Miss Klute Is a Hoot! (2 page)

“I'm afraid of dogs,” whimpered Emily, who is afraid of everything. “I want my mommy!”

The rest of us started to come out from under our desks, but the dog barked and we all went back into hiding.

“I'll read better! I promise!” said Ryan. “Just take that man-eating Labradoodle away!”

“It's not a man-eating Labradoodle!” said Mr. Macky.

“Just take it away!” Michael shouted.

The giant, man-eating, grizzly attack Labradoodle barked again. It must have been a little freaked out by everybody freaking out. That made everybody freak out even
more
.

“EEEEEEEK!” Emily screamed.

“Help!” Alexia shouted. “I'm too young to die!”

It was hilarious. You should have been there.

We all made a run for the door to escape the giant, man-eating, grizzly attack Labradoodle before it could bite our heads off. But Mr. Macky wouldn't let us out of the room.

“Stop!” he shouted, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “Everybody calm down. The dog will not hurt you. She's here to help you with your reading.”

WHAT?!

“How could a man-eating dog possibly help us with our reading?” asked Alexia.

“She's not a
man-eating
dog,” Mr. Macky told us as he leaned over to scratch the dog's ears. “She's a
therapy
dog.”

Therapy dog?

We all looked at each other. Not even Andrea knew what a “therapy dog” was, and Little Miss Know-It-All thinks she knows
everything
.

“What's a therapy dog?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“Therapy dogs are dogs that are trained to help people,” said Mr. Macky.

“So you want us to read . . . to a
dog
?” Ryan asked.

“Sure!” said Mr. Macky.

“And you think
that's
going to make us better readers?” asked Michael.

“Yes!”

Mr. Macky is wacky!
*

Mr. Granite said that while we read to the dog, he would be in the teachers' lounge for a while. That's a secret room just for teachers where they can go to play video games, take a nap, or get a foot massage. My friend Billy, who lives around the corner, told me that the teachers' lounge at his school has an all-you-can-eat buffet.

All-you-can-eat buffets are cool because you can eat as much as you want. That's why they're called all-you-can-eat buffets. They have the perfect name!

Hey, what if you went to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets and you just kept eating and eating and eating without stopping? I guess at some point they would tell you, “Okay, that's all you can eat. Now get out of here.”

It would
still
have the perfect name!

I know that doesn't have anything to do with the story. The point is that Mr. Granite went to hang out in the teachers' lounge.

“It's against the rules to bring a dog to school,” said Andrea, who probably has a poster in her room with all the rules on it so she can study them in her spare time.

“Therapy dogs
are
allowed in school,” Mr. Macky told us. “Her name is Miss Klute. She's four years old, and she's really friendly, patient, calm, and gentle around people. Would you like to pet her?”

“I'm afraid,” said Emily, of course.

“Miss Klute doesn't bite,” said Mr. Macky. “She wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“It's not flies I'm worried about,” Emily said. “Does she bite girls? Girls named Emily?”

“Of course not!” Mr. Macky said. “She
loves
people. And Miss Klute is even hypoallergenic. Does anybody know what hypoallergenic means?”

Andrea waved her hand in the air like she was stranded on a desert island and trying to signal a plane. But Mr. Macky called on me.

“That means Miss Klute is a kind of shampoo,” I said, sticking my tongue out at Andrea. I knew that because my mom told me her shampoo is hypoallergenic.

“Not exactly, A.J.,” said Mr. Macky. He called on Andrea.

“Hypoallergenic means Miss Klute won't bother people who are allergic to dogs,” said Andrea.

“That's right, Andrea!”

Andrea smiled the smile that she smiles whenever she's the only one with the right answer. Why can't a truckload of hypoallergenic shampoo fall on her head?

We all gathered around to pet Miss Klute. She seemed to like it. She didn't bite anybody's hand off, anyway.

“She's adorable!” announced Alexia.

“Miss Klute is cute!” said Emily.

“I love her!” Neil said, wrapping his arms around Miss Klute and hugging her.

Wow, a minute ago Neil thought Miss Klute was going to bite his head off, and now he was saying he loved her. Neil is weird.

“Would you like me to read a story to Miss Klute?” asked Mr. Macky.

“Yes!” said all the girls.

“No!” said all the boys.

I still didn't get it. Dogs don't understand English. Why would anybody want to read to them? Boy, for a reading specialist, Mr. Macky didn't know a whole lot about reading.

He pulled a book off the shelf. It was called
Doug Unplugged
. Mr. Macky sat on the floor next to Miss Klute, and we all gathered around him.

“
This is Doug. He's a robot
,” read Mr. Macky. “
Each morning his parents plug him in to fill him up with lots and lots of facts.
”

I looked at Miss Klute. She was looking at Mr. Macky as he read.

“
They love their little robot and want him to be the smartest robot ever
,” Mr. Macky read from the book.

Miss Klute cuddled herself up into a giant ball and put her head on Mr. Macky's lap as he read about Doug the robot. I had to admit, it
was
adorable.

Doug Unplugged
was a cool story. It had us all glued to our seats.

Well, not really. We were sitting on the floor. Why would anybody glue themselves to a seat? How would you get the glue off?

When he got to the middle of the story, Mr. Macky reached into his pocket and pulled out a Cheerio. He gave it to Miss Klute to eat.

“You keep Cheerios in your
pocket
?” I asked. “That's weird.”

“Did you run out of bowls?” asked Ryan.

“No, we had to put Miss Klute on a special diet,” Mr. Macky said, “because sometimes she eats too much.”

“My mom is on a special diet,” I said. “If she loses ten pounds, she's going to buy a bikini.”

“Your mom is weird,” said Michael.

“If Miss Klute loses ten pounds, we should get
her
a bikini,” suggested Ryan.

“Yeah, Miss Klute would look good in a bikini,” said Neil.

“Dogs don't wear bikinis!” said Alexia.

“That's right,” Emily said. “They go swimming naked.”

“Ewww, disgusting!” we all shouted.

“Let's stay on task, shall we?” said Mr. Macky.

He finished reading
Doug Unplugged.
Then he gave Miss Klute another Cheerio.

“It looked like she was really paying attention to the story,” Andrea said. “Miss Klute is amazing!”

No, she's not. She just sat there and did nothing the whole time. Do you know what would
really
be amazing? If Miss Klute read a story to
us
.

Now
that
would be amazing.

Mr. Macky said he had to leave because he needed to bring Miss Klute to the other classes. But the next day, after we finished math, he poked his head into our doorway again.

“Miss Klute is here!” everybody yelled when we saw her. “Hooray!”

“Would you like to read her a story?” Mr. Macky asked.

“Yeah!” said all the girls.

“Yeah!” said all the boys.

Mr. Granite told us he would be in the teachers' lounge for a while. I think I want to be a teacher when I grow up. That way I can go hang out in the teachers' lounge all day and get foot massages.

“Is it true that the teachers' lounge has a minibar filled with candy?” Michael asked Mr. Granite before he left.

“I heard that in the teachers' lounge they have servants on roller skates who feed you grapes and give you back rubs,” said Ryan.

“That's true,” Mr. Granite told us. “And there are hundred-dollar bills scattered all over the floor, too. You can just scoop them up and keep them.”

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

“What do you do with the hundred-dollar bills?” I asked Mr. Granite.

“We use them for toilet paper,” he told us.

Ewww, disgusting!

I think Mr. Granite was yanking our chain. Nobody would
ever
use hundred-dollar bills for toilet paper. You would use
one
-dollar bills.

Mr. Macky sat on the rug in the corner with Miss Klute, and we all gathered around them. Mr. Macky had a book called
Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen
. It was about a guy named Uncle Willie who works in a soup kitchen. So it has the perfect name!

Mr. Macky read the first sentence in the book, and then he passed the book over to Andrea. She read a sentence and then she passed the book over to Ryan. He read a sentence and passed the book over to Michael. Each of us got the chance to read part of the story. It was cool.