by Dan Gutman
Really! Those are the words! If that’s not dumb, I don’t know what is. It was horrible.
When we finished the Chicken Dance, Miss Small showed us how to do somersaults. Then she ran all the way around the gym, and we had to follow her. I thought I was gonna die. Luckily she blew her whistle and told us that Fizz Ed was over for the day.
I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
6
The Truth About Miss Small
At our school the cafeteria and the auditorium are the same room, so it’s called the cafetorium. But all the kids call it the vomitorium ever since some kindergarten kid barfed in there last year.
I sit at a lunch table with Ryan and Michael and a few other boys. Andrea and Emily and some of their friends sit at the table next to ours. Sometimes for fun we peel the paper off our straws and shoot them at the girls. They usually laugh, except for the time I hit Emily in the face and she cried.
I gave my tuna sandwich to Ryan, and he gave me his Scooter Pie. Ryan will eat anything, even disgusting vegetables. One time me and Michael mixed up some milk and ketchup and mayonnaise in a cup. It was really gross, and I thought I was gonna throw up just looking at it. Ryan said he would drink it if we gave him a pack of baseball cards. So we gave him a pack of baseball cards and he drank it (the drink, not the baseball cards). Ryan is weird.
“That Miss Small must be seven feet tall,” Ryan said.
“If I was as tall as she is,” Michael said, “I wouldn’t be a gym teacher. I’d be a professional basketball player.”
“I would be a weatherman,” Ryan said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because when you’re that tall, you can tell it’s raining before anybody else. So you can predict the weather.”
“Tall people can reach stuff on the top shelf without even having to stand on a chair, too,” Michael said. “But I guess it must be really hard to tie your shoes when you’re so tall.”
“She should tie her shoes first and then put them on,” Ryan said.
At the table next to ours, Andrea Young turned around with her big dumb face.
“You can’t tie your shoes and then put them on,” she said.
“Can too,” I said, and I shot my straw wrapper at Andrea. “I only tie my shoes once—the day my mom buys them. What’s the point of untieing a shoe if you’re just gonna have to tie it all over again the next day?”
“Yeah,” Ryan and Michael agreed. Girls just don’t have common sense.
“Boys are dumbheads,” Andrea said, giggling, and then she turned back to her own table. I wish a basketball backboard would crush her.
“I thought we were gonna be playing sports in Fizz Ed,” Ryan complained. “When I saw how tall Miss Small was, I was sure she was gonna let us play basketball.”
“Maybe she’s not our Fizz Ed teacher at all,” Michael said. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe she’s a mutant alien freak from another planet where everybody is tall.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Maybe she’s a fake. Maybe she came to earth to kidnap our real Fizz Ed teacher and bring her back to her planet.”
All of a sudden Emily turned around. Her face was all white.
“We’ve got to do something!” Emily said, and she ran out of the vomitorium.
Emily is weird.
7
Fizz Ed Is Dumb
“Okay, everybody, it’s time to line up,” Miss Daisy announced later in the week.
“Line up for what?” we all asked.
“Fizz Ed!” Miss Daisy said.
“Yippee!” shouted all the girls.
“Boo!” shouted all the boys.
“What’s the matter?” Miss Daisy asked.
“I thought you boys would love Fizz Ed.”
“Fizz Ed is dumb,” I told her. “All we do is balance feathers and square-dance.”
Miss Daisy said we had to go to Fizz Ed anyway, and we walked a million hundred miles to the gym. Emily was the line leader, and I was the door holder.
“Good morning, boys and girls,” said Miss Small. “Today we are going to do something really exciting. We’re going to learn how to juggle scarves!”
“What!” I said. “You’ve gotta be kidding!”
But she wasn’t. Miss Small grabbed a bunch of colorful scarves and gave three of them to each of us. Then she put on a little demonstration.
First she threw one scarf up in the air. Then she threw another one up in the air. Then she threw the third one up in the air. Then she caught the first one as it was falling and threw it back up in the air again. And she kept doing that with all three scarves over and over.
It looked pretty cool, I had to admit.
“How can you juggle three scarves with just two hands?” I asked.
“It’s easy because the scarves float in the air,” Miss Small said. “This will improve your eye-hand coordination. With a little practice, you’ll be able to juggle three balls, or three clubs, or three of just about anything.”
Miss Small blew her whistle and told us to give it a try. I threw a scarf up in the air, and then I threw another one. By the time I threw the third scarf up in the air, the first scarf had already fallen on the floor and the second scarf had landed on my head.
“My scarves are busted,” I complained. “They don’t float long enough. I need another set of scarves.”
Miss Small gave me three more scarves, but the same thing happened. Every time I tried to grab a scarf out of the air, the other two were on the ground already.
Juggling scarves was dumb, I decided.
It wasn’t a sport. They don’t have any World Series for scarf juggling. There’s no scarf-juggling Super Bowl. They don’t give out any medals for scarf juggling in the Olympics. Juggling scarves was just about as dumb as curling.
I looked around to see how Ryan and Michael were doing. They weren’t very good at juggling the dumb scarves either. In fact, there was only one kid in the whole class who was keeping all three scarves up in the air.
Andrea Young!
“Way to go, Andrea!” yelled Miss Small. “You have excellent eye-hand coordination.” Then she gave Andrea some certificate that said she was an expert scarf juggler.
“Thanks, Miss Small,” Andrea said. “Juggling scarves is fun!”
I’ll show her some eye-hand coordination. I’d like to coordinate my fist right into her eye.
8
Ghost in the Graveyard
When I got to school the next week, Ryan and Michael got to me as I was putting my backpack in my cubby.
“Check out you-know-who,” they said.
At the front of the classroom, Andrea was juggling again. But she wasn’t juggling scarves this time. She was juggling three apples! She had all of them up in the air at the same time. If it had been anybody else, I would have thought it was cool.
Andrea caught the apples and put them on Miss Daisy’s desk as a present. What a little brownnoser!
“Thank you, Andrea!” Miss Daisy said. “That was wonderful. How did you learn to juggle?”
“I practiced at home like Miss Small told us to,” Andrea said. “It’s easy!”
I hate her. She should go off and become a juggling clown in the circus.
“Okay, everybody, it’s time to line up,” Miss Daisy announced.
“Line up for what?”
“Fizz Ed!” Miss Daisy said.
“Yippee!” shouted all the girls.
“Boo!” shouted all the boys.
“I don’t feel very good, Miss Daisy,” I said.
“What’s the matter, A.J.?” she asked.
“Do you have a tummy ache? A headache?”
I really felt fine. I just didn’t want to go to Fizz Ed. But I didn’t want to say that to Miss Daisy. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I had to think fast.
“I think my tummy has a headache,” I said, “or maybe it’s my head that has a tummy ache.” Everybody laughed, even though I didn’t say anything funn
y.
“I know a cure for that,” said Miss Daisy.
“Really?” I said.
“Sure. You’ll feel fine after an hour of Fizz Ed.”
We walked the million hundred miles to the gym. It was a really hot day, and I was already tired when we got there.
“Is everybody ready to play a game?” Miss Small asked. She was jumping up and down with excitement, like some little kid who never played a game before in her life.
“What do you think she’s gonna have us do now,” Ryan whispered to me, “spin plates on sticks?”
“I’ve got an idea for a game,” I said, remembering to raise my hand.
“What game do you want to play, A.J.?”
“How about chess?”
“Chess?” asked Miss Small. “Don’t you want to play a game where you get to run around and jump up and down and have fun?”
“I’m a little tired of fun,” I said.
“Yeah, having fun is too much work,” Ryan said.
“How about we have a contest to see who can sit around and do nothing the longest?” suggested Michael.
“Oh, no. We’re going to have lots of fun today,” said Miss Small. “We’re going to play a game called Ghost in the Graveyard.”
“That sounds scary,” said that crybaby Emily.
“It’s not scary at all,” Miss Small said. “It’s fun! Let’s go out to the playground.”
So we all went out to the playground. Miss Small told us that the swings would be home base and that she would be the ghost.
“I’m going to hide,” she said, “and you have to find me. The person who spots me yells ‘Ghost in the graveyard!’ and everybody has to run back to home base before I tag you. If I tag you before you get back to the swings, you become a ghost in the next round.”
We all covered our eyes, and Miss Small ran off to hide.
“One o’clock rock,” we chanted. “Two o’clock rock…three o’clock rock…four o’clock rock…”
When we reached twelve o’clock, we all shouted “Midnight!” and uncovered our eyes.
“Where is she?” asked Michael. “I don’t see her anywhere.”
“She’s hiding, silly!” Andrea said.
We looked all over for Miss Small. We looked by the monkey bars. We looked under the seesaw. We looked around the soccer goals. We looked by the basketball hoops. Miss Small had vanished.
It was hot out. We were tired from all that looking. We sat in the shade of a tree to talk things over.
“Let me think,” Andrea said. “If I was Miss Small, where would I be?”
“I played hide-and-seek with my dad once,” Emily said. “I was looking for him for about an hour. And you know where I finally found him?”
“Where?” we asked.
“He was sitting on the couch in the living room watching a football game on TV.”
“Cool,” I said. “Who was playing?”
“Emily’s point is that hiding games are just a way for grown-ups to pretend to play with us,” Andrea explained. “They don’t really want to play. All they really want to do is sit around and do grown-up things.”
“Grown-ups are so boring,” I said.
“Miss Small is probably in the teachers’ lounge,” Ryan said. “I bet she’s having a cup of coffee and talking about the weather or some other boring grown-up thing.”
“Yeah!”
We were about to run to the teachers’ lounge when I heard a cracking noise. It was almost like a creaking door in one of those scary movies.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“What’s what?” Michael asked.
The sound was coming from above. We all looked up. It was a big branch. Not just a big branch. It was a big branch with a person on it. And the person was Miss Small!
“Watch out!” one of the girls screamed.
The branch with Miss Small on it was coming down right on top of us! She was screaming. So were we! We all dove out of the way.
“Ooof!” Miss Small grunted when she hit the ground.
“Ghost in the graveyard!” somebody shouted. And we all ran back to home base.
9
Fit as a Fiddle
Luckily for us, nobody got tagged by Miss Small on the way back to home base. Luckily for us, that is, but not so lucky for Miss Small. She was still lying there on the ground under the tree. So we all ran back to her.
“Are you okay?” we all asked as we gathered around her.
“My leg,” she moaned, and there was pain all over her face.
That crybaby Emily started crying. So did a few other kids. To be honest, I almost felt like crying myself. But I didn’t. Instead I ran to get our school nurse, Mrs. Cooney.
Mrs. Cooney came running out of the school with a first-aid kit.
“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Cooney said when she saw Miss Small lying under the tree. She got down on her hands and knees to examine Miss Small.
“You should put a Band-Aid on her leg and kiss it,” Michael told Mrs. Cooney. “That’s what my mom does when I get hurt.”
“Your mom is weird,” I told Michael.
“She’s going to need more than a Band-Aid and a kiss,” Mrs. Cooney told us. “This leg is broken.”
Mrs. Cooney called for an ambulance on her cell phone, and it arrived just a couple of minutes later. Some guys got out, and they put Miss Small on a stretcher and carried it into the ambulance. We asked them to put their siren on when they drove to the hospital, but they wouldn’t. It was still cool anyway, having an ambulance right on the playground.
As soon as we got back to class, we all wrote get-well cards to Miss Small. They must have worked, because just a few days later, she was back at school. She had a big cast on her leg and crutches to help her walk. And she was smiling.
I thought Fizz Ed would be canceled for a few weeks until Miss Small got better. But the day after Miss Small was back, Miss Daisy told us to line up for Fizz Ed.
When we got to the gym, Miss Small was standing there with her crutches, waiting for us.
“I’m fit as a fiddle!” she said. “Let’s have fun!”
Even though she was hobbling around, Miss Small still wanted to play games. We played some more Ghost in the Graveyard, but nobody was allowed to climb the tree this time. Miss Small also taught us how to play Red Light Green Light, Red Rover, Spud, London Bridge, Mother May I, and this really cool game called Duck Duck Goose.
I still wish we could have played basketball and football and baseball and sports like that. But those corny games Miss Small taught us were actually kind of fun, I had to admit.
Maybe Fizz Ed wasn’t so bad after all.
10
Cooties and Clog Dancing
“Good morning, boys and girls,” Principal Klutz said over the loudspeaker. “Today is Tuesday, and today is special because our own Miss Small is a quarter of a century old! So if you see Miss Small in the hall, be sure to wish her a happy birthday.”
“Wow!” Ryan whispered to me. “A quarter of a century is a long time.”
After the morning announcements, we have this thing in our class called Show and Share. We have to bring in something from home and tell the class about it.
I brought in an old army helmet that my grandpa wore when he fought in a war a long time ago. It has fake leaves attached to it so Grandpa could hide in the woods and nobody would see him. I put it on my head even though it was too big for me. Then everybody passed the helmet around so they could feel how heavy it was.
“That’s very interesting, A.J.,” Miss Daisy said when I was finished. “It’s your turn, Andrea. What do you have to share with us today?”
“That helmet is awesome, A.J.,” Ryan whispered to me while Andrea got up.
“Yeah, let’s see Andrea top that,” I said.
Andrea lugged a big duffel bag up to the front of the class. She pulled three long sticks out of the bag. On the end of each stick was a thing that looked like a marshmallow, but black. Then she pulled o
ut a lighter and set those marshmallow things on fire!
“My mom signed me up for juggling lessons,” Andrea announced.
Then she threw those flaming sticks up in the air! I don’t know how she did it, but the sticks were flying all over the place. She kept catching them and throwing them back up in the air. If it had been anybody else, I would have thought it was super cool.
Finally Andrea caught all three sticks in one hand, blew them out, and took a bow. Everybody started cheering and clapping. I hate her.
“After I get good,” Andrea said, “I’m going to learn how to juggle while I’m riding a unicycle.”
I hope she rides her unicycle off a cliff.
“Okay, everybody, it’s time to line up for Fizz Ed!” Miss Daisy announced.
When we got to the gym, we sang “Happy Birthday” to Miss Small and told her she didn’t look half bad for somebody who had lived a quarter of a century.
“Today we’re going to do something that’s really fun!” Miss Small announced. “Everybody choose a partner. We’re going to have a three-legged race!”
“How can we have a three-legged race when we only have two legs?” I asked.
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. I turned around to see if Ryan or Michael would be my partner. But Ryan chose Michael, and Michael chose Ryan.
Just about everybody had already chosen a partner. There was only one kid in the class besides me who didn’t have a partner.
Andrea Young!
“Looks like we’re partners, A.J.,” Andrea said.
“Okay,” I said. “But I’m not inviting you to my birthday party or anything.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not inviting you to my birthday party, either.”
“Good.”
Miss Small gave each team a piece of rope. We tied my left ankle to Andrea’s right ankle. I had no place to put my left arm except around Andrea’s shoulders. It was disgusting, but I had to do it.
