Mr. Nick Is a Lunatic!

by Dan Gutman

  “How is a vegetarian bookstore different from a regular bookstore?” Michael asked.

  “Our books will have no meat in them,” said Miss Moon.

  That was weird. I never heard of a book with meat in it. Why would anybody put meat in a book? Well, maybe if it was a book about meat.

  Miss Moon closed her eyes and began dancing around the front of the class.

  “Are you going to teach us reading today?” asked Andrea.

  “No,” said Miss Moon. “What’s the point of teaching you reading? You already know how to read, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” replied Andrea. “Are you going to teach us writing?”

  “No,” said Miss Moon. “You already know how to write, don’t you?”

  “I guess so,” replied Andrea. “So, are you going to teach us math?”

  “No,” said Miss Moon. “You already know how to do math, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yes,” replied Andrea. “Then what are you going to teach us?”

  Miss Moon went to the cloakroom and took out a guitar.

  “I’m going to teach you how to love,” she said.

  WHAT?! Ugh, disgusting! She said the L word! I thought I was gonna throw up.

  Miss Moon strummed the guitar.

  “Let’s sing a love song,” she said. “I think you’ll pick up the words very quickly.”

  And then she began to sing this really weird song. It went something like this. . . .

  “Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love . . .”

  Ugh! Miss Moon’s dumb song was nothing but the L word over and over again! I thought I was gonna die. It was also the most boring song in the history of the world. What a snoozefest!

  I never thought I would ever say this, but I was wishing we could learn reading, writing, or math instead of listening to Miss Moon sing.

  Finally, Miss Moon finished her awful song and put down the guitar. Everybody clapped, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when somebody finishes singing a song, no matter how horrible it is. Miss Moon picked up some papers and put a sheet on everybody’s desk.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now that we’re all in a loving mood, I’d like you to write something that you love about the person sitting to your left.”

  I looked to my left. And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who was sitting there.

  It was Andrea! She looked at me. She had a big smile on her face.

  I turned around. Ryan and Michael were elbowing each other and pointing at me. They had big smiles on their faces too.

  Oh no! I had to write something I love about Andrea! This was the worst day in the history of the world.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast. So this is what I wrote. . . .

  I LOVE IT WHEN ANDREA IS ABSENT.

  I figured Miss Moon was going to collect all the papers and take them back to her yurt to read. But no such luck.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now we’re going to read what we wrote out loud in front of the class. Who wants to go first?”

  “A.J. wants to go first!” shouted Michael.

  “A.J. wants to go first!” shouted Ryan.

  “A.J. wants to go first!” shouted Neil.

  In case you were wondering, all the guys were shouting that I wanted to go first.

  “How about you go first, A.J.?” said Miss Moon.

  Bummer in the summer! I thought I was gonna die. This was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week! I wanted to go run away to Antarctica and live with the penguins.

  I stood up. Michael and Ryan were covering their mouths and giggling.

  “I love it when Andrea is absent,” I muttered under my breath.

  “I’m sorry,” said Miss Moon. “Can you speak a little louder, A.J.?”

  “I love it when Andrea is absent,” I said a little louder.

  “That’s mean, Arlo!” said Andrea.

  “Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. loves something about Andrea!”

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

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

  After Miss Moon had totally humiliated me in front of the whole class, she said it was time for us to go to art. Ugh! Art is boring. We had to walk a million hundred miles to the art room.

  Our regular art teacher, Ms. Hannah, wasn’t there, of course. She was on strike. Instead, some man was in the art room. He was wearing one of those white smock thingies and carrying a box.

  “Hi, I’m Mr. Bob,” he told us after we had taken our seats. “Art is blah blah blah blah creativity blah blah blah blah blah blah imagination blah blah blah blah color blah blah blah blah expression blah blah blah blah . . .”

  I had no idea what Mr. Bob was talking about. But he seemed to know a lot of stuff about art.

  “Do you kids like art?” he asked us.

  “Yes!” said all the girls.

  “No!” said all the boys.

  “Would you like to draw some pictures?”

  “Yes!” said all the girls.

  “No!” said all the boys.

  Mr. Bob opened the box he was carrying and took a bunch of hand mirrors out of it. He went around the room passing out one mirror to each of us.

  “Today we’re going to draw self-portraits,” Mr. Bob told us. “A self-portrait is a picture of yourself. We’re going to make self-portraits of the insides of our mouths.”

  WHAT?!

  “You want us to draw pictures of our mouths?” asked Alexia.

  “Yes! The mouth is an amazing part of the body,” said Mr. Bob. “Think about it. We use our mouth for eating, for speaking, for kissing—”

  “Ewwwww, gross!” everybody shouted.

  “—and sometimes we even breathe through our mouth. Yet we hardly ever look inside our mouth. We sure are lucky we have one. I don’t know where I would be without my mouth.”

  I know where Mr. Bob would be. In a loony bin! Mr. Bob is a nut job.

  “I don’t want to draw a picture of my mouth,” I said while he was passing out paper and pencils.

  “Getting kids to draw is like pulling teeth,” said Mr. Bob. “I’ll tell you what, A.J. I’ll draw the inside of your mouth for you.”

  Before I could make a run for the door, Mr. Bob had leaned me back in my chair and was looking into my mouth.

  “Open wide,” he said. “Say Ahhhh.”

  I opened my mouth wide and said Ahhhh.

  “You really need to floss more,” he told me. “I think there may be a few cavities in here.”

  “Ahrgrahbahrahrgabrar,” I said, because Mr. Bob’s fingers were in my mouth.

  He started drawing a picture of the inside of my mouth. It was actually pretty good. Everybody else in the class was drawing their own mouth pictures.

  Finally, after a million hundred hours, the torture was over. Mr. Bob told us to hold up our drawings.

  “Nice work!” he said. “You kids are really talented mouth artists.”

  Miss Moon came back into the classroom. She said she loved our mouth drawings and told us to line up because it was time to go to lunch. Mr. Bob said good-bye to each of us as we left.

  “Catch you next time,” he said.

  “You’re not really an art teacher, are you?” I whispered to him.

  “Of course not,” he replied. “I never said I was an art teacher.”

  “Then who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m Mr. Nick’s dentist.”

  WHAT?!

  “Oh, yeah,” Mr. Bob told me. “I’ve been friends with Nick since we were in high school together. He called me up this morning and asked me to come over here and teach art this week. I would do anything for that guy.”

  And I thought our old teachers were weird!


  We eat lunch in the vomitorium. It used to be called the cafetorium, but then some first grader threw up in there. I usually bring my lunch from home, but my mom forgot to pack it, so I had to buy lunch.

  “Something tells me that Mr. Nick is not a real principal,” I said as I waited on line with the guys.

  “What do you mean, A.J.?” asked Ryan.

  “Well, Mr. Bob told me he isn’t a real art teacher,” I explained. “He’s just Mr. Nick’s dentist. And Miss Moon isn’t a real teacher. So maybe Mr. Nick isn’t a real principal either. Real principals have lots of rules, and real principals don’t call the all-purpose room the all-porpoise room.”

  “Mr. Nick must be . . . an imposter!” said Michael.

  “Yeah,” said Neil. “He probably tied up Mr. Klutz to some railroad tracks, and a train is about to run him over. Stuff like that happens all the time.”

  “We’ve got to do something!” shouted Emily. And then she went running out of the vomitorium.

  I slapped my forehead. What a crybaby!

  Finally, after we waited for a million hundred minutes, we got up to the front of the line. There was a lady behind the counter. I had never seen her before.

  “Where’s Ms. LaGrange, our regular lunch lady?” Ryan asked her.

  “She’s on strike with all the teachers,” the lady said. “My name is Miss Julia.”

  “You’re not a real cook, are you?” asked Alexia.

  “Of course I’m a real cook,” said Miss Julia. “In fact, I’m Mr. Nick’s personal cook and nutrition adviser.”

  Oh no. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “What would you kids like to eat for lunch today?” asked Miss Julia. “You can have anything you want.”

  “I’ll have a hot dog,” I said.

  “I’ll have chicken fingers,” said Andrea.

  “I’ll have a hamburger,” said Alexia.

  “Sorry,” Miss Julia told us. “I don’t eat meat, and I don’t serve meat.”

  “You’re a vegetarian?” Michael asked.

  “No,” said Miss Julia. “I don’t eat vegetables either, and I won’t serve them.”

  “How about eggs?” Ryan asked. “Do you eat eggs?”

  “Eggs?! Are you crazy?” said Miss Julia. “Do you have any idea what they do to the chickens that lay those eggs?”

  “Milk? Cheese?” I asked hopefully.

  “Please! Dairy?” said Miss Julia. “No way! It’s out of the question.”

  “Seafood?” asked Andrea. “Could I have some tuna fish, please?”

  “Nope,” said Miss Julia. “Tuna is full of mercury and other chemicals.”

  “Can I just have a piece of bread?” asked Alexia. “I’m really hungry.”

  “Sorry. This is a gluten-free school now. No bread.”

  “So what can we have for lunch?” I asked. “You said we could have anything we want.”

  “Aha!” said Miss Julia. “You’re in luck. Today we are serving some delicious, organic, gluten-free, all-natural, free-range water. With no preservatives.”

  Wait. WHAT?!

  “You’re giving us glasses of water for lunch?” I asked.

  “Of course not!” said Miss Julia. “Don’t be silly. I boiled the water to kill the germs. Here, you can each have a bowl of water soup.”

  Water soup?

  Miss Julia handed a bowl of water to each of us. The bowls were hot, and steam was coming out of them.

  “Water soup? Is this some kind of a joke?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything.

  Ryan totally doesn’t know what a joke is. A joke would be like: What kind of flowers are on your face? Tulips!

  “Water is the liquid of life,” Miss Julia told us. “Think about it. Water has no calories. No sugar. No artificial ingredients. No sodium. No cholesterol. No GMOs. It’s the perfect food. Drink up! You’ll feel better.”

  I knew I should have brought my lunch from home. We took our bowls of water soup and sat down at a table.

  Miss Julia is peculiar.*

  “This soup is pretty watery,” I said as I sipped from my bowl of water soup.

  “I’m hungry,” said Neil.

  “Me too,” said Michael.

  “I’m starving,” said Ryan. “I would eat anything right now.”

  “You’ll eat anything anytime,” I told him. “Even stuff that isn’t food.”

  “I think my stomach is eating itself,” said Alexia.

  Our new teacher, Miss Moon, came over to the table. She had her usual big smile on her face.

  “Are you kids enjoying lunch?” she asked. “Isn’t Miss Julia a great cook?”

  “No,” said all the girls.

  “No,” said all the boys.

  Miss Moon led us back to our classroom. She said it was time for math. Ugh. Math is boring.

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to teach us math,” said Andrea.

  “I’m not going to teach you math,” said Miss Moon. “Mr. Nick is bringing in a special teacher to teach you math.”

  And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who walked into the door at that moment.

  Nobody! It would hurt to walk into a door. I thought we went over that in chapter one. But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway.

  It was Mr. Nick!

  “You’re the special math teacher?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I dig math,” said Mr. Nick. “Numbers are my bag, dude.”

  Oh no. I had a bad feeling about this.

  “Let’s start with the basics to see how much you kids know about math,” said Mr. Nick. “Can anybody tell me what you get when you add two plus two?”

  Andrea looked like she was going to burst. She was waving her hand in the air like she was stranded on a desert island and had to signal an airplane.

  “You don’t have to raise your hands anymore,” Mr. Nick told us. “We have no rules here, remember? So, Andrea, what is two plus two?”

  “Four!” she shouted. Then she smiled the smile that she smiles to let everybody know she got the right answer.

  Mr. Nick closed his eyes and stroked his chin for a minute.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “That is a very interesting answer, Andrea. But what if two plus two isn’t four?”

  WHAT?!

  “But of course two plus two is four,” Andrea told him. “Everybody knows that. I don’t even have to look it up.”

  Mr. Nick looked around like he didn’t want anybody else to hear. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “Your teachers have been telling you all your life that two plus two is four,” he whispered, “but what if two plus two is actually five?”

  Here we go.

  “What if everything your teachers ever taught you is wrong?” Mr. Nick whispered. “Maybe you’ve been brainwashed your whole life. Did you ever think about that?”

  “B-but I know that two plus two is four,” Andrea said as she took some pencils out of her pencil case. “Look, if I put two pencils on my desk, and then I put two more pencils on my desk, and then I count the pencils, it comes to four pencils. One . . . two . . . three . . . four.”

  Andrea was right, for once in her life.

  “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, Andrea,” said Mr. Nick. “This is a free country. Our Founding Fathers gave us freedom of speech. But if you ask me, numbers are a state of mind. Maybe everybody is wrong, and two plus two is actually sixty-five. Maybe it’s minus four. Maybe in another universe two plus two is a billion and four. Doesn’t that blow your mind?”

  “But . . . but . . . but . . .”

  We all started giggling because Andrea said “but,” which sounds just like “butt” even though it only has one T. Then Andrea put on her mean face.

  “That’s crazy!” she said. “Two plus two is four, and that’s all there is to it!”

  “Hey, chill, girl,” Mr. Nick said, flashing a peace sign. “Let’s try to be tolerant of people who don’t agree with our opinions. Haters gon
na hate, but we don’t have to be close-minded. Let’s be accepting of all views. I say, let’s teach the controversy.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about. Mr. Nick is a lunatic!

  “Okay, I think that’s enough math for today,” Mr. Nick said. “The point of this lesson is, are you gonna think for yourself? Or are you going to let The Man tell you what to think?”

  I looked around. The only man in the room was Mr. Nick.

  “Remember the words of the great French mathematician Descartes,” Mr. Nick said as he walked out the door. “I think, therefore I am.”

  I think, therefore I am? That made no sense at all. I am what I am, even if I don’t think about who I am. That guy Descartes was weird.

  I don’t care what Mr. Nick says. Two plus two is definitely four.

  I think.

  It was one o’clock in the afternoon. Or maybe it was two o’clock. I’m not sure. I was so hungry that I couldn’t think straight. All I had for lunch was a bowl of water soup.

  As soon as Mr. Nick left, some lady came into our classroom. I had never seen her before.

  “My name is Mrs. Hall,” she said. “I’m here to teach you creative writing.”

  “I’ll bet you’re not even a creative writing teacher,” said Ryan.

  “You’re right, I’m not,” said Mrs. Hall. “I’m Mr. Nick’s yoga instructor. But how hard could it be to teach creative writing? You just put words on a page, right?”

  “Ooh, can we write a story?” asked Andrea. “I love stories!”

  “Me too!” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says. The two of them were all excited.

  “You can create anything you want,” said Mrs. Hall as she handed out sheets of paper to all of us. “That’s why it’s called creative writing.”

  “I’m going to write a story about butterflies,” said Andrea.

  “Me too!” said Emily.

  The two of them started writing on their papers.

  Writing is boring. I didn’t know what to write. I didn’t feel like being creative. I felt like eating.