by Dan Gutman
My Weird School Daze #2
Mr. Sunny Is Funny!
Dan Gutman
Pictures by
Jim Paillot
To Emma
Contents
1 Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 Hitting the Beach
3 Bummer in the Summer!
4 Mr. Sunny Is Weird
5 A Strange Visitor
6 Nah-Nah-Nah Boo-Boo
7 Andrea and the L Word
8 Love Is Dumb
9 Much Ado About Nothing
10 The Sanderpiece
11 Glub, Glub
12 A.J. to the Rescue
13 And the Winner Is…
14 The Big Surprise Ending That Will Completely Shock You, Unless You Already Guessed It
About the Authors
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
But I don’t care about school anymore. You know why? Because last week I graduated from second grade at Ella Mentry School. And third grade doesn’t start until September.
You know what that means?
That’s right! It’s summertime! I don’t have to worry about school for THREE WHOLE MONTHS!
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before school ended my teacher, Mrs. Daisy, told us to write about our favorite season. We had to read our essays in front of everybody.
“My favorite season is spring,” wrote Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair. “The sun is out. Flowers are blooming. Birds are chirping. Butterflies flit to and fro. It fills me with joy and happiness.”
I hate Andrea.
What is her problem? Everybody knows the best season of all is summer. That’s the first rule of being a kid! Summer blows the doors off the other seasons.
You know why summer is so great? Because you don’t have to sit still all day. You don’t have to pledge the allegiance or have circle time or learn the Word of the Day. You don’t have to line up in ABC order and walk in single file. Teachers don’t yell at you, and you can’t be sent to the principal’s office. There’s no disgusting cafeteria food to eat. You don’t have to read books. No homework! You don’t have to learn stuff.
My brain hurts from so much thinking all year long. In second grade I thought my head was gonna explode from thinking too much.
During the school year, you have to go to bed early and get up early. In the summer you can stay up late and get up late. The sun stays out until nine o’clock at night. How does it know to do that? I guess the sun likes summer, too.
Summer is like three months of recess! You can have water balloon fights, eat saltwater taffy, and play football on the beach. And you don’t have to wear a coat or gloves. You can wear flip-flops and shorts with holes in them. Ice cream tastes better. And you don’t have to take as many showers because you can go swimming. I love swimming. I’m a great swimmer. In the summer you can swim all day.
Plus, in the summer when you get sunburned, you can peel off your skin!
What’s cooler than peeling off your own skin?
But here’s the number one reason why summer is the best season: I don’t have to see Andrea Young for THREE WHOLE MONTHS!
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Three months is 12 weeks. That’s 12 whole weeks with no Andrea!
I got a calculator for Christmas, and I figured it out. Twelve weeks times 7 days in a week is 84 days.
That’s 84 days with no Andrea!
And 84 days times 24 hours in a day is 2,016 hours.
That’s 2,016 hours with no Andrea!
And 2,016 hours times 60 minutes in an hour is 120,960 minutes.
That’s 120,960 minutes with no Andrea!
And 120,960 minutes times 60 seconds in a minute is 7,257,600 seconds.*
That’s more than 7 million seconds with no Andrea!
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I’m going to enjoy every one of them.
2
Hitting the Beach
This summer, my parents rented a beach house. We were gonna share it with my cousins, but they couldn’t come. So we’ll have a big beach house all to ourselves!
The day after school ended, we packed up the car and drove a million hundred miles to the ocean.
“I can’t wait to hit the beach,” I said, looking out the car window.
I had to sit in the back with my sister, Amy, who is going into sixth grade. She’s annoying, but not as annoying as Andrea.
“You’d better watch out for the sand monster, A.J.,” my sister said.
Sand monster? I never heard of a sand monster.
“There’s no such thing as a sand monster,” I said.
“Oh, yes there is,” Amy told me. “He’s a zombie who lives under the sand. He comes out when you least expect it. And he only eats boys.”
I bet Amy was yanking my chain. But I decided to keep my eyes open for man-eating zombie sand monsters just to be on the safe side.
We stopped at a Chinese restaurant because there wasn’t any food at the beach house. Chinese food is cool because they give you chopsticks. So while you’re waiting for the slowpoke grown-ups to finish eating, you can drum on the table or put the chopsticks in your nose and pretend to be a walrus.
Finally, we reached the beach house. It was too late to go swimming, but my parents said I could check out the beach while they unpacked our stuff.
The ocean smelled good. There was a sign on the boardwalk that said SAND CASTLE CONTEST THIS WEEK. Up in the sky, somebody was parasailing. Do you know what parasailing is? A parachute is strapped to your back, and a boat pulls you with a rope. Parasailing is cool. I’m gonna try it when I get bigger.
The beach was almost empty, except for one thing—a backhoe. Do you know what a backhoe is? It’s this yellow machine that digs up stuff.
The backhoe was scooping up sand and dumping it onto a big pile. I went over to watch because machines are cool.
A teenager was driving the backhoe. He had blond hair and a whistle around his neck.
“Yo, dude!” he said as he turned off the motor. “My name is Evan, but everybody calls me Mr. Sunny. What’s your name?”
“My name is Arlo, but everybody calls me A.J.,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Building a sand castle,” Mr. Sunny said. “I’m gonna enter the contest.”
“It looks like a big pile of sand to me.”
“Oh, wait until it’s done, man,” Mr. Sunny said. “Right now my castle is hidden within this sand, waiting to be born. Sand is my life, dude.”
Guys who say “man” and “dude” are cool. Mr. Sunny seemed pretty nice, even if he did like sand a little too much.
“Is this your summer job?” I asked. “You build sand castles?”
“No, dude,” Mr. Sunny said. “I’m the lifeguard here. Will I see you out in the water tomorrow?”
“You bet!” I said. “I’m a great swimmer.”
It was getting late. I said good-bye to Mr. Sunny and headed back to the beach house.
“I have great news, A.J.!” my mom yelled from the porch. “I just got off the phone. One of your friends from school is going to be sharing the house with us!”
“Yippee!” I said. “Who is it? Ryan? Michael? Neil?”
“No,” my mother replied. “It’s Andrea Young.”
WHAT?????????!!!!!!!!!!!
3
Bummer in the Summer!
Nooooooooooooooo!
Not Andrea! Why did it have to be Andrea? Anybody but Andrea! Weren’t there any bank robber
s or criminals we could share our beach house with?
Little Miss Perfect Know-It-All is so annoying. She thinks she is really smart. I know she’ll be hanging around me all summer, bothering me, and trying to show off how much she knows about everything.
“Please don’t let Andrea come here!” I begged my parents. “Please please please please?”
Saying the word “please” over and over again will usually make grown-ups give you anything you want. Nobody knows why.
But it didn’t work this time.
“A.J., you be nice to Andrea,” my mother told me. “Her mother and I are good friends.”
I don’t get it. Why do I have to be friends with somebody just because her mom and my mom are friends? It’s not fair.
The next morning a car pulled into the driveway, and guess who got out?
Little Miss Annoying and her parents! Andrea was wearing pink sunglasses and a bathing suit that had butterflies on it.
“Hi, Arlo!” said Andrea, who calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it. “Isn’t this going to be a great summer?”
“It was gonna be a great summer,” I said, “but then you showed up.”
“That’s not nice, Arlo!”
“Neither is your face,” I told Andrea.
My mother told me to be a gentleman and carry Andrea’s suitcase upstairs for her.
“What do you have in here, rocks?” I asked.
“No, silly,” Andrea said. “Books! It’s my summer reading. Every summer I set a goal for myself. This year my goal is to read the complete works of Shakespeare.”
“You’re gonna read about a guy who shakes a spear?” I asked.
“William Shakespeare is the most famous writer in history!” Andrea said. “If you opened a book once in a while, you’d know that, Arlo.”
“Hey, I opened a book once,” I said. “And then I closed it.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because there were words inside.”
Andrea picked up one of her dumb Shakespeare books and started reading out loud:
“‘To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.’”
“Isn’t that lovely, Arlo?” Andrea asked.
“Zzzzzzzzzz,” I said, pretending to be asleep.
That Shakespeare guy made no sense at all. The question isn’t to be or not to be. I’ll tell you what the question is. Do you want ice cream or cake? That is the question. Trick biking or skateboarding? That is the question. TV or video games? That is the question. Would it be better if a piano or an elephant fell on Andrea’s head? That is the question.
Andrea lined up her dumb books on a shelf in ABC order.
“Hey, maybe we can read together on the beach, Arlo!” Andrea said. “What did you bring for summer reading?”
Summer reading?! What is her problem? “Summer” and “reading” are two words that should never be put together in the same sentence. The only reading I brought was a comic book that I finished in the car. It was about a superhero named Mold Man who can turn his body into any shape. He’s cool. I bet Mold Man would kick Shakespeare’s butt.
Andrea’s mom said we could go to the beach as long as we came back in time for lunch. Then we’d have to wait an hour before we went swimming again. Mothers always make you wait an hour after you eat before you can go swimming. Nobody knows why. I guess sharks can smell the food in your stomach and will eat you to get it.
I showed Andrea how to get to the beach. The backhoe was gone, but Mr. Sunny was out there working on his big pile of sand. He was concentrating so hard that he didn’t even notice us.
“Who’s that boy?” Andrea asked.
“That’s Mr. Sunny, the lifeguard,” I told her.
“He’s a hunk!” Andrea whispered.
“A hunk of what?” I asked.
“He’s dreamy!”
Andrea had on a zombie face. Her mouth was open, and she was making goo-goo eyes at Mr. Sunny.
Ugh, disgusting!*
4
Mr. Sunny Is Weird
Mr. Sunny had a baseball cap on his head and earphones in his ears. He was working very hard on his sand castle, using a plastic shovel to carve the walls. Finally, he noticed me and Andrea watching him.
“Hi, A.J.!” he said. “Who’s your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Andrea said.
“Well, who’s your friend that’s a girl?” asked Mr. Sunny.
“She’s not my friend, either,” I told him. “Friends are people you like. This is Andrea.”
“Charmed,” Andrea said, all giggly. She did one of those courtesy things girls do. “I love your sand castle!”
What a brownnoser! As soon as Andrea started talking to Mr. Sunny, she acted like I wasn’t even there.
“I’m gonna win the contest,” Mr. Sunny said. “First prize is a trip to France. I’m gonna go to college there and study sand sculpture from the great sand masters.”
“That sounds awesome,” Andrea gushed. “Are you in high school?”
“Yeah, I’m sixteen. “
“Is Sunny your real name?” asked Andrea.
“Nah,” Mr. Sunny said. “My name is Evan. Everybody calls me Mr. Sunny because I love the sun so much.”
“‘What’s in a name?’” said Andrea. “‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Shakespeare wrote that, you know.”
Ugh.
Mr. Sunny took off his baseball cap and showed it to us. It had solar panels built right into it! Then he turned around and showed us that his tank top had solar panels built into it too.
“The solar panels power my iPod,” Mr. Sunny told us. “Why do we have to burn gas or coal when all the power we need is right there in the sky? Global warming is a bummer, man.”
“I hate global warming,” Little Miss Brownnoser said. If Mr. Sunny said he hated butterflies, Andrea would probably say she hates them too.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Sunny said. “I can’t talk right now. I have to work on my sand castle before the beach fills with kids.”
“‘Men of few words are the best men,’” Andrea said. “Shakespeare wrote that too.”
Mr. Sunny took off his shirt and went back to carving the castle. When he turned around, I could see the word “SUNNY” written across his back in white letters.
“Is that a tattoo?” I asked.
“No,” Mr. Sunny said. “I cut the letters S-U-N-N-Y out of paper and taped them to my back. It’s a SUNNY sunburn!”
Andrea was all giggly and told him his sunburn was cool.
“I bet you have lots of girlfriends,” Andrea said.
“Oh, I don’t have time for that,” Mr. Sunny replied. “Sand is my life.”
Mr. Sunny is funny! But if you ask me, people who wear solar panels and tape letters to their backs are weird.
Soon the beach was filled with people, blankets, and umbrellas. I went for a swim. When I came back, Andrea and a bunch of other kids were gathered around Mr. Sunny.
“Part of being a lifeguard is to teach you kids about first aid,” he said. “Does anybody know what to do if a person is drowning and can’t breathe?”
Little Miss I-Know-Everything waved her hand in the air, just like she was at school. But Mr. Sunny called on me. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.
“It depends on who’s drowning,” I said. “If the quarterback of your Pee Wee football team is drowning, then you have to get a new quarterback right away. Because if you don’t have a quarterback, you’ll have to forfeit the game.”
Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Andrea rolled her eyes.
“How about you, Andrea?” asked Mr. Sunny.
“If somebody is drowning,” sh
e said, “you give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“That’s right!” Mr. Sunny said.
Andrea stuck her tongue out at me. I stuck mine out right back at her.
“Arlo, don’t you remember when Officer Spence gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Mrs. Daisy at our graduation?” Andrea asked. “It was just last week!”
How am I supposed to remember what happened last week?
“Do you need a volunteer to practice mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on?” asked one of the girls. They all got giggly and waved their hands in the air.
“Me! Me! Me!” shouted Andrea. “Please please please please pick me!”
“Okay,” Mr. Sunny said. “Andrea, you’re my volunteer.”
“Yay!” Andrea squealed, jumping up and down. I tell you, that “please” thing works every time.
Mr. Sunny told Andrea to lie on the sand.
“Okay,” he said, “pretend you were drowning. I dragged you up on the beach, and you can’t breathe.”
“I can do that,” I said.
“You can pretend you were drowning and you can’t breathe?” Mr. Sunny asked.
“No, I can pretend that Andrea was drowning and can’t breathe,” I told him. “I do it every day.”
“You’re mean, Arlo!”
Mr. Sunny knelt down next to Andrea. She closed her eyes.
He tilted her head back a little and pinched her nostrils shut with his fingers.
Then he told us he was going to pretend to blow a few breaths of air into Andrea’s mouth so she would be able to breathe again.
He leaned over until his mouth was almost touching hers.
Andrea puckered up her lips.
Ew, disgusting! Mr. Sunny was about to kiss Andrea! I thought I was gonna throw up.
