Dr. Nicholas Is Ridiculous! Read online

  Dedication

  To Eric and Michael Terranova

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. The Big Test

  2. A Piece of Cake

  3. Bad News

  4. The Good Old Days

  5. Our First History Lesson

  6. Our Second History Lesson

  7. The Truth About Dr. Nicholas

  8. The Study Buddies

  9. The Time Boat

  10. An Emergency

  11. Good-bye

  About the Authors

  Back Ads

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  The Big Test

  My name is A.J. and I hate tests.

  Tests are no fun at all. If you ask me, we should take all the tests and throw them into a giant garbage can.

  No, I take that back. If you ask me, we should throw all the tests into a giant paper shredder. Shredding paper is cool. Sometimes my dad lets me shred papers for him at home. I wish I could shred stuff all day long.

  Especially tests.

  At school the other day, we were minding our own business when our teacher, Mr. Granite, said the most horrible thing in the history of the world.

  “Clear off your desks. It’s time for a test.”

  “WHAT?!” everybody yelled.

  “Noooooooooooooo!” shouted Michael, who never ties his shoes.

  “I didn’t study for a test!” shouted Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.

  “That’s not fair!” shouted Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time.

  “You didn’t tell us we were going to have a test!” shouted Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.

  Everybody was freaking out! It was like we just heard the news that a meteor was about to destroy the earth.*

  Well, almost everybody was freaking out.

  “I love tests!” said Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair.

  “Me too!” said her crybaby friend Emily, who agrees with everything Andrea says. “Tests are fun!”

  Those two probably study for tests when they could be watching TV or playing video games and having fun. What is their problem?

  “Relax!” said Mr. Granite. “Every student in the state is taking this test today. You don’t have to study for it. The Board of Education just wants to find out how much you know.”

  “I’m bored of education,” I announced.

  Mr. Granite walked around the room and put a sheet of paper on each of our desks—face down.

  “Do you all have a number two pencil?” he asked.

  We all started giggling because Mr. Granite said “number two.” Everybody knows what “number two” means, and it doesn’t have anything to do with pencils. They should really use a different number for pencils so kids wouldn’t confuse them with the other number two.

  “Take your time,” Mr. Granite told us. “These are questions every American should be able to answer. In fact, many of these questions are given to people who want to become citizens of our country.”

  “What if I don’t know the answers?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry, A.J.,” said Mr. Granite. “This test will be a piece of cake.”

  It didn’t look like a piece of cake to me. It looked like a piece of paper. What did cake have to do with taking a test anyway?

  Hey, maybe we were going to get cake after we finished taking the test!

  “When I say Go, turn over your test sheet,” said Mr. Granite. “Ready . . . set . . . GO!”

  2

  A Piece of Cake

  I turned over my test sheet and looked at the questions. There were fourteen of them. The top line said we had to fill in the blanks. I grabbed my pencil.

  1. Who was the first president?

  Well, that was easy. I wrote down the answer—Abraham Lincoln. Next!

  2. What is the 4th of July?

  Any dumbhead knows that. I figured it had to be a trick question, like “What color is the White House?” I wrote down the answer—It’s the 4th day in July.

  Hey, this test wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

  3. Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?

  Hmmm. I had to think about that one for a minute. I’ve seen my mom and dad sign contracts and stuff at home. I wrote—At the bottom.

  4. Can you name the thirteen original colonies?

  That was simple. I wrote—Yes, I can.

  5. What are the three branches of our government?

  I wasn’t sure about this one. Mr. Granite once told us about three somethings, I remembered, so I wrote them down—The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

  6. Where does freedom of speech come from?

  Any dumbhead knows that. I wrote—Your mouth.

  7. Name one benefit of being a citizen of the United States.

  Hmmm, there are lots of good things about our country. But there was only room for one answer, so I wrote—Candy.

  8. Who did we fight in the Revolutionary War?

  I had no idea who we fought in the Revolutionary War. I looked around to see if I could copy the answer from somebody else. Little Miss Know-It-All was sitting in front of me, and she knows everything.

  “Pssssst!” I whispered to Andrea. “Who did we fight in the Revolutionary War?”

  “I’m not telling,” Andrea whispered back. “That would be cheating, Arlo!”

  She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it. I leaned over to Ryan, who was sitting next to me.

  “Pssssst! Who did we fight in the Revolutionary War?”

  “The Galactic Empire,” Ryan whispered to me.

  Ryan knows just about everything there is to know about Star Wars, so he had to be right. I wrote down—The Galactic Empire.

  “No talking, please!” said Mr. Granite.

  9. Who becomes president of the United States if the president should die?

  Easy! I wrote—Chuck Norris.

  10. Who makes the laws in the United States?

  Again, I wrote—Chuck Norris. I was almost finished with the test.

  11. Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”?

  I leaned over to Alexia, who was sitting on my other side.

  “Pssssst!” I whispered. “Who said, ‘Give me liberty or give me death’?”

  “Henry,” Alexia whispered.

  “Henry who?”

  “Patrick,” Alexia whispered.

  “Well, which is it,” I asked her. “Henry or Patrick?”

  “Both!” she whispered.

  “No talking, please!” said Mr. Granite.

  I wrote—Henry and Patrick.

  12. What are the duties of Congress?

  I giggled, because “duties” sounds just like “doodies,” and we’re not supposed to talk about that in school. But all I could think about was a bunch of politicians sitting on toilet bowls. I wasn’t sure what to write, so I just put down—number two.

  13. Who invented the lightbulb?

  Hmmm. I had no idea.

  “Psssst!” I whispered to Michael, who was sitting behind me. “Who invented the lightbulb?”

  “Bob Lightbulb,” he whispered back.

  Bob Lightbulb? I never heard of anybody named Bob Lightbulb. Michael may have been yanking my chain. But I know that a lot of stuff was named after the people who invented it. Like McDonald’s. And that vacuum cleaner was named after President Hoover. Maybe Michael was right. I wrote—Bob Lightbulb.

  14. Who helped the Pilgrims when they came to America?

  Hmmm. When the Pilgrims came to America, they probably had to chop down trees, build their own hou
ses, and work on all kinds of do-it-yourself projects like that. So there could only be one answer. I wrote down—Home Depot.

  Finally, the dumb test was finished. Andrea was done before anybody else, of course. She was sitting there, all proud of herself. Mr. Granite came around and collected our papers.

  “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked.

  “It was a piece of cake,” Andrea announced.

  Why is everybody always talking about cake? And why can’t a truck full of cakes fall on Andrea’s head?*

  3

  Bad News

  After a few days we all forgot about that dumb test. Life went on. Andrea was annoying, as usual. I had a Pee Wee football game, and my team won. Ryan had his birthday, and his mom brought in brownies for the whole class.

  A week later Mr. Granite was trying to teach us math when an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “All classes please report to the all-purpose room for an assembly.”

  “Not again!” yelled Mr. Granite. Every time he tries to teach us math, we get called to an assembly.

  We had to walk a million hundred miles to the all-purpose room, which has a dumb name because you can’t go scuba diving in there. Neil the nude kid was the line leader. Alexia was the door holder.

  When we got to the all-purpose room, I had to sit between Andrea and Emily. Ugh! Andrea’s elbow touched my elbow for a second, and I thought I was gonna die.

  Our principal, Mr. Klutz, was waiting for us on the stage. He has no hair at all. I mean none. I bet his head slips off the pillow when he’s trying to sleep at night.

  “I just got the results back from the test you took last week,” Mr. Klutz announced.

  “I hope we did well,” Emily whispered to Andrea.

  “I know I got all the answers right,” Andrea whispered back. “I looked them up in my encyclopedia when I got home.”

  “Our school did horribly,” Mr. Klutz announced.

  “WHAT?!” Everybody gasped.

  “Ella Mentry School got the worst scores in the whole county,” said Mr. Klutz, shaking his head sadly. “I went to a meeting, and the principal of Maroa-Forsyth Grade School was laughing at me. Clearly, you children don’t know basic history. I hate to say this, but if we don’t bring up our test scores, our school is going to be closed.”

  I jumped up from my seat.

  “Yay!” I shouted. “No more school! No more school! No more school!”

  I figured everybody was going to jump up from their seats and start chanting “No more school” with me.

  I looked around. Nobody else was standing. Nobody else was chanting. Everybody was looking at me.

  Oops. I hate when that happens. I sat back down in my seat.

  “You probably got all the answers wrong, Arlo!” Andrea whispered to me. “I bet that’s why our school did so poorly.”

  “Your face got all the answers wrong,” I whispered back at Andrea.

  “That doesn’t even make any sense, Arlo.”

  “Your face doesn’t make any sense,” I told Andrea.

  Everybody was talking and whispering to each other until Mr. Klutz held up his hand and made a peace sign, which means “shut up.”

  “I have decided to bring in a professor from the local college to help teach you students history,” he announced.

  “WHAT!?” Everybody gasped again.

  “We don’t want to learn history from some boring college teacher,” somebody yelled.

  Everybody was upset, even some of the teachers.

  “Oh, you’re going to like Dr. Nicholas,” Mr. Klutz told us. “She’s a world-famous historian who has traveled everywhere and written many books about history. She was even on Oprah.”

  Everybody gasped and said, “WOW,” which is “MOM” upside down.

  “What was she doing on Oprah?” asked Ryan.

  “She should get off Oprah,” said Michael.

  “Oprah could get hurt,” said Alexia.

  “Is Oprah okay?” said Emily.

  “Who’s Oprah?” I asked.

  “Dr. Nicholas will be coming into your classroom to teach you some basic history that everybody should know,” said Mr. Klutz. “Then a week from today you’ll get a chance to take that test over again. I think that with the help of Dr. Nicholas, you’re going to score much higher. And I’ll be able to laugh at those other principals. That will be the icing on the cake.”

  More cake? Why is everybody always talking about cake?

  “And now,” Mr. Klutz said, with a big sweep of his arm, “I’d like to introduce . . . Dr. Nicholas!”

  4

  The Good Old Days

  Dr. Nicholas came out on the stage. She looked really old. She had white hair tied up in a bun in the back,* and she walked with a cane—really slowly. I’ve seen glaciers move faster than Dr. Nicholas. I could have run around the block in the time it took her to get to the middle of the stage.

  “Wow, that lady is old,” whispered Ryan.

  “She’s even older than Mr. Docker,” I whispered.

  Mr. Docker is our science teacher. I thought he was old. But Dr. Nicholas looked old enough to be Mr. Docker’s mother!

  “She must know a lot about history, because she’s about a million hundred years old,” whispered Neil the nude kid.

  “Yeah, she probably lived through most of it,” whispered Alexia.

  Mr. Klutz told us to give Dr. Nicholas a round of applause, so we clapped our hands in circles.

  “Does anybody have any questions they would like to ask Dr. Nicholas?” said Mr. Klutz.

  “Yeah, how old are you?” I asked.

  “That’s not a nice question to ask a person, A.J.,” said Mr. Klutz.

  “I don’t mind,” said Dr. Nicholas. “I’m ninety-two years old and proud of it. How old are you, young man?”

  “I’m eight years old,” I said.

  “Eight?” said Dr. Nicholas. “When I was your age, I was nine.”

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

  “Did you ever meet Abraham Lincoln?” asked Alexia.

  “No,” said Dr. Nicholas, “but years ago I drove one of his convertibles.”

  “Were you alive when there were dinosaurs?” asked Michael.

  “Oh yes,” said Dr. Nicholas. “In fact, I used to ride a dinosaur to school.”

  I’m pretty sure that Dr. Nicholas was yanking our chain. Everybody knows there were no schools in dinosaur times. Besides, it would be hard to ride a dinosaur. They don’t even make saddles for them. Dr. Nicholas would have had to ride the dinosaur bareback.

  But maybe she was telling the truth, because old people don’t usually make jokes. That’s the first rule of being old.

  Ryan stood up to ask a question.

  “My dad told me that when he was a kid, they didn’t have video games or microwave ovens or Fruit Roll-Ups,” Ryan said. “What was it like when you were a kid?”

  “Ah, the good old days,” said Dr. Nicholas. “When I was your age, we didn’t even have TV.”

  WHAT?! Everybody gasped.

  No TV? I would die without TV. The only good thing about having no TV is that they couldn’t have TV Turnoff Week.

  The good old days sounded like the bad old days to me. If I lived back then, I would have sat around all day saying, “I wish somebody would hurry up and invent TV already, because I’m bored.”

  “What did you stare at all day?” asked Neil the nude kid. “What did you do for fun?”

  “We went out to play,” replied Dr. Nicholas.

  WHAT?! There was a buzz in the all-purpose room. Everybody was talking to each other.

  “You mean, in the outdoors?” asked Andrea.

  “Yes!”

  Everybody gasped again.

  “Didn’t you get sunburned?” asked Andrea.

  “Didn’t your clothes get dirty?” asked Emily.

  “What about the bugs?” asked Michael.

  “Wasn’t it danger
ous?” asked Alexia.

  “Weren’t you afraid of getting hit by a car?” asked Neil the nude kid.

  “No, she was afraid of getting hit by a dinosaur,” I told Neil.

  “Oh, it was a wonderful time,” said Dr. Nicholas. “My friends and I used to play hopscotch, marbles, or hide-and-go-seek. My favorite thing to do was jump rope. Did you ever jump rope?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Ryan. “My sister has an app called Jump Rope Simulator on her iPad. It’s awesome.”

  “Dr. Nicholas, were you on your school jump rope team?” asked Andrea.

  “Oh, we didn’t have a team,” said Dr. Nicholas. “We just jumped rope for the fun of it, out in the street.”

  “You played in the street?!” we all shouted.

  Now I knew she was yanking our chain. You would have to be crazy to play in the street! I bet she made up all that stuff about riding dinosaurs and Abraham Lincoln’s convertible.

  “My friends and I would jump rope anywhere,” Dr. Nicholas told us. “In fact, I feel like jumping rope right now.”

  That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Dr. Nicholas pulled a rope out of her pocket. Then she swung it over her head and started jumping over it.

  Dr. Nicholas is ridiculous!

  5

  Our First History Lesson

  After lunch Dr. Nicholas came into our classroom.

  “Clear off your desks,” said Mr. Granite. “It’s time for our first history lesson with Dr. Nicholas.”

  “Yay!” shouted all the girls.

  “Boo!” shouted all the boys.

  Ugh, I hate history. History is dumb. Why do we have to learn about stuff that already happened? Who cares about a bunch of dead dudes who died a million hundred years ago?

  Mr. Granite said he would be back in a half an hour. He went to the teachers’ lounge, which is a secret room near the front office where no kids are allowed. My friend Billy, who lives around the corner, told me the teachers go to the teachers’ lounge to relax in a big hot tub while servants in bathing suits feed them grapes.

  Dr. Nicholas picked up a marker and wrote HISTORY IS FUN! on the whiteboard.