Mr. Macky Is Wacky! (4 page)

Monday is usually the worst day of the week, because it means we have five days of school in a row. But not
this
week. It was Presidents' Day. No school on a Monday! Hooray!

Now, you're not going to believe this in a million hundred years, but do you
know what I did on Presidents' Day?

Of course you don't, because I didn't tell you yet. And I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you. I spent the whole morning working on my Presidents' Day oral report!

See, I
told
you that you wouldn't believe it. But it's true! I did homework on a day we didn't even have school! I must have been out of my mind.

I'll tell you why I did it. It's because I hate Andrea Young. I am sick and tired of her bragging about how smart she is and how she knows everything and how her oral report was going to be the best in the class. I'm just as gifted and talented as
she
is. So I decided I was going to make a
better
oral report than Andrea. I was going to make the
best
oral report in the history of the world. My oral report was going to blow the doors off Andrea's oral report. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her!

I worked really hard. I looked in my library and got books about my president.
I looked in the encyclopedia for my president. I went on the Internet and got lots of fun facts about my president. My oral report was going to be great. Andrea wouldn't even know what hit her.

I wrote the whole thing out and put it in a nice red binder. I wouldn't let anyone see it, not even my parents or my sister. I wanted it to be a
complete
surprise. It was top secret. I'm not even going to tell
you
who my president was. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you!

I worked all morning on my oral report, and then the phone rang. My mom told me Michael wanted to talk to me.

“Me and my dad are going to buy a big-
screen TV,” he said. “Wanna come?”

“Sure!”

Michael's dad drove us to the big-screen TV store. It was cool. They had a whole wall filled with big-screen TVs, and they were all tuned to the same channel. We were walking around looking for a salesman when this guy asked Michael's dad if he needed any help. You'll never in a million hundred years believe who the guy was.

I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

It was Mr. Macky! He was wearing a name tag that said
HOWARD MACKY
on it.

“Mr. Macky!” I said. “To what do we
owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I work here on weekends and holidays,” said Mr. Macky. “Would you like to buy a big-screen TV? They're on sale today.”

Wow! I never would have thought that a
reading specialist
would also be a big-screen TV salesman. I thought reading specialists
hated
TV. But Mr. Macky told us he loved TV and knew everything about big-screen TVs.

Mr. Macky took a
Star Wars
DVD out of his pocket so we could see what it looked like on a big-screen TV. It was cool. You could almost see inside Darth Vader's nostrils.

Michael's dad bought the TV right away. It was so big that Mr. Macky had to help us strap it to the roof of the car.

I asked Mr. Macky what his favorite part of
Star Wars
was. He told us it was the beginning, when all those words scroll up the screen.

“That's the only part you read,” he said. “As you know, I love to read.”

Mr. Macky is weird. And he is much better at selling TVs than he is at teaching reading.

The next day we had to go to school (BOO!), but we also got to give our oral reports (YAY!). It was cool watching everybody walk up the front steps dressed up like a president. Kids were wearing hats, beards, suits, and ties. Even the girls! That was weird.

Neil the nude kid was dressed up like Thomas Jefferson. He brought his ferret, Mr. Wiggles—I mean
President
Wiggles—with him in a cage. Neil told us that President Wiggles was going to sit in Mr. Klutz's office all day and boss him around because he was president of the school.

Ryan was dressed up like James Garfield, and he brought a stuffed Garfield cat with him. Michael was dressed up like Herbert Hoover, and he brought a vacuum cleaner with him.

“Which president are you, A.J.?” they asked when they saw me. I had a cane, glasses, and a fur hat.

“It's a secret,” I said. “But just watch me blow the doors off Andrea's oral report.”

After we pledged the allegiance in our class, Mrs. Patty's voice came over the loudspeaker. She told us Mr. Klutz had an announcement to make.

“Two very special guests are visiting our school today,” he said. “Dr. Carbles, the president of the Board of Education, will be here any minute. He is eager to
hear some of your Presidents' Day oral reports. And I would like to welcome the new president of Ella Mentry School…Mr. Wiggles, the ferret that belongs to Neil Crouch in Miss Daisy's class!”

Everybody started cheering. Neil the nude kid took a bow. This song called “Hail to the Chief” came out of the loudspeaker. When it was over, Mr. Klutz and Mrs. Patty were still talking. I guess they forgot to turn off the microphone in the office.

“Uh, where's the ferret?” Mr. Klutz asked.

“I don't know.”

“I thought you had it.”

“I put the cage on your desk.”

“I put it on the floor over there.”

“The cage is empty!” shouted Mrs. Patty. “The ferret must have escaped!”

“Oh no!”

“Mr. Wiggles!” screamed Neil the nude kid.

He totally freaked and went running out of the class. Meanwhile, Mr. Klutz and Mrs. Patty were still talking over the loudspeaker.

“We have to find the ferret!” shouted Mr. Klutz.

“It must
be around here somewhere!”

“How far could a ferret get?”

“It could be anywhere!”

“We'll have to search the school!”

“Lock the outside doors!” shouted Mr. Klutz. “Don't tell the students that the ferret is missing! They might freak out!”

But it was too late. By now
everybody
knew that President Wiggles was missing, and
everybody
was freaking out. Miss Daisy told us to stay in our seats, but there was no way I was going to stay in my seat with a ferret running around loose. Those things look like long rats! It could be in my desk for all I knew.

We all went running into the hallway, and guess who we saw there?

I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you. It was Dr. Carbles, the president of the Board of Education!

“What's going on here?” asked Dr. Carbles. Unlike Dr. Seuss, he's a real doctor, but he isn't very cool.

We couldn't tell him what was going on, because the whole school was going crazy. Kids dressed up like presidents were spilling out of classrooms and running all over the hall, shouting and smashing into one another.

“Help!” somebody screamed. “There's a wild ferret on the loose!”

“Run for your lives!”

“Find the ferret!”

Mr. Macky was shouting at us, trying to control the situation.

“Everyone back to your classes!” he yelled. “Please remain calm!”

Calm?
Was he nuts? There was a
ferret
running around the school!

Somebody knocked over Dr. Carbles. The teachers were yelling for us to go back to class. If President Wiggles was smart, he would have found a good hiding place where he wouldn't get trampled by some kid.

Meanwhile, me and Ryan and Michael were sneaking around like Secret Service agents on the hunt for President Wiggles.

It was cool. You should have been there.

Well, we searched all over the school, but we just couldn't find President Wiggles. When we finally returned to our class, everybody was looking around the room. President Wiggles could be
anywhere
. Poor Neil the nude kid was really upset. If his ferret was lost, his parents were going
to be mad.

Miss Daisy said President Wiggles was sure to turn up and we had to get back to work. It was time for us to give our oral reports. Little Miss Perfect Andrea got to go first. She was dressed up like John F. Kennedy.

“‘Ask not what your country can do for you,'” Andrea said. “‘Ask what
you
can do for your country.'”

I had to admit that Andrea's oral report
was pretty good. She told us that John F. Kennedy was a war hero and that he started the space program and the Peace Corps. He was cool.

“Exemplary!” Miss Daisy said as Andrea walked back to her seat. (That means “excellent” in grown-up talk.)

“Wait until you hear
my
oral report,” I whispered to Ryan. “I'm gonna blow Andrea's doors off.”

Next it was crybaby Emily's turn. She was dressed up like Abraham Lincoln with a suit, tie, big black hat, and fake beard.

Emily's report was really sad. She told us that Abraham Lincoln was dirt poor as
a kid, his three-year-old son died, his wife went crazy, and the country was at war with itself the whole time he was president. And then, to top it all off, a few days after the war ended, some guy shot him.

Emily started coughing and rubbing her eyes like she was going to cry. For once I couldn't call her a crybaby. The story of Abraham Lincoln was really sad. Andrea was crying. Miss Daisy was crying. Then Michael and Ryan started crying, too.
Everybody
was crying. Even
me
!

While we were all crying, the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. The big Lincoln hat on Emily's head started moving around. It was like it
had a motor in it or something. And then the front of the hat lifted up a little. And you know what was under there?

I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

It was President Wiggles! He was sitting on top of Emily's head!

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Emily screamed. “THERE'S A RAT IN MY HAT!
*
I THINK IT JUST POOPED IN MY HAIR!”

Emily totally freaked and ran out of the room. President Wiggles jumped off her head and ran away. Neil the nude kid chased him around the class.

It was hilarious. A real Kodak moment. And we got to see it live and in person!