by Dan Gutman
My Weird School Daze #5
Officer Spence Makes No Sense!
Dan Gutman
Pictures by
Jim Paillot
To Emma
Contents
1 The Mystery of the Missing PB&J
2 Officer Spence Is Weird
3 The Peanut Butter and Jelly Bandit
4 True or False?
5 Nah-Nah-Nah Boo-Boo
6 Searching for Clues
7 You Can’t Say “Butt” in a Children’s Book
8 Mrs. Cooney Is Busted
9 Officer Spence Is Getting Weirder
10 The Peanut Butter and Jelly Bandit Is…
11 Skippy and Jif Save the Day
12 The Truth About Officer Spence
About the Author and the Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
The Mystery of the Missing PB&J
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
I was in the vomitorium eating lunch with the guys. Our lunch lady, Ms. LaGrange, was walking around saying hello to everybody.
“Bon appétit!” Ms. LaGrange said when she got to our table.
Ms. LaGrange is from France, so she’s always saying weird stuff like “Bon appétit.” I know that “appetite” means “being hungry” and “bon” means “bone.” So when French people get hungry, I guess they eat bones.
French people are weird.
“I invented a new food!” Ms. LaGrange told us. “Would you like to try it?”
I never try new foods. That’s the first rule of being a kid. New foods are yucky. We all looked in the bowl Ms. LaGrange was holding.
“What is it?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.
“Take a guess,” said Ms. LaGrange.
“Is it noodles?” asked Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“Not exactly,” said Ms. LaGrange.
“Is it pasta?” asked Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
“Nope,” said Ms. LaGrange. “It’s a combination of noodles and pasta.”
“What’s it called?” I asked.
“Poodlenasta!” said Ms. LaGrange.
Poodlenasta? Who names a food poodlenasta? Ms. LaGrange is strange.
Ryan tried some poodlenasta, but the rest of us said it looked gross. Neil opened his bag of Crispy Chips. Michael took out a bag of Crunchy Cheezy Crackos. My mom packed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I love peanut butter. And I love jelly. So peanut butter and jelly together is the perfect combination. The guy who invented the PB&J sandwich was a genius. He should get the No Bell Prize. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.
This annoying girl named Andrea Young with curly brown hair was at the next table.* She was sitting with her crybaby friend Emily. Andrea thinks she is so smart because she’s a member of P.A.C. That’s the Principal Advisory Committee—a group of nerds who get to boss around the principal. Andrea was talking really loud to make sure we all heard her.
“Did you know that girls live longer than boys?” Andrea said.
“Really?” asked Emily. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, it’s true,” said Andrea. “I read it in my encyclopedia.”
Andrea reads the encyclopedia for fun in her spare time. What is her problem? I slapped my head.
“Girls do not live longer than boys,” I told her.
“Do too.”
“Do not.”
We went back and forth like that for a while.
“Boys would live longer if they ate healthy foods,” said Andrea. “You shouldn’t eat chips. They have a lot of fat in them.”
“So does your face,” I said.
“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.
I hate Andrea. Why can’t a ton of chips fall on her head?
“So what are you eating?” Michael asked Andrea. “Nuts and berries and veggies?”
“My mom packed me some yummy tofu,” Andrea told us.
“TOE FOOD?!” we all yelled.
I’d rather die young than eat food made from toes.
Andrea held up her fork with a piece of that toe food stuff on it. It was white. Ugh, disgusting! It looked like a big toe. I thought I was gonna throw up.
“Not ‘toe food,’ dumbheads!” Andrea said. “It’s tofu!”
It sounded a lot like “toe food” to me.
That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. I opened my lunch box.
Well, that’s not the amazing part, because I open my lunch box every day. The amazing part was that when I opened my lunch box, there was juice and a bag of chips in there, but nothing else!
My peanut butter and jelly sandwich was…missing!
2
Officer Spence Is Weird
My mom never forgets my peanut butter and jelly sandwich! I turned my lunch box upside down just to make sure the sandwich wasn’t stuck to the bottom.
“Hey, which one of you stole my PB&J?” I asked the guys.
“Not me,” said Ryan.
“Wasn’t me,” said Michael.
“Don’t look at me,” said Neil the nude kid.
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Our school security guard, Officer Spence, came running over really fast. He gets to carry cool stuff on his belt—a walkie-talkie, handcuffs, and one of those clubs they use to beat up bad guys on TV.
“Did I hear something about a stolen PB&J?” Officer Spence said. “That’s the third one this week!”
“My mom probably forgot to pack it,” I told him. “It’s not a big deal.”
“No, this looks like a robbery to me,” said Officer Spence.
He grabbed his walkie-talkie and started shouting into it. “We have a Code Red at Ella Mentry School! A PB&J heist! Need backup! Fast! This is an emergency!”
“But Officer Spence, really, I don’t need—”
I never had the chance to finish my sentence, because that’s when five big guys in bulletproof vests came charging into the vomitorium! They surrounded our table. It was scary, but cool, too.
“Nobody move!” Officer Spence shouted at us. He took a roll of yellow tape out of his pocket and wrapped it around our chairs. “Don’t touch anything! This is a crime scene. Nobody leave this room. I’ll have to question each of you.”
Everybody in the vomitorium was shouting and screaming and freaking out.
That’s when Mr. Klutz came over. He’s the principal of Ella Mentry School, and he has no hair at all. I mean none. His head is so shiny, you can see yourself in it. Mr. Klutz was eating a sandwich.
“Is there the problem here?” he asked.
Suddenly, Officer Spence wheeled around and pointed his finger at Mr. Klutz as if it was a gun. It was just like policemen do to bad guys on TV.
“Freeze, dirtbag!” he yelled.
“WOW!” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.
On TV, the police always yell “Freeze, dirtbag!” when they catch a bad guy breaking the law. Nobody knows why. But I never thought anybody would say “Freeze, dirtbag!” to the principal of a school. It was cool. Mr. Klutz put his hands in the air.
“Step away from the sandwich, Klutz, and nobody gets hurt!” Officer Spence said. “You’re under arrest!”
“On what charge?” Mr. Klutz asked.
“Robbery!” said Officer Spence.
3
The Peanut Butter and Jelly Bandit
Officer Spence shoved Mr. Klutz against the wall and started searching through his pockets.
“You can’t arrest the principal of our school!” said A
ndrea.
“Oh no?” Officer Spence said. “Just watch me.”
“I didn’t steal anything!” said Mr. Klutz.
“Oh no?” asked Officer Spence, holding up a spoon he found in Mr. Klutz’s pocket. “What’s this?”
“It’s a spoon,” Mr. Klutz said, “for my yogurt.”
“Yogurt!” Officer Spence snorted. “Yeah, right! A spoon can be a deadly weapon, Klutz! You could gouge somebody’s eyes out with one of those things. I’m going to have to confiscate this yogurt and do a DNA test on it.”
“WHAT? Why?”
“You have the right to remain silent, Klutz,” Officer Spence said. “So shut up! Now open that briefcase. Nice and slow. And don’t make any false moves!”
Mr. Klutz put his briefcase on the table and opened it.
“What have we here?” Officer Spence said as he held up two sandwiches.
“Those are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Mr. Klutz said.
“And I suppose you were going to eat a yogurt and three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch today, eh?” asked Officer Spence.
“That’s right,” Mr. Klutz said. “I love peanut butter and jelly.”
“YOU’RE THE PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY BANDIT!” Officer Spence yelled, pointing his finger at Mr. Klutz. “You steal food from hungry children. Is that the way you roll, Klutz?”
“No!” Mr. Klutz said. “My wife made those sandwiches for me. She makes my lunch every day.”
Officer Spence grabbed the front of Mr. Klutz’s shirt and yelled in his face. “That’s right; blame it on your wife! You’re pathetic, Klutz! I know how to handle punks like you.”
“But—”
Officer Spence spun Mr. Klutz around and handcuffed his hands behind his back.
“But I didn’t do anything!” Mr. Klutz protested. “I’m the principal!”
“The criminal is always the one you least suspect,” said Officer Spence.
At that moment, our vice principal, Mrs. Jafee, came rushing over.
“What’s the doggone problem here?” she asked. “I heard some yelling.”
“Freeze, dirtbag!” shouted Officer Spence. “You’re under arrest!”
“WHAT!” yelled Mrs. Jafee as he handcuffed her.
“Take them away, boys!” Officer Spence shouted. “The two of ’em make me sick!”
The guys with bulletproof vests led Mr. Klutz and Mrs. Jafee out of the vomitorium. We looked out the window and saw them get into a police car. The sirens were screaming and the lights were flashing as the police car drove away.
“WOW!” we all said again, which is “MOM” upside down.
I didn’t like seeing Mr. Klutz and Mrs. Jafee get arrested, but I had to admit it was cool. A lot of weird things have happened at Ella Mentry School, but this was the first time our principal and vice principal were taken away in handcuffs.
I looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Michael. Michael looked at Neil. We were all looking at each other. Nobody knew what to say. Nobody except Andrea, of course.
“My name is Andrea, and I’m on the Principal’s Advisory Committee,” she said to Officer Spence. “Aren’t you overreacting a little? I mean, it was just a sandwich.”
“Just a sandwich, Andrea?” Officer Spence said, sneering. “Oh, you don’t know the first thing about how the criminal mind works. First they steal a sandwich. If they get away with it, they come back the next day and take your whole lunch. And if you don’t stop them right there, the next thing you know, they stole your refrigerator.”
“You think Mr. Klutz is going to steal a refrigerator?” Michael asked.
“Believe me,” Officer Spence said, “these dirtbags will steal anything that isn’t nailed down.”
“How would you nail down a refrigerator?” Ryan asked.
“With really long nails,” I told him.
“Nobody leaves the school until I get to the bottom of this,” Officer Spence announced.
“The bottom of what?” asked Neil the nude kid.
“I’m going to do a full-scale investigation,” Officer Spence explained.
“You should try the nurse’s office,” I told him. “Mrs. Cooney has a scale in there that you can investigate.”
Officer Spence stuck his face right next to mine.
“You think you’re pretty funny, huh, punk?” he said. “Well, okay, Mr. Funny Boy. Just for that, you get to go first!”
4
True or False?
Go first? Where? I didn’t even know where I was going, but I sure didn’t want to go there first.
Officer Spence took me to Room 104. That’s Dr. Brad’s room. He’s our school counselor. He helps kids with their problems. But I don’t have any problems, so I don’t have to see him. Dr. Brad doesn’t come to school every day, because he works at a bunch of different schools. So his room was empty.
“Sit down!” ordered Officer Spence.
I sat on the only chair in the room. There were wires sticking out of it and leading to a scary-looking machine on the table.
“Where’s Mr. Klutz?” I asked. “What did you do with him?”
“He’s probably in the slammer by now,” Officer Spence replied.
Slammer? I never heard of a slammer. It sounded like some kind of a torture machine.
“What’s a slammer?” I asked.
“He’s in the pen,” said Officer Spence.
“How could Mr. Klutz fit inside a pen?” I asked.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. If Mr. Klutz was in a pen, it would have to be a really big pen. Where would the ink go? And how could anybody use a pen with a principal inside it?
“Mr. Klutz is in stir,” said Officer Spence. “He’s in the Big House. The cooler. The joint. The clink. The pokey. The hoosegow. The calaboose.”
“Huh?”
“He’s in JAIL!” Officer Spence shouted.
“Oh!” I said. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Never mind about Klutz,” Officer Spence told me. “Ten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have been stolen this month. There’s a crime wave sweeping Ella Mentry School, and I’m going to put a stop to it once and for all.”
Officer Spence looked really mad. He turned on the desk lamp and pointed it at my face. Then he hooked up a bunch of those scary wires to my arms and my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“This machine is a lie detector,” Officer Spence told me. “If you tell a lie, it will make a beeping sound. So you’d better tell the truth if you know what’s good for you. Okay, let’s get started. What’s your name?”
“A.J.”
I looked at the lie detector to see if it would beep. It didn’t.
“Very good,” said Officer Spence, “and what does A.J. stand for?”
“Arlo Jervis,” I admitted.
“That’s right,” Officer Spence said. “The lie detector didn’t beep. So you must be telling the truth. Good boy. Do you like school, A.J.?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s true also,” he said. “Tell me, Arlo Jervis, is there anything you like about school?”
“No,” I said.
BEEP!
“That’s a lie!” Officer Spence said. “You like something. Or somebody.”
“I do not,” I said.
BEEP!
“Liar!” shouted Officer Spence. “I bet you like Andrea, that girl in your class with the curly brown hair, right?”
“I do not!” I said.
BEEP!
“You’re lying!”
“I am not!” I shouted. “I hate Andrea!”
BEEP!
“Liar!” shouted Officer Spence. “You’re secretly in love with Andrea, aren’t you?”
“No!”
BEEP!
“Hey!” I said. “What does any of this have to do with the stolen peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
“Oh, yeah, the sandwich,” said Officer Spence. “Did you steal it?”
; “No!” I said. “How could I steal it? It was my sandwich! And I didn’t even get to eat it!”
Officer Spence was going to ask me another question, but you’ll never believe who walked into the door at that moment.
Nobody, because if you walked into a door it would hurt. But you’ll never believe who opened the door and walked into the room.
It was Andrea! And right behind her were Emily, Ryan, and Michael.
“I’m on the Principal’s Advisory Committee,” said Andrea. “It says right here in the Ella Mentry School Handbook that you can’t give lie detector tests to students without their parents’ permission.”
“Let me see that!” Officer Spence demanded.
Andrea handed him the Ella Mentry School Handbook and showed him a page in it.
“See?” she said.
“Fine!” Officer Spence replied. “I’ll find another way to nab the peanut butter and jelly sandwich bandit. I’ve seen these criminals in action. They’ll take anything that’s not nailed down.”
“So we should nail down our sandwiches?” asked Michael.
“If you nailed down a sandwich, it would be hard to eat,” said Ryan.
“You could eat around the nail,” I pointed out.
“Quiet!” barked Officer Spence. “You kids think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? Do you think peanut butter and jelly sandwiches grow on trees?”
“No,” we all said.
I tried to imagine a peanut butter and jelly sandwich growing on a tree. That would be cool. When you were hungry, you could just go outside and pick a sandwich.
“I hope they throw the book at you kids,” Officer Spence muttered.
“Why would they throw a book at us?” asked Michael.
“Throwing a book might ruin the binding,” said Emily. “Mrs. Roopy, the librarian, says you shouldn’t throw books. You should treat them with TLC. That stands for ‘tender loving care.’”
