Dr. Nicholas Is Ridiculous! (2 page)

 
11. Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”?

I leaned over to Alexia, who was sitting on my other side.

“Pssssst!”
I whispered. “Who said, ‘Give me liberty or give me death'?”

“Henry,” Alexia whispered.

“Henry who?”

“Patrick,” Alexia whispered.

“Well, which is it,” I asked her. “Henry or Patrick?”

“Both!” she whispered.

“No talking, please!” said Mr. Granite.

I wrote—
Henry and Patrick
.

 
12. What are the duties of Congress?

I giggled, because “duties” sounds just like “doodies,” and we're not supposed to talk about that in school. But all I could think about was a bunch of politicians sitting on toilet bowls. I wasn't sure what to write, so I just put down—
number two
.

 
13. Who invented the lightbulb?

Hmmm. I had no idea.

“Psssst!”
I whispered to Michael, who was sitting behind me. “Who invented the lightbulb?”

“Bob Lightbulb,” he whispered back.

Bob Lightbulb? I never heard of anybody named Bob Lightbulb. Michael may have been yanking my chain. But I know that a lot of stuff was named after the people who invented it. Like McDonald's. And that vacuum cleaner was named after President Hoover. Maybe Michael was right. I wrote—
Bob Lightbulb
.

 
14. Who helped the Pilgrims when they came to America?

Hmmm. When the Pilgrims came to America, they probably had to chop down trees, build their own houses, and work on all kinds of do-it-yourself projects like that. So there could only be one answer. I wrote down—
Home Depot
.

Finally, the dumb test was finished. Andrea was done before anybody else, of course. She was sitting there, all proud of herself. Mr. Granite came around and collected our papers.

“Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?” he asked.

“It was a piece of cake,” Andrea announced.

Why is everybody always talking about cake? And why can't a truck full of cakes fall on Andrea's head?
*

After a few days we all forgot about that dumb test. Life went on. Andrea was annoying, as usual. I had a Pee Wee football game, and my team won. Ryan had his birthday, and his mom brought in brownies for the whole class.

A week later Mr. Granite was trying to teach us math when an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

“All classes please report to the all-purpose room for an assembly.”

“Not again!” yelled Mr. Granite. Every time he tries to teach us math, we get called to an assembly.

We had to walk a million hundred miles to the all-purpose room, which has a dumb name because you can't go scuba diving in there. Neil the nude kid was the line leader. Alexia was the door holder.

When we got to the all-purpose room, I had to sit between Andrea and Emily. Ugh! Andrea's elbow touched my elbow for a second, and I thought I was gonna die.

Our principal, Mr. Klutz, was waiting for us on the stage. He has no hair at all. I mean
none
. I bet his head slips off the pillow when he's trying to sleep at night.

“I just got the results back from the test you took last week,” Mr. Klutz announced.

“I hope we did well,” Emily whispered to Andrea.

“I know
I
got all the answers right,” Andrea whispered back. “I looked them up in my encyclopedia when I got home.”

“Our school did
horribly
,” Mr. Klutz announced.

“WHAT?!” Everybody gasped.

“Ella Mentry School got the
worst
scores in the whole county,” said Mr. Klutz, shaking his head sadly. “I went to a meeting, and the principal of Maroa-Forsyth Grade School was laughing at me. Clearly, you children don't know basic history. I hate to say this, but if we don't bring up our test scores, our school is going to be closed.”

I jumped up from my seat.

“Yay!” I shouted. “No more school! No more school! No more school!”

I figured
everybody
was going to jump up from their seats and start chanting “No more school” with me.

I looked around. Nobody else was standing. Nobody else was chanting. Everybody was looking at me.

Oops. I hate when that happens. I sat back down in my seat.

“
You
probably got all the answers wrong, Arlo!” Andrea whispered to me. “I bet that's why our school did so poorly.”

“Your
face
got all the answers wrong,” I whispered back at Andrea.

“That doesn't even make any sense, Arlo.”

“Your
face
doesn't make any sense,” I told Andrea.

Everybody was talking and whispering to each other until Mr. Klutz held up his hand and made a peace sign, which means “shut up.”

“I have decided to bring in a professor from the local college to help teach you students history,” he announced.

“WHAT!?” Everybody gasped again.

“We don't want to learn history from some boring college teacher,” somebody yelled.

Everybody was upset, even some of the teachers.

“Oh, you're going to like Dr. Nicholas,” Mr. Klutz told us. “She's a world-famous historian who has traveled everywhere and written many books about history. She was even on
Oprah
.”

Everybody gasped and said, “WOW,” which is “MOM” upside down.

“What was she doing on Oprah?” asked Ryan.

“She should get off Oprah,” said Michael.

“Oprah could get hurt,” said Alexia.

“Is Oprah okay?” said Emily.

“Who's Oprah?” I asked.

“Dr. Nicholas will be coming into your classroom to teach you some basic history that everybody should know,” said Mr. Klutz. “Then a week from today you'll get a chance to take that test over again. I think that with the help of Dr. Nicholas, you're going to score much higher. And I'll be able to laugh at those other principals. That will be the icing on the cake.”

More cake? Why is everybody always talking about cake?

“And now,” Mr. Klutz said, with a big sweep of his arm, “I'd like to introduce . . . Dr. Nicholas!”

Dr. Nicholas came out on the stage. She looked
really
old. She had white hair tied up in a bun in the back,
*
and she walked with a cane—really slowly. I've seen
glaciers
move faster than Dr. Nicholas. I could have run around the block in the time it took her to get to the middle of the stage.

“Wow, that lady is
old
,” whispered Ryan.

“She's even older than Mr. Docker,” I whispered.

Mr. Docker is our science teacher. I thought
he
was old. But Dr. Nicholas looked old enough to be Mr. Docker's mother!

“She must know a lot about history, because she's about a million hundred years old,” whispered Neil the nude kid.

“Yeah, she probably lived through most of it,” whispered Alexia.

Mr. Klutz told us to give Dr. Nicholas a round of applause, so we clapped our hands in circles.

“Does anybody have any questions they would like to ask Dr. Nicholas?” said Mr. Klutz.

“Yeah, how old are you?” I asked.

“That's not a nice question to ask a person, A.J.,” said Mr. Klutz.

“I don't mind,” said Dr. Nicholas. “I'm ninety-two years old and proud of it. How old are
you
, young man?”

“I'm eight years old,” I said.

“Eight?” said Dr. Nicholas. “When I was your age, I was nine.”

Everybody laughed even though she didn't say anything funny.

“Did you ever meet Abraham Lincoln?” asked Alexia.

“No,” said Dr. Nicholas, “but years ago I drove one of his convertibles.”

“Were you alive when there were dinosaurs?” asked Michael.

“Oh yes,” said Dr. Nicholas. “In fact, I used to ride a dinosaur to school.”

I'm pretty sure that Dr. Nicholas was yanking our chain. Everybody knows there were no schools in dinosaur times. Besides, it would be hard to ride a dinosaur. They don't even make saddles for them. Dr. Nicholas would have had to ride the dinosaur bareback.