Mr. Louie Is Screwy!

  My Weird School #20

  Mr. Louie Is Screwy!

  Dan Gutman

  Pictures by Jim Paillot

  To Emma

  Contents

  1 The H Word and the L Word

  2 I Hate Love

  3 Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too

  4 The Power of Love

  5 The Love Machine

  6 Klutzstock

  7 Kissing Is Gross

  8 Teachers in Love

  9 Mrs. Dacky and Mr. Maisy

  10 Sabotage!

  11 My Genius Ideas

  12 Happily Ever After

  About the Author and the Illustrator

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  The H Word and the L Word

  My name is A.J. and I hate school.

  “I hate school,” I told my friend Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.

  “Me too,” he said. We were walking to Ella Mentry School with our friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.

  “Me three,” said Michael. “I hate school too.”

  “Well, I hate school more than you guys do,” I said.

  “Nobody hates school more than me,” said Ryan.

  “I hated school before you guys hated school,” said Michael.

  “Oh, yeah?” I told him. “I hated school before you were even born.”

  Any time you want to win an argument, just tell the other person you did something before they were born. It works every time. That’s the first rule of being a kid.*

  “Groovy!” somebody said as we were about to cross Walnut Street. “I can dig where you dudes are coming from.”

  It was Mr. Louie, our crossing guard! He was standing at the corner of Walnut Street in front of the school. Mr. Louie always wears sandals and a tie-dyed shirt. He held up his guitar, which he uses as a stop sign.

  “But it’s a drag to use the H word,” Mr. Louie told us. “Hate is a downer, man. You should say ‘love.’”

  Ugh! Mr. Louie said the L word!

  “Ewwww!” we all yelled.

  “There’s too much hate in the world,” Mr. Louie explained, “and not enough love.”

  Mr. Louie used to be a judge, but he quit because he said there were too many bad vibes (whatever they are). That’s when he became a crossing guard.

  “The L word is for girls,” I said.

  “Love is for everyone,” Mr. Louie told us. “Do you know why I love love so much? Every morning I take a love potion. You dudes should take some, too.”

  “No thanks!” we all said.

  I never heard of a love potion. Maybe Mr. Louie was yanking our chain.

  “School is cool,” he said. “You dudes should say you love school.”

  “I’m not saying the L word out loud,” I announced.

  “A.J.,” Mr. Louie told me, “if you don’t say ‘I love school,’ I’m gonna tell everybody you love…Andrea!”

  Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

  Andrea Young is this really annoying girl in my class with curly brown hair. I don’t love Andrea. I don’t even like Andrea. I hate Andrea! So I sure didn’t want Mr. Louie telling everybody I love her.

  “Okay, okay,” I said quietly, so nobody else would hear. “I love school.”

  “Outta sight!” said Mr. Louie. “Gimme some skin, A.J. Feel the love!”

  “Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. is in love with school!”

  “When are you gonna get married to the school, A.J.?” asked Michael.

  If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.*

  2

  I Hate Love

  When we got to class, our teacher, Miss Daisy, was talking with Mr. Macky, the reading specialist. Reading is boring. But Mr. Macky loves reading so much, he walks around reading soup cans. He’s weird.

  “Do we have reading today?” I asked him.

  “No,” Mr. Macky told me, “we have an assembly.”

  An assembly is when everybody assembles in the all-purpose room. So it has the perfect name.

  After the morning announcements, we had to walk a million hundred miles to the all-purpose room. It looked weird. There were peace signs, flowers, and lava lamps all over the stage.

  “Crisscross applesauce,” Miss Daisy told us as we sat down.

  The teachers used to tell us to sit Indian style. But they stopped because they thought Indians might get mad. Then they told us to sit like pretzels. I guess some pretzels got mad, because now the teachers just say, “Crisscross applesauce.” I hope applesauce doesn’t get mad.*

  Once everybody was seated, the strangest thing in the history of the world happened. Our principal, Mr. Klutz, got up onstage.

  Well, that wasn’t the strange part. Mr. Klutz gets up onstage all the time. The strange part was that he had hair all the way down to his shoulders!

  We knew Mr. Klutz was wearing a wig, because just yesterday he was completely bald. Nobody can grow hair that fast. Mr. Klutz held up his hand and made a peace sign, which means shut up.

  “Valentine’s Day is next week,” Mr. Klutz told us, “so I invited a special guest. Put your hands together for…”

  You’ll never believe in a million hundred years who came out onstage.

  It was Mr. Louie! Everybody clapped, because Mr. Louie is cool. I never saw him inside school before.

  “Groovy!” said Mr. Louie. “I mean…like…you know?”

  “Mr. Louie knows all about peace and love,” Mr. Klutz told us, “so I asked him to help us celebrate Valentine’s Day next week.”

  Mr. Louie played a song on his stop sign that was really easy to learn because it went like this:

  Love love love

  Love love love

  Love love love

  That song had nothing but the L word over and over again! It was dumb, but everybody clapped anyway, because we were glad it was over.

  “Back in the Sixties,” Mr. Louie told us, “everybody loved each other. Can you dig it? Don’t you think the world would be a better place if everybody loved each other today?”

  “Yes!” shouted all the girls.

  “No!” shouted all the boys.

  Mr. Louie said we were going to send cards, decorate the school with hearts and flowers, and have a big concert on Valentine’s Day to celebrate peace and love.

  “Let’s show how much we love each other and make the world a hipper place,” he told us. “It’s gonna be a gas. Love makes the world go round.”

  Ugh! I think Mr. Louie took too much of his love potion. All the boys were pretending to throw up.

  Then Mr. Louie sang his favorite song, “If I Had a Hammer.” It’s about some weird guy who wants a hammer. If you ask me, instead of wasting time singing about wanting a hammer, he should just go to a hardware store and buy one.

  After that Mr. Louie sang about some other weird guy who makes friends with ants.*

  Finally the assembly was over. Miss Daisy made me the line leader. Andrea and her crybaby friend, Emily, were in line right behind me.

  “Mr. Louie is right,” Andrea told Emily. “Don’t you love love? I love love. I hate hate.”

  She is so annoying. Anything Andrea says, I always say the opposite.

  “I hate love,” I said. “I love hate.”

  “Someday you’re going to fall in love, Arlo,” said Andrea, who calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.

  “Will not,” I told her.

  “Oh, yes you will, Arlo!” Andrea said. “You’ll fall in love with some girl, and you’ll comb your hair to look handsome for her.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I never comb my hair.”

  “You’ll get all goo-goo eyes ov
er her, Arlo.”

  “No way.”

  “You’ll hold hands with her, Arlo.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  “You’ll buy her valentines, Arlo.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “You’ll kiss her, Arlo.”

  Ewww! Kissing? Disgusting! What is her problem? Why can’t a truck full of valentines fall on Andrea’s head?

  3

  Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too

  A few days before Valentine’s Day, we had to bring in valentines for the whole class. When I crossed Walnut Street with the guys, Mr. Louie held up his stop-sign guitar. He told us he was excited about the big Valentine’s Day festival he was organizing.

  “It’s gonna be groovy,” Mr. Louie said. “I’m lining up some big musical acts.”

  “Like who?” Ryan asked.

  “Dig this,” Mr. Louie said. “So far I’ve got Miss Holly, Mr. Docker, Mr. Loring, Ms. Hannah, Miss Small…”

  “Those aren’t musical acts,” Michael said. “They’re teachers!”

  “We’re gonna have a special surprise guest too,” Mr. Louie said. But he wouldn’t tell us who it was.

  When we got to school, Miss Daisy and Mr. Macky were walking up the steps together. Miss Daisy was carrying a heart-shaped cake with bonbons on top. That’s her favorite kind of candy.

  “Do you have a special valentine, A.J.?” Mr. Macky asked me.

  “No,” I told him. “Valentines are dumb.”

  Actually, I did have a special valentine. My valentine is Mrs. Cooney, our school nurse. She is beautiful. Her eyes are like cotton candy. I would marry her when I grow up, but she’s already married to some guy named Mr. Cooney. Bummer in the summer!

  When we got to class, everybody wanted to eat cake. But Miss Daisy said we had to do writing first. I hate writing.

  She told us to take out our valentine cards and a pencil. We had to write one thing we liked about every person in the class.

  I wrote Ryan’s card first. It was easy:

  I liked it when you ate the seat cushion on the school bus.

  Then I wrote Michael’s card:

  I liked it when we watched the Super Bowl on your big-screen TV.

  Then I wrote a card for Neil, who we call Neil the nude kid even though he wears clothes:

  I liked it when you brought your ferret to school and it pooped on Emily’s head.

  It was harder to think of something I liked about the girls. This is what I wrote on Emily’s card:

  I liked it when that children’s book author visited our school and her pet raptor attacked you.

  I picked up Andrea’s card. It was the hardest of all. I couldn’t think of anything I liked about Andrea.

  My mom always tells me that if you don’t have anything nice to say about somebody, don’t say anything at all. But I had to write something on Andrea’s card. So I wrote this:

  I liked it when you were absent on Take Our Daughters to Work Day.

  Miss Daisy collected all the cards and sorted them while we did a math work sheet. Then she passed out all the valentines.

  Emily looked at me. She was holding my card. Then she started crying and went running out of the room.

  Sheesh, get a grip! What a crybaby! It wasn’t my fault she got attacked by a raptor.

  Andrea was reading my card too.

  “That’s horrible, Arlo!” she said.

  “So is your face,” I told her.

  “You know, Arlo,” Andrea said, “my mother says that when a boy acts mean to a girl, it means he’s secretly in love with her.”

  “No it doesn’t,” I said. “It means he hates her.”

  “My mother is a psychologist,” Andrea said. “She knows everything.”

  “Then she must know you’re annoying,” I told her.

  Andrea thinks she’s so smart. She was trying to get me to stop being mean to her by making me think I secretly like her. But I’m smart too. That’s why I’m in the gifted and talented program.

  Emily came back into the room. Miss Daisy made me apologize to her. I did, but I didn’t mean it.

  “What about you, Miss Daisy?” Andrea asked. “Who’s your valentine?”

  “It’s a secret,” she replied.

  “Ooooh, who is it?” we all asked.

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be secret,” Miss Daisy said.

  “Please? Please? Please? Please? Please?”

  Any time you want anything from a grown-up, just say Please over and over again. That’s the first rule of being a kid. But Miss Daisy refused to tell us who her secret valentine was.

  “Time for cake!” she announced.

  Miss Daisy was totally trying to change the subject so we’d forget about her secret valentine. But I didn’t care, because we were getting cake.

  Emily passed out plates. Miss Daisy cut the cake. This girl named Annette put a piece on each plate.

  “Psssst! A.J.!” Michael whispered. “I dare you to throw your cake at Andrea.”

  “Why don’t you throw your cake at Andrea?” I whispered back.

  “You’re the one who hates her,” Michael whispered. “You should throw your cake at her.”

  “I want to eat my cake,” I whispered.

  “A.J., if you don’t throw your cake at Andrea,” Michael whispered, “that means you love her.”

  “Yeah, A.J.,” added Ryan. “It’s true.”

  Annette put a piece of cake on my plate. I was faced with the hardest decision of my life. Should I eat my cake, or should I throw it at Andrea?

  If I ate it I would have yummy cake, but the guys would think I love Andrea. If I threw my cake at Andrea, the guys would know I hate her, and I would have the fun of seeing her get hit with cake. But I wouldn’t get to eat it.

  I couldn’t decide what to do. I thought so hard that my brain hurt.

  Finally I got the greatest idea in the history of the world! I broke my piece of cake in half. I ate one half and threw the other half at Andrea. It hit her right on the head!

  Andrea turned around real fast.

  “Who did that?” she shouted. “I know it was you, Arlo!”

  I tried to whistle so it looked like I didn’t throw the cake. Any time you don’t want to be blamed for something, start whistling. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

  The only problem was that my mouth was full of cake. I couldn’t whistle.

  “It wasn’t me,” I said. “Hey, Andrea, do you like seafood?”

  “Yes? Why?”

  I opened my mouth.

  “See?” I said. “Food!”

  Andrea said I was gross. Then she rushed to the girls’ room to clean the cake out of her hair.

  One…two…three…four…

  Do you know about the five-second rule? If you drop food on the floor and pick it up within five seconds, it’s still okay to eat. That’s because germs need at least six seconds to climb on the food.

  When Andrea went to the bathroom, I rushed to pick the cake up off the floor. I got to it just before five seconds were up. Then I ate it.

  I had my cake and ate it, too! Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea!

  It was the greatest day of my life.

  4

  The Power of Love

  The next morning me and a bunch of other kids were waiting at the corner to cross Walnut Street.

  “It’s almost Valentine’s Day,” Mr. Louie told us as he held up his stop-sign guitar. “That’s when love is the most powerful. Are you kids feeling the power of love?”

  “Yes!” said all the girls.

  “No!” said all the boys.

  “Love is so strong,” Mr. Louie told us, “I’ll bet we can use our love to levitate the school!”

  “‘Levitate’?” somebody asked. “What’s that?”

  I knew that word. “Levitate” means to make something float up in the air. I’m in the gifted and talented program, so I know big words like that. Besides, I saw it in a comic book once. This magician was levitating a
lady. Then he cut her in half with a saw. It was cool.

  “We can’t make the school float up in the air,” I said.

  “Sure we can,” Mr. Louie insisted. “You kids can accomplish anything if you put your minds to it. So let’s put our minds to it. Close your eyes and focus the awesome power of your love.”

  I had to admit that it would be cool to make the school levitate. Maybe if we tried really hard, we could make it float away. Then we wouldn’t have to go to school anymore.

  We all closed our eyes and tried to levitate the school.

  “Is it floating?” Ryan asked.

  “Not yet,” Mr. Louie said. “We need more love!”

  I concentrated really hard and tried to levitate the school. Then I opened my eyes. The school was still sitting there on the ground, just like it always is.

  “It’s not working,” Michael said. “Levitating a school is impossible.”

  “You gotta keep your eyes closed,” Mr. Louie told us. “Try one more time. Close your eyes real tight and concentrate. Use the power of your love!

  “Love…love…love…love…”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated so hard that my brain hurt.

  A few seconds went by. Then Mr. Louie suddenly shouted, “You did it! Right on!”

  I opened my eyes. The school was just sitting there on the ground.

  “It’s not levitating,” Ryan said.

  “It was when your eyes were closed,” Mr. Louie said. “I saw it! Outta sight! The school was floating two feet off the ground! You kids are awesome. Man, love is powerful!”

  I’m not sure if we really levitated the school or if he was just yanking our chain. But I do know one thing for sure.

  Mr. Louie is screwy!

  5

  The Love Machine