by Dan Gutman
“That’s true,” said Mrs. Cooney after she finished chewing, “but you kids ran out of my office so fast, I didn’t have the chance to finish what I was saying.”
“What were you going to say?” asked Andrea.
“I wanted to tell you that most germs won’t harm you,” said Mrs. Cooney. “Some germs are good germs.”
“Good germs?” we all asked.
“Sure!” said Mrs. Cooney. “There are millions of them.”
“The good germs should have a war with the bad germs,” I said, “and they should kill them all. It would be a germ war.”
“Well, they sort of do that, A.J.,” said Mrs. Cooney. “The good germs help us digest our food, absorb nutrients, and fight disease. In fact, we couldn’t live without them. Germs are our friends.”
Wow, it would be weird to have a germ as your friend. Germs are so small. What would you do together? I don’t think I could play video games with a germ. And I don’t think germs know how to ride a skateboard or play football.
“Are there really good germs, Mrs. Cooney?” asked Andrea.
“Sure,” she replied. “Go ahead and eat your sandwiches. You’ll be fine. Hurry up! Lunch is almost over.”
After talking with Mrs. Cooney, I felt a lot better. We all wolfed down our sandwiches quickly. I finished mine just before the bell rang.
BRING! BRING! BRING!
It was time to go back to class.
We all rushed down the hall to tell Miss Daisy the news about the good germs.
When we got to our class, the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Miss Daisy was sitting in Mr. Cooper’s chair.
Well, that’s not the weird part. People sit in chairs all the time. The weird part is what Miss Daisy was wearing.
It wasn’t her regular clothes. She was wearing a bright-yellow baggy suit that covered her whole body. She even had on one of those gas mask things and thick, rubber gloves. She looked like some kind of weird astronaut or a deep-sea diver.
“Miss Daisy! What’s that you’re wearing?” asked Alexia.
“It’s a hazmat suit,” she replied.
Hazmat suit? I never heard of a hazmat suit. Nobody ever heard of a hazmat suit.
I was going to ask Miss Daisy what a hazmat suit was, but Little Miss Know-It-All had already looked it up on her smartphone.
“‘Hazmat’ is short for ‘hazardous material,’” said Andrea. “It says here that hazmat suits protect people from chemicals, gases, viruses, and other dangerous airborne particles.”
“I don’t want to catch any germs,” Miss Daisy told us.
“But most germs are good germs,” Michael explained. “That’s what Mrs. Cooney told us.”
“I don’t care,” Miss Daisy said. “If I’m wearing a hazmat suit, I won’t get Jackie Macky sick when I get home from school today.”
Sheesh, and I thought my mother was overprotective.
We put our lunch boxes into our cubbies and sat in our seats.
“Where do you think Miss Daisy got a hazmat suit?” Michael whispered to me.
“From Rent-A-Hazmat Suit,” I explained. “You can rent anything.”
Miss Daisy stood up and shuffled over to the front of the room. It looked like it was hard to walk in the hazmat suit.
“Okay, it’s time we did some learning around here,” she said. “What do you want to learn?”
“I want to learn about ancient Egypt,” said Andrea.
“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” replied Miss Daisy.
“I want to learn about the presidents,” said Emily.
“Well, I don’t know anything about that either,” replied Miss Daisy.
“I want to learn about weather,” said Alexia.
“Now that’s something I know about!” said Miss Daisy excitedly.
I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in the history of the world, Miss Daisy was actually going to teach us something. She shuffled over to the window.
“If you look outside, you’ll see weather,” she told us. “It’s a sunny day today. It’s not raining. It’s a little chilly. And that’s all you need to know about weather.”
What?!
That’s it? That’s all she was going to teach us about weather?
“I was watching the Weather Channel once,” said Ryan. “They said that clouds are tiny drops of water or ice crystals. They’re so light that they float in the air.”
“Is that so?” said Miss Daisy. “I had no idea.”
“Aren’t there different kinds of clouds?” asked Neil. “My dad told me that.”
“A cloud is a cloud,” said Miss Daisy. “That’s all I know about clouds. You see one cloud, you’ve seen ’em all.”
Little Miss Perfect, of course, was all over her smartphone.
“It says here there are four main types of clouds,” said Andrea. “Cirrus, nimbus, stratus, and cumulus.”
“Cumulus clouds are those puffy ones that look like cotton balls,” said Alexia.
“I knew that,” said Emily.
“Me too,” said Neil.
“Wow, I didn’t know any of that,” said Miss Daisy. “You kids are so smart! You’ve taught me a lot today. I’m so glad I decided to go into the field of education.”
Miss Daisy truly doesn’t know anything about anything. I’ll never understand how she got to be a teacher.*
At that moment, you’ll never believe who ran through the door.
Nobody! You can’t run through a door. Doors are made of wood.
But you’ll never believe who ran through the doorway.
It was Mr. Macky! And he was wearing a hazmat suit, too!
“Angel muffin!” yelled Miss Daisy.
“Sugar plum!” yelled Mr. Macky.
Ugh, disgusting! I’m sure they would have started hugging and kissing each other if they hadn’t been wearing hazmat suits.
Even though he had a gas mask over his face, we could still tell that Mr. Macky was upset. His eyes looked all crazy.
“What’s the matter, dear?” shouted Miss Daisy.
“I just got off the phone with the day care center!” shouted Mr. Macky.
“What happened?” shouted Miss Daisy. “Did Jackie Macky fall down?”
“No.”
“Did one of the other kids hit her?”
“No. Jackie Macky has . . .”
We all leaned forward to hear what Jackie Macky had. Everybody was on pins and needles.
Well, not really. We were sitting on chairs. If we were on pins and needles, it would have hurt. But there was electricity in the air.
Well, not really. If there was electricity in the air, we all would have been electrocuted.
But we really really really wanted to know what Jackie Macky had.
I could tell you right now what Jackie Macky had. But I’m not going to. You have to read the next chapter to find out. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.
“Jackie Macky has the sniffles!” shouted Mr. Macky.
What?!
“The sniffles?!” shrieked Miss Daisy. “Oh no! Not the sniffles!”
“Yes, the sniffles!” screamed Mr. Macky.
The two of them started jumping up and down and yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out. It was hilarious. You should have been there!
“That means Jackie Macky has germs!” hollered Miss Daisy. “Germs have infected her body! And they’re going to multiply!”
Wow, I didn’t even know that germs could do math. They must be really smart.
“Jackie Macky is sick!” yelled Mr. Macky. “She could die! What are we going to do?”
“Uh, maybe you should wipe her nose with a tissue?” I suggested.
“No!” screamed Miss Daisy. “We need to call an ambulance! This is an emergency! It’s a matter of life and death!”
“Right!” shouted Mr. Macky. “You call the ambulance on your cell phone while I drive to the hospital. We can meet them there.”
“I’m so glad we bought these hazmat suits!” yelled Mr. Macky. “They really came in handy.”
Then the two of them ran out of the room.
Teachers are weird. Mr. Macky is wacky. And Miss Daisy is still crazy!
Nobody said anything for a million hundred seconds.
“Gee, I hope Jackie Macky is going to be okay,” said Emily, who’s always wondering if people are going to be okay.
“She has the sniffles!” said Alexia. “Everybody gets the sniffles. Mr. Macky and Miss Daisy are totally overreacting. My parents did the same thing when my little sister was born.”
“What are we going to do now?” asked Andrea. “We don’t have a teacher.”
Andrea was right for once in her life. There were no grown-ups in the room at all. Me and Michael and Ryan looked at each other. Then we snapped into action. The three of us got up and shook our butts at the class.
“Boys!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
“I guess Mr. Klutz will have to get another sub for our class,” said Emily.
“We’re getting sandwiches?” I yelled. “Yay!”
“No, dumbhead!” Andrea said. “Mr. Klutz will have to get another substitute teacher.”
Oh. I knew that. I was going to say something mean to Andrea, but I never got the chance. You’ll never believe who ran into the doorway at that moment.
I’m not going to tell you.
Okay, okay! I’ll tell you. And you don’t even have to read the next chapter.
It was Mr. Cooper!
“Have no fear, CooperMan is here!”
Mr. Cooper came running into the room like he was trying to catch a bus. As usual, he tripped over the garbage can, banged into a desk, and went flying into the whiteboard before falling on the floor.
“Oww!” he yelled. “My toe!”
We all ran over to him.
“Are you okay?” everybody was asking.
“Of course!” Mr. Cooper said as we helped him up. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor foot problems can prevent me from educating the youth of America!”
“We heard about your ingrown toenail,” said Andrea.
“Yes, it was pretty serious,” Mr. Cooper told us. “I was afraid it was going to grow inside my body until it came out the top of my head. But I used my superhealing powers to recover quickly.”
“Can we see your toe?” I asked.
“Sure!” Mr. Cooper replied.
He rolled up his pants.
Then he took off his shoe.
Then he took off his sock.
Ugh! It was disgusting. Feet are gross even when you have normal toes. Everybody was gagging. I thought I was gonna throw up.
“So, what did you learn while I was out today?” Mr. Cooper asked as he put his sock back on.
We didn’t learn anything, of course, because Miss Daisy doesn’t know anything. I looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Michael. Michael looked at Neil. Neil looked at Alexia. Alexia looked at Emily.
Everybody was looking at each other. Nobody wanted to tell Mr. Cooper that we spent the whole day sitting around eating bonbons.
“We learned all about clouds,” Alexia finally said.
“And we learned to multiply the number of wheels on a skateboard,” said Neil.
“And we learned about germs,” said Michael.
Hmmm. Come to think of it, we did learn a lot of stuff.
“Wonderful! Now, where’s that list of questions I left you?” asked Mr. Cooper. “There were some other important things I wanted you to learn today.”
Nobody wanted to tell Mr. Cooper that Miss Daisy ripped up his list and said it was ridiculous.
“Oh, I took a picture of your list with my smartphone,” Andrea finally said, taking out her phone. “We did some research.”
“And what did you find out?” asked Mr. Cooper.
“Kitty litter was invented by a man named Ed Lowe in 1947,” Andrea read from her notes. “Jupiter has the most moons. The Statue of Liberty turned green because of chemical reactions between the copper coating and water. Cows have four stomachs. And a footnote is some words at the bottom of a page that explain something above it.”
Wow! When did Andrea have the time to look all that stuff up?
“Very good, Andrea!” said Mr. Cooper. “I’m glad you didn’t waste your time while I was away.”
“Oh, I never waste time, Mr. Cooper!”
Andrea smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know that she knows something nobody else knows. What is her problem?
“Fantastic!” Mr. Cooper said, clapping his hands. “Now let’s get back to work! Turn to page twenty-three in your—”
But Mr. Cooper didn’t have the chance to finish his sentence, because at that moment the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened.
BRING! BRING! BRING!
It was three o’clock! Time for dismissal! Yay!
When I got home, my parents asked me what happened at school during the day.
“Nothing,” I replied.
Any time your parents ask you what happened at school during the day, always say “Nothing.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.
I sure hope that Jackie Macky recovers from the sniffles. Maybe the police will start to arrest germs and put them in jail. Maybe a truck full of smartphones will fall on Andrea’s head. Maybe everybody will start wearing hazmat suits to school. Maybe Mr. Cooper’s ingrown toenail will come out the top of his head. Maybe we’ll get to eat sub sandwiches. Maybe women will make up their mind and stop changing their name for no reason. Maybe the good germs and the bad germs will start a germ war. Maybe babies will stop looking like Winston Churchill. Maybe Miss Daisy will buy skateboards with wheels on them next time. Maybe humanitarians will start to eat humans. Maybe our feet will run and our noses will smell, instead of the other way around. Maybe Andrea’s eyes will roll out of her head. Maybe I’ll sing “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” the next time I wash my hands. Maybe eyeballs will start to wear clothing. Maybe I’ll move to Antarctica to get away from the germs. Maybe we can talk Mr. Cooper into letting us sit around and eat bonbons for the rest of the school year.
But it won’t be easy!
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About the Author and Illustrator
Courtesy of Dan Gutman and Jim Paillot
DAN GUTMAN has written many weird books for kids. He lives with his weird wife in New York (a very weird place). 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.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Credits
Cover art © 2016 by Jim Paillot
Copyright
MY WEIRDEST SCHOOL #5: MISS DAISY IS STILL CRAZY! Text copyright © 2016 by Dan Gutman. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-228435-8 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-228433-4 (lib. bdg.)
EPub Edition © June 2016 ISBN 9780062284341
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* What are you looking down here for? The story is up there, dumbhead!
* The Ingrown Toenails would be a good name for a rock band.
* You won’t find the answer down here.
* That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
* The bells in our school sound like the word “bring.” Nobody knows why.
* I dare you to stand up right now, wherever you are, and scream out, “I love cheese!”
