Read Mr. Tony Is Full of Baloney! Online
Authors: Dan Gutman
Mr. Tony Is Full of Baloney! (2 page)
Brrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggggg!!!
The three-o’clock bell rang. We watched out the window while most of the other kids got on the buses or were picked up by their parents. We were all really sad. Emily was wiping her eyes like she was about to start crying. What a crybaby!
“Look at all those kids,” Neil the nude kid said, “going home to their TV sets.”
“To their video games,” said Michael.
“To their pets,” said Andrea.
“To their snacks,” said Ryan.
“And we have to stay here just because our moms want to make some dumb sandwiches,” I said. “It’s not fair.”
We had to walk a million hundred miles all the way to the other side of the school, where the ASKK room is. ASKK stands for “After-School Kids’ Kare,” which makes no sense at all because “care” is spelled with a
C
, not a
K
. How are we supposed to learn how to spell if they can’t even spell “ASKK” right?
The grown-up in charge of ASKK is Mr. Tony, but he wasn’t there yet. The door was locked. Some other kids were waiting in the hall. I guess their moms had to make sandwiches, too.
“I have an idea,” I told the guys. “Let’s make a run for it!”
“They probably have guards with machine guns who will shoot us if we try to escape,” said Ryan.
“Maybe we can dig a tunnel and escape to freedom,” said Michael. “I saw that in a war movie once. The prisoners dug a hole in the ground and hid the dirt down their pants so the guards wouldn’t notice.”
“I’m not putting dirt down my pants,” I said.
“We don’t have a shovel anyway,” said Neil. “We can’t dig a tunnel.”
“Boys!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
That’s when the strangest thing in the history of the world happened. A guy came over.
Well, that’s not the strange part because guys come over all the time. The strange part was that the guy came over on a pogo stick, and he was juggling three balls.
“Mr. Tony, reporting for duty!” he said.
We all giggled because Mr. Tony said “duty,” which sounds just like “doody.” It’s okay to say “
D-U-T-Y
,” but grown-ups get really mad when you say “
D-O-O-D-Y
.” Nobody knows why.
Mr. Tony jumped off the pogo stick. He’s a big guy with a mustache. He saluted us like he was in the army. I saw he had a big white Band-Aid on his arm.
“Ten-hut!” he said.
Army guys always say “Ten-hut” when they want you to stand up straight. Nobody knows why.
“At ease,” Mr. Tony said. He handed out name tags to each of us and opened the door to the ASKK room. “I won’t tolerate any foolishness in here. I run a tight ship.”
I looked around the ASKK room. There wasn’t any ship in there. I don’t understand why people are always talking about ships. What’s up with that?
“Are we going boating?” I asked.
“Of course not!” Mr. Tony yelled. “What would make you think we’d go boating in the after-school program?”
“How should I know?” I asked. “You’re the one who brought it up.”
Mr. Tony is weird.
Mr. Tony seemed like he was really mean. But suddenly, he broke out into a big grin.
“I was just kidding with that army stuff,” he said. “Welcome to the ASKK program! Are you kids ready to have fun?”
“Yes!” said all the girls.
“No,” said all the boys.
“Before we have fun,” Andrea said, “may I ask you a question, Mr. Tony?”
“Certainly,” he replied.
“Why were you juggling on a pogo stick?”
“I’m trying to get into
The Guinness Book of World Records
,” Mr. Tony said. “The record for pogo-juggling is almost 25 minutes. I want to break it.”
Pogo-juggling? Now I
knew
Mr. Tony was weird.
“Did you get hurt pogo-juggling?” asked Emily. “Is that why you have a Band-Aid on your arm?”
“It’s not a Band-Aid. It’s a nicotine patch,” Mr. Tony explained. “I’m trying to quit smoking.”
“Cigarettes are really bad for you,” said Ryan.
“I know,” Mr. Tony said. “I used to be a chain-smoker.”
“You smoked chains?” I asked. “That’s weird.”
“A chain-smoker is somebody who smokes all the time, Arlo!” Andrea said. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.
“I knew that,” I lied.
“My doctor says that if I do a lot of exercise, it will help me quit smoking,” Mr. Tony said. “So I thought I would try to do something active and get into
The Guinness Book of World Records
. If I was the best in the world at something, I think I would have the confidence to stop smoking.”
That made sense, I guess.
Mr. Tony took us on a tour of the ASKK room.
“On nice days you can play out in the playground,” he told us, “but there are lots of fun things to do in here too.”
The ASKK room was divided into a bunch of little stations. There was one station for drawing pictures, one station for arts and crafts, one station for cooking, one station for making stuff with beads and Legos, and one station for playing board games.
3
“You can do whatever you want,” said Mr. Tony. “You can even do your homework if you’d like, over here in the homework station.”
That’s where Andrea will probably spend her time. She
loves
homework. I bet that on her birthday she asks her parents to give her more homework.
“I don’t want to do any of that stuff,” I told Mr. Tony.
“Me neither,” said Ryan.
“We don’t want to be here,” said Michael.
“Yeah, we want to go home,” said Neil the nude kid.
Mr. Tony looked sad for a minute. But then he snapped his fingers.
“I have an idea for something you boys would like to do!” he said. “Let’s make a pizza!”
Pizza? I
love
pizza! I could eat pizza all day long. Well, maybe not in the shower. That would be weird.
“We don’t know how to make a pizza,” said Ryan.
“I’ll show you how!” Mr. Tony said. “It’s easy.”
He told us he was born in Italy, and his father has been making pizza for fifty years.
“Doesn’t your father get tired?” I asked. Nobody laughed even though I said something funny.
Mr. Tony showed us how to throw the pizza dough up in the air. We all got to help spread the sauce and the cheese on top of it. Then we put the pizza in the oven for like a million hundred minutes. When it was done, each of us got a slice.
The pizza was great! In fact, it was more than great. It was the most awesome pizza in the history of the world, because we helped make it.
Maybe going to the after-school program won’t be so horrible after all.
It was getting dark outside when my mom finally came to pick me up from school.
“So, tell me all about the after-school program,” she said as we got into the car. “What did you do?”
“Nothin’,” I said.
Any time your mom asks what you did during the day, always say “Nothin’.” Even if an alien spaceship landed in the middle of the lunchroom that day, just tell your mom that nothing happened. Even if a spaceship landed and a bunch of alien Elvis impersonators got out and sang “Hound Dog,” just say “Nothin’.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.
“Did you and The Six Moms make a lot of sandwiches today?” I asked her.
“No, we don’t have any customers yet,” Mom told me. “Our company is just getting off the ground.”
I told her that it will be hard to make sandwiches if her company is floating around in the air.
We emptied out my backpack, and there was a sheet of paper inside telling the parents all about the Ella Mentry School food drive. So my mom called Ryan’s, Michael’s, and Neil’s moms and arranged for me and my friends to go out collecting food together.
The next day was Saturday, and me and the guys met up at Michael’s house. Our moms gave us pillowcases to hold the food we collected. Then we went door-to-door around the neighborhood asking for food.
“We’re collecting food for hungry people,” we said at the first house we visited.
The lady gave us a can of tomato sauce.
“We’re collecting food for hungry people,” we said at the next house.
A man gave us a can of beans.
We went to a bunch of houses, and everybody was happy to give us some food. The pillowcases were starting to get heavy.
When we came to the next house, you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who answered the door.
Nobody. You can’t answer doors, because doors don’t talk. But you’ll never believe who
opened
the door.
It was Mr. Klutz!
“Ah!” he said. “I see you boys are collecting food for the food drive. Good work! Here’s a can of soup.”
“Thanks, Mr. Klutz!” we said.
“Remember, if you kids collect 3,000 pounds of food, I’ll jump out of a plane in an ape suit and land on the roof of the school.”
“How will you be able to see the roof of the school from the sky?” Michael asked.
“There’s a big red circle on the roof,” Mr. Klutz told us. “I should be able to land right on it unless there’s a lot of wind that day.”
Before we left, Mr. Klutz gave all of us cookies. We ate them as we walked down the street.
“Y’know,” Ryan said as we ate our cookies, “this is almost like Halloween! We just knocked on Mr. Klutz’s door, and he gave us treats.”
That’s when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. When Ryan knocked on the next door and a lady opened it, I held out my pillowcase and yelled, “Trick or treat!”
“Isn’t Halloween in October?” the lady asked. “That was months ago.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.
“You know how really good movies have sequels?” I said. “Well, they decided that really good holidays should have sequels, too. Today is the sequel to Halloween.”
“The sequel to Halloween?” the lady said. “Hmmm, I never heard of that.”
“Oh, it was in all the newspapers,” I told her.
“But you boys aren’t even wearing costumes,” she said.
“Oh, costumes aren’t allowed on the sequel to Halloween,” I told her. “Everybody knows that.”
“Well . . . okay,” the lady said. “Let me see if I have any candy.”
She came back a minute later with four Hershey bars.
“Thanks!” we all said. “Happy Halloween!”
What a scam!
As we walked down the street eating our Hershey bars, the guys all told me I was a genius for coming up with the sequel to Halloween.
We stopped off at a few more houses, yelled “Trick or treat!” at each one, and told the people all about the sequel to Halloween. I got a Crunch bar, some M&M’S, and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. By the time I got home, I was sick to my stomach. I thought I was gonna throw up.
It was the greatest day of my life.
Food drives are cool.
