Mrs. Cooney Is Loony!
Page 3
“What’s the matter?” Emily asked.
Andrea couldn’t talk. She was gagging.
“She’s got something caught in her throat!” Ryan said.
We all looked at the half-eaten apple in Andrea’s hand. She was gasping, trying to breathe. I looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Michael. Michael looked at Emily. Andrea dropped the apple.
“We’ve got to do something!” shouted Emily, and she went running out of the vomitorium.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.
Suddenly I remembered that poster I saw on the wall of Mrs. Cooney’s office. The one with the cartoon of a kid choking.
“Quick!” I said. “Somebody punch Andrea in the stomach!”
“Are you crazy?” Michael said. “We’ll get in trouble!”
“If you punch her in the stomach, the apple will come out!” I shouted.
“I had to stay after school the time I shot spitballs at her,” Ryan said. “I’m not punching her in the stomach.”
“It was your idea, A.J.,” said Michael. “You punch her in the stomach.”
I always wanted to punch Andrea, come to think of it. I grabbed her from behind like the guy did in the poster. Then I rammed both of my fists against her stomach.
The chunk of apple shot out of Andrea’s mouth and bounced off Ryan’s head.
Andrea started to breathe again.
“A.J., you saved my life!” she said. Then she gave me a hug.
“Oooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are in love!”
Emily came running into the vomitorium with Mrs. Cooney, who was carrying her first-aid kit.
“What happened?” shouted Mrs. Cooney. “Are you okay, Andrea?”
“I am now,” Andrea said. “I had a piece of apple caught in my throat, but A.J. knew what to do. He probably saved my life.”
“Wow!” said Mrs. Cooney. “You’re a real hero, A.J.!”
“It was nothing, really,” I said.
Then Mrs. Cooney gave me a hug.
“Oooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Mrs. Cooney are in love!”
“Shut up!” I told Ryan.
11
The Stakeout
“Meet me by the monkey bars at three o’clock,” Andrea whispered as she passed my desk. “I’ve got a plan.”
When I got to the playground after school, Ryan and Michael were there. So were Andrea and Emily. Andrea looked around to make sure nobody else could hear us.
“I overheard Mrs. Cooney talking to Principal Klutz,” Andrea said. “She’s going to be in her office at seven o’clock tonight.”
“So what?” Ryan asked.
“So we can catch her in the act, dumbhead!” Andrea said.
“We can peek in the window of the nurse’s office,” said Emily.
“I’ll bring my camera,” Michael said. “We can use the pictures as evidence.”
“Smart thinking,” said Andrea.
It sounded like a good idea. But there was one problem. Even though I only live a block from school, my mom wasn’t going to let me go out by myself at night. I didn’t want to tell everybody that, because I didn’t want them calling me a baby.
When I got home, I told my mom that, oh, by the way, I have to go over to school after dinner.
“What for?” my mom asked.
“It’s a secret,” I said. “We’re making presents for Mother’s Day.”
I don’t usually like to lie. But my mother once told me that sometimes it’s okay to lie. Like when your grandma gives you a present, you have to say you like it no matter how horrible and disgusting it is.
The fate of the world was on my shoulders. I figured this was one of those times it was okay to lie.
“Mother’s Day, eh?” said Mom, all smiles. “Okay. But you be careful crossing the street.”
It was drizzling a little when I got to school. It didn’t look like anyone else was around. But then I heard somebody call out, “In here!”
I looked in the bushes under Mrs. Cooney’s window. Michael and Ryan and Andrea and Emily were huddled in there.
“Shh!” Andrea said. “Mrs. Cooney isn’t here yet.”
“We should synchronize our watches,” Ryan said.
“What does that mean?” asked Emily.
“How should I know?” Ryan said. “But they always do that in the movies.”
None of us had watches, but it didn’t matter because at that very instant a car came around the corner and pulled up to the curb in front of the school.
“Wow, a Jaguar!” said Michael, who knows a lot about cars.
“Spies always drive cool cars,” said Ryan.
The car stopped and somebody got out.
“Look, it’s her!” we all said. “It’s Mrs. Cooney!”
“And she’s wearing a trench coat!” Ryan said. “Spies always wear trench coats.”
“Maybe she’s wearing a trench coat because it’s raining,” I said.
“She’s got a briefcase, too,” Ryan said. “Spies always carry briefcases.”
Mrs. Cooney walked around to the front door of the school. It wasn’t long until the light went on in the nurse’s office over our heads.
The window was a little too high for us to look inside. Michael and Ryan got down on their hands and knees, and I climbed up on their backs. I was holding on to the windowsill with my hands. I could just barely see when I stood on my tiptoes.
“Do you see anything?” Emily asked.
“Mrs. Cooney is looking in her file cabinet,” I said.
“Spies are always looking in file cabinets,” Ryan said. “That’s where they store their secret information.”
“A.J.,” Michael said, “your foot is tickling my back!”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I had one foot on Ryan’s back and the other foot on Michael’s back. But Michael was wriggling around. It was hard to stand.
“Move your foot a little to the left,” Michael said.
So I did. But when I moved my foot to the left, Michael moved a little to the right. And when I put my foot down on his back, his back wasn’t there anymore. Nothing was there anymore.
My hand slipped off the wet windowsill. And the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back on the ground.
“Ow!” I screamed. “My elbow is broken! I think I’m going to die!”
“Shh!” Andrea said. “Mrs. Cooney will hear you!”
She must have heard me, because about a second later the window opened. Mrs. Cooney poked her head out.
“What’s going on down there?” Mrs. Cooney asked.
“We, uh, lost our ball,” Michael said. “We were playing with it and it must have rolled under this bush.”
“A.J.,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Why are you lying on the ground?”
“I’m, uh, relaxing,” I explained.
“There’s blood on your elbow,” Mrs. Cooney said.
“I’ll wash it off when I get home,” I said.
“Nothing doing,” said Mrs. Cooney. “I’ll be out in a minute and clean you up. You’re under my supervision now.”
“Did you hear that?” I said. “Mrs. Cooney has super vision!”
“That means she can see through walls!” Ryan said.
“Wow!” Michael said. “She’s not only a spy, but she’s got super powers, too!”
That was the last straw, as they say. I decided right then and there that I could not marry Mrs. Cooney no matter what.
Mrs. Cooney came running over with her first-aid kit.
“What are you kids doing here at this hour?” she asked as she started cleaning the blood off my elbow with a cloth.
“We might ask you the same question, Mrs. Cooney,” I said, “or whatever your real name is.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “I had some work to do. So many kids have been sick lately, I haven’t been able to get my work done during the day.”
“Spy work, no doubt,” Andrea said.
&nb
sp; “What?” asked Mrs. Cooney as she sprayed some stinging stuff on my elbow.
“Don’t play dumb,” I said. “We caught you, like a rat in a trap! Oh, you had us fooled for a while. But we were just too smart for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mrs. Cooney.
“That’s what they all say,” I said. “Tell it to the police.”
“You kids are crazy,” Mrs. Cooney said. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
“Don’t change the subject,” I said. “You’re a spy and you’re going to sell our secrets to some evil guy who wants to take over the world!”
“Are you out of your minds?” asked Mrs. Cooney. “I had to work late.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to work late where you’re going, Mrs. Cooney,” I said. “They’re gonna throw you in the slammer.”
“What’s a slammer?” asked Ryan.
“How should I know?” I said. “But that’s where they throw spies after they catch them.”
Mrs. Cooney finished cleaning off the cut on my elbow. She put a Sesame Street Band-Aid on it.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I admit it. You’re right. It’s all true. I am a spy. Now let’s go home.”
12
Good-bye to Mrs. Cooney
Mrs. Cooney promised that she would turn herself in to the police if we let her drive us home. First she dropped off Emily at her house. Next she dropped off Andrea at her house. Then she dropped off Michael at his house. Then she dropped off Ryan at his house. And finally she pulled up to my house.
Mrs. Cooney put on the emergency brake and turned to face me. She put her hand on my shoulder. I knew what was going to happen next.
She was going to try and kiss me!
That’s what always happens in the movies, right? Every time a boy and a girl are alone in a car at night, they start kissing. It happens every time.
Yuck! I didn’t care how beautiful Mrs. Cooney was. I didn’t care how much Mrs. Cooney’s eyes looked like cotton candy. No way I was going to kiss her. Kissing is disgusting!
“Mrs. Cooney,” I said, “there’s something we need to talk about.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I can’t marry you,” I said.
“Huh?” she said. “But—”
“Please, don’t beg,” I said. “I had to choose between love and country. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But I decided that I can’t betray my country to marry a spy and a traitor.”
Mrs. Cooney stared at me for a while, like she didn’t know what to say. Then she looked all sad. I thought she might even cry.
“A.J.,” she said. “I understand. I’ll survive…somehow.”
She gave me a hug, and I got out of the car.
The future is going to be hard for both of us. Mrs. Cooney may have to spend the rest of her life in jail for what she did. And me, well, somehow I’ll have to get on with my life without her. I think we can both do it.
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
Cover © 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Copyright
MY WEIRD SCHOOL #7: MRS. COONEY IS LOONY!. 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: 9780061973475
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