Dedication

  To Sam Brazzini

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Bummer after the Summer

  2. Spelling Can Be Tricky

  3. Pop Quiz

  4. Hunting the Sloof Lirpa

  5. Smell-O-Vision

  6. Won’t Get Fooled Again

  7. Antisocial Studies

  8. This Means War!

  9. The Prank of the Century

  Note to Readers

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  My name is A.J., and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about Oreos. Because that’s what I’m thinking about.

  Oreos are my favorite cookie. How do they get that yummy cream filling inside each one so perfectly? Do they have machines to do that? Or is some guy sitting in a factory squirting the cream into every single Oreo? Man, that guy must be tired at the end of the day! I wouldn’t want to grow up and become an Oreo squirter, that’s for sure.

  My point is: third grade is finally over and I have to start fourth grade now. Bummer after the summer! In fourth grade, we’ll have to learn all new stuff. Harder stuff.

  Of course, Andrea Young, this annoying girl in my class with curly brown hair, is soooooooo excited about moving up to fourth grade. Do you know what the Human Homework Machine did over summer vacation? She didn’t hang out with the rest of us kids. She didn’t play ball or watch TV or play video games.

  No, she studied!

  It’s true! Andrea needs to be smarter than everybody else in fourth grade. What is her problem?

  On the first day of school, I saw Little Miss Know-It-All outside on the steps. She was talking with her crybaby friend, Emily.

  “I went to the beach with my family in August,” Emily said. “It was so much fun!”

  “I taught myself about quadrilaterals and how to do three-digit multiplication,” said Andrea.

  Quadra-what? I had no idea what she was talking about. Why can’t a truck full of quadrilaterals fall on Andrea’s head?

  The rest of the gang was coming up the front steps to school.

  “Who’s gonna be our new teacher?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.

  “Who’s gonna be our new teacher?” asked Michael, who never ties his shoes.

  “Who’s gonna be our new teacher?” asked Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time.

  In case you were wondering, everybody was asking who would be our new teacher.

  We walked a million hundred miles to room 123, which is the fourth-grade classroom. The sign above the door said MISS BANKS.

  “Who’s Miss Banks?” asked Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes. “I never heard of her.”

  “She must be a new teacher,” I said.

  That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. As soon as we stepped on the carpet inside the classroom door, there was a weird popping sound.

  POP! POP! POP! POP!

  “Eeeeeeek!” screamed Emily.

  “Help!” shouted Alexia.

  “The aliens have landed!” shouted Ryan.

  “Run for your lives!” shouted Neil.

  Everybody was yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering and freaking out. Some lady came running over. She picked up the corner of the carpet.

  “What’s this?” she asked. “Bubble wrap? Hmmm, I wonder who put this bubble wrap under the carpet.”

  “Who are you?” asked Andrea.

  “My name is Miss Banks,” the lady told us. “I’ll be your teacher this year for fourth grade.”

  She went over to the whiteboard and wrote MISS BANKS in big letters. Then she told us to take a seat at the desk that had our name on it.

  When I sat down, a huge farting noise came out from under me! Not just from me. Everybody made a huge farting noise when they sat down.

  “There’s a whoopee cushion on my seat!” yelled Alexia.

  “Mine too!” shouted Emily.

  “Hmmm,” said Miss Banks. “I wonder who put those there. Anyway, we’re going to have a wonderful year together. Does anybody have a question about fourth grade?”

  Andrea was waving her hand in the air like she was trying to signal a plane from a desert island. But I raised my hand, and Miss Banks called on me first. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.

  “How old are you?” I asked Miss Banks.

  “That’s not nice, Arlo!” said Andrea, who calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it. “You’re not supposed to ask grown-ups how old they are.”

  Why not? Who made that dumb rule?

  “Oh, I don’t mind you asking my age,” said Miss Banks. “I’m one hundred and forty-two years old.”

  “WOW,” everybody said, which is “MOM” upside down.

  “You don’t look that old,” said Ryan.

  “Well, I use a very good moisturizer,” replied Miss Banks.

  “I have a question,” said Neil. “Why are you wearing two different-colored socks?”

  Neil was right. Miss Banks had a red sock on her left foot and a blue sock on her right foot.

  “Oh,” she said. “I have another pair of socks just like this one at home.”

  WHAT?!

  “Well,” continued Miss Banks, “if both of your socks are the same color, how can you tell you have them on the right feet?”*

  I looked down at my socks. Maybe they were on the wrong feet. I didn’t even know that we were supposed to wear certain socks on certain feet. Fourth grade had just started, and I already learned something!

  Andrea was still waving her hand in the air like she was washing a really big window, so Miss Banks called on her.

  “I brought you a present, Miss Banks,” Andrea said sweetly.

  Of course! I knew Andrea wouldn’t waste any time sucking up to the new teacher. She went over to Miss Banks’s desk and put an apple on it.

  “Why, thank you, Andrea!”

  Miss Banks took a bite of the apple. Then she stopped for a moment, looked frightened, and grabbed her throat with both hands.

  “Allergic . . . to . . . apples . . .” she groaned. “Need . . . water . . . going . . . to die!”

  Then she fell on the floor.

  We all rushed out into the hall to get water from the water fountain for Miss Banks. But when we got back to class, she was standing there like nothing unusual had happened.

  “Just kidding!” she said. “I’m not allergic to apples.”

  “Hey,” Ryan whispered to me, “the new teacher is cool!”

  Andrea raised her hand again.

  “What are we going to learn in fourth grade, Miss Banks?” she asked.

  “Well,” Miss Banks replied, “today I’m going to give you a little sneak peek at what we’ll be studying in math, social studies, science, and your other subjects. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  “Yes!” shouted all the girls.

  “No!” shouted all the boys.

  “But first”—Miss Banks went over and picked up a big plate from her desk—“who wants a brownie?”

  “I do!”

  “I do!”

  “I do!”

  In case you were wondering, everybody wanted a brownie. Of course! Brownies are almost as good as Oreos. I could eat a brownie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s the perfect food.

  “Do you have any Oreos?” I asked.

  “No, just brownies,” replied Miss Banks.

  She took the plastic wrap off the plate, came over to my desk, and said I could pick any brownie I wanted.

  There was just one problem. There weren’t any brownies on the plate! It was filled with a bunch of letter Es cut out of brown-colored paper.

  “Those aren’t brownies!” I shouted.

  “Sure they are,” said Miss Banks, holding one up for everybody to see. “They’re brown Es! Aha-ha! Get it? Brownies? Brown Es?”

  Miss Banks is weird.

  “Okay, let’s start with spelling,” Miss Banks announced after we pledged the allegiance. “You kids are going to become great spellers in fourth grade.”

  “I love spelling!” said Andrea, who loves anything to do with school.

  “Me too!” said Emily, who loves everything Andrea loves.

  “That’s great,” said Miss Banks, “because spelling is very important. If you want to get ahead in the world, you need to know how to spell. But spelling can also be tricky. For instance, who can spell the word ‘spell’?”

  “Oooooh . . . oooooh . . . ooooh!”

  Andrea looked like she was going to pop a lung if Miss Banks didn’t call on her.

  “‘Spell’ is spelled S-P-E-L-L,” Andrea said proudly.

  As if that was hard! Any dumbhead knows how to spell the word “spell.”

  “Very good, Andrea,” said Miss Banks. “Now, can you spell the word ‘misspell’?”

  “M-I-S-P-E-L-L,” said Andrea.

  “No, sorry,” said Miss Banks. “There are two s’s in ‘misspell.’ You spelled ‘spell’ correctly, but you misspelled ‘misspell.’ See what I mean about spelling being tricky?”

  Andrea looked mad, like it was Miss Banks’s fault that she misspelled “misspell.” It may have been the first time in her life that Little Miss Perfect made a mistake.

  “Let’s try another one,” said Miss Banks. “Who can spell the
word ‘wrong’? A.J., how about you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I can spell any word wrong.”

  Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.

  “Go ahead, A.J.,” said Miss Banks. “Spell it.”

  “I-T,” I said. “It.”

  “No,” said Miss Banks. “Spell the word ‘wrong.’”

  “What word?” I asked.

  “‘Wrong,’” said Miss Banks.

  “How can I be wrong?” I complained. “I didn’t even spell the word yet!”

  “I mean spell the word ‘wrong,’ A.J.,” said Miss Banks. “Like when you do something wrong.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s different. R-O-N-G.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Miss Banks. “That’s wrong.”

  “But you told me to spell the word ‘wrong’!” I complained.

  “I mean you spelled ‘wrong’ wrong,” said Miss Banks.

  “I can spell ‘wrong’!” shouted Andrea. “‘Wrong’ is spelled W-R-O-N-G.”

  “That’s right, Andrea,” said Miss Banks.

  “No,” I said. “‘Right’ is R-I-G-H-T. Andrea’s wrong.”

  “Well, you spelled ‘right’ right, A.J.,” said Miss Banks. “But you spelled ‘wrong’ wrong. Andrea spelled ‘wrong’ right, and—”

  Miss Banks stopped for a moment, took a handkerchief out of her pocket, and wiped her forehead with it.

  “Okay, I’m going to pass out—”

  “She’s gonna pass out!” Michael shouted. “Call an ambulance!”

  “Give her air!” shouted Alexia.

  “I’m going to pass out sheets of paper,” continued Miss Banks.

  Ohhhhhhhhh. They should definitely have different ways to say “pass out.”

  “We’re going to have a little spelling test,” said Miss Banks, “to see how well you spell.”

  Ugh. I hate tests. We all took out pencils as Miss Banks passed around the papers.

  “I’m going to say ten words,” said Miss Banks. “You try to spell them. Ready?”

  It seemed simple enough.

  “Is there a prize for the winner?” asked Andrea, who loves winning prizes. She probably has a trophy room at home with all the prizes she’s won.

  “No,” said Miss Banks. “This is just for fun. Your first word is . . . ‘burf.’”

  What?

  “What’s a burf?” whispered Neil.

  I never heard of a burf. But teachers always tell us that if we can’t spell a word, we should try to sound it out. I wrote B-U-R-F on my paper.

  “The next word is ‘spinkheimer,’” said Miss Banks.

  That’s a tough one. I tried to sound it out. It wasn’t easy.

  “The next word is ‘splurgle.’”

  “Can you use that in a sentence?” asked Alexia.

  “Sure,” said Miss Banks. “Please splurgle the dungle before it runs out of plark.”

  What?

  She asked us to spell a bunch of other words. Boonch. Carpendoodle. Felgen-burger. I never heard of any of those words.

  “Wait a minute,” said Alexia. “You made those words up!”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Miss Banks. “I’ve learned a lot of words in my one hundred and forty-two years.”

  “This spelling test is really hard,” Andrea complained.

  Andrea was probably afraid she was going to fail a test for the first time in her life. Then she won’t get into Harvard.

  At the end, we passed our papers forward. Miss Banks collected them. Then she did the weirdest thing in the history of the world. She ripped our spelling tests in half and threw them in the garbage can.

  WHAT?!

  “Aren’t you going to grade our spelling tests?” asked Emily.

  “Why should I?” Miss Banks replied. “None of those words are real. I made them all up. Let’s move on. Can anybody spell the words ‘race car’ backward?”

  “Oooooh, I can!” shouted Little Miss Know-It-All. “‘Race car’ backward is R-A-C-E C-A-R. It’s a palindrome, which is a word or phrase that’s spelled the same way backward and forward.”

  Andrea smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know she knows something nobody else knows.

  “Very good, Andrea!” said Miss Banks. “And can you spell ‘race car’ upside down?”

  Huh? Andrea looked puzzled. We all did.

  Miss Banks got down on the floor. Then she stood on her head.

  “R-A-C-E C-A-R,” she said. “That’s ‘race car,’ upside down.”

  Then she got back on her feet again.

  “Do you kids know what a word search is?” she asked.

  Of course I know what a word search is. It’s when you have a bunch of letters on a page and you have to find the words that are hidden in the letters.

  Miss Banks passed out another sheet of paper for each of us.

  “There are ten words hidden in this grid,” she told us. “See if you can find them.”

  Andrea grabbed her paper and got to work. I could see that she was excited. She loves to be first at stuff, because that means she can feel like she’s better than everybody else.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” said Miss Banks, and she left the class. I looked at the sheet . . .

  That word search was hard!

  “Did you find any words yet?” Ryan whispered to me.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t see any.”

  “Me neither,” said Andrea.

  WOW. If Miss Know-It-All can’t find the words, nobody can.

  “Is nah-nah-nah boo-boo a word?” asked Alexia.

  “I don’t think so,” replied Neil.

  Miss Banks came back into the class.

  “So how are you kids making out?” she asked.

  “We’re not making out!” I shouted. “We’re doing a word search. And we can’t find the words.”

  “I looked all over the grid,” said Michael. “The only thing that even looks like a word is nah-nah-nah boo-boo.”

  “You’re right,” replied Miss Banks. “So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you!”

  “Huh?” said Emily. “Why did you give this to us?”

  “Well,” said Miss Banks, “I said it was a word search. I didn’t say it was a word find. I think you learned a valuable life lesson here. You can search forever, but sometimes you won’t find what you’re looking for.”

  That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. I looked out the window and saw that it was snowing outside. That was weird. It was September.

  Miss Banks’s cell phone rang.

  “Excuse me,” she told us, “I need to take this important call. It’s from Mrs. Stoker, the principal.”

  Miss Banks listened for a minute, and then she said into the phone, “Okay, so we’re leaving at ten o’clock?”

  WHAT?! I looked at the clock. It was a few minutes before ten. Yes! Snow day! This was the greatest day of my life. Everybody was hooting and hollering.

  “WOOOO-HOOO!”

  We all rushed to get our coats and backpacks from our cubbies.

  “What are you kids doing?” asked Miss Banks.

  “We’re getting ready to go home,” I told her.

  “Why?” asked Miss Banks. “It’s not dismissal time. The day just started.”

  “But . . . we heard you on the phone with Mrs. Stoker,” said Ryan. “You said—”

  “April Fools!” shouted Miss Banks.

  WHAT?!

  “It’s not April!” shouted Neil.

  “Every day is April Fools’ Day to me!” said Miss Banks.

  Man, Miss Banks pulls lots of pranks!*

  “Time for a pop quiz!” announced Miss Banks.

  Ugh. I hate pop quizzes. Do they have pop quizzes at your school? If they don’t, you’re lucky. A pop quiz is when your teacher gives you a test for no reason, and with no warning. You can’t study for it. You don’t know what’s going to be on it. The teacher can ask you anything.

  Miss Banks told us to take out a pencil as she passed around a sheet of paper to each of us.

  “This will be easy,” she told us. “The instructions are simple. There are ten questions. Read the quiz all the way through before answering the first question. Go!”

  I looked at the sheet. The first question said . . .

  1. What’s your name? Write it at the top of this sheet.

  I wrote my name at the top of the sheet and moved on to . . .

  2. Add up these numbers: 8 + 4 + 10 + 15 + 99 = ?