STOP, THIEF!
Coatimundis are Central American mammals that look like raccoons with long noses. They are intelligent, inquisitive, and often destructive. In Costa Rica, coatimundis are known for stealing tourists’ lunches and backpacks.
Technical term: The Adam’s apple is called the “laryngeal prominence.”
But Chicago animal trainer Samantha Martin has one named Callie in her Amazing Animals show. Even though Martin describes coatimundis as “nightmares as pets,” Callie is pretty talented. For one trick, she uses her long snout to pickpocket a wallet. Callie also rolls out a red carpet and walks it just like a celebrity.
NOW THAT’S SPEC-CAT-ULAR
Samantha Martin also trains cats. In her Acro-Cats show, felines walk on a high wire, skateboard, and jump through hoops. But most impressive is the all-cat band called the Rock Cats that plays working (but small) guitars, keyboards, and drums. Martin recognizes the band’s appeal, but critiques them honestly: “The drummer has no rhythm. The guitar player is always off pitch. The piano player is in her own world.”
* * *
REAL FLUBBED HEADLINES
INCLUDE YOUR CHILDREN WHEN BAKING COOKIES
KIDS MAKE NUTRITIOUS SNACKS
HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUTS CUT IN HALF
MAN FOUND DEAD IN CEMETERY
HOSPITALS SUED BY 7 FOOT DOCTORS
The Captain Underpants books have sold more than 14 million copies.
WRONG FACTS
Some more things you may have learned in school that just aren’t true.
FACT? Africa’s Sahara is the world’s largest desert.
WRONG! When most people think of a desert, they think of a vast sea of sand with the hot sun beating down. But the technical definition of a desert is a place that receives little to no rainfall.
By that measure, the largest desert on earth is Antarctica. Even though it’s cold and is covered almost entirely with ice, the continent receives nearly no rain, making it the world’s largest desert.
FACT? The word “ain’t” isn’t in the dictionary.
WRONG! It’s may be poor grammar to use the word “ain’t,” as in “I ain’t going to say ‘isn’t.’” But just because a word is incorrect doesn’t mean it’s not in the dictionary.
Dictionaries aren’t necessarily authorities on “right” and “wrong” words—they’re merely catalogs of all the words in a language. So “ain’t” is listed as a slang word in most English dictionaries. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to use. (In fact, there are lots of words in the dictionary that will get you into far more trouble than “ain’t.”)
Superstitious President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to sit at a table set for 13 guests.
BLACKBEARD’S LOOT
On the final leg of our treasure hunt, we sail north. The notorious pirate Blackbeard supposedly stowed his stash off the coast of New England, but the question is…where?
SEEKING: Silver ingots, silver Spanish dollars, gold coins, and pouches of gold dust.
LAST SEEN…On the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine.
LEGEND: For years, Captain Blackbeard (a.k.a. Edward Teach) terrorized travelers along the North American coast. He was intimidating to look at. Standing more than six feet tall, he decorated his long beard and curly black hair with beads and black ribbons. His ship—the Queen Anne’s Revenge—was just as intimidating. It was manned by menacing pirates, armed with cannons, and protected with reinforced sides. When seafarers saw the Revenge coming, they usually didn’t bother to fight. They just handed over whatever precious goods they had on board.
England’s Royal Navy was charged with the task of trying to catch Blackbeard. And in the early 1700s, the authorities closed in on him near Canada. So he and his crew split up their loot and parted ways. Legend says Blackbeard headed for the sparsely populated Isles of Shoals, a group of nine islands off the New England coast. There, he anchored the Revenge, married a girl he’d brought from Scotland, and they stayed for their honeymoon. Blackbeard staked out a spot for his treasure and hid it while his wife roamed the island.
Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. Tolkien snored so loudly his wife made him sleep in the bathroom.
THE BIG GUNS ARE COMING!
But one day in 1718, a British warship appeared in the distance. In a hurry, Blackbeard either ditched his new bride or asked her to stay behind to guard the loot. Either way, she remained on the islands until she died in 1735. (Some say she’s still there, haunting the area and whispering, “He will come again.”)
Blackbeard sailed for the Carolinas, where the Royal Navy eventually caught and killed him. (The soldiers cut off his head and hung it from his ship’s bow to scare other would-be thieves.) Just before that final battle, a fellow pirate asked Blackbeard if his wife knew where the treasure was. The captain replied that nobody but he and the devil knew where it was, and that “the longest liver shall take it.”
UNDISCOVERED RICHES
It’s hard to know just how much treasure Blackbeard collected over the years, but some of the ships he plundered kept records. We know he snatched a fortune—including 400,000 silver Spanish dollars—from two ships in 1717. He also stole loot from his own crew that’s worth over $300,000 today. Like most pirates, Blackbeard spent his money recklessly, but he also claimed to have hidden some.
KEEP LOOKING
People have been searching the Isles of Shoals for Blackbeard’s treasure for centuries. Someone did find a few silver ingots under a rock on one of the islands (called Smuttynose) in the 1800s, but no one knows for sure if the pieces were Blackbeard’s.
Most treasure hunters believe that if the fortune is there, it’s probably buried on Smuttynose, Appledore, Star, or Lunging Island. Why? Blackbeard could have easily sailed to any of them, and there are lots of good hiding spots. Lunging is shaped like a dumbbell, and at high tide, the ocean rises over the center, marking a clear spot where someone could bury his loot when the water recedes. There also used to be a cave nearby—it’s underground now. In the 1950s, sonar tests showed that the cave might contain metal—perhaps silver. But no one’s been able to get to it. And in 2000, the History Channel even sent geologists to search Lunging Island. But no treasure has been discovered…yet.
Swim over to the first two treasure tales on pages 50 and 97.
Book actually published in 1981: The Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating.
THE BIGGEST
Did you know that Porter the Wonder Dog has the biggest appetite at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute? He can eat 10 dog treats in one sitting! (The rest of us can’t even eat one.) Here are some other “biggest” things.
…SWIMMING POOL
The San Alfonso del Mar resort in Chile is home to the largest swimming pool in the world. It’s more than half a mile long (3,323 feet), holds 66 million gallons of water, and is 115 feet deep at its deepest point. The water is always a comfy 79°F, and it’s not just for swimming: you can scuba dive, kayak, snorkel, and sail on it.
…POOL TOY
If you’re going to play in that pool, you’ll need an enormous pool toy. Consider this one: in 2001, a company in Ontario, Canada, built a “pool noodle” that was a mile long…even longer than the pool in Chile!
…OBJECT REMOVED FROM A HUMAN SKULL
In 1998, an intruder at a friend’s house in Jacksonville, Florida, stabbed Michael Hill in the head with an eight-inch hunting knife. Hill didn’t feel any pain at first and even walked to another house with the knife still in his brain. A friend rushed him to the hospital, where doctors carefully removed the knife. Within a week, Hill was well enough to go home.
A red snapper is a fish. But in Maine, it’s also a hot dog.
…TOWER OF BOWLING BALLS
In 1998, David Kremer from Wisconsin stacked 10 bowling balls on top of each other. Here’s the really amazing part—he didn’t use any glue. The balls were perfectly balanced.
…GOLDFISH
In 2002, an aquarium in Hong Kong
, China, found itself the owner of the world’s largest goldfish. Called Bruce, he was more than 15 inches long…about the size of an average cat.
There are three types of people—those who can count and those who can’t.
DROPOUTS CAN SUCCEED
The next time you’re struggling with homework, think about this: some of the most successful people in history dropped out—or were kicked out—of school.
THE NUTTY PROFESSOR
Albert Einstein dropped out of high school when he was 16 because he felt that the school he was attending in Germany was too strict. Even earlier, some teachers had suggested that he quit grade school. Albert had a speech impediment, so his parents and teachers worried he might be “backward.” Later, of course, he went on to college, became a world-famous physicist and lecturer, and was even offered the job of president of Israel. (He declined.)
OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD
Thomas Edison was kicked out of school at the age of seven—just three months after he enrolled. His teacher called him unruly and slow, so his parents homeschooled him. But he went on to invent the phonograph, perfect the lightbulb, and receive 1,093 U.S. patents, making him one of the most prolific inventors in history. Edison invented so many things that a newspaper reporter nicknamed him the “Wizard of Menlo Park” (the New Jersey town where he lived).
Minimum length of time that food stays in the large intestine: 10 hours.
IT’S BURGERS FOR YOU!
When he was 15, Dave Thomas had a job as a restaurant busboy in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His parents were moving, but he wanted to stay in Fort Wayne, so Thomas quit school and moved in with the restaurant’s owners. He later moved on to executive-level jobs at Kentucky Fried Chicken and became a millionaire at the age of 35. Then he founded the fast-food restaurant Wendy’s. Dave Thomas finally got his GED (a high school diploma) when he was 61 years old. But he spent almost his entire working life in the fast-food industry…though he hired other people—about 40,000 of them—to do the actual burger flipping.
THE TECHIE DROPOUT CLUB
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University in 1975. He’d been a pre-law student, but actually spent most of his time fiddling with the machines in the school’s computer center. He finally left school because a childhood friend (and fellow college dropout) named Paul Allen convinced him to try his hand at running a little computer company that they called Microsoft.
Another tech millionaire also left school in 1975: Steve Wozniak dropped out of the University of California at Berkeley and went on to found the computer company Apple Inc. with Steve Jobs (who had dropped out of Oregon’s Reed College). Wozniak eventually went back to Berkeley. Using the pseudonym “Rocky Raccoon Clark,” he got an electrical engineering/computer science degree in 1986.
Q: What are the Mega Society and Triple Nine Society?
A: Like Mensa, they’re societies for people with super-high IQ scores.
YUK, YUK, YUK
See if you can stump your teacher with these jokes.
Q. What did the lips say to the eyes?
A. Between you and me, something smells.
Q. Where does January come after February?
A. In the dictionary.
Q. Why was the skeleton afraid to cross the road?
A. He had no guts.
Q. Why did all the students eat their homework?
A. The teacher said the questions were a piece of cake.
Q. Who invented airplanes that didn’t fly?
A. The Wrong brothers.
Q. Why was the computer so chilly?
A. He forgot to close his Windows.
15 WAYS TO GET DETENTION
Can you find all the forbidden things that we’ve hidden in the grid to the right? (Remember, when you report to detention, leave the whoopee cushion at home.)
BAD LANGUAGE
BEING RUDE
BURPING REALLY LOUD
EATING IN CLASS
FARTING FREQUENTLY
KICKING
LAUNCHING SPITBALLS
PINCHING
PULLING PIGTAILS
SNORING IN CLASS
SPITTING
STEALING LUNCHES
TALKING ON CELL
TELLING FIBS
THROWING NOTEBOOK
The granite of Mount Rushmore erodes at the rate of one inch every 10,000 years.
Answers on page 243.
In case your teacher asks: Thailand is divided into 75 provinces.
DOES MONEY GROW ON TREES?
Adults are always saying, “Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know!” But that’s not actually true…about paper money, anyway. Here’s the history of the kind of money that does come from trees.
THAT’LL BE 20 SHELLS
Before there was money, people used the barter system—they just traded goods and services with each other. The first actual money came along around 1000 BC, when people living along the coastlines of the Indian and Pacific oceans started trading small shells called cowries for services and supplies. Eventually, people switched from shells to precious metals: gold, silver, bronze, and copper became the standards by which people judged the value of things.
FLYING MONEY
Meanwhile, the Chinese invented paper sometime around AD 100. About 700 years later, there was a copper shortage, so the Chinese emperor decided to substitute decorated pieces of paper, or banknotes, for coins.
Don’t forget to celebrate End of the Middle Ages Day on May 29.
The banknotes represented different amounts of copper and silver and could be exchanged for the precious metals. To make them, the Chinese harvested trees and pressed the wood into pieces of rectangular paper; the larger the rectangle, the more money it was worth. People mostly used the paper money to buy goods from faraway places because messengers could carry the paper more easily than bags of coins, and could “fly” (or at least ride horses really fast) across the countryside with the paper notes. So the Chinese called the paper banknotes “flying money.”
MARCO! POLO!
In the 13th century, the explorer Marco Polo visited China. When he got back to Italy, people had a hard time believing his stories of the Chinese paper money. At that time, Europeans used gold and silver coins. To them, paper didn’t have any value. When Marco Polo suggested that Europe should consider paper money, people laughed at him.
Finally, in 1657, a few Europeans changed their minds. That year, Sweden founded a national bank, managed by the government. The bank’s director, Johan Palmstruch, started issuing paper money instead of handing out coins. That worked fine for a while, but by 1664, people had figured out that Palmstruch was printing more banknotes than there were coins in the bank to cover them. That caused a mass panic: the bank collapsed, and Palmstruch went to jail for the rest of his life.
In Chinese culture, it’s taboo to disfigure a picture of sculpture of a dragon.
But paper money had taken hold in Europe. It was lightweight and easy to produce. And people who had once carried around heavy coins could now fold up pieces of paper in their pockets instead.
COMING TO AMERICA
Banknotes traveled to the New World with the European colonists. In 1690, Massachusetts was the first area to start using paper money, and eventually all of the colonies followed.
But the different colonies used different kinds of money. So in 1781, during the American Revolution, the Continental Congress (which was in charge of the colonies at the time) opened a national bank: the Bank of North America. And in 1791, after the new country had been officially formed, Congress created a single currency for the United States and issued paper bank-notes that made it easy to buy and sell goods from state to state.
These days, banknotes are found all over the world. American dollars, euros, Japanese yen—they’re all made from some kind of paper, which is usually comes from trees. But today’s U.S. dollars are actually made from a mixture of cotton and linen to make them durable and harder to rip…so, technically, they grow on pl
ants.
In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, no one ever mentions Count Dracula’s first name.
HOW TO MAKE CHOCOLATE BUGS
Imagine this: It’s lunchtime and your teacher has cafeteria duty. You call her over, offer a tasty snack, and pull out…bugs! Well, not really. They’re candy. But here’s how to make them.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
•2 red licorice whips
•24 caramels
•1 cup of chocolate chips
•Red Hots
•Wax paper
•Colored candy sprinkles
•Microwave-safe bowl
•Cookie sheet
DIRECTIONS
•Line your cookie sheet with wax paper.
•Place 12 caramels onto the wax paper and press them with your hand so they’re shaped like small ovals.
Only two mammals lay eggs: the duck-billed platypus and the spiny echidna.
•Now it’s time to cut the licorice whips into 48 small pieces. (We know it’s annoying, but be sure to get your parents’ permission before you do any cutting or cooking.)
•Press four pieces of licorice into the sides of each caramel to make legs.
•Put a second caramel on top of each “bug” and press it into an oval shape again. To make sure the legs stay put, be sure to seal the edges where the two caramels meet.
Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Page 16
