Mr. Jack Is a Maniac! (6 page)

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Authors: Dan Gutman

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The bear looked at Andrea for a moment. Then it took another swipe at me. I dodged out of the way.

“Hey!” I shouted. “What are you attacking
me
for?
She's
the one who's bothering you!”

“The bear must think you're both crazy!” shouted Michael.

“They
are
crazy!” said Neil the nude kid. The bear started swiping his claws at me over and over again, like he was swatting flies.

I dove to my left. I dove to my right. I jumped up in the air. I wasn't going to let that bear get me.

“Duck! Dive! Dip! Dodge!” everyone was shouting at me.

“Eeee-yah!”
screamed Andrea. Then she gave the bear another karate chop on his leg.

The bear must have been getting tired, because he suddenly sat down on the floor.

“I think the bear is intimidated!” Alexia shouted.
“Eeee-yah!”

Then the whole school got up, raised their hands in the air, and spread their legs apart. Then they started stomping around and waving their jackets and whistling.

“Eeee-yah!”
everybody shrieked their heads off.

The bear whimpered once, and then he got up and lumbered out the door. I ran over and closed it behind him.

For a moment, there was silence. Nobody moved or said a word. Then everybody started hooting and hollering and cheering their heads off.

“Hooray for Andrea and A.J.!” Ryan shouted. “They intimidated the bear!”

“That's teamwork!” said Andrea.

Suddenly, Andrea did something that was even
more
intimidating than scaring away the bear.

She gave me a kiss!

Ugh, disgusting!

12
The First Rule of Being a Kid

Right after the bear ran out of the gym, the three-o'clock bell rang. Yippee! Time to go home! We all rushed back to our classrooms to get our backpacks.

Usually I take the bus home, but I had a dentist appointment, so my mom came to pick me up.

“What did you learn in school today, A.J.?” she asked when I got in the car.

“Nothing,” I said.

Whenever your mom asks you what you learned at school today, always say “Nothing.” That's the first rule of being a kid.

“Oh, come on, A.J.,” my mom said. “You must have learned
something
at school today.”

“We learned how to fight bears,” I told her.

“Very funny. What did you learn in math class?”

“We didn't have math class.”

“What did you learn in science class?”

“We didn't have science class.”

“What did you learn in social studies class?”

“We didn't have social studies class.”

“Well, if you didn't have math, science, or social studies class,” my mom asked, “what class
did
you have?”

“Bear-fighting class,” I told her.

My mom rubbed her forehead with her fingers. After that, she stopped asking me what I learned in school.

Well, that's pretty much what happened. Maybe Mr. Jack will man up and stop combing his hair in slow motion. Maybe I'll get to throw a watermelon off a ten-story building. Maybe somebody else will pick up Dr. Brad and throw him somewhere. Maybe Mr. Jack will break a block of ice in half with his head. Maybe Dr. Brad will stop trying to reason with bears. Maybe Andrea will take a class to learn how to clip her toenails better. Maybe Mr. Jack will stop shooting Ping-Pong balls at kids and attacking them with glue sticks. Maybe Mr. Klutz will put the bear in detention. Maybe they'll invent a cream so grown-ups won't have itchy foreheads anymore. Maybe Mr. Jack will stop killing cows and wearing them. Maybe they'll figure out how to put TVs inside our eyelids.

But it won't be easy!

About the Author and Illustrator

Photo by Howard Wolf

DAN GUTMAN
has written many weird books
for kids. He lives in New Jersey (a very weird place) with his weird
wife and two weird children. You can visit him on his weird website at
www.dangutman.com.

JIM PAILLOT
lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his
weird wife and two weird children. Isn't that weird? You can visit him
on his weird website at www.jimpaillot.com.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.

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Credits

Copyright

M
Y WEIRDER SCHOOL
#10:
MR. JACK IS A MANIAC
! Text copyright Â© 2014 by Dan Gutman. Illustrations copyright Â© 2014 by Jim Paillot. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

ISBN 978-0-06-219841-9 (pbk. bdg.)âISBN 978-0-06-219842-6 (lib. bdg)
EPub Edition December 2013 ISBN 9780062198433

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