Read Mr. Docker Is Off His Rocker! Online
Authors: Dan Gutman
Mr. Docker Is Off His Rocker!
Mr. Docker Is Off His Rocker!
Pictures by
Jim Paillot
To Emma
1
 Science Is for Nerds
2
 The Power of the Potato
3
 Stop, Drop, and Roll
4
 Going on a Field Trip
5
 The Science (Not) Fair
6
 Being Nice to Andrea
7
 The Truth About Mr. Docker
8
 Don't Try This at Home
9
 Spying on Mr. Docker
10
 The Spudmobile
11
 My Buzzing, Bubbling Brain
12
 The Worst Moment of My Life
Science Is for Nerds
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
Why do we need to learn how to read if we have books on CD? Why do we need to learn social studies if that stuff happened a long time ago and we can't do anything about it now? I hate that stuff. But there's one subject I
really
hate.
Andrea Young.
Well, Andrea is not exactly a
subject
. She's this annoying girl in my class. Even her curly brown hair is annoying.
“Guess what, A.J.?” Andrea said as we were putting our backpacks away.
“Your butt,” I replied. (Anytime somebody asks, “Guess what?” you should always say, “Your butt.” That's the first rule of being a kid.)
“I know what A.J. stands for,” Andrea said.
“Do not.”
“Do
too
.”
We went back and forth like that for a while. There's no way Andrea could
know what A.J. stands for. I never told anyone. Even my best friends, Ryan and Michael, don't know. If anyone ever found out what A.J. stands for, I'd have to get a new name. I'd have to leave town.
“A.J. stands forâ”
Andrea never got the chance to finish her sentence because our teacher, Miss Daisy, came in.
“Enough chitchatting,” Miss Daisy said. “It's time for Show and Share.”
Oh man! I forgot all about Show and Share! We were supposed to bring in something that starts with the letter D and tell the class about it. I looked in my desk for a D word. Nothing. I looked in
my pockets. All I had was lunch money.
But wait! A dime! “Dime” begins with D!
“I brought in a dime,” I told Miss Daisy.
“Good,” she said. “What can you tell us about the dime, A.J.?”
“It's worth ten cents,” I said, and everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny.
Andrea was waving her hand in the air, and she got called on, of course.
“The word âdime' comes from the Latin word âdecimus,'” Andrea said.
I hate her.
“Very good, Andrea!” said Miss Daisy. “How did you know that?”
“I looked it up in
my
D word,” Andrea said. “I brought in a
dictionary
. I use it all the time at home to look up words.”
Andrea grinned her little I'm-so-smart grin.
Ryan, who sits next to me, whispered, “If she was
really
smart, she wouldn't
have
to look stuff up.”
“Andrea, would you please look up the word âscience'?” asked Miss Daisy. “S-C-I-E-N-C-E.”
What a dumb spelling! There's no reason why that word should have a C in it. Andrea turned the pages of her dictionary.
“Sâ¦S-Aâ¦S-C,” she said. “Here it is. âScience is knowledge made up of an orderly system of facts that have been learned from study, observation, and experiments.'”
“Very good!”
Andrea smiled her I-know-everything smile and said she was going to keep her dictionary on her desk from now on in case she had to look up any other words.
Why can't a box of dictionaries fall on her head?
“I have good news,” Miss Daisy said. “We have a new teacher at Ella Mentry School. His name is Mr. Docker, and he used to be a real scientist. He's retired
now, but he agreed to come back to school to teach us science.”
That was good news? It sounded like bad news to me. We never had to learn science before. Now, just because some old guy doesn't like being retired, we had to learn a new subject. It wasn't fair.
Why did I have to learn science? It's not like I was going to be a scientist someday. When I grow up, I'm going to be a football player. I play Pee Wee football. Tackling people is fun.
Suddenly Mr. Klutz, our principal, poked his bald head into the doorway.
“Has anybody seen Mr. Docker?” he asked. “I think he ran away.”
“We'd better line up in ABC order and go look for him!” said Miss Daisy. “Quickly! To the science room!”
I didn't need any dictionary to tell me what science is. Science is for nerds.
The Power of the Potato
We walked a million hundred miles to the science room. Michael, who never ties his shoes, was the line leader.
“Science is for nerds,” I said.
“Science is fun!” said Andrea, who thinks everything about school is fun.
The science room is probably the
weirdest room in the history of the world. In the corner there was a skeleton wearing a top hat. There was a cage with white mice running around it. There were strange machines, microscopes, computers, plants, and other stuff all over the place.
“This place is freaky weird,” Ryan said.
“Where's Mr. Docker?” Andrea asked.
“I don't know,” said Miss Daisy, who doesn't know anything.
We were looking at all the junk when the door banged open and an old guy came in. He was standing on one of those rolling things that looks like an old-time lawn mower. He was wearing a helmet,
goggles, and one of those doctor lab coats. What a nerd!
“Hi, everybody!” he said. “I'm Mr. Docker!”
Then he smashed into the chalkboard and fell off his rolling thing. We all
ran over to pick him up off the floor.
“Are you okay?” we all asked.
“Never better!”
Mr. Docker took off his helmet and goggles. He had crazy gray hair that went off in all directions. It looked like he hadn't combed it in years. If my hair looked like that, my mother wouldn't let me out of the house.
“Hey, I've seen that guy before,” Ryan whispered. “He lives down the street from me!”
Mr. Docker reached into his lab coat and pulled out a potato. He took a bite out of it.
“Sorry I'm late,” Mr. Docker said. “I had
to harvest my tubers.”
Huh? I didn't know what he was talking about.
“Tubers are potatoes,” Andrea said. “I looked it up in the dictionary once.”
“Very good,” Mr. Docker said. “Welcome to science. I'm going to take you on a scientific journey. We're going to explore the wonders of our world. The future is in your hands. You will be the scientists of tomorrow.”
“Not me,” I said. “I'm going to be a football player.”
“But we can
all
be scientists,” Mr. Docker said. “All you have to do is look around and ask âWhy?' Why does the
Earth spin? Why do dogs wag their tails? Can anybody think of another science why question?”
“Why do we have to learn science?” I asked.
Andrea looked at me and rolled her eyes.
“That's a good question,” Mr. Docker said.
I stuck out my tongue at Andrea. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her!
“We have to learn science because science is all around us,” Mr. Docker said. “When you bounce a ball, you're learning the science of physics. When you look at a flower, you're learning
the science of botany. When you pick your nose, you're learning the science of biology.”
“You're also getting the boogers out,” I added.
Ryan said he was a scientist because he went on the Internet and found out how to make a stink bomb.
“We're all scientists,” Mr. Docker said, “and kids make great scientists, because you're naturally curious. I love it when kids ask why questions. Does anyone
have another why question?”
“Why can't we go to recess?” I asked.
“Science is more fun than recess,” Mr. Docker said as he took something out of his desk drawer. “Hey, let me show you something. I brought this from my laboratory at home.”
“What is it?” asked Emily.
“It's a potato clock,” Mr. Docker said. “There are no batteries. You don't plug it into an outlet on the wall. It's powered by the chemicals in potatoes! Watch this!”
He took two potatoes out of his desk and put them in the clock. Then he took the wires that went from the clock and stuck them into the potatoes. The little
screen on the clock lit up and said “10:15.”
“It works!” we all shouted. “Wow! That's cool!”
“I love potatoes!” said Mr. Docker. Then he let out this cackling laugh, just like scientists do in the movies. That's a sure
sign that somebody is crazy.
“Why did you make a clock out of potatoes?” Andrea asked.
“I wanted to see time fry!” said Mr. Docker. “Get it? Time fry? Potatoes? French fries?”
I laughed at his joke, even though it wasn't very funny. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that if a teacher makes a joke and you don't laugh, they get mad and give you extra homework. So always laugh at your teacher's jokes, no matter how bad they are. That's the first rule of being a kid.
“But seriously,” Mr. Docker said, “the Earth is going to run out of oil someday.
We'll need to use other forms of energy.”
“Like potato power?” I asked.
“Exactly!” Mr. Docker said. “Imagine, if two potatoes can make enough energy to run a clock, what could two
hundred
potatoes run? Or two
thousand
? Or two
million
?”
Mr. Docker is a real potato freak. But as he was talking, his potato clock stopped.
“What time is it?” Michael asked.
“Time to change potatoes,” said Mr. Docker. Then he let out his evil, demented, cackling laugh again.
Mr. Docker is off his rocker!
