Mrs. Kormel Is Not Normal!

1
  Never Kiss Your Mom in Public

2
  Mrs. Kormel's Secret Language

3
  My Head Almost Exploded

4
  Are We There Yet?

5
  The Middle of Nowhere

6
  The Nude Kid's Dad

7
  Fighting Evil Under the Bus

8
  Striker Smith's Final Battle

9
  We Are Survivors

10
  Mrs. Kormel Is Driving Us Crazy

11
  We Finally Meet the Nude Kid

About the Author and the Illustrator

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

My name is A.J. and I hate school.

Do you know which is the worst day of the week? If you ask me, it's Monday. Because Monday is the start of five days of school in a row. That's horrible!

Tuesday and Wednesday aren't so great either.

Thursday is a pretty good day, because then we only have one day of school left before the weekend.

Friday is
really
good, because that's when the school week is over.

But the best day of the week is Saturday. I play peewee football on Saturday, and we don't have school again for two whole days.

 

Too bad it was Monday morning. I was waiting in front of my house for the school bus with my mom.

“You be a good boy, A.J.,” my mom told me.

“I will.”

“Don't get into any trouble, A.J.,” my mom told me.

“I won't.”

“Remember to raise your hand when you want to talk, A.J.,” my mom told me.

“I will.”

“Don't shoot straw wrappers at the girls, A.J.,” my mom told me.

“I won't.”

My mom told me about a million hundred other things I wasn't allowed to do until I saw the yellow school bus coming around the corner.

“Mom, I promise not to have any fun at all,” I said. “Bye!”

The bus pulled up. Mrs. Kormel, the
bus driver, pushed a button and made the little
STOP
sign pop out the side of the bus so the cars on the street will stop. We call it the magic
STOP
sign. That thing is cool.

“Give Mommy a kiss, A.J.”

No way I was going to kiss my mother in front of all the kids staring out the bus window. That's the first rule of being a kid. Don't
ever
kiss your mother when other kids are watching!

“Uh, I don't want to be late for school, Mom.”

“Give Mommy a kiss, A.J.”

“That's not gonna happen, Mom.”

“Give Mommy a kiss, A.J.”

“Over my dead body, Mom.”

“Give Mommy a kiss, A.J.”

“I will if you give me a hundred dollars, Mom,” I said.

My mother tried to wrap her arms around me, but I know how to get away from tacklers. When Mom went to grab me, I threw her a head fake, spun away,
and gave her a few of my best fancy foot-work moves that I learned playing peewee football. She didn't have a chance! I sidestepped her and ran on the bus before she could hug or kiss me.

Ha-ha-ha! My mom can't play football for beans. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her!

I dashed on the bus and there was Mrs. Kormel, the school bus driver. She was wearing a crash helmet on her head and a silver whistle around her neck.

“Bingle boo, A.J.!” she said.

“Bingle boo, Mrs. Kormel.”

“Bingle boo” is Mrs. Kormel's way of
saying “hello.” One time I asked her why she doesn't just say “hello” like normal people.

“I'm inventing my own secret language,” she told me. “
Everybody
says ‘hello.' But I think ‘hello' is boring. I'm trying to get people to switch from saying ‘hello'
to saying ‘bingle boo.' Secret languages are fun!”

Mrs. Kormel is not normal.

“Limpus kidoodle,” said Mrs. Kormel. That means “sit down” in Mrs. Kormel's secret language.

I looked around the bus. There was a snot-covered kindergartner in the front row behind Mrs. Kormel, and a few angry fifth graders in the back row.

Fifth graders are really mean because they get a lot of homework. The more homework you get, the meaner you are. That's why fifth graders are meaner than fourth graders, and fourth graders are meaner than third graders, and third
graders are meaner than second graders.

You don't want to go
near
seventh or eighth graders. They get
lots
of homework, and they just hate the world. I hope I never get to high school.

I sat down in the middle by myself. Mrs. Kormel stopped the bus at the next corner, and a few other kids got on. At the stop after that, my friends Ryan and Michael got on.

“Bingle boo!” Mrs. Kormel said to Ryan and Michael. “Limpus kidoodle.”

Ryan and Michael sat down next to me.

“What did you bring in for Show and Share?” Ryan asked. “I brought in an old light switch.”

“I brought in a ball of string,” said Michael.

Show and Share is when we bring something from home that starts with a certain letter of the alphabet and talk about it in class. Today's letter was
s
.

I took my Show and Share thing out of my backpack. It was an action figure called Striker Smith. He's a superhero from the future who travels through time and fights bad guys with a sharp sword that's attached to his hand. He can turn into a jet plane, too, and fly when you push a button. I saw a commercial for Striker Smith on TV and bugged my parents until they finally got it for me.

“Striker Smith belongs to a secret organization of crime fighters,” I told Ryan and Michael, in case they didn't see the commercial.

“You should get extra credit,” Ryan said, “because Striker Smith has
two S
's.”

“He's cool,” said Michael. “Sometimes I take my old action figures down to the basement and my dad lets me saw them
in half or torture them with his power drill.”

“I take mine out in the sun and melt their faces with a magnifying glass,” said Ryan.

Michael and Ryan are weird.

At the next stop, this really annoying girl in my class named Andrea who thinks she knows everything got on the bus with curly brown hair. Well, the bus didn't have curly brown hair. Andrea did.

“Bingle boo, Andrea!” said Mrs. Kormel.

“Bingle boo,” Andrea said. “I'll go limpus kidoodle now.”

What a brownnoser! Andrea plopped her dumb self down in the seat right in front of me, like always.

“Good morning, Arlo,” she said.

I hate her.

Andrea's mother found out that A.J. stands for Arlo Jervis, so Andrea went and told everybody. It was the worst day of my life. I thought I was gonna die. I wanted to switch schools or move to Antarctica and go live with the penguins, but my mom wouldn't let me.

Penguins are cool.

“Are you boys ready for the big spelling test this afternoon?” Andrea asked.

Oh no. I forgot all about the big dumb spelling test! How can I be expected to remember stuff over the weekend? Weekends are for having fun, not for studying for tests. I hate spelling.

“Do you know how to spell ‘spelling,' A.J.?” asked Andrea.

“Sure,” I said. “I-H-A-T-E-Y-O-U.”

Michael and Ryan laughed.

“I made my own spelling flash cards,” Andrea told us, “and I'm going to use them for Show and Share, too. Because spelling begins with an
s
.”

I was going to tell Andrea that “stupid” also begins with an
s
and that's what she
is, but I decided I would save that and use it the next time she
really
got me mad.

Andrea turned around so she wasn't facing us anymore. I picked up Striker Smith and pretended that he was going to attack the back of her head with his sword. It was hilarious. Michael and Ryan laughed. But Andrea turned around suddenly, before I could take Striker Smith away from her head.

“That's a nice doll, Arlo,” she said.

“It's not a doll!” I told her. “It's an action figure!”

“My mother told me that action figures are dolls for boys,” said Andrea.

“They are not!” I said.

“Are too!” said Andrea.

We went back and forth like that for a while.

“Striker Smith is a one-man wrecking machine,” I told Andrea. “He belongs to a secret organization of crime fighters. If Striker got into a fight with one of your dumb dolls, he would rip its head off.”

“Dolls don't fight,” Andrea said.

“Striker Smith does,” I said.

“I thought you said he wasn't a doll, Arlo.”

Why can't a bus filled with spelling flash cards fall on Andrea's head?