My Weirdest School #2 (2 page)

Nobody could believe Ella Mentry was actually giving the school
a million dollars
. Man, that lady must have a
ton
of money to be giving away so much of it. No wonder she needs such big checks. There are a lot of zeroes in a million.

We gave Mrs. Mentry another standing
ovation. Then Mr. Klutz made the shut-up peace sign again and we all got quiet.

“We can't thank you enough, Mrs. Mentry,” he said. “But now we have a problem. What are we going to do with this money?”

That's
a problem? If you ask me, a problem is when you have
no
money at all.

“I'll spend it for you!” shouted our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. Everybody laughed.

“Tell you what I'm going to do,” Mr. Klutz said. “We're going to have a contest to decide what to do with the money.”

“Oooooh!”
everybody oohed.

“Go back to your classrooms and think of some ideas for what we should do with the million dollars,” Mr. Klutz told us. “The
class that comes up with the best idea will be the first to use whatever we buy with the money. I'll announce the winning class at the end of the day.”

We walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom.

“So,” Mr. Cooper said when we were seated, “what do you think we should buy with the million dollars?”

“Pizza!” Ryan shouted. “We should have a giant pizza party for the whole school!”

“Yeah!” everybody yelled.

Ryan should be in the gifted and talented program for coming up with
that
idea. Who doesn't like pizza?

“Do you know how many pizzas you
can buy with a million dollars?” Mr. Cooper asked.

He went to the board and wrote the number
1,000,000
on it. He told us a pizza costs about ten dollars. Then he divided 1,000,000 by 10.

“A hundred thousand pizzas!” shouted Andrea.

“That's a lot of pizza!” said Michael.

“I can only eat one or two slices,” said Emily.

“Me too,” said Alexia.

“We can freeze the rest for leftovers,” said Neil. “That's what we do at home.”

“May I ask where we will put all that leftover pizza?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“I know,” said Alexia. “We can buy a thousand refrigerators!”

“Yeah!” everybody shouted.

“And where are we going to
put
a thousand refrigerators?” asked Mr. Cooper.

“In the playground!” Michael said.

“Yeah!” everybody shouted.

“As long as we're getting all those refrigerators,” said Neil, “let's buy a million
dollars' worth of ice cream. I like ice cream better than pizza.”

“Yeah!” everybody shouted.

“Why don't we just buy a million dollars' worth of candy?” I suggested. “Then we won't need any refrigerators.”

“Yeah!” everybody shouted.

We were coming up with some really good ideas. I was sure that our class would win the contest.

“I hate to tell you this,” said Mr. Cooper, “but Ella Mentry did not give us a million dollars to buy junk food. She wants us to buy something
useful
for the school. We need to think outside the box.”

I didn't see any boxes around. If I was
in a box, I know what I would be thinking about—how to get out of the box.

“We could buy a racing car with a million dollars,” suggested Michael.

“Maybe we could buy a football team,” suggested Neil.

“How about a skate park?” Alexia suggested.

“Why not give the million dollars to a school that doesn't have any money?” suggested Emily.

“
Our
school doesn't have any money!” I told her.

“Well, we have money
now
,” said Emily. “We have a million dollars.”

“But if we gave the million dollars to a school that doesn't have any money,” I told her, “then
we
would be a school that doesn't have any money again!”

“Maybe we should put the money in the bank,” suggested Little Miss Perfect. “Then we could watch it grow.”

“Banks are boring,” I said.

“Well, what if we did something
educational
with the money,” suggested Mr. Cooper.

Ugh. He said the
E
word.

“Educational stuff is boring,” I said.

“Well, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper. “What is
not
boring to you?”

I tried to think of something that isn't boring. It was hard, because most stuff is boring.

“TV,” I finally said. “TV isn't boring.”

That's when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world.

“I know!” I said. “We should buy one of those big flat-screen TVs for our class. That would be cool!”

“Yeah!” everybody shouted.

“A flat-screen TV doesn't cost a million dollars,” Mr. Cooper told us. “For a million dollars we could buy a whole TV
station
.”

“Well,” I said, “then we should buy our own TV station.”

“That's it!” shouted Mr. Cooper. “A.J., you're a
genius
!”
*

I didn't even know you could
buy
your own TV station. But I guess with a million dollars you can buy just about
anything
.

Everybody agreed that my idea was genius and that I should get the Nobel Prize. That's a prize they give out to people who don't have bells.

Well,
almost
everybody agreed. Annoying Andrea had on her mean face. She was mad because I came up with a great idea and she didn't.

Mr. Cooper wrote down my idea and sent it to the office. At the end of the day, just before dismissal, Mr. Klutz made an announcement over the loudspeaker.

“Well, we had a lot of great suggestions for what we should do with the million dollars,” he said, “but I could only pick one. So here is my decision—we're going to start our own Ella Mentry School TV station! The winner is Mr. Cooper's class!”

Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and generally freaking out.

Outside school the next morning we were all excited. Some men wearing overalls were carrying giant cameras, computers,
lights, and TVs into the school. Somebody said that every class was going to get its own flat-screen TV.

When I got to class, one of those overalls guys was mounting a TV on the wall. That's when we heard Mrs. Patty's voice on the loudspeaker.

“Today is Wednesday,” she said. “Blah blah blah blah sunny and breezy outside blah blah blah blah today's lunch will be hot dogs blah blah blah blah we have a birthday—Kerry Frew in first grade blah blah blah . . .”

She went on and on for a million hundred minutes. What a snoozefest. Nobody was listening. But after we pledged the
allegiance, Mrs. Patty said something that caught our attention.

“Today will be my last day making the morning announcements,” she said. “Starting tomorrow, the announcements will be made over the new Ella Mentry School TV station!”

“Yay!” we all shouted.

“Okay,” said Mr. Cooper, “turn to page twenty-three in your math—”

He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence, because you'll never believe who ran through the door at that moment.

Nobody! You can't run through a
door
. Doors are made of wood. But you'll never believe who ran through the door
way
.

It was a lady with dark hair and big eyes.

“My name is Ms. Cuddy,” she said.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Ms. Cuddy?” asked Mr. Cooper.

That's grown-up talk for “What are
you
doing here?”

“Mr. Klutz hired me to help the class start your TV station,” Ms. Cuddy said. “I'm a digital media arts teacher.”

I never heard of digital media arts, but we were all glad she was here, because none of us knew anything about cameras and lights and microphones. And besides, we would miss math.

“This TV station is going to be
awesome
!” said Ms. Cuddy. “Every class in the school will be able to watch the morning announcements, and people all over town will be able to tune in, too! So your parents will see you on TV.”

“Cool!” we all said.

“Now, which one of you is A.J.?” asked Ms. Cuddy.

Everybody looked at me.

“For our first week on the air,
you're
going to be the anchor,” said Ms. Cuddy.

“The anchor?” I asked. “Does that mean I get thrown off a boat?”

“No, no,” said Ms. Cuddy. “That means you get to read the morning announcements on TV.”

“How come Arlo gets to be the anchor?” whined Andrea. “I would make a
great
anchor.”

“You would not,” I said.

“Would too,” said Andrea.

“Not!”

“Too!”

We went back and forth like that for a while.

“The TV station was A.J.'s idea,” said Mr. Cooper. “That's why he gets to be the anchor.”

I stuck my tongue out at Andrea. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her.

“I'm going to be the best anchor in the history of anchors,” I announced.

“Well, let's not go overboard, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper.

Why is everybody always talking about being thrown out of boats?

Ms. Cuddy took us to the conference room, where those men with overalls were hammering and sawing and building the scenery for our morning announcements.
There was a flat-screen TV on the wall. The conference room was starting to look like a real TV studio.

Ms. Cuddy told us that somebody would have to operate the camera. Michael volunteered. Alexia asked if she could be the director. Andrea said she would write the scripts. The person in charge of the lights
is called the gaffer, and Ryan got that job. Neil said he would handle the microphones, props, and other stuff. Emily said she would take care of makeup. Ms. Cuddy showed us how to work all the equipment.

“Tomorrow morning,” she said, “we're going to make history!”