by Dan Gutman
“Hey, if wearing a pyramid on your head lowers your stress level, I’m all for it,” he said.
Ms. Jo-Jo went over and checked the Mood Meter. It said our stress level was down to fifty! Everybody started cheering.
“The students are totally relaxed now, stress-free, and ready for your big F.A.R.T. tomorrow,” said Ms. Jo-Jo.
“That is fantastic!” said Mr. Klutz. “We owe it all to you, Ms. Jo-Jo. I don’t know how you did it.”
“Vutever she did verks even better zan hypnosis!” said Dr. Brad.
Ms. Jo-Jo must be a genius. She should get the Nobel Prize. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
“Thank you,” Ms. Jo-Jo replied. “I’m sure the students are going to crush the F.A.R.T. tomorrow.”
“CRUSH THE F.A.R.T.!” I chanted as I jumped up. “CRUSH THE F.A.R.T.!”
I thought everybody was going to jump up and chant with me. But nobody jumped up. Nobody chanted. Everybody was looking at me.
I hate when that happens.
Finally, it was F.A.R.T. day, and I wasn’t stressed at all. By this point, we were all so relaxed, nothing could stress us out.
“Namaste,” Ms. Jo-Jo said when she came into our class. For the first time, she wasn’t barefoot.
“Ms. Jo-Jo!” Alexia said. “You’re wearing sandals!”
“Yes, this is a special occasion,” she told us. “Do you like them? They’re made from recycled Himalayan dream catchers.”
“They’re pretty!” said Andrea, who thinks everything girls wear is pretty.
“Good luck on the F.A.R.T. today,” said Ms. Jo-Jo. “I’m sure you kids are going to do great!”
“We go with the flow, man,” said Ryan.
“It is what it is,” said Alexia.
“I’m so chill,” said Neil, “I might fall asleep in the middle of the F.A.R.T.”
“Whatever,” I said.
That’s when Dr. Carbles came in with Mr. Klutz. Dr. Carbles was rubbing his hands together.
“These kids are going to fail big-time,” he said excitedly, “and Ella Mentry School will be shut down forever!”
“Oh, I think our students may surprise you,” said Mr. Klutz. “They’re totally relaxed and ready, thanks to Ms. Jo-Jo.”
We took out our number two pencils and Dr. Carbles handed out the test sheets. The F.A.R.T. looked a lot like the practice test we had taken. The reading part was on one side and arithmetic was on the other side. We had ten minutes to finish both sides of the test.
“On your mark . . . Get set . . . Go!” said Dr. Carbles.
I looked at the first question. It was a story about a girl who doesn’t know how to swim, so she takes swimming lessons. Then she’s in a canoe that tips over and she saves her best friend’s life. The question was: What is the lesson of the story?
It was obvious. I wrote: Instead of going canoeing, she should take a turtle yoga class.
I looked at the next question. It was a long paragraph about two kids who find a secret cave with a magic lamp and a genie in it. The kids argue over the three wishes they should wish for. The question was: What is the main idea of the paragraph?
Well, that was easy. I wrote: Who cares? Those kids should turn off their minds, relax, and float downstream.
I looked at the next question. It was about a bunch of animals. The question was: How are frogs different from toads? How are alligators different from crocodiles?
I wrote: Instead of talking about the differences between living creatures, we should talk about the ways we’re all the same.
I moved on to the next question: Look at this picture. What is going to happen next?
I looked at the picture. It showed a family of bunnies frolicking in a field, with a hunter stalking them in the corner.
I wrote: The bunnies are going to give each other foot massages and take a sound bath so they can feel their cosmic energy.
I answered a few more questions like that. Then I turned over the sheet to work on the math questions. The first one was: A pair of new shoes costs $50. How many pairs of shoes can Mary buy for $300?
Simple! I wrote: None. Shoes are jail cells for the feet. I moved on to the next question: It takes 25 minutes to play your favorite video game. How many games can you play in 2 hours?
Easy! I wrote: None. Instead of playing video games, from now on I’m going to spend my free time sitting under the pyramid while sucking on a pacifier.
I moved on to the next question: Josh lost his favorite action figure while playing with it on the school bus. A new one will cost $16. He has saved $5.60. How much more money does he need to replace his toy?
I wrote: He should save up for a crystal salt lamp instead.
I looked at the next question: There are five 12-inch pillows on a 96-inch couch. How much space should you put between each pillow so they are equally spaced on the couch?
I wrote: Does it really matter? I mean, really? Climate change may make the earth uninhabitable. Why worry about where the pillows are placed on the couch?
I looked at the next question: Johnny has 17 bananas. He gives some of them away, leaving him with 8 bananas. How many bananas did he give away?
I wrote: I don’t know, but Johnny should rub the banana peels on his ears and drink some celery juice.
I looked at the next question: Jane went trick-or-treating and collected 76 Kit Kat bars. Her parents took 52 of them away to save for later. How many Kit Kat bars did Jane eat that night?
I wrote: None. Jane cut out sugar and became a vegan. Namaste. The light in me bows to the light in you.
That was the last question on the page.
Beeeeeep!
“Pencils down!” shouted Dr. Carbles.
We passed our papers up to Mr. Cooper so he could grade them. It took like a million hundred minutes. Mr. Klutz was hovering over his shoulder the whole time.
“How did the kids make out?” he asked.
Ugh, gross! We didn’t make out!
“I just need one more minute,” said Mr. Cooper.
While Mr. Cooper graded our tests, there was no electricity in the air. Nobody was on pins and needles. We were all sitting in the middle of our seats. That’s how relaxed we were.
Finally, Mr. Cooper put down his pencil and looked up.
“It’s the moment of truth,” said Dr. Carbles, rubbing his hands together.
Mr. Cooper said, “The result of the F.A.R.T. is . . .”*
“Everybody failed,” said Mr. Cooper.
“WHAT?!” shouted Ms. Jo-Jo. “The whole class failed the test? How can that be? There must be some mistake!”
For the first time ever, she looked really upset.
“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Cooper. “They failed.”
To tell you the truth, I didn’t care that we all failed the F.A.R.T. None of us cared. We were all so relaxed, nothing seemed to matter.
“Oh, well,” I said. “It is what it is.”
“Such is life,” said Neil.
“Ya can’t win ’em all,” said Ryan.
“So it goes,” said Michael.
“Life is too short to worry about silly tests anyway,” said Mr. Klutz.
“There’s no use crying over spilled milk,” said Andrea.
HUH? What did milk have to do with anything?
The only person who seemed to care that we failed the F.A.R.T. was Dr. Carbles. He had a big grin on his face, and he was rubbing his hands together.
“That’s it!” he shouted. “Finally, I have a reason to shut down Ella Mentry School! All the teachers are fired! Klutz, you’re fired! At last my dreams have come true! Bwa-ha-ha!”*
There was total silence. You could have heard a pin drop. But not a bowling pin. They make a lot of noise.
“Uh, does this mean we don’t have to go to school anymore?” I asked.
“No!” shouted Dr. Carbles. “It means you little monsters will have to go to some other school! You’ll probably be in third grade for t
he rest of your lives! Bwa-ha-ha!”
What?! Bummer in the summer! I thought that if our school closed down, we wouldn’t have to go to school anymore.
This was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week! I wanted to run away to Antarctica and go live with the penguins. Penguins don’t have to take the F.A.R.T.
“What about me?” asked Ms. Jo-Jo. She looked like she was about to cry.
“You’re fired too!” shouted Dr. Carbles. “Beat it! And take your stinky candles with you!”
That’s when Ms. Jo-Jo went nuts.
“Noooooo!” she shrieked. “How could the kids have failed? I worked so hard to get them relaxed.”
“Maybe they were too relaxed,” said Mr. Klutz.
“What am I going to do now?” shouted Ms. Jo-Jo. “I need this job! It’s not fair! You told me to lower the kids’ stress level, and that’s exactly what I did! I can’t take it!”
Ms. Jo-Jo was crying and shouting “I can’t take it!” over and over again. Then she got down on the ground and started kicking her feet and beating her fists against the floor.
“You need to calm down, Ms. Jo-Jo!” said Mr. Klutz.
We all gathered around her on the floor.
“Take a deep breath, Ms. Jo-Jo,” I told her. “Unwind and go with the flow.”
“Breathe in . . . and out,” said Andrea.
“Leave me alone!” Ms. Jo-Jo shouted. “I know how to breathe!”
Ms. Jo-Jo is a yo-yo! She was yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering and having a total temper tantrum.
I looked at the Mood Meter. It said the stress level was over a hundred.
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. But I’m not going to tell you what it was.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you!
Our teachers were going to be fired. The school was going to be shut down. Ms. Jo-Jo was having a major meltdown, kicking and screaming on the floor like a baby. I was going to be in third grade for the rest of my life. It was the worst day in the history of the world. My life was over.
Nobody knew what to say. Nobody knew what to do. Somebody had to think fast.
That’s when Dr. Brad came running into the room. He took his watch out of his pocket, dangled it in front of Dr. Carbles’s face, and began swinging it back and forth.
“Look at zis,” he said softly.
“What are you doing?” Dr. Carbles asked, staring at the watch.
“Eezn’t zis shiny?” asked Dr. Brad.
“Shiny . . .” mumbled Dr. Carbles.
“Stare at zuh shiny vatch as eet svings back and forth . . . back and forth . . . back and forth,” said Dr. Brad.
“Back . . . and forth . . .” mumbled Dr. Carbles.
“Your eyelids are feeling a leetle heavy, no?” said Dr. Brad.
“Heavy . . .” Dr. Carbles mumbled, like a robot.
“Are you feeling zleepy?” asked Dr. Brad.
“Sleepy . . .”
“Zoon you vill be in a trance.”
“Trance . . .”
It was working! Dr. Carbles was totally hypnotized!* We saw it with our own eyes!
Well, it would be pretty hard to see it with somebody else’s eyes.
“You vill do everyzing I say,” said Dr. Brad.
“Everything you say . . .” mumbled Dr. Carbles.
“And ven I snap my fingers, you vill vake up and not remember anyzing.”
“Not remember anything . . .”
“Dr. Carbles, you vill keep Ella Mentry School open,” said Dr. Brad.
“Keep school open . . .”
“None of zuh teachers vill be fired.”
“No firing . . .”
That’s when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world. I did something that I probably shouldn’t have done. But I couldn’t help it.
I ran over and shouted at Dr. Carbles, “You think you’re a chicken!”
“Arlo, stop!” said Andrea. “That’s not nice!”
“I’m a chicken . . .” mumbled Dr. Carbles.
“You need a place to lay your eggs,” I shouted at him.
“Lay eggs . . .” mumbled Dr. Carbles. “Bok bok bok!”
Dr. Carbles made more chicken sounds. Then he started running around the room, flapping his arms.
“I’m a chicken!” he shouted. “Where can I lay my eggs? Bok bok bok! I need a place to lay my eggs! Bok bok bok!”
Well, that’s pretty much what happened. When Dr. Brad snapped his fingers, Dr. Carbles woke up and didn’t remember anything. He had forgotten all about closing the school or firing the teachers. It was cool. You should have been there!
The only bad thing is that we’ll have to keep going to Ella Mentry School. But at least I won’t be in third grade for the rest of my life. Maybe Ms. Jo-Jo will calm down. Maybe I’ll figure out how to watch my mouth. Maybe they’ll change the name of the F.A.R.T. Maybe everybody will stop talking about cake. Maybe penguins will start giving each other foot massages. Maybe people will stop dropping bowling pins. Maybe Dr. Carbles will find a place to lay his eggs.
But it won’t be easy!
About the Author and Illustrator
Courtesy of Dan Gutman and Jim Paillot
DAN GUTMAN has written many weird books for kids. He lives with his weird wife in New York (a very weird place). 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.
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Copyright
MY WEIRDER-EST SCHOOL #7: MS. JO-JO IS A YO-YO! Text copyright © 2021 by Dan Guttman. Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2021 by Jim Paillot
* * *
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-291042-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-291040-0 (pbk bdg) ISBN 978-0-06-291041-7 (lib. bdg)
* * *
2122232425PC/BRR10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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* I should be on the Board of Education, because nobody’s more bored of education than I am.
* It’s like when you go to the supermarket for toothpaste. They have mint toothpaste, whitening toothpaste, toothpaste that fights plaque, toothpaste in different sizes. Too many choices! I just want toothpaste. And I don’t even like brushing my teeth!
* You can read all about it in a book called Dr. Brad Has Gone Mad!
* This book comes with a money-back guarantee. If you’re not completely satisfied, we guarantee that you won’t get your money back.
* Or the rain.
* Ugh, she said the L word!
* Don’t look at the next page! Don’t look at the next page! Don’t look at the next page! Oh, you looked at the next page!
* Be sure to rub your hands together and say “bwa-ha-ha” in your best evil, mad scientist voice.
* Betcha didn’t see THAT coming!
