Mrs. Lilly Is Silly! (5 page)

“Are you kids supposed to be roaming around in the halls?” he asked us.

“Sure,” I told him. “We're writing articles for the school paper.”

“Yes,” Andrea said. “Security guards must lead very dangerous lives. Can you tell us about a time you beat up a bad guy, or something exciting like that?”

“No, I never beat up any bad guys,” said Officer Spence. “But before I got this job, I was a security guard in a prison. That wasn't much fun.”

“How long did you work in the prison?” I asked.

“Oh, about five years.”

Andrea got that crazy look in her eyes again while she was writing notes. It was almost like the time I hypnotized her and she climbed up on the roof. When Officer Spence walked away, she showed me what she had written in her notebook:

OFFICER SPENCE WAS

IN JAIL FOR FIVE YEARS!

“He was not!” I told Andrea.

“He was too!” she insisted. “I have it right here in my notes!”

We went back and forth like that for a while. Andrea was getting out of control!

After that she marched up to interview Ms. Coco, our gifted and talented teacher.

Ms. Coco told us that her car broke down the other day, and she had to use somebody else's car to drive to school. So Andrea wrote this in her notebook:

MS. COCO IS A CAR THIEF!

Then we went over to the office to interview Mrs. Patty, the school secretary. She told us a really sad story about the time her dog died in an accident when she was a little kid. But this is what Andrea wrote in her notebook:

MRS. PATTY—DOG KILLER!

I slapped my head. I was a little worried about all the dirt Andrea was digging up.

“I'm not sure we should put those articles in the paper,” I told her as we walked back to our class. “We might get into big trouble.”

“Oh, take a chill pill, Arlo,” Andrea said. “Mrs. Lilly told us to dig up some dirt. I'm just doing what she told us to do.”

Andrea
always
does what grown-ups tell her to do. A grown-up could tell her to go jump off a bridge, and Andrea would do it. What is her problem?

“We should probably interview Mr. Granite,” I suggested. “After all, he is our teacher.”

“We don't need to interview Mr. Granite,” Andrea said. “I know exactly what to write about him.”

She wrote this in her notebook:

THIRD-GRADE TEACHER

IS AN ILLEGAL ALIEN!

Well, at least that one was true. Mr. Granite
is
from another planet.

Andrea and I did a bunch of interviews with the grown-ups at our school. When we got back to the classroom, Ryan was the only other kid who was there. He said that he and Michael didn't find anything interesting when they were going through the garbage can, so they decided to split up and work separately.

Andrea was all proud of herself for digging up dirt, and she showed Mrs. Lilly her notebook:

MRS. YONKERS SETS FIRES FOR FUN!

VICE PRINCIPAL POISONED

DEFENSELESS ANIMALS!

OFFICER SPENCE WAS

IN JAIL FOR FIVE YEARS!

MS. COCO IS A CAR THIEF!

MRS. PATTY—DOG KILLER!

THIRD-GRADE TEACHER

IS AN ILLEGAL ALIEN!

“These are terrific stories, Andrea!” Mrs. Lilly told her. “You and A.J. make a great team!”

“Oooooh!”
Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea make a great team. They must be in
love
!”

Andrea said she took a typing class after school (of course), so she was allowed to type her stories into the computer. She had that crazy look in her eyes the whole time.

Everybody else started filing back into class.
*

“Did you dig up any good dirt?” Mrs. Lilly asked everyone. This one kid came in with a bucket full of dirt.
Real
dirt.

“Not
that
kind of dirt!” we all yelled at him.

What a dumbhead.

Neil the nude kid came running into the classroom. He looked all excited.

“Did you dig up any dirt?” Mrs. Lilly asked him.

“I put a tail on Mr. Macky like you told me to,” Neil said. “I followed him around for an hour, and guess what I caught him doing?”

“What?” we all asked.

“I saw Mr. Macky and Mrs. Daisy together,” Neil said. “They were standing near the water fountain. And they were …
kissing
!”

Everybody gasped.

“Ewwww, disgusting!” me and the guys and Alexia went.

“Wait a minute,” said Emily. “Mr. Macky and Mrs. Daisy are
married
.”

“Ewwww!” I said. “That's even
more
disgusting.”

“No, it's a great story!” Andrea said. Then she typed this into the computer:

MR. MACKY SPOTTED

KISSING MARRIED WOMAN!

“I love it!” said Mrs. Lilly. “Put that on the front page! What else have you kids got?”

“Emily and I snuck into the teachers' lounge,” said Alexia.

“What did you find in there?” asked Mrs. Lilly. “Any good dirt?”

“Did you see the hot tub?” I asked.

“No, nothing very exciting,” Emily said. “There were just a bunch of teachers eating lunch.”

“That's all?” asked Mrs. Lilly. “That's not a story.”

“Yeah, it was really boring,” Alexia said. “The most exciting thing that happened was that Miss Laney spilled some apple juice and had to clean it up.”

Andrea suddenly looked up from the computer screen with those crazy eyes of hers. “What?” she asked. “Did you say Miss Laney spilled juice? That's a great human interest story!”

Then she typed this into the computer:

SPEECH TEACHER HAS

A DRINKING PROBLEM

“That's
genius
!” said Mrs. Lilly. “You are a
great
reporter, Andrea!”

“Thank you!”

Andrea had a big, crazy-eyed smile on her face, like she just won the No Bell Prize or something.
*
She just
loves
it when grown-ups tell her how wonderful she is.

“Hey,” Neil the nude kid suddenly said, “where's Michael?”

We all looked around. Everybody was back in the classroom except for Michael.

“Yes, where
is
Michael?” asked Mrs. Lilly.

“The last time I saw him,” Ryan said, “he was climbing into the Dumpster in the playground. He said he was looking for a scoop.”

We didn't wait around for Michael to come back to class. We had a newspaper to finish.

Andrea typed her stories into the computer. Mrs. Lilly used a laptop computer to look up photos we could use. She found a picture of Elvis Presley and made it look like he was standing next to Ms. LaGrange. Then she found a picture of Officer Spence and drew bars in front of his face to make it look like he was in jail. She cut out a picture of Mrs. Yonkers smiling and put it in front of a picture of a house that was burning down.

Mrs. Lilly showed us how to put the photos into our classroom computer, and Andrea wrote captions under them:

Ms. LaGrange had an Elvis sighting while sipping soup
.