Dedication

  To Emma

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Jake the Snake

  2. Top of the Mornin’

  3. Boycotts and Girlcotts

  4. Good Luck

  5. Larry the Leprechaun

  6. Green Food Is Gross

  7. Building a Leprechaun Trap

  8. Proof

  9. The Big Surprise Ending

  Bonus: Weird Extras

  Weird Stuff You Probably Don’t Know about Ireland

  My Weird School from A to Z

  Fun Games and Weird Word Puzzles

  The World of Dan Gutman Checklist

  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 that you’re reading this book.

  You’re thinking that you’re reading this sentence.

  Now you’re thinking that you’re reading this sentence.

  And now you’re thinking that you’re reading THIS sentence.

  But what if you’re not reading this book at all? What if you’re really asleep right now and you’re dreaming that you’re reading this book? Hmmm?

  Or what if this book is really reading you?

  Or what if you’re really holding a magic chicken in your hands that can turn itself into the shape of a book, and you’re reading a chicken?

  Okay, that would be weird.

  The point is, it was March. And you know what that means—Saint Patrick’s Day! It was just one week away.

  Our class was sitting in the Book Nook of the library at Ella Mentry School. It was story time with our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. She was finishing a picture book called The Legend of Saint Patrick.

  “. . . and that’s the story of how Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland,” read Mrs. Roopy.

  She closed the book and we all clapped, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when anybody finishes anything. Nobody knows why.

  “Any questions?” asked Mrs. Roopy.

  Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair, raised her hand. Of course. Andrea always raises her hand. I bet that the minute she was born, the first thing Andrea did was raise her hand to ask the doctor a question.

  “Yes, Andrea?” asked Mrs. Roopy.

  “Well, I’m half Irish,” Andrea said.

  “Which half?” I asked. “Top or bottom?”

  “Arlo!” shouted Andrea. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.

  “Left or right half?” I asked.

  “Please let Andrea speak, A.J.,” said Mrs. Roopy.

  “My mother told me that the story about Saint Patrick never really happened,” said Andrea. “He didn’t drive the snakes out of Ireland. My mother said they didn’t even have snakes in Ireland back in those days.”

  “Hmmmm,” Mrs. Roopy said as she wrinkled up her forehead.

  Grown-ups always say “hmmmm” and wrinkle up their foreheads when they don’t know what to say. Nobody knows why. But then Mrs. Roopy smiled.

  “Wait a minute!” she said excitedly. “This is . . . a teachable moment!”

  Oh no. A boring moment is more like it.

  Grown-ups love teachable moments. That means they get to teach us stuff. And we have to learn stuff. Learning stuff is no fun. That’s why I hate teachable moments.

  “We can do research!” Mrs. Roopy said as she went over to the computer. “We can find out if Saint Patrick really drove the snakes out of Ireland! Let’s look it up!”

  Oh no! Not research! That’s the worst kind of teachable moment. Mrs. Roopy loves doing research. She would spend the whole day looking stuff up if she could.

  My parents told me that in ancient times before the internet, primitive humans couldn’t just look stuff up on a computer or smartphone. If they wanted to know something, they had to go to the library. Ugh! Can you imagine?

  So, in the olden days, only smart people knew stuff. These days, any dope can look stuff up on a phone and pretend to be smart. It used to be easy to tell who was smart. The smart people knew lots of stuff. Now it’s harder to tell who’s smart because any dope can look up everything.

  Anyway, Mrs. Roopy didn’t have the chance to look anything up on the computer because you’ll never believe who poked her head into the door at that moment.

  Nobody! Why would you poke your head into a door? That would hurt.

  But you’ll never believe who poked her head into the doorway.

  It was Mrs. Patty, our school secretary! She had a basket in one hand.

  “Mrs. Patty!” said Mrs. Roopy. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

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

  “I heard you talking about Saint Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland,” said Mrs. Patty. “Would you kids like to see something cool?”

  “Yes!” we all shouted.

  And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what Mrs. Patty was carrying in her basket.

  It was a snake!

  “Eeeeek!” screamed Michael, who never ties his shoes.

  “Help!” shouted Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time.

  “Run for your lives!” shouted Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Mrs. Patty. “This is my pet snake, Jake. He’s my baby.”

  “HUH?” we all said, which is also “HUH” backward.

  Who keeps a snake as a pet? It was ridorkulous.

  Mrs. Patty is batty. One Halloween, we went trick-or-treating at her house. Mrs. Patty had her husband Marvin’s head in a bucket down in the basement. But that’s a story for another day.

  “I love Saint Patrick’s Day!” said Mrs. Patty. “In fact, my parents were born in Ireland, and they named me Patty after Saint Patrick.”

  “That snake is scary,” whimpered Emily, who’s scared of everything.

  “Does Jake the Snake bite?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.

  “Of course not,” said Mrs. Patty. “He doesn’t have to. He swallows things whole.”

  WHAT?!

  “Just kidding,” said Mrs. Patty. “He’s an eastern hognose snake. They hardly ever bite. Jake likes people. Who wants to touch him?”

  “I do!” said Andrea.

  “I do!” I said.

  “Oooooh!” said Ryan. “A.J. and Andrea both said ‘I do.’ That’s what people say when they get married!”

  “A.J. and Andrea must be in love!” said Michael.

  If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.*

  Everybody in the class wanted to touch Jake the Snake. Well, almost everybody. There was just one kid who didn’t want to touch him. Me! I just said I wanted to touch Jake so the guys wouldn’t make fun of me.

  So I touched Jake. He felt slimy and creepy and gross. I pretended I liked it.

  Mrs. Patty put Jake back in her basket. She was really excited about Saint Patrick’s Day coming up.

  “You should all wear green, of course,” she said, “and we’re going to have Irish step dancing, and a four-leaf-clover hunt, and a pickle parade, and . . .”

  A pickle parade?

  “PicklePalooza,” said Mrs. Patty. “I’ll tell you all about it next week. For now, I need to go visit the first graders, and Jake needs to eat lunch.”

  “What does Jake eat for lunch?” asked Alexia.

  “First graders!” replied Mrs. Patty.

  “Gasp!” we all gasped.

  I’m pretty sure Mrs. Patty was kidding about Jake the Snake eating first graders for lunch. After she left, we pringled up and walked a million hundred miles from the library to our classroom.

  “I can’t wait for Saint Patrick’s Day!” Alexia said as we passed by the front office.

  “I can,” said Andrea. “I don’t like Saint Patrick’s Day.”

  What is her problem?

  “Maybe we’ll see a leprechaun,” said Ryan.

  “Oooh, I hope so!” said Emily.

  “Leprechauns are cool,” said Neil.

  Huh? A leprechaun?

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Everybody stopped and looked at me like I farted.

  “A.J.,” said Michael. “You don’t know what a leprechaun is?”

  “Uh . . . sure I do,” I lied.

  Neil whispered in my ear that leprechauns are mischievous little guys who have beards and pull pranks on people. He said that if you catch a leprechaun, he’ll give you a pot of gold he has hidden at the end of a rainbow.

  “How do you know so much about leprechauns?” I asked Neil.

  “I saw one on a box of cereal,” he replied.

  Everybody was buzzing about leprechauns. But not like bees. That would be weird.*

  “There’s no such thing as leprechauns,” scoffed Andrea. “That’s just another Irish stereotype.”

  “My dad has a type of stereo,” I said. Andrea rolled her eyes at me.

  We were still talking about leprechauns when we got to the classroom. Our teacher, Mr. Cooper, was waiting for us.

  “Okay, everybody,” he said as we took our seats. “Let’s try to focus this morning.”

  “Why?” I asked. “We’re not cameras.”

  “Not that kind of focus, du
mbhead!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes again.

  Andrea is always rolling her eyes when I say stuff. I wish her eyes would roll right out of her head.

  I wanted to say something mean to Andrea, but I didn’t have the chance because Mr. Cooper told us to turn to page twenty-three in our math books. He loves math. I hate it.

  I reached into my desk to get out my math book. But you’ll never believe what happened next.

  There was a sound in the distance. It was coming from down the hall. It sounded a little bit like geese honking. Or maybe somebody was letting the air out of a giant balloon.

  “What’s that annoying noise?” asked Alexia.

  “It sounds like sheep being tortured,” said Ryan, covering his ears.

  But it wasn’t geese or balloons or sheep being tortured. It was our principal, Mr. Klutz! He was playing the bagpipes, which is a strange musical instrument that’s made up of a bunch of pipes sticking out of a bag. So it has the perfect name.

  “I know that song!” Andrea said as Mr. Klutz walked into the classroom. “It’s ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.’”

  “Top of the mornin’!” Mr. Klutz said when the song was over. That was weird. Mornings don’t have tops or bottoms.

  Mr. Klutz took off his green hat and did a little bow. He has no hair at all. I mean none. I wonder if hats slip off his head all the time.

  “Are you kids excited about Saint Patrick’s Day next week?” Mr. Klutz asked.

  “Yes!” shouted all the girls.

  “No!” shouted all the boys.

  I noticed something unusual about Mr. Klutz. He was wearing a skirt!

  “Excuse me, Mr. Klutz,” I said. “Why are you wearing a skirt today?”

  “It’s not a skirt, A.J.,” he replied. “It’s a kilt.”

  It looked like a skirt to me. Mr. Klutz is nuts.

  Andrea looked all mad, as usual.

  “They don’t wear kilts in Ireland,” she said. “They wear kilts in Scotland!”

  I didn’t even know Ireland and Scotland were different places. I guess Mr. Klutz didn’t either.

  “I don’t feel comfortable with this,” Andrea complained. “In Ireland, they don’t do any of these silly things on Saint Patrick’s Day.”

  “What do they do?” asked Mr. Klutz.

  “Saint Patrick’s Day is the day Saint Patrick died,” Andrea told him. “It’s a public holiday. People get the day off. They go to a parade. They go to church. And then they have a big meal. That’s it.”

  “So there are no leprechauns?” asked Emily.

  “No,” said Andrea.

  “No rainbows?” asked Alexia.

  “No.”

  “No pot of gold?” asked Michael.

  “No!”

  “Saint Patrick’s Day in Ireland sounds boring,” I said.

  Andrea crossed her arms in front of her. That’s what people do when they’re mad. Nobody knows why.

  “Sheesh, lighten up,” I told her. Andrea needs to get a sense of humor transplant.

  Finally, it was March 17—Saint Patrick’s Day. My mom found a green T-shirt in the back of my closet for me to wear.

  When I got to school, it was like the whole world had turned green. Emily was wearing her big sister’s green Girl Scout uniform and green ribbons in her hair. Alexia had painted her toenails and finger-nails green. Neil dyed his hair green. Ryan and his mom walked their dog to school with him, and the dog was green!

  “What’s wrong with your dog?” I asked Ryan.

  “We dyed him,” he told me.

  What? Who dyes a dog?

  “Why did you dye your dog?” I asked.

  “She’s an Irish setter,” Ryan explained.

  That’s just weird. Mrs. Patty greeted everybody on the front steps. She was holding Jake the Snake in her basket, and she was dressed head to toe in green, of course. She even wore a silly-looking green hat that had a buckle on it.

  Why do people have buckles on their hats? I can understand a buckle on your pants. It holds up your pants. I can understand a buckle on your shoes. It holds your shoes together. I guess a buckle on your hat holds your brain together.

  Mr. Klutz was wearing a green shirt with the words “Kiss Me, I’m Irish!” on it.*

  “I didn’t know you were Irish, Mr. Klutz,” I said to him.

  “Everybody is Irish today,” he replied. “You can call me Mr. O’Klutz. Or do you think that’s going overboard?”

  Huh? What do boats have to do with Saint Patrick’s Day?

  Finally, the bell rang and we went inside. We pringled up and walked a million hundred miles to Mr. Cooper’s class. He thinks he’s a superhero. He always wears a cape. But on this day, of course, it was a green cape. And he told us we should call him Mr. O’Cooper.

  “Top of the mornin’, everyone,” Mr. O’Cooper said cheerfully. “Let’s take attendance. Ryan?”

  “Here,” said Ryan.

  “Michael?”

  “Here,” said Michael.

  “A.J.?”

  “Not here,” I said. “Just kidding. I’m here.”

  I don’t get it. What’s the point of taking attendance? If we weren’t here, we wouldn’t be able to say “here.”

  “Alexia?”

  “Here,” said Alexia.

  “Neil?”

  “Present,” said Neil.

  Some joker always says “present.” What’s up with that?

  “Andrea?” said Mr. O’Cooper.

  Nobody said anything. I turned around. Andrea wasn’t in her seat.

  “Andrea?” Mr. O’Cooper repeated. “Andrea?”

  Andrea was . . . absent!

  What?! Andrea is never absent.

  “Hmmm, Andrea must be sick today,” said Mr. O’Cooper.

  “No, she isn’t,” said Emily. “Andrea called me this morning. She told me she doesn’t approve of the way the school is celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, so she isn’t coming in today.”

  “Wow, Andrea’s boycotting school?” Neil said.

  “No, she’s girlcotting school,” I said.

  “There’s no such thing as girlcotting,” said Michael. “Girlcott isn’t a word.”

  “It should be,” said Ryan. “How come girls are allowed to boycott, but boys aren’t allowed to girlcott? It’s not fair!”

  “How come boys get a word and girls don’t?” said Alexia. “That’s not fair either!”

  “Yeah!” agreed Emily.

  We went on like that for a while, arguing about boycotts and girlcotts.

  I was trying to remember the last time Andrea missed school. I think it was on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. That was the greatest day of my life, because Andrea wasn’t around to bug me.

  “Andrea must be pretty mad about Saint Patrick’s Day,” I said.

  “Ooooooh!” said Ryan. “You miss Andrea! You must be in love with her!”

  “When are you and Andrea gonna get married?” asked Michael.

  If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.

  After we finished arguing, we pledged the allegiance and did Word of the Day. The word of the day was “shamrock.” A shamrock is a four-leaf clover that only has three leaves. If you ask me, it should be called a three-leaf clover. Mr. O’Cooper told us the shamrock is the national flower and the emblem of Ireland.

  “Should we turn to page twenty-three in our math books?” asked Emily.

  “No,” said Mr. O’Cooper. “We’re not going to do math today.”

  Yay! I hate math.

  “Instead, we’re going to learn about Ireland,” said Mr. O’Cooper.*

  Boo!

  Mr. O’Cooper went to the whiteboard and started drawing pictures of shamrocks.

  “If four of us each had four shamrocks,” he said, “how many shamrocks would we have altogether?”

  “Sixteen!” shouted Michael. “Because four times four is sixteen.”

  “Very good, Michael,” said Mr. O’Cooper. “Now try this one. There are about five million Irish people living in Ireland. There are about thirty-two million Irish people living in the United States. How many more Irish people live in the United States than live in Ireland?”

  We all thought that over for a while.

  “Twenty-seven million!” shouted Neil.

  “Correct!” said Mr. O’Cooper.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” I shouted. “You said we weren’t going to do math today. This sounds a lot like a math lesson to me.”