Ms. Sue Has No Clue!

by Dan Gutman

  Dedication

  To the kids of St. Francis of Assisi School

  in West Des Moines, Iowa

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. Five Thousand Dollars!

  2. The Queen of Cupcakes

  3. Welcome to the Carnival

  4. We Have a Winner!

  5. Something Smells Fishy

  6. Cowabunga!

  7. You Should Have Been There

  8. Getting Desperate

  9. A Surprise Visitor

  10. Say It Ain’t So!

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Back Ads

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Five Thousand Dollars!

  My name is A.J. and I hate dead fish.

  Live fish are okay, but I don’t like the dead ones.

  We just finished pledging the allegiance in Mr. Granite’s class when our principal, Mr. Klutz, came in. He has no hair at all. I mean none. But you wouldn’t know it, because he was wearing a baseball cap on his head.* On the front of his cap was the word HATS.

  That was weird. He was only wearing one hat.

  “Why does your hat say ‘HATS’ on it?” asked my friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.

  “Yeah, Mr. Klutz, do you label all your stuff?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.

  It would be weird to have a lamp with a sign on it that said LAMP. Or a table with a sign on it that said TABLE. Some stuff you don’t need to name.

  “HATS stands for Helping All to Succeed,” Mr. Klutz told us. “That’s what we try to do every day at Ella Mentry School.”

  Mr. Klutz doesn’t come into our classroom very often. I figured he must have something really important to say. I hoped that we weren’t in trouble. Maybe he found out what we did to Mr. Granite’s pencil sharpener. Or maybe he found out what Ryan tried to flush down the toilet the other day. I tried to remember all the bad things I did recently.

  “I came here to tell you children that next month is our annual school carnival,” Mr. Klutz said. “I’m hoping we’ll be able to raise five thousand dollars so we can buy new playground equipment.”

  Five thousand dollars? Is he crazy? That’s almost a million.

  “How are we ever going to raise that much money?” asked Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.

  “I could sell my sister,” I volunteered.

  “That’s illegal, Arlo!” said Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.

  “Yeah!” said her crybaby friend, Emily, who agrees with everything Andrea says. “That’s illegal.”

  “Well, maybe we can sell my sister’s American Girl doll collection,” I suggested. “It’s worth a lot of money.”

  “How about we sell all these desks and chairs and school supplies?” suggested Alexia, who rides a skateboard everywhere. “We don’t need that stuff.”

  “I know,” said Ryan. “Maybe we can sell the whole school! It must be worth at least five thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah!” all the kids agreed, except for Andrea and Emily.

  Ryan should get the No Bell Prize for that idea. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.

  “If we sold the school, we wouldn’t have any place to put the playground equipment,” said Mr. Granite.

  Good point.

  “The reason I wanted to speak to you today,” Mr. Klutz continued, “is because I’m looking for a parent who will volunteer to be in charge of fund-raising at the carnival.”

  “Fund-raising?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Well,” explained Mr. Klutz, “funds are money, and raising is . . . raising.”

  “So you’re looking for a parent who picks up money off the ground?” I asked.

  Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.

  “No, dumbhead,” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. “Mr. Klutz is looking for a parent who knows how to raise money.”

  “I knew that,” I lied.

  “My mom used to be a professional fund-raiser,” said Alexia. “But I don’t want her to volunteer.”

  “Why not?” asked Andrea. “I bet she would be great.”

  “My mom is weird,” said Alexia. “She’ll embarrass me if she comes to school.”

  “All parents are weird and embarrassing,” I told Alexia.

  “Yeah, you should see my dad,” said Michael. “He trims his ear hair with a little machine that he sticks in his ear.”

  “All dads trim their ear hair,” said Neil.

  “All dads are weird,” I pointed out. “And if our dads didn’t trim their ear hair, they would have five-foot-long hair sticking out of their ears! If that’s not weird, I don’t know what is.”

  “What about nose hair?” asked Ryan. “That’s way weirder than ear hair.”

  “Boys are gross!” Andrea said.

  Why can’t a truck full of nose hair fall on Andrea’s head?

  We were all arguing about which was weirder, nose hair or ear hair. Mr. Klutz clapped his hands and made a peace sign with his fingers, which means “shut up.”

  “Alexia, is your mother’s name Sue?” asked Mr. Klutz.

  “Yeah . . .”

  “I’m going to give her a call,” Mr. Klutz said. “She could be a big help to us.”

  Alexia sank under her desk.

  2

  The Queen of Cupcakes

  You’ll never believe in a million hundred years what happened the next day. Mr. Klutz came in and told us that Alexia’s mom, Ms. Sue, volunteered to do the fund-raising for the school carnival!

  Or maybe you do believe it, because this book is called Ms. Sue Has No Clue! If Ms. Sue said she didn’t want to volunteer, the book would have a different title. Like Miss Mitsy Is Ditsy! Or Mr. Putty Is Nutty! Or Mrs. Julia Is Peculiar!

  “Yay!” everybody yelled when Mr. Klutz told us the news.

  “Boo!” said Alexia. “I’m telling you, this is a big mistake.”

  But nobody heard her, because guess who walked into the door at that moment?

  Nobody! It would hurt if you walked into a door. But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway.

  It was Alexia’s mom, Ms. Sue!

  Alexia hid under her desk so her mother wouldn’t notice her. When your mom or dad comes into your classroom, you should always hide under your desk. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

  Ms. Sue was all smiles and looked very excited. She had a plate full of cupcakes in one hand. In her other hand she was lugging a giant thermometer. And I mean giant. That thing was taller than she was!

  “What do you think that thermometer is for?” I whispered to Ryan, who was sitting next to me.

  “I guess Alexia’s mom is going to take our temperatures,” Ryan whispered back.

  “I can’t fit that thing in my mouth,” I whispered to Ryan.

  “What makes you think she’s going to put it in your mouth?”

  Ahhhhhhhh!

  Ms. Sue put the giant thermometer in the corner and rested it against the wall. Then she passed out cupcakes to all of us.

  “Hi boys and girls,” she said while we ate. “People call me the Queen of Cupcakes. I’m so excited to be fund-raising for the school carnival. We’re going to have lots of fun and raise lots of money so we can buy new playground equipment for the school.”

  “Tell the children some of the great fund-raising ideas you have,” said Mr. Klutz.

  “Sure!” said Ms. Sue. “We’re going to sell cupcakes and blah blah blah blah bingo blah blah blah blah prizes blah bla
h blah blah car wash blah blah blah blah parents blah blah blah blah money blah blah blah blah pony rides blah blah blah blah blah . . .”

  She went on like that for a million hundred hours. It was hard for me to pay attention to what she was saying, because all I could think about was that giant thermometer and what Ms. Sue was going to do with it.

  “I think we can raise even more than five thousand dollars,” she told us. “If we raise ten thousand dollars, we could buy a really nice swing set and a zip line for the playground!”

  Zip lines are cool. Everybody was getting excited. But not me. I kept staring at the giant thermometer. Ms. Sue probably needed to take everyone’s temperature to see if we were healthy enough to ride on the zip line we were going to buy.

  “Who knows?” Ms. Sue continued. “Maybe we can raise fifty thousand dollars! With that much money, we could get a SMART Board for every classroom in the school.”

  “I could really use a SMART Board,” said Mr. Granite.

  “The sky’s the limit!” said Ms. Sue. “If we put our minds to it and work really hard, we could raise a hundred thousand dollars. Or even a million!”

  Ms. Sue was waving her arms around excitedly. She had a glassy look in her eyes.

  “Think of it!” she said. “We could buy an iPad for every student in the school. We could get a climbing wall and a swimming pool for the gym! We could put an ice cream machine in the lunchroom! We could buy a hot tub for the teachers’ lounge!”

  Alexia was still hiding under her desk. I leaned over and whispered to her. “You said your mom used to be a professional fund-raiser. How come she stopped doing that?”

  “She got fired,” Alexia told me. “My mom tends to go overboard.”

  “She falls out of boats a lot?” I asked.

  “No, I mean she gets carried away,” Alexia told me.

  “Does she get carried away after she falls out of boats?”

  “She doesn’t fall out of boats!” said Alexia.

  “Hey, you’re the one who said she fell out of a boat,” I said. Why is everybody always talking about boats?

  Anyway, Ms. Sue told us more of the great stuff we could buy with the money we were going to raise.

  “We could get personal robots that carry your backpacks to school for you! We could blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah . . .”

  I wanted her to keep talking, because as long as she was talking she wouldn’t be able to take our temperature with that giant thermometer. I bet the only reason why she gave us cupcakes was to distract us so we wouldn’t think about the thermometer. Well, it didn’t work with me.

  Finally, Ms. Sue stopped talking. She went to the corner of the room.

  It was thermometer time.

  I was sweating. I thought I was gonna die.

  Ms. Sue smiled as she picked up the giant thermometer.

  I wanted to run away to Antarctica and go live with the penguins. This was the worst thing to happen to me since TV Turnoff Week!

  “And what are you planning to do with that giant thermometer, Ms. Sue?” asked Mr. Klutz.

  “This will let everybody know how much money we raise,” she replied. “Every time we get a hundred dollars, we’ll record it on the thermometer.”

  “You mean you’re not going to take our temperature with that thing?” I asked.

  Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.

  “Of course not!” said Ms. Sue. “That would be ridiculous.”

  Oh. Never mind.

  3

  Welcome to the Carnival

  Over the next month, everybody got ready for the school carnival. The parents and teachers built lots of booths and games. In art class with Ms. Hannah, we made posters. After school, we went to all the stores in town and asked if they would display our artwork in their windows. The town put up a big banner across Main Street . . .

  Finally, it was the day of the carnival. When I got to school with my parents and my sister, Amy, it looked like the whole town was waiting to get into the playground. I saw Ryan, Michael, Neil, Andrea, Emily, and their parents. There were lots of balloons, and music was blasting. Booths were being set up.

  One table was filled with cupcakes, cookies, and brownies that people had baked. There was a little area for pony rides. The street next to the playground had been turned into a car wash.

  Ms. Sue was running around with a bullhorn, making sure everybody was ready. The giant thermometer was mounted on a stage.

  Finally, the gate to the playground opened, and we all rushed in. I could smell popcorn popping. There was electricity in the air!*

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Alexia said to me as her mother climbed on the stage.

  “Welcome to the Ella Mentry school carnival,” announced Ms. Sue. “Before we get started, our principal, Mr. Klutz, would like to say a few words.”

  Mr. Klutz stepped up to a microphone and tapped it with his finger.

  “Thank you all for coming out on this beautiful day,” he announced. “I’m sure you’re going to have a wonderful time. And just to make it extra special, I’ll make a deal with you. If we raise five thousand dollars today, I will . . .”

  Everybody got quiet and leaned forward to hear what Mr. Klutz was going to say. He’s always making deals with us. One time he said that if we read a million pages, he would turn the gym into a video game arcade. Another time he said that if we did a million math problems, he would kiss a pig on the lips. He also married a turkey after we made a really nice Thanksgiving display. That was cool.

  “If you raise five thousand dollars today,” said Mr. Klutz, “I will spend a night . . . in jail!”

  WHAT?!

  Principal Klutz was willing to spend a night in jail if we raised five thousand dollars? I would pay to see that.

  Ms. Sue walked around with a big bucket. Parents were pulling out their wallets and putting money into the bucket.

  “Dad,” I asked, “do you have five thousand dollars so we can send Mr. Klutz to jail?”

  “I’ll contribute one dollar,” my dad told me, handing me a dollar bill to put in the bucket.

  I walked around the carnival with my family. There was a long line of tables. Behind each one was a parent or teacher doing something to raise money. Ms. Hannah was in charge of face painting. Our lunch lady, Ms. LaGrange, was selling chocolates, summer sausages, and flavored popcorn.

  There was a silent auction, where grown-ups could bid on all kinds of stuff. You could buy gift-wrapping paper at one table. At another table, they were even selling Ella Mentry School underwear!

  “Great news!” Ms. Sue shouted into her bullhorn. “We have raised our first hundred dollars!”

  Everybody cheered. Ms. Sue put the money into a metal box, and then she drew a line on her giant thermometer.

  Our Spanish teacher, Miss Holly, had the booth next to the thermometer. She had a big glass jar filled to the top with gum balls.

  “The person who guesses how many gum balls are in the jar will win thirty dollars,” Miss Holly told us. “It costs just a dollar to play.”

  My mom gave Miss Holly a dollar, and I wrote my guess on a piece of paper: A HUNDRED MILLION GUM BALLS. I hope I win!

  At the next table was Mr. Tony, who runs the after-school program. A sign on his table said . . .

  “How does this work?” my dad asked Mr. Tony.

  “Well, if you pay fifty dollars, I’ll take the goat off your front lawn.”

  “There’s a goat on my front lawn?!” asked my dad.

  “Not yet,” said Mr. Tony. “But there will be later today, after I put it there.”

  “You’re going to put a goat on my front lawn?!” asked my dad.

  “Not necessarily,” Mr. Tony told him. “If you pay fifty dollars, I won’t put the goat on your front lawn.”

  “I don’t want a goat on our lawn!” my mom shouted. “They eat everything in sight and poop everywhere!”

  “You’d be
tter pay the fifty dollars, Dad,” I suggested.

  My dad didn’t look happy. But he pulled out his wallet and handed Mr. Tony fifty dollars.

  “Just so you know,” Mr. Tony told him, “we’re having a special sale today. For just forty dollars, I’ll put a goat on somebody else’s front lawn, and you get to choose which lawn I put it on.”

  “That’s a pretty good deal, Dad,” my sister said.

  “Can we pay forty dollars to put a goat on Andrea’s front lawn?” I asked.

  “No!” said my mom. “Andrea’s mother is my friend. I would never do a thing like that to her.”

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Andrea’s mom could just pay fifty dollars, and Mr. Tony wouldn’t put the goat on her front lawn either. Isn’t that right?”

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Tony. “It’s sort of like buying goat insurance.”

  “Where do you keep all the goats?” my dad asked him.

  “Oh, I don’t have any goats,” replied Mr. Tony.

  “If you don’t have any goats, how can you put them on anyone’s front lawn?” I asked.

  “Hmmm, that never came up,” said Mr. Tony. “Most people just pay the money. So I don’t need any goats.”

  What a scam. If you ask me, Mr. Tony is full of baloney.

  Ms. Sue was walking around. “We’re up to two hundred dollars!” she shouted into her bullhorn. She put the money in the money box and drew a new line on her giant thermometer.

  The next booth had the words PEACE and LOVE written all over it. Our crossing guard, Mr. Louie, was standing there in a tie-dyed shirt.

  “Hugs for a dollar,” Mr. Louie shouted. “Kisses for two dollars. Come buy a kiss and a hug.”

  “No thank you,” my mom said as we passed by.

  Right next to Mr. Louie’s booth was another booth with Mr. Docker, our science teacher, standing behind it. He was holding a toad in his hand, and the sign over the booth said . . .

  “This is an Eastern spadefoot toad,” Mr. Docker told us. “It’s a smooth-skinned toad that uses the hard spades on the hind feet to dig burrows in sand or loose dirt.”