Ms. Todd Is Odd! (2 page)

Even after Ms. Todd wrote my name on her piece of paper, she still had on a big smiley face. It must hurt to smile so much. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that if you keep smiling too long, your face muscles get frozen like that forever.

Ms. Todd told us all to sit in a big circle on the floor.

“Let's go around the room and say something nice about the person sitting across from us,” she said. “This will help me learn your names and get to know you better.”

“Annette is a really good soccer player,” said this girl named Lindsay.

“Lindsay knows everything about horses,” said Annette.

“Michael is really good at sports,” said Ryan.

“Ryan is a really good eater,” said Michael. “He will even eat stuff that isn't food.”

I looked to see who was sitting across from me. Ugh. It was Andrea! I hoped that I wouldn't get called on.

“Your turn, Andrea,” said Ms. Todd.

Andrea looked at me for a long time.

“A.J. is really good at picking out clothes,” she finally said. Then she stuck her tongue out at me when Ms. Todd wasn't looking.

“Wait a minute,” Ms. Todd said to me. “I thought you said your name was Ryan.”

“I'm Ryan,” said Ryan.

“He's a liar,” said Andrea. “His name is A.J. That stands for Arlo Jervis.”

Ms. Todd went over to the desk and
wrote something else down on that piece of paper of hers. Then she came back to the circle.

“A.J., it's your turn. Can you tell the class something nice about Andrea?”

I looked at Andrea for a long time. There wasn't anything nice about her.

“It would be nice if an elephant fell on her head,” I said.

“That's not nice, A.J.!” said Ms. Todd.

“It's the truth,” I said. “I hate her.”

“I hate you right back!” said Andrea.

“I hate you right back back!” I said.

“I hate you right back back back!” Andrea said.

We went on like that for a while.

“A.J.,” Ms. Todd said. “You were supposed to say something
nice
about Andrea. Don't you think she has nice hair?”

“No.”

“Doesn't she have nice clothes?”

“No.”

“Then why did you steal my shirt?” Andrea asked.

“I didn't steal it!” I said.

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

We went on like that for a while until Ms. Todd told me I had to write a note to Andrea telling her I was sorry.

So this is what I wrote:

“Let's try to work together as a T-E-AM,” said Ms. Todd. “As you know, Together Everyone Achieves More. So we need cooperation. Do you know what ‘cooperation' means?”

“Isn't that a company?” asked Emily.

“That's ‘corporation,' dumbhead,” I said.

“You're mean!” said Emily. She looked like she was going to cry. What is her problem?

“Don't say ‘dumbhead,'” Ms. Todd told me as she wrote something else on that piece of paper of hers. “Say
smart
head.
Calling somebody a dumbhead might hurt their feelings.”

“I know,” I said. “That's why I did it.”

Ms. Todd thinks she knows everything. Just like Andrea. I'll bet that when she was a kid, Ms. Todd was in the gifted and talented program.

“Is everybody ready to learn?” asked Ms. Todd.

“Yes!” yelled all the girls.

“No!” yelled all the boys.

“All right!” yelled Ms. Todd.

Ms. Todd is one of those teachers who is full of excitement all the time. She
never sits down.

She runs around for no reason, clapping her hands, like my mom does when she drinks too much coffee.

If you ask me, Ms. Todd should calm down. She's like one of those windup toy monkeys that plays the drums. Maybe after she has been a teacher for a few years, she'll
become normal and not so excited about teaching kids stuff anymore.

“Let's start with reading!” said Ms. Todd, smiling her smiley face and clapping her hands and running around the class for no reason.

“I love to read,” said Andrea, who loves everything. “I'm going to write a children's book someday, and the main character will be named Andrea. Then I'll be famous!”

“I
love
reading children's books,” said Ms. Todd. “I read them all the time!”

“Even when you're sleeping?” asked Ryan.

“Even when you're driving?” asked Michael.

“Even when you're in the shower?” I asked.

“Well, no, not then,” Ms. Todd said.

“So why did you say you read them all the time?” asked Michael.

“It's just an expression,” said Ms. Todd.

“Is an expression the same thing as lying?” I asked.

Ms. Todd stopped smiling her smiley face and wrote something down on that piece of paper again. I wished she
would stop doing that.

Next she read to us for about a million hundred hours. She read a story about a girl and her dog. It was the most boring story in the history of the world. Nothing ever happened in that dumb story. I almost fell asleep, but then the girl's dog got hit by a car and the story got interesting. Some of the girls were crying. What a bunch of babies!

After the dog died, Ms. Todd stopped reading the story. She taught us about the solar system and the explorers and Australia and Helen Keller and lots of other stuff, too. She taught us so much stuff that I had a headache.

My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that if you learn too much stuff too fast, your head will explode. I'm going to have to forget some of the old stuff I learned to make room for all the new stuff Ms. Todd taught us. I don't want my head to explode.

Finally the lunch bell rang, and Ms. Todd had to stop teaching us stuff. Michael was the line leader as we walked to the vomitorium to eat.

“Ms. Todd is a horrible teacher,” I said. “All she does is make us learn stuff.”

“I miss Miss Daisy,” Ryan said. “She never taught us anything.”

“I miss miss Miss Daisy,” said Michael.

“I miss miss miss Miss Daisy,” I said.

We went on like that for a while until the queen of the gifted and talented butted in.

“You boys are dumbheads,” said Andrea. “Learning new things is fun and makes us better people.”

“Can you possibly be any more boring?” I asked her.

Andrea is just like Ms. Todd. They look alike. They talk alike. They smile alike. They're both perfect all the time. It's like they are the same person. It's uncanny.
**

I think I hate both of them.

It was Spaghetti and Meatballs Day in the vomitorium, but I always bring lunch from home. I wouldn't eat the school lunch if I was living in Antarctica and starving.

Ryan gave me his Pop-Tart. I gave him my grapes because I don't like to eat food with pits in it. Ryan will eat anything.
One time he ate a piece of a seat cushion.

We all agreed that Ms. Todd is way too happy.

“Nobody is that happy,” said Michael.

“People who are happy all the time are weird,” I said.

“Did you notice that Ms. Todd smiles all the time?” asked Ryan. “She probably smiles when she gets a paper cut or stubs her—”

He never had the chance to finish his sentence, because at that second Mr. Klutz's voice came over the loudspeaker.

“I have an announcement to make,” said Mr. Klutz. “It is raining out, so we will have indoor recess today. After lunch please return to your classrooms.”

“Boooooo!” everybody hollered, even the girls.

Bummer in the summer! I hate indoor recess. Recess is the only fun part of the day, and now we would have to stay in the class with that learning lunatic Ms. Todd. After we cleared off the lunch table, me and Ryan and Michael had a
race to see who could walk back to our classroom the slowest. I won.

Ms. Todd was in there, all excited and clapping her hands and running around the class for no reason.

“Do we have to learn more stuff now?” Ryan asked.

“Of course not!” said Ms. Todd. “This is recess. Let's play a game!”

“Can we play cops and robbers?” Michael asked. “I call robbers!”

“That game sounds dangerous,” said Ms. Todd. “How about another game?”

“Let's play army,” said Ryan. “Boys against girls. Bang, bang! You're dead!”

“Can anybody think of a game that
doesn't involve shooting?” asked Ms. Todd.

“We could play NASCAR,” I suggested. “There's no shooting in NASCAR.”

“I never heard of that game, A.J.,” said Ms. Todd. “How do you play NASCAR?”

“We run around in circles,” I told her, “and every few laps we smash into each other.”

“That sounds quite violent,” said Ms. Todd.

“Yeah, and it's cool, too,” I told her.

I knew that if we didn't come up with something fast, one of the girls would suggest square dancing or some corny game.

“I know a good game we can play,” I
suggested. “It's called see who can hit the softest.”

“Now that doesn't sound violent,” said Ms. Todd. “How do you play?”

I told Neil the nude kid to stand up and see how softly he could hit me. He barely tapped my arm.

“That's pretty soft,” I told Neil the nude kid. “Now it's my turn.”

I made a fist with my hand and punched Neil the nude kid really hard on the arm.

“Owwwwwwww!” cried Neil the nude kid.

“Oops,” I said. “I lose!”

It was hilarious. Neil the nude kid will fall for anything. All the boys laughed. Well, all the boys except for Neil the nude kid. He just rubbed his arm.

“That's a terrible game, A.J.!” shouted Ms. Todd. She wrote something down on her piece of paper.

Ms. Todd wasn't smiling for a change. She told Neil the nude kid to go see Mrs. Cooney, the school nurse. Then she told me to go to Mr. Klutz's office.

“What did I do?” I asked. “I was just playing see who can hit the softest.”

“Go to Mr. Klutz's office!” yelled Ms. Todd. “Now!”