Ms. Hall Is a Goofball!

by Dan Gutman

  We were almost finished with lunch when Emily came back to the table.

  “I was thinking, Emily,” said Andrea. “You and I should start the Veggie Lovers Club.”

  “That’s a great idea!” said Emily.

  “You only want to start the Veggie Lovers Club so Ms. Hall will like you,” I told Andrea.

  “That’s not true, Arlo,” said Andrea. “I’m starting the Veggie Lovers Club because I love veggies.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. “Well, if you’re going to start the Veggie Lovers Club, we’re going to start the Veggie Haters Club!”

  “Yeah!” said Ryan, Michael, Neil, and Alexia. Everybody was excited. Starting a new club is fun.

  “I have an idea,” said Alexia. “The first thing we should do in the Veggie Haters Club is to have a boycott.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I’m not tired.”

  “All the boys have to sleep on cots?” asked Ryan.

  “No, dumbheads!” said Alexia. “A boycott is when a group of people refuse to do something. Like, we can just refuse to eat veggies for the rest of our lives.”

  “That’s a great idea!” said Neil. “Let’s boycott veggies!”

  “Yeah!” we all shouted.

  Alexia should get the Nobel Prize. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.

  After school, we had the first meeting of the Veggie Haters Club in my backyard. We took a vote, and everybody decided I should be president of the club. We made Alexia vice president.

  So if I dropped dead, she would be president. If Alexia and I both dropped dead, Ryan would be president. Then if Ryan dropped dead, Michael would be president. And if Michael dropped dead, Neil would be president. And if all of us dropped dead, we’d form the Dead Veggie Haters Club.

  “I call the first meeting of the Veggie Haters Club to order,” I announced.

  “Clubs always have a mission statement,” said Alexia.

  “How about ‘We hate veggies,’” suggested Neil.

  “All in favor, say aye,” I said. “All opposed, say nay.”*

  “Aye!” everybody shouted.

  That was easy. We decided that the first order of business for the Veggie Haters Club would be to have a protest march in the vomitorium. I got some cardboard and markers so we could make signs.

  DOWN WITH PLANT EATERS, I wrote on my sign.

  NO-CARROT ZONE, wrote Alexia.

  SPINACH IS FOR LOSERS, wrote Michael.

  BEAT BEETS, wrote Ryan.

  LETTUCE NOT EAT VEGGIES, wrote Neil.

  We rolled up our signs and hid them in our backpacks. I couldn’t wait until lunchtime the next day, when we would march around and show everybody our signs.

  When we got to the vomitorium for the big protest march, Ms. Hall was in the hallway with Dr. Brad, our school counselor. They were whispering back and forth.

  “It looks like they’re telling secrets,” Alexia said.

  “What are they saying?” I asked. “I can’t read lips.”

  “They’re probably making a secret plan to get us to eat veggies,” said Michael.

  “Well, we’re not doing it!” I said. “Right, gang? Because we’re the Veggie Haters Club!”

  “That’s right!” said Alexia. “We’ll show them!”

  We pulled out our signs and marched around the vomitorium. It was cool. Some kids were cheering us. Some were booing.

  I noticed the room looked different. All the veggies were at the front of the food line instead of at the end. They were in colorful bowls. And there were signs on the walls: VEG OUT WITH VEGGIES! VEGGIES TASTE GREAT! V IS FOR “VEGGIES”!

  We sat at a table and took out our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Emily and Little Miss Perfect came over and sat with us as usual. They are so annoying. Ms. Hall rang a little bell to get everybody’s attention.

  “Today is Rainbow Day,” she announced. “Any student who eats at least three colors of veggies at the salad bar is eligible to win a prize: two tickets to DizzyLand!”

  “WOW!” everybody shouted, which is “MOM” upside down. DizzyLand is an amusement park where they have like a million hundred rides, and at least half of them can make you throw up.

  “I hope I win!” Andrea said as she and Emily rushed over to the salad bar.

  I wasn’t going to fall for that. I started eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After a while, Ms. Hall came over to our table.

  “How about trying a tomato, dollface?” she said, holding one up.

  The tomato had a little sticker on it. There was a picture of Striker Smith on the sticker. He’s a superhero from the future who travels through time and fights bad guys.

  “Striker Smith is awesome!” said Ryan.

  “And I bet Striker Smith loves tomatoes,” said Ms. Hall.

  Nice try!” I told her. “But we’re the Veggie Haters Club. We don’t eat veggies, ever! We don’t care what you put on them.”

  But Ms. Hall wasn’t giving up.

  “Hey dollface, check this out,” she said as she pulled something from her pocket. I thought it was going to be another veggie, but it wasn’t. It was a bunch of baseball cards. Instead of having baseball players on them, they had pictures of veggies.

  Ms. Hall handed me a card with a picture of broccoli on the front. I turned it over. On the back, it had a bunch of facts about broccoli. . . .

  Broccoli helps fight cancer.

  Thomas Jefferson planted broccoli in his backyard.

  The guy who made the James Bond movies was named Broccoli.

  “Here,” said Ms. Hall, “each of you can have a card. Collect them all. Swap them with your friends.”

  Those cards were cool. They almost made me want to try a bite of broccoli. Almost.

  “No way!” I told Ms. Hall as I gave her back the card. “We’re not falling for your little tricks to get us to eat veggies. Right, gang? The Veggie Haters Club stays strong!”

  “That’s right!” everybody shouted.

  So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Ms. Hall.

  After lunch, we had recess. We were playing on the monkey bars when Ms. Hall came over and pulled me aside.

  “Can you and I chew the fat for a minute?” she asked.

  “Uh, okay,” I said.

  “I’m not trying to butter you up here, dollface. But I know you are one smart cookie.”

  “Thank you, I guess,” I said.

  “You and your club have given me some food for thought,” Ms. Hall told me. “I realize that veggies are not your cup of tea.”

  “No. I don’t like them.”

  “Well, I’m going to spill the beans to you,” said Ms. Hall.

  “Huh?” I said, which is also “huh” spelled backward.

  What beans? I didn’t see any beans. What did beans have to do with anything? And why would she spill them on purpose?

  “Veggies are my bread and butter,” Ms. Hall explained. “I’m working for peanuts here. But I need to bring home the bacon.”

  What?

  “So you should probably get some bacon and bring it home,” I replied.

  “What I’m trying to say,” Ms. Hall told me, “is that I thought this job was going to be a piece of cake.”

  Huh? A job and cake are two completely different things.

  “I mean,” she continued, “I thought being the lunch lady at your school would be like taking candy from a baby.”

  “Why would you want to take candy from a baby?” I asked. “That’s not very nice.”

  “I thought it would be easy as pie,” replied Ms. Hall. “I’d be able to have my cake and eat it too.”

  Why was she talking about cake so much? I thought she loved veggies.

  “But it turned out that this has been a hard nut to crack,” Ms. Hall continued. “Maybe I bit off more than I could chew.”

  I looked to see if she had some food in her mouth. But she wasn’t chewing anything.

  “I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach,” she said.
<
br />   “How do you know how big your stomach is?” I asked. “It’s inside your body.”

  “Anyway,” Ms. Hall said, “now I’m in a pickle.”

  “You are?” I asked, looking around. I didn’t see a pickle. How could anybody fit in a pickle anyway?

  “My goose is cooked,” said Ms. Hall.

  “Then I guess you should take it out of the oven so it doesn’t burn,” I told her.

  “I have egg on my face,” said Ms. Hall.

  She did not. I definitely would have noticed that. She must be a really sloppy eater.

  “I guess now I’ll have to eat crow,” she said. It almost looked like she was going to cry.

  “Maybe it will taste like chicken,” I said, trying to make her feel better.

  “I just can’t cut the mustard here.”

  Who cuts mustard? Can’t you just squirt it out of the bottle?

  “I guess I laid an egg,” she said.

  What? People don’t lay eggs. Chickens do.

  “This will be a bitter pill to swallow,” she told me. “But I guess life isn’t a bowl of cherries.”

  Huh? What do cherries have to do with anything?

  “If I can’t get you and your friends to eat veggies,” said Ms. Hall, “it will be back to the salt mines for me.”

  It must have been weird to go from working in a salt mine to being a lunch lady. That was some career change.

  “But that’s the way the cookie crumbles,” she said.

  She has cookies? I’d eat some of those.

  “There’s no use crying over spilled milk,” she told me.

  “You should call Miss Lazar, the custodian,” I said. “She loves cleaning up messes.”

  “But I wanted you to know that I’m not a bad egg,” she said. “And if I can get you and your friends to eat veggies, well, that will be icing on the cake. I’ll be top banana around here. The big cheese. It will be the best thing since sliced bread.”

  “Uh . . . okay.”

  “So, I guess that’s it in a nutshell,” she said. “That’s the whole enchilada.”*

  Huh? What’s an enchilada?

  “Well, anyway, this was a good chat,” said Ms. Hall. “Thanks for listening, dollface.”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. I guess.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. Ms. Hall is a goofball.

  When I got to school the next day, the weirdest thing in the history of the world was going on. All the kids in my class were out on the grass talking to Ms. Hall. Even Mr. Cooper was out there. He was wearing overalls and holding some shovels and rakes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Are we digging for gold?”

  “No,” Ms. Hall replied. “We’re planting a garden!”

  WHAT?!

  Ms. Hall told us to start digging and hoeing and raking the dirt so she could plant seeds for the garden. It was hard work.

  “How much are we getting paid for this?” I asked, leaning on my shovel.

  “Your pay is the joy that will come from growing your own food,” said Ms. Hall.

  Ugh. Growing food is disgusting. Why would anybody want to eat something that came out of the dirt?

  “Aren’t there laws against this?” said Alexia as she wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

  We worked for a million hundred hours in the garden. I thought I was gonna die. That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Suddenly the school bus pulled up to the curb.

  Well, that’s not the weird part. The school bus pulls up to the curb every day. The weird part was what happened next.

  “Bingle boo!” hollered our bus driver, Mrs. Kormel. “Limpus kidoodle!”

  That means “hello” and “have a seat.” Mrs. Kormel is not normal. She invented her own language.

  “Where are you taking us?” Alexia asked as we climbed on the bus.

  “You’re going on a field trip,” she said.

  “Yay!” everybody shouted.

  Field trips are cool. One time, we went to a museum that had an exhibit called “The World of Poop.”

  “Where is the field trip?” I asked Mrs. Kormel.

  “We’re going to a farm,” she replied.

  WHAT?!

  Farms are boring. All they have there are plants and animals.

  We drove a million hundred miles. Ms. Hall told us that from now on, all the fruits and veggies we get for lunch will be coming from local farms. We got a tour of the farm, and Ms. Hall explained how they grow spinach, carrots, green beans, and other veggies. What a snoozefest.

  At the end of the tour, Ms. Hall showed us how to milk a cow. It was gross. I can’t believe milk comes out of a cow. I thought it came out of a supermarket. I’m never going to drink milk again.

  By that time, we were all getting hungry for lunch. And you’ll never believe what was in the parking lot at the farm.

  It was a food truck!

  Food trucks are trucks that have food in them. So they have the perfect name. Food trucks are cool. Everybody knows food tastes way better when it comes from a truck.

  Ms. Hall said we could order anything we wanted and that she would pay for it. I ran over to the window of the food truck so I’d be first in line.

  “I’ll have a hot dog,” I said.

  “We have tofu dogs,” said the lady. “This is a vegetarian food truck.”

  WHAT?!

  Me and the rest of the Veggie Haters Club sat down at a picnic table and pulled out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we brought from home.

  “You know, Arlo,” Andrea said as she walked by munching a stalk of celery. “Peanut butter and jelly is vegetarian.”

  “It is not,” I said.

  “It is too,” said Andrea. “It doesn’t have meat in it, does it?”

  Andrea smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know that she knows something nobody else knows. She thinks she is so smart because she’s a member of PAC. That’s the Principal Advisory Committee—a group of nerds who get to boss around the principal.

  Ms. Hall came over to our table. She had a knife in one hand and a big cucumber in the other.

  “Hey,” she said, “do you kids know what goes really well with peanut butter? Cucumbers! They have lots of vitamins and minerals, and they’re good for your skin and heart. You can slip a slice of cucumber into your sandwich and you won’t even taste it.”

  “No thank you,” I said. “We hate veggies.”

  “A cucumber is ninety-six percent water, dollface,” said Ms. Hall, “so it’s hardly like eating a veggie at all.”

  “You know, that cucumber doesn’t look half bad,” Ryan said.

  “Try it, Ryan,” said Ms. Hall, cutting off a slice of cucumber for him.

  “Don’t do it, Ryan!” I shouted.

  “Just take one bite,” said Ms. Hall, handing it to him. “It won’t kill you.”

  “Stay strong, Ryan!” I yelled.

  “It looks so good,” Ryan said as he took the slice of cucumber.

  “You’re a founding member of the Veggie Haters Club!” Alexia hollered.

  Ryan looked at me. I looked at Alexia. Alexia looked at Michael. Michael looked at Neil. Neil looked at Ryan. Ryan opened his mouth.

  “I thought you were loyal!” shouted Michael.

  Ryan put the cucumber slice in his mouth.

  “Noooooooo!” all the members of the Veggie Haters Club screamed.

  Ugh, gross! Disgusting! RYAN ATE CUCUMBER!

  “Hey, this is good!” Ryan said. Then he took another bite. Then he asked for another slice. Ms. Hall smiled.

  I knew Ryan would crack. He’ll eat anything. One time, he ate a piece of the seat cushion on the school bus. It was only a matter of time until he ate a veggie.

  “You are officially kicked out of the Veggie Haters Club,” I announced angrily. “Take your cucumber and leave!”

  Look down.*

  We were pretty mad at Ryan. I couldn’t believe that one of my best friends and a founding membe
r of the Veggie Haters Club would eat a veggie. I will never speak to him for the rest of my life.

  The next morning, we were in Mr. Cooper’s class. He told us to turn to page twenty-three in our math books when an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “MR. COOPER’S CLASS, PLEASE REPORT TO THE CAFETORIUM.”

  Hmmm. That was weird. It wasn’t lunchtime yet.

  We walked a million hundred miles to the vomitorium. Ryan—that traitor—went to sit at a different table with some other plant eaters.

  Ms. Hall rolled out on her roller skates. She was wearing a big chef’s hat.

  “Welcome to cooking class!” she said. “Today I’m going to show you how to roast veggies.”

  WHAT?!

  “We don’t care if they’re roasted,” I said. “We’re not eating any veggies! Right, gang?”

  “Right!” shouted Alexia, Michael, and Neil.

  “You don’t have to eat anything, dollface,” said Ms. Hall. “But watch this!”

  She rolled over to a big table that had onions, carrots, asparagus, and other yucky veggies on it. Then the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Ms. Hall picked up three knives and started juggling them!

  “WOW!” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.

  Ms. Hall tossed a tomato in the air and sliced it in half as it fell. That was cool. Then she started chopping up all the other veggies. She was spinning around on her roller skates, flinging veggies, and juggling knives all at the same time. The table must have had a built-in oven, because soon the veggies were sizzling and smoking.

  At the end of the show, Ms. Hall flipped a bunch of carrot slices up in the air with a spatula and caught them in her chef’s hat. It was amazing! You should have been there! And we got to see it live and in person.

  We all clapped our hands in circles to give Ms. Hall a round of applause.

  That show was really impressive. But I wasn’t going to eat carrots just because Ms. Hall can flip them into her hat.

  “Who wants a carrot slice?” she asked.