the soothing calmness take over your inner being….”

“Yesssssssssssssss…”

“Only when the mind is still can the true essence of life be achieved. Find your deepest self….”

“Yesssssssssssssss…”

“Feel the flowing life energy.”

“Yesssssssssssssss…”

“Can you see the universe unfolding in your mind?”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

I was having a dream about Yoda and Yogi doing yoga on YouTube. Then they all started fighting. Yoda had a light saber, and Yogi had a baseball bat. It was a cool dream. But suddenly I heard somebody shouting.

“WAKE UPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!”

I opened my eyes. Mrs. Jafee was standing there with her hands on her hips. When ladies put their hands on their hips, it means they’re mad. Nobody knows why.

“The children were very much relaxed, as you requested,” said Swami Havabanana.

“You put them to sleep!” Mrs. Jafee shouted.

“It is but a fine line between sleeping and waking,” said Swami Havabanana.

“It’s also a fine line between gettin’ hired and fired!” Mrs. Jafee yelled. “Get outta here! You’re fired!”

“I must go?” asked Swami Havabanana.

“You betcha!” Mrs. Jafee said. “Beat it! And take your doggone bed of nails with you!”

She chased Swami Havabanana out of the gym.

Mrs. Jafee is daffy!