Ms. LaGrange Is Strange! Read online

  And I ate the pea.

  It wasn’t bad, to tell you the truth. At least I didn’t throw up.

  “Okay,” I said, after swallowing the pea, “what does ‘YAWYE’ mean?”

  “‘YAWYE,’” Ms. LaGrange said, “stands for You Are What You Eat.”

  “You are what you eat?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” she said. “If you eat good, healthy food, you’ll be a good, healthy person. And if you eat junk, well…”

  I thought about that for a moment.

  “I’m a pea!” I screamed. “Ugh, it’s disgusting! I’m going to die!”

  10

  Andrea’s Birthday Party

  I told my mom I was sick from eating a pea, but she said I had to go to Andrea’s birthday party anyway. She even made me dress up like a grown-up in a jacket and tie. It was horrible.

  When Mom dropped me off at Andrea’s house, she made me promise to behave and handed me a present she had bought for Andrea. I went up the steps and rang the doorbell.

  “I’m so glad to see you, A.J.,” said Andrea’s mother, who looks just like Andrea but with wrinkles.

  “I thought you said you weren’t coming,” said Andrea.

  “My mother made me,” I said, handing her the present.

  I saw Emily and a few other girls in our class. It took me about two seconds to realize something horrible. Of all the kids at Andrea’s party, I was the only boy. The only boy! There were all these giggly girls running around Andrea’s living room in party dresses. It was awful.

  I went into the kitchen. Maybe at least they’d have some good junk food to eat, I figured. But you’ll never guess in a million years who was standing at the stove in the kitchen.

  It was Ms. LaGrange!

  “Bonjour, Mister A.J.!” she said. “You look very handsome in a jacket and tie!”

  “Ms. LaGrange, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m the caterer,” she said.

  “So you made the food?”

  “We.”

  “We?” I asked. “You and who else?

  “No,” she said. “We means ‘yes’ in French.”

  That didn’t make any sense to me.

  “If we means ‘yes,’” I asked, “how do you say ‘we’?”

  “We?”

  “Yes,” I said. “How do you say ‘we’?”

  “We,” she said.

  “But you said we means ‘yes,’” I said. “It can’t also mean ‘we.’”

  “No?”

  Oh, forget it. That French talk makes no sense at all.

  “Did you make any junk food?” I asked.

  “Junk food?” said Ms. LaGrange. “Oh, no. Remember YAWYE? You are what you eat.”

  The party was the most boring party in the history of the world. Ms. LaGrange made a bunch of weird French foods that don’t even exist in America. I almost ate this thing called escargot until Ms. LaGrange told me it was a snail.

  I almost ate a snail! I thought I was gonna throw up.

  “Isn’t trying new foods fun, A.J.?” Andrea’s mother asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I lied. “Lots of fun. Are we gonna play some games or something?”

  “Games?” Andrea’s mother asked. “What kind of games?”

  “You know, like when you whack a piñata with a baseball bat until it busts and all the candy falls out,” I said.

  “That sounds rather violent,” Andrea’s mother said. “In this house we don’t believe in hitting.”

  I was so bored. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did! Everybody just sat there eating snails and drinking tea. There was nothing for me to do.

  I noticed a little garbage can in the corner. I decided to see if I could throw one of those snail things into the garbage can from across the room. So I picked one up and threw it at the garbage can.

  The only problem was, Emily was standing next to the garbage can. Instead of hitting the garbage can, I hit Emily. In the head.

  She fell backward and landed on a little table that had a bunch of teacups on it. The teacups went flying everywhere. Emily was on the floor, freaking out. Man, she falls down a lot.

  “There’s tea all over my shirt!” Emily screamed.

  “Now it’s a tea shirt!” I said. “Ha-ha-ha!”

  I thought that was pretty funny, but nobody laughed. Girls have no sense of humor at all.

  “I bumped my mouth!” Emily shouted. “I think my loose tooth is going to fall out!”

  What a crybaby. Her dumb tooth was going to fall out anyway. What was the big deal?

  Finally the horrible party was over, and my mom came to pick me up. On the way out, Ms. LaGrange handed me a goody bag. You’ll never guess in a million hundred years what was in it.

  Tea bags!

  That had to be the dumbest party in the history of the world. The only good thing about it was that Andrea probably won’t invite me to her birthday party next year.

  11

  Silent Lunch

  It was the next day. The green traffic light was on in the vomitorium.

  “How was Andrea’s party, A.J.?” Ryan asked me, poking Michael in the side and giggling.

  “It was cool,” I lied. “There was a rock climbing wall and a half pipe for skate-boarding. At the end I got a goody bag, and there was a remote control car in it.”

  No way I was going to tell them I sat around drinking tea with Andrea and her friends.

  While we were talking, I was playing with my fork and spoon on the table. And when I put my spoon across my fork, the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened.

  “I figured it out!” I shouted.

  “Figured what out?” asked Ryan and Michael.

  “I just figured out how the Egyptians picked up those big rocks to build the pyramids!”

  “How?”

  “Look,” I said, scooping up some of Ryan’s carrots and peas with my spoon. “Imagine these peas and carrots are big rocks. Nobody could pick one up. But if they could slide them onto a big scoop like this, and put the scoop across a big fork like this, it would be easier to pick up.”

  I put the spoonful of carrots and peas across my fork, like the spoon and fork were a little seesaw.

  “You’re right!” Michael said, smashing his fist down on the table.

  The only problem was, Michael’s fist missed the table and hit the long end of the spoon instead. The peas and carrots went flying up in the air. They hit the ceiling and then…they stuck up there!

  The ceiling was splotched with peas and carrots. It was the coolest thing in the history of the world! You should have been there!

  Me and Ryan and Michael looked up at the ceiling. We were excited that I had solved the mystery of the pyramids.

  That’s when Miss I Know Everything came over to our table. She looked all mad.

  “A.J.,” Andrea said, “you ruined my birthday party!”

  “I did not!”

  “Did too!”

  We went back and forth like that a few more times, but then something totally amazing happened. Remember those peas and carrots that were stuck to the ceiling? Well, I guess they didn’t stick very well, because they started falling down—on Andrea’s head!

  “Eeeeeek!” Andrea screamed. “I can’t see! I’ve got carrots in my eyes!”

  “That’s okay, Andrea,” I said. “Carrots are good for your eyes!”

  Ryan and Michael thought that was hilarious, but I guess Andrea didn’t. She picked up Michael’s bowl of spaghetti and dumped it over my head.

  Nobody dumps spaghetti over my head and gets away with it. I picked up Ryan’s bowl of macaroni and cheese and pushed it in Andrea’s face.

  “Food fight! Food fight!” everybody started chanting.

  I’m not exactly sure what happened next. Things sort of went out of control.

  Kids started shouting and throwing stuff at each other. Mr. Klutz turned on the red light, but it didn’t help.

  “This is a sile
nt lunch!” Mr. Klutz shouted. But it was so loud in there that you could hardly hear him.

  Pickle chips were flying around. Somebody got hold of Ms. LaGrange’s pepper shaker and started hitting meat-balls up in the air like they were baseballs. Emily got hit in the head with a meatball, and the big crybaby freaked out.

  “Help, help!” she screamed. “My tooth fell out! I think I swallowed it. I’m choking!”

  Emily got up to run out of the room, but instead she crashed right into the big traffic light. It toppled over. As it was falling, the traffic light hit our “Welcome, Ella Mentry” banner and ripped it in half. Crash!

  It was at that moment that the door to the vomitorium opened. You’ll never guess in a million years who walked in.

  It was Ella Mentry!

  Everybody stopped what they were doing. Nobody made a sound.

  Ella Mentry limped into the vomitorium. She held a cane in one hand. In her other hand she held the plaque we won for having the cleanest school in the district.

  I looked at Ms. LaGrange. Ms. LaGrange looked at Ella Mentry. Ella Mentry looked around the vomitorium.

  “Welcome to Ella Mentry School!” said Mr. Klutz, coming over to greet her. “We are proud and honored—”

  Mr. Klutz never got the chance to finish his sentence. Ella Mentry picked up some kid’s chocolate pudding and dumped it over Mr. Klutz’s head!

  “I always wanted to do that,” Ella Mentry said.

  “Well,” Mr. Klutz said, licking the pudding off his face. “I guess lunch is on me!”

  Mr. Klutz is nuts!

  The next thing anyone knew, food was flying through the air again. Mrs. Cooney, the nurse, hit our music teacher, Mr. Loring, with a beef and bean burrito. Ms. Hannah, the art teacher, threw a plate full of chili surprise at our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. Miss Small, the gym teacher, hit our science teacher, Mr. Docker, with a corn dog.

  It was raining Tater Tots! Kids were squirting ketchup packets at each other. Somebody was running around spraying people with Ms. LaGrange’s spray bottle.

  “I haven’t had this much fun in years!” Ella Mentry said as she picked up a chicken potpie and heaved it across the vomitorium.

  Ella Mentry is weird.

  I guess Mr. Klutz can’t say that we don’t get enough exercise anymore. With all the throwing and ducking and running around, food fights are great exercise.

  Eventually we ran out of food to throw at each other. When it was all over, Café LaGrange was a mess. All the food groups were stuck to the wall.

  “Maybe I should go back to France, no?” Ms. LaGrange said.

  Miss Lazar, the custodian, came in with her mop.

  “Oh, great,” she said. “A mess. I love cleaning up messes.”

  “Don’t clean it up!” shouted Ms. Hannah, our art teacher. “It’s not a mess. This is art!”

  Ms. Hannah is bananas!

  Everybody got quiet when Ella Mentry cleared her throat to talk.

  “Where is the boy who wrote me a letter saying he hated school?”

  Everybody looked at me. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.

  So I started burping—A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P…

  When I finished burping the alphabet, the whole school gave me a standing ovation. Ella Mentry gave me a hug. She said that when she was a student here, she hated school too.

  “But coming back to Ella Mentry School was the most fun I ever had in my life. Thank you.”

  To celebrate, Ms. LaGrange brought out the special dessert she was hiding in the freezer. It was called sorbet. It’s sort of a cross between ice cream and water ice. Yum! While we were eating it, Emily found her tooth. It was right on her plate. What a dumbhead!

  As it turned out, we didn’t get to keep the award for having the cleanest school in the district. Somebody at the board of education found out about the food fight, and they gave the award to some other school instead.

  Mr. Klutz said that if we clean up the vomitorium and work really hard to control ourselves, maybe next year we’ll have the cleanest school in the district.

  But it won’t be easy!

  About the Author and the Illustrator

  DAN GUTMAN has written many weird books for kids. Dan lives in New Jersey (a very weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. You can visit him on his weird website at www.dangutman.com

  JIM PAILLOT lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isn’t that weird? You can visit him on his weird website at www.jimpaillot.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Cover art © 2005 by Jim Paillot

  Copyright

  MY WEIRD SCHOOL #8: MS. LAGRANGE IS STRANGE!. Text copyright © 2005 by Dan Gutman. Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061973482

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