Mrs. Cooney Is Loony! Read online

  My Weird School #7

  Mrs. Cooney Is Loony!

  Dan Gutman

  Pictures by

  Jim Paillot

  To Emma

  Contents

  1 I Was a Genius!

  2 Mrs. Cooney Is Loony!

  3 My Big Decision

  4 The Last Straw

  5 Checking for Headlights

  6 Ryan and Michael Go to the Nurse

  7 The Truth About Mrs. Cooney

  8 Spying on a Spy

  9 Vowel Movements and the Third Degree

  10 I Thought She Was Gonna Die

  11 The Stakeout

  12 Good-bye to Mrs. Cooney

  About the Author and the Illustrator

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  I Was a Genius!

  My name is A.J. and I hate school.

  The worst part about second grade is math. I don’t get it. If we have calculators, why do we need to learn math? That’s like walking to school when you could ride your bike. It makes no sense, if you ask me.

  “Who can tell me what two times ten equals?” asked my teacher, Miss Daisy.

  A few kids raised their hands. I didn’t. Miss Daisy called on this crybaby girl Emily, who has red hair.

  “Miss Daisy, I don’t feel very well,” Emily said. “Can I go to the nurse’s office?”

  “Rest your head on your desk for a few minutes, Emily,” said Miss Daisy. “If you don’t feel better, you can go see Mrs. Cooney.”

  Emily put her head on her desk.

  “Now who can tell me what two times ten equals?” Miss Daisy asked again. “A.J.?”

  I had no idea what two times ten equalled. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.

  I knew that two plus two is four. And I knew that two times two is also four. So I knew that addition and multiplication were pretty much the same thing.

  I also knew that two plus ten equals twelve. So two times ten must equal twelve too.

  “Twelve?” I guessed.

  “Sorry, A.J.,” said Miss Daisy.

  “Oooh, I know!” said Andrea Young, this really annoying girl with curly brown hair. She was waving her hand back and forth like it was on fire. “Call on me, Miss Daisy. Please?”

  Andrea thinks she knows everything. I wish I could punch her.

  But nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her, because Andrea didn’t get the chance to answer. At that very moment, the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened.

  Emily got up from her seat really fast. She ran to the window.

  And then she threw up!

  It was cool. Me and my friends Michael and Ryan looked at each other and tried not to laugh. I was glad that I wasn’t walking under that window when Emily threw up.

  After she finished puking her guts out, Emily ran out of the room crying.

  “Go to Mrs. Cooney’s office, Emily!” Miss Daisy yelled to her. Then Miss Daisy went to the intercom and told Mrs. Cooney that Emily was on her way down there.

  It took a few minutes for all of us to stop talking about what had happened. I mean, it wasn’t every day that a kid tossed her cookies out the window. I was sure Miss Daisy would forget all about math after that.

  But no way.

  “Now, A.J., try to figure it out,” Miss Daisy said. “Two times ten. Two tens. We went over this. Think hard.”

  So I thought hard. I thought and I thought and I thought.

  This is what I thought—Emily is going to get to go home. She doesn’t have to sit through math. That lucky stiff.

  My friend Billy around the corner who was in second grade last year told me about this kid in his class who got to go home from school after he sneezed with his eyes open and his eyeballs fell out. Right out of his head!

  I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I did know one thing. If you get sick, you get to go home. I didn’t want my eyeballs to fall out of my head, but I wanted to go home. I wanted to get out of math.

  I started moaning.

  “A.J., are you okay?” asked Miss Daisy.

  “I don’t feel well,” I said. “I think I might have to throw up out the window. I think I’m gonna die.”

  “There must be something going around,” said Miss Daisy. “Go to Mrs. Cooney’s office! And hurry!”

  All right!

  I was a genius! On my way out of the class, I winked at Ryan and Michael.

  “So long, suckers!” I whispered. “Have fun in math!”

  I had been to the nurse’s office a few times before. Once I fell off the monkey bars in the playground and landed on my head. I had to go to the hospital and everything. It was cool. The doctor took an X-ray of my brain, but he told me he didn’t find anything. Then he laughed even though he didn’t say anything funny.

  Getting out of math wasn’t the only reason I wanted to go to Mrs. Cooney’s office. There was another reason.

  But I can’t tell you what it is.

  I shouldn’t be telling you.

  Okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anybody else or you’re going to die as soon as the words leave your lips.

  Here it is.

  Mrs. Cooney is the most beautiful lady in the history of the world.

  2

  Mrs. Cooney Is Loony!

  “Good morning, A.J.,” Mrs. Cooney said when I walked into the nurse’s office. She has a really soft voice that you can barely hear. “Miss Daisy told me you might be sick.”

  I was sick. Sick of math. But I didn’t tell Mrs. Cooney that.

  “I think I have a headache,” I lied.

  Mrs. Cooney has really pretty straight brown hair and blue eyes that look like the color of cotton candy yogurt. The kind with no sprinkles. And she was wearing a white nurse’s uniform. And she is beautiful.

  You want to know how beautiful Mrs. Cooney is? She looks like this famous movie star who I can’t remember her name. But every time my mom sees a picture of this movie star, she asks my dad if he thinks she’s pretty. And my dad says no, of course not. Then my mom gets mad. Then my dad spends like an hour trying to convince my mom that my mom is just as pretty as the movie star.

  Mrs. Cooney is even prettier than that movie star.

  I decided that I didn’t want to go home anymore. I wanted to stay in the nurse’s office with Mrs. Cooney.

  “Do you want to go home, A.J.?” asked Mrs. Cooney. “Emily’s mom just picked her up. I hope you don’t have what she has.”

  “Uh, no,” I said. “I feel a lot better now.”

  “Well, if you feel better, you can go back to class,” Mrs. Cooney said.

  “Can I stay here for a while?” I asked. “Just in case I might have to throw up?”

  “Okay,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Sit down on the couch, A.J.”

  There were about a million hundred Beanie Babies all over the couch. I sat down on it. Mrs. Cooney asked me what I had for breakfast, what time I went to sleep last night, what I was allergic to, and a bunch of other questions. She sure is a curious lady!

  Next to the couch, on the wall, there was this poster. It was a cartoon showing a kid who got some food caught in his throat. He’s choking. So this other kid comes over and grabs him from behind and whacks him in the stomach. The food goes flying out of the first kid’s mouth.

  It was a cool cartoon.

  “A.J., I have a cure for your headache,” Mrs. Cooney said. “Take this yardstick. I want you to balance it on your nose.”

  “Huh? Why would that help my headache?” I asked.

  “A.J., I’m a trained nurse,” Mrs. Cooney said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  I took the yardstick and balanced it on my nose.<
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  “Like this?” I asked.

  “Very good,” Mrs. Cooney said. “Now I want you to get up and hop on one foot while you keep balancing the yardstick.”

  “What will that do?” I asked.

  “I’m a trained nurse!” Mrs. Cooney said. “Just do it.”

  So I got up and hopped on one foot with the yardstick on my nose.

  “Does your head feel better now?” she asked.

  “A little, I guess.”

  I didn’t want to say I was better, because she would send me back to class.

  “Good,” Mrs. Cooney said. “Now while you do that, I want you to cluck like a chicken.”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “Just cluck!”

  So I clucked like a chicken while I hopped on one foot and balanced the yardstick on my nose. It wasn’t really fun at all. It was hard to do!

  “How do you feel now, A.J.?” Mrs. Cooney asked.

  “I think maybe I’m all better,” I said.

  “Good. See, I told you I had a cure,” said Mrs. Cooney. “There must be something going around. First Emily, and then you. That’s two sick kids right there. If two kids at the middle school got sick, do you know how many that would be?”

  “Four kids,” I said.

  “And what if two kids at the high school got sick too?” Mrs. Cooney asked. “How many would that be?”

  I counted on my fingers.

  “Six kids,” I said.

  “That’s a lot of sick kids!” said Mrs. Cooney. “And what if two kids at ten different schools all got sick at the same time?”

  I thought it over. I counted on my fingers. And then I realized something.

  “Hey, this sounds a lot like math!” I said. “Are you trying to make me do multiplication?”

  “Why would I do that?” Mrs. Cooney asked. “I’m a trained nurse. Now, just to make sure you are all better, I’d like you to blow up this balloon, rub it on your head, and sing ‘Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?’”

  Ugh. I hate that song.

  “I feel fine now, Mrs. Cooney,” I said. “I think I’d better get back to class. Thank you.”

  “Happy to be of service,” she said.

  Mrs. Cooney sure was weird. But as I walked out of the nurse’s office, I realized something else.

  When I grow up, I want to marry Mrs. Cooney.

  3

  My Big Decision

  “She made you balance a yardstick on your nose?” Ryan asked. He couldn’t believe it.

  “I had to cluck like a chicken, too,” I said.

  “Mrs. Cooney is loony!” said Michael.

  We were sitting around the vomitorium eating lunch. I gave Ryan my disgusting applesauce and he gave me his cupcake. Ryan will eat anything.

  Ryan and Michael told me that after math was over, Miss Daisy taught the class about vowels.

  “Vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, and u,” Michael told me.

  “I thought vowels were e, i, e, i, o,” I said. “Like in ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm.’”

  “Sometimes y is a vowel,” added Ryan.

  “Sometimes?” I asked. “Well, is y a vowel or isn’t it?”

  “Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t,” Michael said.

  “I think y should make up its mind,” I said.

  It was time to clean off our table. It was also time for me to tell the guys about my big decision. I had been thinking about it all during lunch. I was thinking about it so much I could barely enjoy Ryan’s cupcake.

  “Guys,” I said. “You’re my best friends, so I have to let you in on a secret. Promise not to tell anyone?”

  “Promise,” promised Ryan and Michael.

  “When I grow up,” I said, “I’m gonna marry Mrs. Cooney.”

  “Oooh!” Ryan shouted. “A.J. and Mrs. Cooney are in love!”

  “Shut up!” I said. “You promised!”

  “A.J., girls have cooties!” Michael said. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Only little girls have cooties,” I told him. “Grown-up girls don’t have cooties. And even if they did, I’m sure Mrs. Cooney has a cootie cure. She is a trained nurse, you know.”

  I never should have told Ryan and Michael my big news.

  “Maybe Mrs. Cooney will want to marry me,” Ryan said.

  “Hey, I thought of marrying her first,” I said.

  “Maybe she’ll marry all of us,” said Michael.

  Suddenly, at the next table, Miss Smarty-Pants Know-It-All Who Should Have an Elevator Fall on Her Head turned around.

  “You silly dumbheads,” Andrea said. “Mrs. Cooney is already married!”

  “What?” we all said. “How do you know?”

  “That’s why she’s called Mrs. Cooney!” Andrea said. “If she wasn’t married, she’d be called Miss Cooney.”

  Andrea thinks she knows so much. And now she knows I’m in love with Mrs. Cooney. I wish I could punch her.

  As we scraped our trays into the garbage can, Ryan and Michael decided that they would marry Mrs. Cooney even if she was already married. They said that they were going to pretend to be sick so they could go see Mrs. Cooney too.

  “Hey, that was my idea!” I complained.

  “It was a good idea,” said Michael.

  “It’s not fair!” I said.

  “It is too,” said Ryan.

  As it turned out, none of us had to pretend to be sick and go see Mrs. Cooney.

  “Clear off your desks,” said Miss Daisy when we got back to class. “Mrs. Cooney is coming to talk to us.”

  All right!

  4

  The Last Straw

  Miss Daisy told us to be on our best behavior while she called Mrs. Cooney on the intercom. So as soon as she turned her back on the class, me and Michael got up and shook our butts.

  Finally, after about a million hundred minutes of waiting, Mrs. Cooney walked in the door.

  “Va-va-va-voom!” I whispered to Michael, who sits next to me.

  I really don’t know what “va-va-va-voom” means, but that’s what my dad always says when he sees a picture of that movie star who looks like Mrs. Cooney.

  “I’m in love,” Michael said.

  “Me too,” said Ryan, who was sitting behind me.

  “Me three,” I said.

  It was bad enough that Mrs. Cooney had a husband. Now Michael and Ryan were in love with her too! How would I ever get Mrs. Cooney to marry me instead of all those other guys?

  My friend Billy around the corner knows a lot about girls. He says the way to get a girl to like you is to make her laugh. So I decided that I would try that.

  “What are you going to teach us today, Mrs. Cooney?” asked Miss Daisy.

  “Today we’re going to learn about nutrition,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Does anybody know what a food pyramid is?”

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s what they eat in Egypt.”

  Some of the kids laughed, but Mrs. Cooney didn’t. I would have to try harder.

  “Please raise your hand instead of shouting out,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Andrea?”

  “The food pyramid shows the groups of foods that make up a good diet,” Andrea said.

  “Good, Andrea,” said Mrs. Cooney as she held up a big poster of a pyramid with food all over it. She gave Andrea a smiley face sticker for her notebook. Andrea has so many smiley face stickers on her notebook that you can hardly see the notebook anymore.

  “Can anyone name all the food groups?” asked Mrs. Cooney.

  This time I raised my hand, and Mrs. Cooney called on me.

  “The refrigerator, the freezer, the pantry, and the kitchen cabinets,” I said. “That’s where we group the food in my house.”

  A few kids laughed. Mrs. Cooney crossed her arms in front of her and tapped her foot until the laughing died down. She had on her serious face. She’s cute when she’s serious.

  “Not exactly,” she said. Andrea had her hand in the air, as usual, and she got called on. Andrea named all the
dumb food groups and got another smiley face sticker.

  Why doesn’t a food pyramid fall on Andrea’s head? I wish I could punch her.

  “Good,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Kids, where you eat may be as important as what you eat. Tell me, where do you usually eat your meals?”

  “In my mouth,” I said. “Where else would I eat my meals?”

  “No, I mean, do you eat in your kitchen?” Mrs. Cooney asked. “Do you eat in the car? Do you usually eat in front of the TV?”

  “We eat all our meals in front of the TV,” I said.

  “Why, A.J.?” asked Mrs. Cooney.

  “Because there’s no room behind the TV,” I said. “We’d be squished.”

  All the kids laughed. Mrs. Cooney put her hands on her hips and wrinkled up her forehead at me. But she still wasn’t laughing. Maybe she was in a bad mood.

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Mrs. Cooney said. “You can’t do good work at school if you haven’t eaten a good breakfast. That goes for grown-ups, too. For example, it’s hard for me to work on an empty stomach.”

  “You shouldn’t work on an empty stomach, Mrs. Cooney,” I said. “You should work on your desk.”

  Everybody laughed at that one. Mrs. Cooney slapped her own forehead, like there was a bug on it.

  “A.J.,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Can you please try not to shout things out? Now how many of you eat breakfast in your pajamas?”

  “That’s disgusting!” I said. “My mom puts my breakfast on a plate.”

  “A.J.! Go sit in the hall!” Mrs. Cooney said. “That’s the last straw!”

  What did straws have to do with anything? She wasn’t even talking about straws.

  Why are grown-ups constantly running out of straws? I offered to bring some more straws from home, but Mrs. Cooney said she didn’t want them.