Miss Kraft Is Daft! (3 page)

Miss Kraft was still juggling the three brains when Mr. Klutz came in.

“Ah, I see you've met your substitute teacher,” he said. “Miss Kraft just graduated from clown college.”

“They have colleges for
clowns
?!” asked Alexia.

“Oh yes,” said Miss Kraft. “This year I took classes in magic tricks, unicycle riding, and advanced balloon animals.”

“Cool!” we all said.

“When I get bigger, I want to go to clown college,” I said.

“I'm sure your parents will be happy to hear that, A.J.,” said Mr. Klutz. “I just wanted to come in to assure you kids that Mr. Granite is fine and will be back tomorrow. Until then, I expect you all to be on your best behavior, just like you would be if Mr. Granite was here.”

“I'm
always
on my best behavior,” said Andrea.

What is her problem?

“Good,” said Mr. Klutz, “because I know what happens when there's a substitute in the class. I was a boy once, you know.”

“Just once?” I asked. “I'm a boy
all
the time.”

“No, I mean that I used to be your age,” he told us, “and we used to give the subs a hard time. But if there is going to be any bad behavior in here, there are going to be suspensions.”

Mr. Klutz left the room.

“Hey, do you kids want to see a cool magic trick?” asked Miss Kraft.

“Yeah!” we all yelled.

“Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”

“You don't have a hat,” said Ryan.

“Oh, you're right,” said Miss Kraft. “Then watch me pull a hat out of my rabbit.”

She waved her arm around, and suddenly there was a big puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared, she was holding a rabbit!

“It's adorable!” yelled all the girls.

Then Miss Kraft waved her arm around again, and there was another puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared, she was holding a big top hat. The rabbit climbed out of it.

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

Miss Kraft did some card tricks and coin tricks for us. Then she sang a song while she played a banjo. After that she did a funny clown dance, gave us candy, and made us some balloon animals.

Miss Kraft is cool! This was even
better
than having a regular sub. We didn't have to do any schoolwork;
plus
they brought in a clown to entertain us. Having Miss Kraft as a sub is like going to a birthday party all day long.

“Is everyone having fun?” she asked.

“Yeah!” we all yelled.

“I wish you were our teacher
every
day!” I told her.
*

Miss Kraft is the coolest sub in the history of the world. We were going to play games, eat junk food, and have fun all day long.

“What are we going to do
now
, Miss Kraft?” asked Alexia.

“Yeah, are you going to make more balloon animals?” asked Ryan.

“No,” said Miss Kraft.

“Are you going to give us candy and cookies?” asked Michael.

“No,” said Miss Kraft.

“Are you going to ride your unicycle and juggle some more?” asked Emily.

“No,” said Miss Kraft.

“Then what are we going to do?” I asked.

“Turn to page twenty-three in your math books,” she said.

“WHAT!?”

I think my jaw dropped open, and my eyes popped out of my head like in the cartoons.

“B-b-but,” I stuttered, “I thought we were going to play games and have fun today.”

“We
played
games,” Miss Kraft said. “We
had
fun. Now it's time to learn something.”

Noooooooooo!
This simply could not be happening!

I looked at the loudspeaker on the wall. I was sure we would get called to a surprise assembly. Or maybe there would be a fire drill. Or maybe an asteroid would destroy the earth, and school would be canceled for the rest of our lives. Something was
sure
to happen so we wouldn't have to do page twenty-three.

But nothing happened. We all pulled our math books out of our desks.

“Yay,” said Andrea. “I
love
math!”

Why can't a truck full of math books fall on Andrea's head?

“Are you
really
going to teach us page twenty-three?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“Of course not!” said Miss Kraft. “I don't know anything about math. Mr. Bongo is going to teach you page twenty-three.”

“Who's Mr. Bongo?” we all asked.

Miss Kraft pulled a white sock out of her pocket and put it on her hand.

“This is Mr. Bongo,” she said. “He's my friend.”

Sock puppets are weird. Whoever thought up the idea of making puppets out of socks was a dumbhead. And I'll tell you, this was the lamest sock puppet in the history of the world. It was basically a sock with two big, googly eyes on it. “Hi kids!” said Mr. Bongo, even though we could totally see Miss Kraft's lips moving. “Turn to page twenty-three in your math books.”

I opened my math book and turned to page twenty-three. That's when I saw these horrible words …

THE ELEVEN TIMES TABLE

Noooooooooooooooooo!

Not the eleven times table!
Anything
but the eleven times table!

Mr. Granite taught us all the times tables up to ten. But he never got to page twenty-three. I always wondered what was on page twenty-three. And now I found out the horrible truth.

My friend Billy, who lives around the corner, told me that the times tables can only go up to ten. Billy said that if you try to multiply numbers higher than ten, the earth will fall off its axis. And if you get all the way up to eleven times eleven, you get sucked into a parallel universe, and you travel back in time until you get to the Big Bang, when your head explodes.

Billy knows all about stuff like that. He told me he knew a kid who tried to multiply eleven times eleven, and the kid's head exploded. That is a true fact. I told everybody on the playground about it.

“Okay, let's get started,” said Mr. Bongo. “One times eleven equals eleven. That's easy, right?”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Miss Kraft.

“Don't talk to
me
about it,” said Miss Kraft. “Talk to Mr. Bongo. He's the one who's teaching the lesson.”

“Two times eleven equals twenty-two,” said Mr. Bongo, “because eleven added to eleven equals twenty-two.”

“We really shouldn't be doing this,” said Michael. “It's very dangerous.”

“Three times eleven equals thirty-three,” said Mr. Bongo.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” said Ryan.

“Later,” said Miss Kraft.

“Four times eleven equals forty-four,” said Mr. Bongo.

“I'm scared!” said Emily.

“Five times eleven equals fifty-five,” said Mr. Bongo.

“If he gets to eleven times eleven,” I whispered to Ryan, “we're going to get sucked into a parallel universe and travel through time until our heads explode!”

“Six times eleven equals sixty-six,” said Mr. Bongo.

“Make him stop!” begged Neil the nude kid. “Please, make him stop!”

“Seven times eleven equals seventy-seven,” said Mr. Bongo.

“He's getting close to the end!” said Andrea.

“Eight times eleven equals eighty-eight,” said Mr. Bongo.

“I want my mommy!” said Emily, who was hiding under her desk.

“Nine times eleven equals ninety-nine,” said Mr. Bongo.

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

“Ten times eleven equals a hundred and ten,” said Mr. Bongo.

“Good-bye, cruel world!” shouted Michael.

Everybody was hiding under their desks, holding their hands over their ears and freaking out.

“Eleven times eleven equals …”

“This is it!” I yelled, closing my eyes. “I'm going to miss you guys!”

“… a hundred and twenty-one,” said Mr. Bongo.

I felt my head to see if it had exploded. All the pieces seemed to be there. I peeked through my fingers to see if the world was still there.

Nothing happened. The only thing that was different was that Mr. Klutz was standing in the doorway.

“What's the meaning of this?” he yelled. “Why are you children hiding under your desks during a math lesson?”

“We don't want to get sucked into a parallel universe,” I explained.

Mr. Klutz looked really mad. I thought he was going to suspend the whole class. But he just turned around and stormed down the hall.

Okay, so my friend Billy was wrong. We didn't get sucked into a parallel universe and travel through time until our heads exploded.

I still say sock puppets are weird.

After we finished the math lesson, it was time for lunch. We had to walk in single file a million hundred miles to the vomitorium.

I sat with Alexia and the guys, but Andrea and Emily weaseled their way onto the end of our table. They are so annoying.

We all had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches except for Ryan. He had a turkey wichsand, which is a sandwich that has the meat on the outside and bread in the middle.

“Miss Kraft is weird,” I said.

“Yeah, I thought she was going to be cool when she was doing all that clown stuff,” said Michael. “But then she made us do math.”

“She's just like every other teacher,” said Alexia. “All she ever wants to do is teach us stuff.”

“Yeah, she's no fun at all,” I said.

That's when Little Miss Know-It-All had to open her big mouth.