Mrs. Patty Is Batty!

by Dan Gutman

  My Weird School #13

  Mrs. Patty Is Batty!

  Dan Gutman

  Pictures by Jim Paillot

  To Emma

  Contents

  1 Mischief Night

  2 The T.P.ing of Andrea’s House

  3 Three Zombies

  4 The Emperor Has No Clothes

  5 “I Rule the School!”

  6 Giant Bananas and Two-headed Astronauts

  7 The Halloween Monster!

  8 The Most Horrible, Dreadful, Disgusting, Repulsive Creature That Ever Walked the Earth

  9 Mrs. Patty’s Weird House

  10 Marvin the Headless Mummy

  About the Author and the Illustrator

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Mischief Night

  My name is A.J. and I hate school.

  Well, I have to tell the truth. There is one thing about school that I really love.

  Dismissal! That’s when we get to go home!

  “Don’t forget to wear your Halloween costumes tomorrow,” Mrs. Patty cackled over the loudspeaker just before the three o’clock bell rang. “Halloween is my favorite holiday!”

  She’s not kidding. Mrs. Patty celebrates Halloween all year long. There are always cobwebs and spiders covering her desk. She wears earrings that look like little skeletons. And she always has candy in her office. Lots of candy.

  I like Mrs. Patty. She’s the secretary at Ella Mentry School. That means she sits in the front office all day and makes announcements over the loudspeaker. “Friday is pizza day!” she will say. Or “Miss Lazar, please mop up the throw up in the vomitorium.” Or “Will the children who left their jackets in the playground please remove their clothes.”

  Being a school secretary is like being a DJ. That is a cool job.

  I grabbed a piece of candy and ran out the front door of Ella Mentry School with my friends Ryan and Michael. Free at last!

  “What should we do for mischief night tonight?” asked Ryan, who once ate a piece of the seat cushion on the school bus.

  “Let’s T.P. somebody’s house,” said Michael, who never ties his shoes.

  “Yeah!”

  I don’t know if you know this or not, but the night before Halloween is mischief night. That’s the night you go out and do mischief, so it has the perfect name. And T.P. stands for toilet paper. On mischief night you go out and throw toilet paper all over people’s trees. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

  “Whose house should we T.P.?” I asked.

  “How about Miss Daisy’s house?” Ryan suggested. (Miss Daisy is our teacher.)

  “Nah,” Michael said, “we’d get in big trouble.”

  “How about Mr. Klutz’s ho use?” Ryan suggested. (Mr. Klutz is our principal.)

  “Nah,” Michael said, “we’d get in even bigger trouble.”

  Speaking of trouble, guess who ran by us at that very moment? It was the most annoying person in the history of the world, little Miss Perfect Andrea Young. She is in our class and has curly brown hair. She thinks she is so smart.

  “What’s the rush, Andrea?” asked Ryan.

  “I have to finish my homework before ballet class,” Andrea said.

  “Why don’t you do your homework after ballet class?” Michael asked.

  “After ballet class I have soccer and my cooking class.”

  Andrea takes classes in everything. If they gave a class in going to the bathroom, she would take that class so she could get better at it. I hate her.

  But seeing Andrea gave me the greatest idea in the history of the world.

  “Let’s T.P. Andrea’s house!” I told the guys.

  “A.J., you’re a genius!” said Ryan.

  2

  The T.P.ing of Andrea’s House

  After dinner I told my parents I was going down the street to Ryan’s house. Ryan told his parents he was going down the street to my house. But me and Ryan didn’t go over to each other’s houses at all. We both went to Andrea’s house. Our parents didn’t have to know we were going out for mischief night. But Michael couldn’t come. He was grounded for pulling the arms off his sister’s doll.

  Me and Ryan each brought a roll of toilet paper in our backpacks.

  “This is gonna be great!” Ryan whispered as we hid behind a car across the street from Andrea’s house. “Andrea’s gonna wake up in the morning and find the trees in her yard are covered in toilet paper!”

  I couldn’t stop giggling.

  “It will be the greatest day in the history of the world,” I said.

  It was starting to get dark out, but we still had to be careful because we didn’t want to get caught. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that if you get caught T.P.ing somebody’s house, the police put you in a jail with no toilet paper. Yuck! But Billy is a big liar anyway.

  Me and Ryan tiptoed to Andrea’s front lawn like we were spies on a mission. It was cool.

  “Be careful not to spit on the ground,” I whispered as we pulled the rolls of toilet paper out of our backpacks.

  “Why not?” Ryan asked.

  “You don’t want to leave any DNA evidence,” I said. “They could scoop up our spit and prove it came from us.”

  “Good thinking,” he agreed.

  I’m in the gifted and talented program at school, so I’m constantly thinking up genius stuff like that. Andrea is in the gifted and talented program too (of course).

  There’s a really big tree in Andrea’s front yard. It has a lot of branches, so it’s perfect for hanging toilet paper. We decided to loop the toilet paper over the high branches first. After that we would drape it over the low branches until the whole tree was covered.

  “Okay,” I said, once we were in position. “Ready…aim…fire!”

  I threw my roll of toilet paper as high as I could. Ryan threw his roll of toilet paper at the same time. Both rolls went sailing up into the tree. But there was just one problem. Those toilet paper rolls didn’t unroll!

  One of the toilet paper rolls bounced off Andrea’s house. The other one got stuck in the tree somewhere. It never came down. Bummer in the summer!

  “What did we do wrong?” Ryan asked.

  “I guess we should have unrolled them a little before we threw them,” I said.

  “Now you tell me!” said Ryan.

  We were going to pick up the toilet paper roll and try again. But suddenly a light went on inside Andrea’s house. Andrea stuck her head out the window. Me and Ryan ran and hid behind the tree.

  “Shhhh!” Ryan whispered. “I don’t think she saw us.”

  “Daddy!” I heard Andrea yell. “Somebody is outside throwing stuff at our house!”

  “Run for it!” I told Ryan. We didn’t stop running until we got home.

  3

  Three Zombies

  The next day was October 31, my favorite day of the year. Do you know why October 31 is my favorite day of the year?

  I’m not going to tell you.

  Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.

  Because it’s Halloween, and that’s my favorite holiday. Well, I guess my favorite holidays are my birthday and Christmas, because I get presents. But on Halloween you get candy, which is almost as good as getting presents.

  Halloween is so great. Think about it. All you have to do is walk around in a silly costume and people give you free candy.* What could be better than that? It’s a whole holiday devoted to getting candy! Whoever thought up Halloween was a genius. If you ask me, that guy should get the No Bell Prize. (That’s a prize they give out to celebrate the invention of the first bell.)

  When I marched up the front steps to school, Mrs. Patty was standing in the hallway. She was dre
ssed up like a witch. She had a long bent nose with a huge wart on it. How did that wart stay on? She must have glued it or something. It was gross.

  “I’ll get you, my pretty,” she shrieked, waving her broomstick at this girl named Annette, “and your little dog, too!”

  “I don’t even have a dog,” Annette told her.

  The front steps were filled with kids dressed as SpongeBobs and Batmans and Oompa-Loompas and all kinds of other weird creatures. Michael was wearing his peewee football uniform, and he had an ax sticking out of his helmet with fake blood running down the side. It was cool.

  “What are you supposed to be?” Mrs. Patty asked him.

  “I’m a football player,” Michael said.

  “Why do you have an ax sticking out of your helmet?”

  “I’m a zombie football player.”

  “Ooh, that’s scary!” said Mrs. Patty.

  Ryan was wearing his hockey uniform, and he had an ax sticking out of his helmet with fake blood running down the side.

  “Don’t tell me,” Mrs. Patty said to him. “You’re a zombie hockey player, right?”

  “How did you know?” asked Ryan.

  “Lucky guess,” she said. “What are you supposed to be, A.J.?”

  I was dressed up like a penguin who was wearing a space helmet that had an ax sticking out of it and fake blood running down the side. Penguins are cool.

  “I’m a killer zombie penguin from outer space,” I told her.

  “Ooh, that’s very scary!” said Mrs. Patty. “Be sure to come trick-or-treating at my house after school. I’m going to have more candy than anyone in town. My address is 176 Norman Road.”

  “We’ll be there!” I said.

  We were putting our backpacks into our cubbies when little Miss I Know Everything and her equally annoying cry-baby friend, Emily, came in. Andrea was dressed up like a ballerina, so of course Miss Show-off had to spin around on her toes to let everybody know she could dance. What is her problem?

  Emily was dressed up like a queen. She had a crown on her head, and this long robe that trailed behind her on the floor. What’s up with that?

  “It’s called a train,” Emily told us.

  “No it’s not,” I said. “A train is something you ride in that goes choo-choo.”

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

  I thought those girls’ costumes were lame. They weren’t scary at all. It would have been a lot cooler if they had axes sticking out of their heads like us.

  “What are you boys supposed to be?” Emily asked me and Ryan and Michael.

  “None of your beeswax,” I told her.

  “We’re zombies,” Ryan said.

  “I don’t think children should be allowed to wear violent costumes on Halloween,” Andrea said.

  “Can you possibly be any more boring?” I asked her.

  “You’re dumbheads,” said Andrea.

  “We are not!”

  “Are too!”

  We went back and forth like that for a while until I had to say, “So is your face” to Andrea. Any time anyone says something mean to you, just say “So is your face” to shut them up. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

  “Hey, Arlo,” said Andrea. “I brought a present for you.” (She calls me by my real name because she knows how much I hate it.)

  Ryan and Michael started giggling.

  “Oooooh!” Ryan said. “Andrea brought A.J. a present! They must be in love!”

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

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

  Andrea opened her backpack and took out a roll of toilet paper.

  “You must have dropped this outside my house last night,” Andrea said. “I guess you were having a bathroom emergency.”

  I hate her. Why can’t a truck full of toilet paper fall on her head?

  Andrea handed me the roll. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.

  “I wasn’t at your house last night,” I lied. “I was at my class class.”

  “Class class?” she asked. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a class that makes you better at taking classes,” I told her. “You should take it.”

  “There’s no such thing as a class class,” said Emily.

  “Hey Emily,” I said, pointing under her desk, “look under there!”

  “Under where?” asked Emily.

  “Ha-ha-ha!” I yelled. “Emily said ‘underwear’!”

  Everybody cracked up because I made Emily say “underwear.” It was hilarious. Any time you can get somebody to say “underwear,” you should get the No Bell Prize.

  “You’re mean!” Emily said. Then she started crying and went running out of the room.

  Emily is weird.

  Finally our teacher Miss Daisy came in. “Enough chitchat,” she said. Miss Daisy was dressed up as a giant brown ball. Only her head, arms, and legs were sticking out.

  “What are you supposed to be, Miss Daisy?” everybody asked.

  “Guess.”

  “A basketball?” guessed Ryan.

  “Nope.”

  “A giant poop?” guessed Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.

  “Nope,” Miss Daisy said. “I’m a big bonbon!” (Bonbons are these chocolate treats Miss Daisy loves.)

  “That’s a great costume, Miss Daisy,” said Andrea, who never misses the chance to brownnose a grown-up.

  “Oh, this is no costume,” Miss Daisy said. “I ate so many bonbons that I turned into one.”

  I’m pretty sure she was kidding.

  4

  The Emperor Has No Clothes

  It’s really hard to concentrate on schoolwork when your teacher is dressed up like a giant bonbon. All I could think about was the candy I would be getting when we went trick-or-treating after school. My mouth was watering. But Miss Daisy was trying her best to teach us.

  “If you go trick-or-treating and they give out Kit Kats at five houses and Milky Ways at three houses and Hershey bars at seven houses, how many candy bars will you have altogether? A.J.?”

  “Is anybody giving out Snickers?” I asked.

  “That’s irrelevant,” said Miss Daisy.

  “No it’s not,” I told her. “An elephant is a big animal with a long trunk.”

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

  “I hate Snickers,” said Neil the nude kid. “My favorite candy bar is Three Musketeers.”

  “Let’s try to stay on task, shall we?” said Miss Daisy. Teachers are always telling us to stay “on task.” That means we have to talk about boring stuff instead of interesting stuff, like candy bars.

  “I like Twizzlers,” said Ryan.

  “Twizzlers aren’t candy bars,” Michael said. “They’re licorice.”

  “Ugh! Licorice is yucky,” said Neil the nude kid. “It gives candy a bad name.”

  We went on like that for a while. Nobody could agree on which candy bar was the best. After a while Miss Daisy gave up trying to teach anything.

  “All this math talk is making me hungry,” she said.

  We were all excited to march around in our costumes, but Miss Daisy said it wasn’t time yet.

  Finally, after a million hundred years, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “It’s time for the parade!” Mrs. Patty exclaimed. “Please bring all classes to the playground.”

  “Yay!” everybody yelled.

  Miss Daisy told us to line up boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl. (I think she does that so each of us has to be next to somebody we hate.) I had to stand behind annoying Emily, the queen of crybabies. We marched in single file to the playground. The whole school was out there in their costumes.

  It was cool. Even the grown-ups were dressed up. Ms. Hannah, our art teacher, dressed up like a famous artist named Picasso. Miss Small, our gym teacher, dressed up like a famous baseball player n
amed Babe Ruth. Mrs. Kormel, our bus driver, dressed up like a famous NASCAR racer named Jeff Gordon. Mrs. Roopy, our librarian, dressed up like a famous children’s book author who I never heard of before. Authors are boring.

  A lot of the parents came out to see the parade. I saw my mom near the monkey bars. She waved and took a picture of me in my penguin costume.

  We marched all the way around the playground. I thought that would be the end of the parade, but then we had to march around the playground again. It was starting to get boring. I was sweating in my penguin costume. I was tired. I didn’t want to march anymore. My space helmet was fogged up, and it was getting hard to see out of it. I was sick of the dumb parade. I just wanted to go trick-or-treating and get candy. I needed candy!

  But that’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. I stepped on Emily’s queen costume.

  I didn’t mean to step on Emily’s queen costume. Really! I was minding my own business, marching around the playground. But her dumb train thing was dragging on the ground behind her and I couldn’t see through my space helmet and I guess I got too close to her and I stepped on the train.

  It would have been okay, except that Emily kept right on walking, like she didn’t even know I was standing on her train. What a dumbhead! Anyway, it must have been some cheap costume, because it ripped really easily. The next thing anybody knew, Emily’s whole costume was on the ground and not on Emily.

  “Look!” somebody shouted. “Underwear!”

  Well, the only thing funnier than getting someone to say “underwear” is actually seeing someone in their underwear. That’s the first rule of being a kid. And Emily was standing in the middle of the playground in her underwear! There were even flowers on it!