Mrs. Roopy Is Loopy! (5 page)

It was the middle of our afternoon snack time. I traded my pretzel sticks with Ryan for his cup of chocolate pudding. Suddenly I heard somebody yelling down the hallway.

“Watch out! Coming through! Out of the way!”

“I wonder what that could be,” said Miss Daisy.

The yelling got louder. Everybody in the class turned around just in time to see somebody ride into our classroom on a trick bike.

It was Mrs. Roopy! She was wearing sunglasses, knee pads, elbow pads, and a floppy black T-shirt that said “Bikers 4 Books.” She had combed her hair to make it stick up all spiky.

“Hey, dudes!” she said as she skidded to a stop right in front of my desk. “I just landed an awesomely tweaked tailwhip with a Superman seat grab to a toothpick grind. You should have seen it! It was really sick!”

Everybody put down their snacks and gathered around my desk to look at Mrs. Roopy's cool bike.

“I didn't know you knew so much about trick biking, Mrs. Roopy,” I said.

“I'm not Mrs. Roopy,” Mrs. Roopy said.
“I'm a professional trick biker!”

“You are not!” we all hollered. “You're Mrs. Roopy, the librarian!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“It certainly looks like a trick biker to me,” said Miss Daisy.

That's when I came up with the most genius idea in the history of the world. Mrs. Roopy's tattoo! I remembered that she had a picture of a heart on her belly button!

“You're Mrs. Roopy,” I said, grabbing the bottom of her T-shirt, “and I can prove it!”

“Oh, stop that!” Mrs. Roopy giggled. “I'm ticklish!”

When I yanked at her shirt, three books fell out. One of them hit my snack on my desk. The cup of chocolate pudding went flying. It splashed all over Mrs. Roopy's tummy. It almost covered up the tattoo of a heart, but we could still see it.

“It's Mrs. Roopy!” Michael shouted. “The proof is in the pudding!”

“Hey!” Ryan shouted. “Check out these books!” Ryan picked up the books that had dropped on the floor. They were books about trick biking! One of the books showed how to do tricks, and the other two were about famous trick bikers. Cool!

“I didn't know they made books about trick biking,” Ryan said.

“So that's how you know so much about trick biking, Mrs. Roopy!” I said.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Mrs. Roopy said. “I'm a professional trick biker.”

“Can I check these books out of the
library?” asked Michael.

“No, I get them first,” Ryan said.

“Hey, I was the one who found them,” I said.

Miss Daisy grabbed all the books.

“Gee, I don't know, A.J.,” she said. “You said that reading was boring, so you probably wouldn't want to read these books.”

“Yes I would!” I shouted. “Pleeeeease?”

“Well, okay,” Miss Daisy said as she handed each of us one of the trick bike books. “But if you don't bring these back on time, Mrs. Roopy is going to lock you in the dungeon on the third floor.”

We all looked at Mrs. Roopy.

“Later, dudes!” she said. And with that,
Mrs. Roopy went pedaling out into the hallway.

I feel sorry for Mrs. Roopy. She is the loopiest librarian I've ever met. I think she's got a big problem. We're going to do all we can to help her. But it won't be easy.

DAN GUTMAN
has written many weird books for kids. Dan 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
is a talented but weird illustrator who lives in Arizona. He also has a weird wife and two weird children. Isn't that weird? You can visit him on his weird website at
www.jimpaillot.com

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Cover art © 2004 by Jim Paillot.

Cover © 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.