Mr. Cooper Is Super!

by Dan Gutman

  Then Emily the crybaby started crying, of course. After that everybody was crying. Even me. Mr. Granite was weird, but he was a really good teacher.

  “What are we going to do now?” Andrea asked, wiping her eyes. “We don’t have a teacher anymore. How can we learn anything without a teacher?”

  That’s when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world. If Mr. Granite was gone, we didn’t have a teacher. And if we didn’t have a teacher, we couldn’t learn anything. And if we couldn’t learn anything, there was no point in going to school. And if there was no point in going to school, they would have to shut it down!

  “No more school!” I shouted, jumping up and down. “No more school! No more school!”

  I figured everybody was going to jump up and down chanting “No more school!” with me.

  I looked around. Nobody else was jumping up and down. Nobody else was chanting. Everybody was looking at me.

  I hate when that happens. I stopped chanting.

  “We’ll just have to deal with this tomorrow,” said Mr. Klutz sadly. “For now, let’s all go home. It’s three o’clock. Time for dismissal.”

  The next morning I couldn’t wait to get to school and find out who our new teacher would be. Was it going to be a man or a lady? Young or old? Dark hair or blond hair? Short or tall? Skinny or fat? Human or robot? Meat eater or plant eater? Regular or extra crispy?

  As it turned out, the answer was “none of the above.” When I got to our classroom, there was no teacher in there at all! So me and Michael and Ryan did what we always do when there are no grown-ups around. We shook our butts at the class.

  “Boys!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

  “I wonder who our new teacher is going to be,” said Alexia.

  “Beats me,” said Neil the nude kid.

  “Where would you go to get a new teacher anyway?” asked Ryan.

  “Rent-A-Teacher,” I replied. “You can rent anything.”

  “We’ll probably have a substitute teacher for a few days,” said Andrea, who thinks she knows everything. “Mr. Klutz will need a little time to hire a new teacher.”

  “Teachers get hired?” I asked. “Does that mean they get paid, too?”

  “Of course teachers get paid, dumbhead!” said Andrea.

  I wanted to say something mean to Andrea, but I couldn’t come up with anything besides “So is your face!”

  I didn’t know that teachers got paid. I thought they just came to school every day because they had nowhere else to go.

  “Maybe Miss Daisy will become our teacher again,” said Emily, all excited.

  Miss Daisy was our teacher in second grade. She was a good teacher, except for the fact that she couldn’t read, write, or do math.

  Come to think of it, she was the dumbest teacher in the history of the world.

  “Her name isn’t Miss Daisy anymore,” Andrea said. “She got married, so now her name is Mrs. Daisy.”

  When ladies get married, they go from “Miss” to “Mrs.” And sometimes they go from “Miss” to “Ms.” Nobody knows why.

  But our new teacher wasn’t going to be Miss Daisy. And it wasn’t going to be Mrs. Daisy. And it wasn’t going to be Ms. Daisy either. Because the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. You’ll never believe who ran into the door at that moment.

  It was a guy wearing a superhero costume! He ran right into the door! Then he fell into the classroom, slammed into the teacher’s desk, and toppled over onto the floor.

  “Owww!” the guy moaned. “I think I may have broken my leg!”

  We all ran to the front of the class to help the guy up.

  “Are you Superman?” Alexia asked.

  “No,” he replied. “I am Cooper Man!”

  Cooper Man told us to sit in our seats. I guess his leg wasn’t broken after all, because he limped and hobbled over to the whiteboard. He wrote this on it, in big letters. . . .

  MR. COOPER

  “Are you a real superhero?” asked Ryan.

  “Of course I am!” Mr. Cooper said. “Can’t you see my cape?”

  Superheroes always wear capes. Nobody knows why. You never see regular people walking down the street wearing a cape. What’s up with that? Capes are cool.

  At that point Mr. Klutz came into the classroom.

  “Ah, Mr. Cooper! I’m so glad you were able to find your room. I was going to introduce you to the children, but it looks like you’ve already done that. Kids, Mr. Cooper will be your new teacher. From now on, you are under his supervision.”

  “Wow, Mr. Cooper has super vision!” I shouted. “Can you see through walls?”

  “Of course,” Mr. Cooper said. “Especially walls that have windows in them.”

  “I have to go to a meeting,” Mr. Klutz told Mr. Cooper. “I’ll stop back here later to see how you’re making out.”

  “Ewwwww, gross!” Everybody started choking and gagging because Mr. Klutz said “making out.”

  As soon as Mr. Klutz left, Mr. Cooper picked up a math book from Mr. Granite’s desk.

  Oh no! It looked like he was going to teach us math! I thought that after Mr. Granite was gone, we would never have to learn math again.

  Bummer in the summer!

  If a grown-up is about to say something you don’t want to hear, you should change the subject as soon as possible. That’s the first rule of being a kid. But I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.

  “Do you have real superpowers?” I asked Mr. Cooper.

  “Of course I do,” he replied. “I wouldn’t be much of a superhero if I didn’t have superpowers.”

  “Can you fly?” asked Andrea.

  “Sure I can fly,” said Mr. Cooper.

  “Oooooh, show us!” everybody started shouting.

  “I only fly on Wednesdays,” said Mr. Cooper. “And today is Thursday.”

  “Can you be invisible?” asked Alexia.

  “Of course.”

  “Prove it!” we all shouted.

  “I already did,” said Mr. Cooper. “Before I came in the door, you didn’t see me, did you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s because I was invisible.”

  “He’s right!” I shouted.

  “Do you have superstrength?” asked Ryan. “Can you bend steel bars with your bare hands?”

  “That’s easy-peasy,” said Mr. Cooper, “but I wouldn’t want to ruin a perfectly good steel bar.”

  “Do you have heat vision?” asked Michael. “Can you burn things up just by looking at them?”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Cooper. “But why would anybody want to do that?”

  “It would be a cool way to cook hot dogs,” I said. “Or you could toast marshmallows with your eyes.”

  “Hmmm, I never thought of that,” said Mr. Cooper. “But I will show you another superpower I have. I can make you think of anything I want you to think about.”

  “What?” we all said. “No way!”

  “You can’t do that!” said Neil.

  “Nobody tells me what to think about!” said Alexia.

  “Fine,” said Mr. Cooper. “Don’t think of an enormous pink elephant, right here in this classroom.”

  “Okay, I won’t,” I said.

  “And this enormous pink elephant is wearing a tutu,” said Mr. Cooper.

  Everybody laughed. It would be funny to see an enormous pink elephant wearing a tutu.

  “And the elephant is holding a little umbrella, and it’s singing ‘John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,’” said Mr. Cooper. “I can make you think about that in your head.”

  I tried not to think about an enormous pink elephant wearing a tutu and holding a little umbrella while it’s singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.”

  But it was impossible! In fact, all I could think about was an enormous pink elephant wearing a tutu and holding a little umbrella while it’s singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”!

  “I’m thinking
about it!” said Andrea. “I can picture it in my head!”

  “Me too!” said Emily. “I can’t help it!”

  The whole class was thinking about an enormous pink elephant wearing a tutu and holding a little umbrella while it’s singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”!*

  “He did it!” shouted Michael. “Mr. Cooper can make people think of anything he wants!”

  “It’s amazing!” said Alexia.

  “See?” said Mr. Cooper. “I told you I had superpowers.”

  “He really is a superhero!” said Ryan. “Mr. Cooper is super!”

  If you ask me, Mr. Cooper is weird.

  We were all thinking about enormous pink elephants wearing tutus, holding little umbrellas, and singing “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.” Mr. Cooper told us he would be back in a minute, and he stepped out of the room. Me and Michael and Ryan got up and shook our butts at the class. Everybody laughed except for Andrea and Emily, who just rolled their eyes.

  A minute later Mr. Cooper came running back into the room. This time he almost knocked over the computer in the corner and fell down again. Man, for a superhero, Mr. Cooper falls down a lot.

  He was wearing a different costume this time. There was a big R on his cape. He also had a wedge of cheese hanging off his belt. That was weird.

  “Behold!” he announced. “I am Rat Man!”

  “Rat Man?” I said. “I thought you were Cooper Man.”

  “That must have been some other guy,” said Mr. Cooper. “I am Rat Man, and I have come to teach you about rats.”

  WHAT?!

  “Rats? Why do we have to learn about rats?” Andrea asked. “I think rats are disgusting!”

  “No they’re not,” said Mr. Cooper as he stepped into the hallway and came back with a big cage in his hand. “Rats are fascinating animals.”

  “Eeeeeeeek!” screamed all the girls, except for Alexia. “He has live rats! Gross!”

  “Cool!” yelled all the boys and Alexia.

  “Male rats are called bucks,” Mr. Cooper said as he took one of the rats out of the cage and petted it. “Females are called does, and babies are called kittens or pups. But I call this one Wilbur.”

  The girls were freaking out, but Wilbur didn’t seem all that scary to me. Mr. Cooper told us that rats are smart, friendly, and social. When a rat gets sick, its rat friends will even take care of it. He told us lots of other neat stuff about rats, too.

  “Do you want to pet Wilbur?” asked Mr. Cooper.

  “No!” shouted all the girls.

  “Yes!” shouted all the boys.

  “Oh, come on,” said Mr. Cooper. “I bet at least one of the girls must be brave enough to pet Wilbur.”

  “I’ll do it!” said Little Miss Perfect, who will do anything to impress a teacher.

  Andrea scrunched up her eyes, and Mr. Cooper carefully put Wilbur in her hands.

  “See? Wilbur really likes you,” said Mr. Cooper.

  That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Andrea must have twitched or something, because Wilbur jumped off her hand, landed on the floor, and ran away.

  “Eeeeeeek!” everybody shrieked.

  Wilbur ran toward the back of the room.

  “Calm down, everyone,” said Mr. Cooper. “Please calm down!”

  “There’s a loose rat in the class!”

  “Run for your lives!”

  We were all freaking out. It was just a rat. What’s the big deal?

  “I’ll get him!” said Andrea.

  Everybody was running around like the earth had been hit by an asteroid or something. Half the class was chasing Wilbur, and the other half of the class was running away from him.

  Finally, Andrea and I cornered Wilbur in the corner.* Wilbur looked at Andrea. Wilbur looked at me.

  “Put your lunch box over him, Arlo,” said Andrea. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.

  “I’m not putting my lunch box over a rat!” I told her. “Why don’t you put your lunch box over him?”

  “I don’t have my lunch box today,” Andrea said. “I’m buying lunch in the vomitorium.”

  “Well, use your pencil case!” I told Andrea.

  “I’m not putting my pencil case over a rat!” she replied. “Why don’t you use your pencil case?”

  We went back and forth like that for a while. Wilbur was still cornered in the corner. He looked nervous.

  And you’ll never believe 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 Mr. Klutz!

  “How are you kids making out?” he asked.

  “Ewwwww, gross!” Everybody started choking and gagging because Mr. Klutz said “making out” again.

  “We’re learning about rats,” said Mr. Cooper. “But one of them seems to have escaped.”

  “You brought live rats to school with you?” asked Mr. Klutz. “Are you out of your mind, Mr. Cooper? Is this any way to teach the children?”

  “Sure it is,” Mr. Cooper replied. “See? A.J. and Andrea are totally engaged.”

  “Ooooo!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are engaged!”

  “When are you two gonna get married?” asked Michael.

  If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.

  After a million hundred hours, we were able to capture Wilbur the rat and get him back inside his cage.

  “Okay, it’s time for math,” said Rat Man, I mean Mr. Cooper.

  Nooooooooo! Not math! Anything but math! Why do we have to learn math? Isn’t that why they invented calculators?

  “I love math!” said Andrea. “Math is fun!”

  What is her problem? Why can’t a truck full of math books fall on her head?

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

  “Turn to page twenty-three in your books,” said Mr. Cooper. “Does anybody have any questions?”

  “I do,” I said. “How old are rocks? Who was the first person to drink milk from a cow? Why don’t we have fall and spring Olympics? Who invented sandpaper? What color is the White House?”

  “Math questions, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper. “Do you have any questions about math?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why do we have to learn math?”

  Mr. Cooper looked mad. I think he was going to say something mean to me, but he never got the chance. Because you’ll never believe who ran into the door at that moment.

  Nobody! You’d have to be crazy to run into a door. I thought we went over that already. But you’ll never believe who ran into the doorway.

  It was a lady dressed up in a superhero costume! She had a big L on her cape. She was wearing a mask over her eyes, but she looked a lot like our librarian, Mrs. Roopy.

  “Oh no!” shouted Mr. Cooper. “My archenemy is here!”

  “What do you have against arches?” I asked.

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

  “It is I,” announced the lady as she struck a superhero pose, “Super Librarian!”

  “You look a lot like Mrs. Roopy,” said Andrea.

  “Roopy?” asked the masked lady. “Never heard of her. I am Super Librarian!”

  She really looked a lot like Mrs. Roopy to me.

  “Oh, yeah? What superpowers do you have?” asked Alexia.

  “I can log in books and check them out at superspeed,” said Super Librarian. “And I have memorized the entire Dewey decimal system. Pick a number, and I will tell you what books go with that number.”

  “Number 796,” shouted Ryan.

  “You will find books about sports in 796,” replied Super Librarian.

  “She’s right!” shouted Ryan. “She really does have superpowers!”

  “She does not,” said Neil the nude kid. “I bet lots of librarians know the Dewey decimal system.�
�

  “Well, I can leap over a giant stack of books in a single bound,” said Super Librarian.

  “That’s not such a big deal,” said Michael.

  “Oh, yeah?” said Super Librarian. “Well, I can shelve books with one hand!”

  “No way!” we all shouted.

  It’s impossible to shelve a book with one hand. You need one hand to move the other books aside and your second hand to slip the book into its place.

  “Watch this!” said Super Librarian.

  She went over to the bookcase and put one hand behind her back. Then she pulled out a book from the shelf and slipped it between the books on another shelf using just one hand.

  “WOW,” everybody said, which is “MOM” upside down.

  “Your powers are indeed strong, Super Librarian,” said Mr. Cooper. “But why are you here?”

  “I have come to get your overdue library books,” said Super Librarian.

  “I don’t have any overdue library books,” said Mr. Cooper.

  “Oh no?” said Super Librarian as she ran back to the bookcase, pulled out a book, and waved it in the air. “Then what’s this?”

  “That’s a . . . I mean . . . uh . . .”

  “It’s overdue!” shouted Super Librarian. “If you borrow something, it’s important to return it. So now you must pay for your crimes against humanity!”

  “B-b-but . . . I just . . . started working here. . . .”

  “No buts!” shouted Super Librarian.

  Everybody started giggling because Super Librarian said “buts,” which sounds just like “butts” even though it only has one t.

  I thought she was going to make Mr. Cooper pay a fine for his overdue library book. But that’s not what happened at all. Instead, the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

  The two of them started fighting!

  Mr. Cooper and Super Librarian squared off and began to do karate chops and kicks at each other. It was cool.

  “Ooooof!” yelled Mr. Cooper.

  “Take that!” yelled Super Librarian. “And that!”

  Everybody was yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering.