Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom

by Louis Sachar

  “Hi, Deedee, did you want seconds?” Miss Mush asked hopefully. “We put everything away, but I’d be happy to heat up another plate.”

  Out of breath, Deedee explained about her book and homework.

  Neither Miss Mush nor Mr. Pepperadder remembered seeing it.

  “And I’ve already dumped all the trash,” said Mr. Pepperadder.

  There were four large dumpsters in the back of Wayside School. A pair of feet was sticking up out of one of them.

  Upside down, buried in the trash, Deedee tried to read every wrinkled and soggy piece of paper as she dug through half-eaten feetballs, strands of spaghetti, drippy milk cartons, apple cores, pickle slices, and who-knows-what-else?

  she cried.

  Then, just when all hope seemed lost, a noise came from somewhere deep inside the dumpster next to hers.

  called Ron.

  Rustling sounds could be heard from inside the other two dumpsters, as well.

  cheered Maurecia.

  shouted Joy.

  Yes, there were six other feet sticking up from the dumpsters.

  They were the Unbreakables. Not even the Cloud of Doom could destroy their friendship.

  But that was only the first test. The ultimate test was still to come.

  16

  A Short Chapter About a Long Book

  Read a book. Write a book report. Draw a picture.

  That was the assignment Mrs. Jewls put up on the board.

  (Don’t worry. You haven’t already read this chapter. Mrs. Jewls assigned lots of book reports. For some reason, she thought reading was important.)

  Whenever Jason looked at the board, he got a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach—almost as heavy as the 999-page book he lugged around in his backpack. It was like his own Cloud of Doom that he took wherever he went.

  He didn’t know how he’d ever read it. His book report was already three weeks late.

  One time his bookmark fell out. It took him twenty minutes just to find his place.

  He was very disappointed to discover he was only on page six.

  “Jason, is your book report ready yet?” Mrs. Jewls asked him each day he walked into class.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Jewls,” he told her. “It’s a really, really, really long book.”

  He always answered the same way, although the number of reallys varied.

  “How do you like your book?” Allison asked him.

  “Have you finished it yet?” asked Rondi.

  The two girls giggled.

  He wondered if anyone had ever read a book with 999 pages. Maybe the author never even finished writing it. Perhaps she quit after 300 pages, figuring nobody would ever get that far anyway.

  That evening, however, something strange happened.

  Jason was trying to get through page twenty-six, when suddenly he laughed. He read some more, and laughed again.

  It was as if he and the character had become friends. He read for an entire hour without realizing it.

  When he reached page seventy, something sad happened, and he hoped his sister didn’t notice his tears.

  He stayed up all night. He read about exciting battles, and strange and goofy animals. No matter how tired he got, he kept needing to know what happened next.

  The next day during recess, while everyone else played, Jason preferred to sit by himself with his book. He even liked the kissing parts, but had to keep glancing around, to make sure Allison and Rondi couldn’t see what he was reading.

  The two girls came toward him.

  “He’ll never finish it,” said Allison.

  “No way,” Rondi agreed.

  “Shh,” said Jason. “I’m trying to read.”

  17

  The Best Principal Ever!!!

  Mrs. Jewls went from desk to desk, handing back everyone’s history homework. “Nice job, Eric,” she said to one of the Erics. “Well done, Eric,” she said to another. “You better study the history of cabbage,” she told the third Eric. “The Ultimate Test is coming.”

  The third Eric, naturally, was Eric Ovens. He thought he knew all about the history of cabbage, and felt bad when he saw his homework grade. Then he realized that Mrs. Jewls had given him Eric Bacon’s paper by mistake.

  It turned out Eric Bacon had Eric Fry’s homework, and Eric Fry had his.

  They switched papers.

  Mrs. Jewls moved on. “Nice job, Deedee, although your paper smelled somewhat strange.”

  She stopped at Jason’s desk and shook her head. “I was very disappointed, Jason.”

  “Sorry,” Jason muttered. He could barely hold his head up. “I was up all night reading.”

  “He’ll never finish his book, Mrs. Jewls,” said Allison.

  Suddenly, the classroom door swung open and banged against the wall. Everyone turned to see Mr. Kidswatter.

  “Good morning, children,” he said.

  They stared at him. He had never been inside their classroom before.

  Mr. Kidswatter loudly cleared his throat. “I said, ‘Good morning, children . . .’”

  Mrs. Jewls hurried to the front of the room. She waved her hands like an orchestra conductor.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kidswatter,” the children said in unison.

  The principal smiled. “What’s all this?” he asked, pointing to the twenty-seven plastic containers stacked against the wall.

  “Toenails,” said Paul.

  “Also fingernails,” added Leslie so the principal wouldn’t think the class was weird.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you’re doing important work here,” said Mr. Kidswatter.

  “Would you like to donate a toenail, or maybe a fingernail?” asked Mrs. Jewls.

  Mr. Kidswatter curled his fingers as he examined his nails. “No, I’m still using mine. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I’m looking for a student to bang the gong on Friday. I figured I’d start at the top, and work my way down, until I found someone willing to—”

  Every arm shot up in the air. Calls of “Pick me” and “Ooh, ooh” could be heard from around the room.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Kidswatter. “I guess it won’t take as long as I thought.”

  “Me, me,” begged Bebe, stretching her arm high.

  “No, me, me!” urged Deedee.

  It was impossible to know where Mr. Kidswatter was looking. He wore mirrored sunglasses, even indoors.

  Joy had both hands raised, doubling her chances of being picked. “You’re the best principal ever!!!” she called out.

  Mr. Kidswatter’s head turned. “YOU!!!” he boomed, pointing his finger.

  Everybody groaned, except for the one person he had chosen.

  “Me?” Stephen asked meekly.

  “You?” asked Mr. Kidswatter, sounding somewhat surprised. “Yes, you!” he declared. “I chose you, didn’t I? And I don’t make mistakes!”

  He strode toward Stephen, then placed his big hands on both sides of Stephen’s desk and leaned over. “Be in my office on Friday, at two minutes before three o’clock!” he ordered. “You will get one, and only one, swing of the mallet, so you better not miss! You must hit the very center of the gong, at exactly three o’clock. Not a second early! Not a second late!! There are no second chances!!!”

  Stephen’s right leg was shaking.

  The principal straightened up and headed toward the door. “Good-bye, children,” he said.

  He stopped.

  He waited.

  He folded his arms across his chest.

  Mrs. Jewls waved her arms like an orchestra conductor.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Kidswatter,” everyone said together.

  As soon as the principal was gone, everyone crowded around Stephen’s desk.

  “You are so lucky!” said Jason.

  “This is the best thing that has ever happened to anyone in our class!” said Jenny.

  “You better not blow it!” said Joy. “Or else no kid will ever get to ring the gong again!”

  “Can you even lift the
mallet?” asked Terrence.

  Stephen didn’t say anything. He hadn’t heard a word they said.

  It was as if the moment Mr. Kidswatter had said, “YOU!!!” someone had banged a gong inside Stephen’s head.

  GONNN-nnnn-NNNNN-nnnnn-NNNNN-nnnnn-NNNNNGGGG!!!

  18

  The Mirror

  Dr. Pickle kept two things on his desk. One was a bust of Sigmund Freud.

  A bust is a statue of someone’s head, neck, and shoulders. Sigmund Freud was the most famous psychologist ever. He was Dr. Pickle’s hero.

  Dr. Freud also had a beard.

  The second thing on Dr. Pickle’s desk was a handheld mirror. Dr. Pickle checked his beard at least five times per day, to make sure it was trimmed just right.

  Now, however, that was the least of his worries. He looked at his face in the mirror. His cheek was puffed out. His tongue was sticking out. One eye was closed. One eyebrow was raised.

  He looked like a big doofus!

  He gently swung his pickle stone between his face and the mirror.

  “I am getting sleepy,” he said to himself. “By the count of five, I will fall asleep. One . . . two . . . thruppledub.” His head plopped down on his desk.

  This would normally be the time when Dr. Pickle would tell his patient what she was supposed to do when she woke up. But he was his own patient. And both patient and doctor were sleeping.

  Sometime later, a car horn blared. It sounded like there was an angry driver right behind him.

  Dr. Pickle woke up. He had no idea how long he’d been sleeping. It took him a moment to remember who he was, where he was, and why he had tried to hypnotize himself.

  He picked up the mirror and checked his face. No change.

  “Now what am I going to do?” he asked.

  That was strange.

  He had felt his mouth move when he spoke, but the mouth in the mirror didn’t move.

  He brought his hands to his face. He could see his hands touching the face in the mirror too.

  The cheek in the mirror was still all puffed out, but his own cheek felt soft and flat. He moved his tongue around inside his mouth, even though the tongue in the mirror was sticking out at him.

  He set the mirror on his desk.

  “This is very interesting,” he said aloud. Clearly, the face shifts to whoever stares at it, he realized.

  He turned the mirror over, facedown.

  He hadn’t read about this in any of his psychiatry books. He slowly raised the mirror, caught a glimpse of the hideous face that was still there, then quickly lowered it back down on his desk.

  This discovery would make him famous! He picked up the bust of Sigmund Freud. “Even more famous than you,” he said to it.

  But would all that fame be worth it? What if someone else’s face got stuck along the way?

  “What would you do?” he asked Dr. Freud.

  There is a reason it is called a bust. It was made of bronze, and felt heavy in his hand.

  He flipped the mirror over, and slammed Sigmund Freud down on top of it.

  The face shattered.

  Up in Mrs. Jewls’s class, Kathy suddenly felt very dizzy and confused.

  She looked at the sentence she had just written. “I can’t read this!” she exclaimed. “It’s backward.”

  “Let me see,” said D.J., taking it from her. “How did you do that? That is so cool!”

  “Warm!” Kathy replied.

  19

  Push-Downs

  Stephen lay on the playground, surrounded by his classmates. He grunted as he pushed down on the blacktop with all his might.

  Nothing happened.

  “You can do it!” urged Maurecia.

  “Push harder, Stephen!” encouraged Joe.

  Stephen pushed harder. He grunted louder.

  Still, nothing.

  Louis, the yard teacher, blew his whistle. “What’s going on here?” he asked as he made his way to Stephen.

  “Stephen is trying to do a push-down,” said Dameon.

  “You mean a push-up,” corrected Kathy.

  “Why do you have to be so opposite all the time?” asked Dameon. “Stephen isn’t pushing up. He’s pushing down!”

  “So he can go up,” said Myron.

  Kathy didn’t mean to be opposite. She’d discovered she liked being nice and having friends. She just really thought they were called push-ups.

  “How many has he done so far?” asked Louis.

  “None,” said Jason. “But he’s trying really hard.”

  Louis kneeled and then patted Stephen on the back. “Keep at it, Stephen,” he encouraged. “Every day you’ll get a little stronger. In a month, I bet you’ll be able to do five push-downs.”

  “A month!” exclaimed Deedee. “Stephen doesn’t have a month.”

  “He has to bang the gong on Friday!” explained Ron.

  Louis raised one eyebrow. His mustache twitched. “I guess he really is the best principal ever!!!” he muttered.

  “What?” asked Mac.

  “Never mind,” said Louis. “Push hard, Stephen. The mallet is made of solid iron.”

  Stephen grunted louder than ever. He didn’t move. “I can’t do it, Louis,” he gasped. “Talk to Mr. Kidswatter. Tell him to pick somebody else!”

  “Ooh, me!” exclaimed Joy.

  “Mr. Kidswatter is the smartest principal in the school,” said Louis. “He must have had a very good reason for choosing you.”

  “Would you like to donate a toenail, or maybe a fingernail?” Mrs. Jewls asked.

  Mr. Kidswatter examined his nails. “No, I’m still using mine. I need a student to bang the gong on Friday.”

  The next thing he knew all the little brats had their arms in the air, and they were making strange noises, like “Ooh, ooh!” and “Me, me!”

  “You’re the best principal ever!!!” someone shouted.

  Those were magic words. He turned to see who had shouted them, when suddenly he saw HER—that awful girl who had given him that awful face.

  “YOU!!!” he boomed, pointing at Dana.

  Dana had a mosquito bite on her ankle, however, and at that moment, she bent down to scratch it.

  Stephen sat behind Dana.

  He lay on the blacktop, staring up at the awful Cloud. “I’m doomed,” he moaned.

  “Look, Stephen, I don’t know what will happen on Friday,” Louis admitted. “I don’t know if you’ll hit the gong, or drop the mallet on your toe. But I know this. You have to try. Or else you will regret it every day for the rest of your life. And whenever you hear a gong, your heart will fill with a terrible sadness.”

  “You really don’t hear gongs all that often,” Myron pointed out. “I mean, except here.”

  “Even if you make a million dollars someday,” Louis continued. “You could buy your own gong, and hit it every day, all alone in your great big mansion. But it won’t be the same.”

  “That is so sad,” said Leslie.

  Paul sniffed back a tear.

  “So, what do you say, Stephen?” asked Louis. “You want to give it one more try?”

  Stephen wished Louis hadn’t mentioned dropping the mallet on his toe. Now that was all he could think about.

  He sighed, and then rolled back over. He pushed as hard as he could.

  “You can do it, Stephen!” urged Allison.

  “Push!” said Jason.

  “Up!” encouraged Kathy. “I mean down. I mean up. I mean . . .”

  Now she was really confused.

  Stephen rose an inch off the ground, then collapsed.

  Everyone cheered.

  “One more,” urged Louis. “And then we’ll go to the monkey bars and do some pull-downs.”

  20

  Inside the Closet

  Jason did it! He finished reading all 999 pages.

  He was so tired, he didn’t know how he made it up the stairs to Mrs. Jewls’s class. He fell asleep somewhere around the fourth floor and awoke on the twenty-eighth.
<
br />   “Did you finish your book, yet?” Allison asked him when he entered the classroom.

  She and Rondi giggled.

  “Yep,” said Jason.

  The girls’ mouths dropped open.

  His book report only had to be one page, but Jason had written ten pages. It was impossible to write only one page about a 999-page book.

  He wondered if anybody had ever written a book with more pages. Probably not. There was probably a law against writing a book with a thousand pages or more.

  He brought the ten pages, and his three pictures, to Mrs. Jewls’s desk. “I guess if somebody writes a book with nine hundred and ninety-nine pages, it has to be really good,” he said. “Or else nobody would ever read it.”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Jewls admitted. “I’ve never read a book that long.”

  Jason sleepily handed over all his papers.

  “Where’s your paper clip?” asked Mrs. Jewls.

  “It got all bent in my backpack,” he explained, too tired to think about what he was saying. “Unbent really. I guess the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-page book was too heavy for it.”

  He showed Mrs. Jewls his paper clip, now unbent into a crooked line.

  Mrs. Jewls put her hand to her mouth, horrified. “You bent your paper clip?” she gasped.

  “Unbent,” said Jason.

  Mrs. Jewls stood up. “You better come with me!” she exclaimed. She grabbed Jason by his ear and yanked him toward the door.

  “Ow,” he whimpered.

  Whispers could be heard from all around the room.

  “He read a nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-page book!”

  “But he bent his paper clip.”

  “He wrote a ten-page book report.”

  “But he bent his paper clip.”

  “No, he unbent it.”

  “Everyone stop talking, now!” ordered Mrs. Jewls. “Do not leave your seats for any reason!” She pulled Jason out of the room and slammed the classroom door behind her.

  She dragged him straight to the closet that wasn’t there.

  Jason read the signs. “KEEP BACK!” “DO NOT OPEN DOORS!” “DANGER!” “CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IF YOU SMELL SOMETHING UNUSUAL!”

  He sniffed.

  He didn’t smell anything.