by Dan Gutman
My Weird School #21
Ms. Krup Cracks Me Up!
Dan Gutman
Pictures by Jim Paillot
To Emma
Contents
1 Field Trips Are Boring
2 Weird People
3 The Giganotosaurus
4 Wild Yak Attack
5 The Scary, Dead Zombie Buffalo
6 The Hall of Dinosaurs
7 It’s Alive!
8 We Have a Problem
9 Slinking Around
10 Penguins Are Cool
11 How to Stuff Stuff
12 The Amazing World of Poop
13 Stuff Like This Happens Every Day
About the Author and the Illustrator
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Field Trips Are Boring
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
It was Monday—the worst day of the week. We were on our way to lunch in the vomitorium at Ella Mentry School. My friend Ryan Dole was the line leader. I was the door holder. All the guys were talking about the big football game that was on TV over the weekend. All the girls were gabbing about some girly stuff, like what color shoes they have.
“Enough chitchat!” said our teacher, Mrs. Daisy.
Mrs. Daisy used to be Miss Daisy, but she went off and got married to our reading specialist, Mr. Macky. So now we call her Mrs. Daisy.
“I just got some great news!” she told us. “Next week our class is going on a field trip!”
“Yay!” yelled all the girls.
“Boo!” yelled all the boys.
Ugh! I remember the last time we went on a field trip. It was totally lame. Do you know why? We went on a field trip…to a field! How lame is that? We had to look at disgusting bugs. Our science teacher, Mr. Docker, even ate one of them. But then, Mr. Docker is off his rocker.
We should go on a field trip to an amusement park or a video arcade. That would be cool.
“I love field trips!” said this annoying girl with curly brown hair named Andrea, who loves everything teachers love.
“Me too!” said her crybaby friend, Emily. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to visit a natural history museum!” Mrs. Daisy said, all excited.
WHAT?! A natural history museum?
Natural stuff is boring.
History is boring.
And nothing’s more boring than a museum.
So a natural history museum is sure to be the most boring place in the history of the world!
Now you know why I hate school.
2
Weird People
I grabbed a lunch table in the vomitorium with the guys. Andrea and some of the girls sat at the next table.
Michael, who never ties his shoes, put straws in his nostrils and said he was a walrus. Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes, put Tater Tots over his eyeballs. Ryan balanced his lunch box on his head.
“Ugh, broccoli!” I said as I opened my lunch bag. “I’m not eating food that looks like a tree.”
“I’ll eat it,” said Ryan, who will eat anything. Ryan even eats stuff that isn’t food. He’s weird.
“I don’t want to go to a natural history museum,” Michael said.
“What a snore!” I told the guys. “I bet they’re going to tell us the history of rocks.”
“Hey, rocks are cool,” said Neil the nude kid. “I have a rock collection at home.”
“You collect rocks?” I asked Neil. “Why collect something that’s just lying around on the ground? You might as well collect air.”
“My uncle collects air,” Ryan said. “Whenever he goes on a trip, he brings an empty bottle along. He’s got bottles of air from all over the world.”
“Your uncle is weird,” I told Ryan.
“One time he couldn’t find a bathroom and had to use one of his bottles,” Ryan added.
“Ew, gross. See? I told you he was weird,” I said.
That’s when Little Miss I-Know-Everything opened her big mouth at the next table.
“Natural history isn’t just about rocks and air, dumbheads!” she said. “It’s about all the objects in nature, like plants and animals.”
“So is your face,” I told Andrea.
Any time anybody says something mean to you, just say “So is your face.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.
I wish some plants and animals would fall on Andrea’s head. Like a 400-pound piece of broccoli, and a hippopotamus.
3
The Giganotosaurus
“Bingle boo!” said our bus driver, Mrs. Kormel. “Limpus kidoodle!”
“Bingle boo!” we all said, as we piled onto the bus.
Mrs. Kormel invented her own secret language. So instead of just saying “Hello” and “Sit down,” she says “Bingle boo” and “Limpus kidoodle.”
Mrs. Kormel is not normal.
I had to lug my sleeping bag with me, because we were going to be spending the whole night in the natural history museum. Just what I always wanted to do, sleep next to boring dead stuff.* At least I had my Batman sleeping bag. Batman is cool.
There were some grown-ups on the bus with us too. Mrs. Daisy and Mr. Macky and Mr. Docker were all there. Ryan’s mom, Mrs. Dole, came along as a chaperone. That’s a fancy word that means “a grown-up who hangs around with kids to make sure we don’t have any fun.”
“Are we there yet?” I asked Mrs. Kormel as soon as she started driving.
“No, A.J.,” she said.
I kept asking Mrs. Kormel every five minutes if we were there yet. Any time you’re in a car or bus, always ask if you’re there yet—even if you know perfectly well that you’re not there yet. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
It took a million hundred hours to get to the natural history museum.
“Pinkle burflenobin!” announced Mrs. Kormel when the bus finally stopped.
That means “Everybody get off the bus” in Mrs. Kormel’s secret language.
As soon as we walked into the museum, we heard an announcement: “The museum will be closing in five minutes.”
“Yay!” I shouted. “We can go home!”
“That means everybody else has to go home, Arlo,” said Andrea.
“I knew that,” I lied. I hate it when Andrea calls me by my real name.
In the entrance of the museum, I looked up and saw the most amazing thing in the history of the world! It was a huge dinosaur skeleton that just about filled the whole room! Dinosaurs are cool.*
“WOW!” everybody said, which is “MOM” upside-down.
“It’s a Giganotosaurus!” said Andrea. “He was one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs in the world—even bigger than T. rex!”
“That’s right, Andrea!” said Mr. Docker. “How did you know that?”
“I read about the Giganotosaurus in my encyclopedia,” said Andrea, all proud of herself. “He weighed eight tons!”
“He should have gone to Weight Watchers,” I said. “My mom lost twenty pounds that way.”
“Where do you think they got a Giganotosaurus?” asked Ryan.
“They probably went to Rent-a-Dinosaur,” Michael said. “You can rent anything.”
Next to the Giganotosaurus was a big bear that was standing up on its hind legs like it was about to attack. It was cool, and scary.
Ryan’s mom and the other grown-ups told us to spread out our sleeping bags on the floor underneath Giganotosaurus. Then they went off to do boring grownup stuff, like drink coffee and talk about the weather. What’s up with that? Grown-ups are always drinking coffee and talking about the weather. I tasted coffee once, and I thought I was gonna throw up. But if they didn’t drink coffee and talk about t
he weather, I don’t know what grown-ups would do all day. They’re weird.
Speaking of grown-ups, I wrote a poem about my dad. It goes like this:
My dad has hair growing out of his nose.
If he didn’t cut it, it would reach his toes.
He also has hair coming out of his ears.
I tried to tell him, but he couldn’t hear.
Why do men grow hair in such strange places?
I thought it was weird when it grew on their faces.
I unrolled my sleeping bag right next to Ryan’s. Then I turned around and saw…
THE COOLEST THING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!
I’m not gonna 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!
4
Wild Yak Attack
It was a candy machine!
“We want candy!” everybody started chanting. “We want candy!”
All the grown-ups came running over from wherever they were drinking coffee and talking about the weather.
“We’re not here to eat candy,” Mr. Docker told us. “We’re here to learn about dinosaurs and natural history.”
“I could learn a lot more about dinosaurs and natural history if I had candy,” I told him.
“No!”
Sheesh, what an old grouch! Mr. Docker probably knows a lot about dinosaurs because they were around when he was a kid.
We were all grumbling about the candy when I suddenly noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was even more amazing than a candy machine. It was a big, brown, hairy animal with horns and a hump on its back! It was standing very still right next to us.
“What’s that?!” Neil the nude kid asked.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Daisy, who doesn’t know anything.
“It’s a wild yak!” said Andrea, who knows everything. “I learned about it in my encyclopedia. Yaks live in Tibet.”
“That yak wasn’t here a minute ago,” said Michael.
“Maybe it just walked over,” said Emily.
“It can’t walk over, dumbhead,” I said. “It’s dead.”
Emily looked like she was going to cry. That girl will cry over any old thing.
“Hey, I think that wild yak just moved,” said Neil the nude kid.
“It didn’t move,” I told him. “It’s stuffed, just like the bear.”
But just then the yak let out a weird yak sound.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” yelled all the boys.
“EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!” yelled all the girls.
I thought I was gonna die. Everybody was freaking out. That’s when the wild yak threw off its wild yak fur. And do you know what was underneath?
A lady!
She had glasses, dark hair, and a pointy nose. On her belt were a walkie-talkie and a flashlight.
“You must be the students from Ella Mentry School!” said the lady. “My name is Ms. Krup. I’ll be your tour guide this evening.”
“I almost peed my pants!” said Ryan.
“Sorry I scared you,” Ms. Krup said. “I’m just so excited that you came to spend the evening with me in the museum. We’re going to have so much fun!”
“Why are you wearing a wild yak fur?” asked Andrea.
“Well, the wild yak wasn’t using it anymore,” said Ms. Krup. “So I thought I would.”
That Ms. Krup lady is weird.
Suddenly, the lights dimmed. “The museum is now closed,” somebody announced.
It was a little scary in the dark.
Ms. Krup turned on her flashlight. We all gathered around her.
“The museum is a magical place at night,” she whispered as she gave each of us a name tag. “I’m going to take you on a journey. We’re going to encounter some amazing creatures and see some incredible things. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the sounds of the jungle, the forest, the desert, the mountains, and the ocean.”
“I don’t hear anything,” I said.
“She said almost, dumbhead,” Andrea told me.
“Well, either you hear something or you don’t,” I said. “You can’t almost hear something.”
“I wish I didn’t hear you, Arlo.”
I was going to say something mean to Andrea, but I didn’t get the chance because a loud BLEEP came out of Ms. Krup’s walkie-talkie. We all jumped.
“Ms. Krup!” a voice said. “Tyrannosaurus rex is missing!”
“I’m on it, Chief!” said Ms. Krup. “Kids, we’ve got to find Rexy! Are you ready to go on an adventure?”
“Yes!” said all the girls.
“Can we kill it?” asked all the boys.
“It’s already dead, Arlo!” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. “Tyrannosaurus rex has been extinct for sixty million years.”
“Your face stinks.”
I bet Ms. Krup was yanking our chain about that missing T. rex. Dead stuff can’t run away. She was just trying to make the boring museum seem interesting.
“Follow me!” she said.
5
The Scary, Dead Zombie Buffalo
Ms. Krup took a bunch of flashlights out of a box and gave one to each of us. Then we went off to search for the missing T. rex. Everybody was whispering and slinking around like secret agents. It was cool. Me and the guys pointed our flashlights up from our chins and made scary faces at the girls.
“The first floor of the museum is where we keep most of our dioramas,” said Ms. Krup.
“I had diorama once,” I told her. “My mom gave me some yucky pink medicine and it went away.”
“That’s ‘diarrhea,’ dumbhead!” Andrea said. “You had diarrhea.”
“So does your face,” I said.
Those diorama things were cool. Each one was a little room with animal statues and scenery behind glass. We saw pandas, gorillas, monkeys, beavers, reindeer, bighorn sheep, polar bears, and a moose.
The sign next to the moose said it weighs a half a ton and eats 20,000 leaves a day. That thing should definitely go to Weight Watchers.
But next to the moose was a buffalo, and it was even bigger. We pressed our noses against the glass so we could see it better.
“It looks so real,” Andrea said.
“It is real,” Ms. Krup told us. “These animals aren’t statues. They’re the real thing.”
“That means they’re…dead?” asked Michael.
“That’s right,” said Ms. Krup.
Just then I thought I heard scary music playing in the background. It was like a movie I saw once. Somebody said the word “dead” and scary music started playing.
“I’m scared,” said Emily.
“If that thing was a zombie buffalo,” I whispered, “it could jump out at us. And then we’d become zombies, too.”
“My uncle lives in Buffalo,” said Neil the nude kid.
“Your uncle lives in a buffalo?” I asked. “Why doesn’t he live in a house like a normal person?”
“It’s Buffalo, New York!” said Andrea.
“I knew that,” I lied. It would be weird to live in a buffalo.
“I know a song about buffaloes,” Emily said.
“Would you like to sing it for us?” asked Ms. Krup.
Emily nodded and began to sing:
“Oh give me a home
Where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer
And the cantaloupe play….”
Well, everybody just about died laughing. I slapped my head.
“It’s not ‘cantaloupe,’ dumbhead!” I told Emily. “It’s ‘ante lope.’ Cantaloupes can’t play. They’re melons!”
Emily started crying, of course. What a crybaby! I bet she would’ve run away, too, if there weren’t scary dead animals all over the place.
Ms. Krup made us tell Emily we were sorry.
Next to the buffalo was another diorama with some skunks and an opossum in it.
“These are nocturnal animals,” Ms. Krup told us.
“Does anybody know what ‘nocturnal’ means?”
Needless to say, Miss Smarty-Pants-Know-It-All was waving her hand in the air.
“Nocturnal animals sleep during the day and come out at night,” Andrea said, all proud of herself.
Why doesn’t a nocturnal animal fall on her head? I hate her.
“That’s right, Andrea!” said Ms. Krup. “Some people claim that our nocturnal friends walk around the museum in the middle of the night.”
“That’s scary!” Emily said.
It is not. That girl thinks everything is scary.
Ms. Krup showed us the rest of the dioramas on the first floor. But we never found the missing T. rex.
“What’s in that room, Ms. Krup?” Andrea asked when we passed a door next to the stairs.
“Oh, that’s a secret room,” Ms. Krup replied.
“Ooooh, what’s in The Secret Room?” we all asked.
“If I told you,” said Ms. Krup, “then it wouldn’t be secret.”
“PLEASE? PLEASE? PLEASE? PLEASE?”
Any time a grown-up won’t tell you something, just say “Please” until they can’t stand it anymore. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“Hmmm,” Ms. Krup finally said. “Are you boys and girls really good at keeping secrets?”
“Yes!” we all shouted.
“Well,” said Ms. Krup, “so am I.”
And she started climbing up the stairs to the second floor.
Bummer in the summer!
6
The Hall of Dinosaurs
There were about a million hundred stairs to climb. But when I got to the top, I saw the most amazing thing in the history of the world!
