“We played games,” Miss Kraft said. “We had fun. Now it’s time to learn something.”

  Noooooooooo! This simply could not be happening!

  I looked at the loudspeaker on the wall. I was sure we would get called to a surprise assembly. Or maybe there would be a fire drill. Or maybe an asteroid would destroy the earth, and school would be canceled for the rest of our lives. Something was sure to happen so we wouldn’t have to do page twenty-three.

  But nothing happened. We all pulled our math books out of our desks.

  “Yay,” said Andrea. “I love math!”

  Why can’t a truck full of math books fall on Andrea’s head?

  “Are you really going to teach us page twenty-three?” asked Neil the nude kid.

  “Of course not!” said Miss Kraft. “I don’t know anything about math. Mr. Bongo is going to teach you page twenty-three.”

  “Who’s Mr. Bongo?” we all asked.

  Miss Kraft pulled a white sock out of her pocket and put it on her hand.

  “This is Mr. Bongo,” she said. “He’s my friend.”

  Sock puppets are weird. Whoever thought up the idea of making puppets out of socks was a dumbhead. And I’ll tell you, this was the lamest sock puppet in the history of the world. It was basically a sock with two big, googly eyes on it. “Hi kids!” said Mr. Bongo, even though we could totally see Miss Kraft’s lips moving. “Turn to page twenty-three in your math books.”

  I opened my math book and turned to page twenty-three. That’s when I saw these horrible words …

  THE ELEVEN TIMES TABLE

  Noooooooooooooooooo!

  Not the eleven times table! Anything but the eleven times table!

  Mr. Granite taught us all the times tables up to ten. But he never got to page twenty-three. I always wondered what was on page twenty-three. And now I found out the horrible truth.

  My friend Billy, who lives around the corner, told me that the times tables can only go up to ten. Billy said that if you try to multiply numbers higher than ten, the earth will fall off its axis. And if you get all the way up to eleven times eleven, you get sucked into a parallel universe, and you travel back in time until you get to the Big Bang, when your head explodes.

  Billy knows all about stuff like that. He told me he knew a kid who tried to multiply eleven times eleven, and the kid’s head exploded. That is a true fact. I told everybody on the playground about it.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” said Mr. Bongo. “One times eleven equals eleven. That’s easy, right?”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Miss Kraft.

  “Don’t talk to me about it,” said Miss Kraft. “Talk to Mr. Bongo. He’s the one who’s teaching the lesson.”

  “Two times eleven equals twenty-two,” said Mr. Bongo, “because eleven added to eleven equals twenty-two.”

  “We really shouldn’t be doing this,” said Michael. “It’s very dangerous.”

  “Three times eleven equals thirty-three,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” said Ryan.

  “Later,” said Miss Kraft.

  “Four times eleven equals forty-four,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “I’m scared!” said Emily.

  “Five times eleven equals fifty-five,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “If he gets to eleven times eleven,” I whispered to Ryan, “we’re going to get sucked into a parallel universe and travel through time until our heads explode!”

  “Six times eleven equals sixty-six,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “Make him stop!” begged Neil the nude kid. “Please, make him stop!”

  “Seven times eleven equals seventy-seven,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “He’s getting close to the end!” said Andrea.

  “Eight times eleven equals eighty-eight,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “I want my mommy!” said Emily, who was hiding under her desk.

  “Nine times eleven equals ninety-nine,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “Help!” shouted Ryan. “I’m too young to die!”

  “Ten times eleven equals a hundred and ten,” said Mr. Bongo.

  “Good-bye, cruel world!” shouted Michael.

  Everybody was hiding under their desks, holding their hands over their ears and freaking out.

  “Eleven times eleven equals …”

  “This is it!” I yelled, closing my eyes. “I’m going to miss you guys!”

  “… a hundred and twenty-one,” said Mr. Bongo.

  I felt my head to see if it had exploded. All the pieces seemed to be there. I peeked through my fingers to see if the world was still there.

  Nothing happened. The only thing that was different was that Mr. Klutz was standing in the doorway.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he yelled. “Why are you children hiding under your desks during a math lesson?”

  “We don’t want to get sucked into a parallel universe,” I explained.

  Mr. Klutz looked really mad. I thought he was going to suspend the whole class. But he just turned around and stormed down the hall.

  Okay, so my friend Billy was wrong. We didn’t get sucked into a parallel universe and travel through time until our heads exploded.

  I still say sock puppets are weird.

  7

  The Truth about Miss Kraft

  After we finished the math lesson, it was time for lunch. We had to walk in single file a million hundred miles to the vomitorium.

  I sat with Alexia and the guys, but Andrea and Emily weaseled their way onto the end of our table. They are so annoying.

  We all had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches except for Ryan. He had a turkey wichsand, which is a sandwich that has the meat on the outside and bread in the middle.

  “Miss Kraft is weird,” I said.

  “Yeah, I thought she was going to be cool when she was doing all that clown stuff,” said Michael. “But then she made us do math.”

  “She’s just like every other teacher,” said Alexia. “All she ever wants to do is teach us stuff.”

  “Yeah, she’s no fun at all,” I said.

  That’s when Little Miss Know-It-All had to open her big mouth.

  “Learning is a good thing, you know,” Andrea said. “When you learn new things, it makes you a better person.”

  “Can you possibly be more boring?” asked Alexia.

  Andrea and Alexia started sticking their tongues out at each other, which is what you do when somebody says something mean to you.

  Little Miss Perfect was getting on my nerves. I tried to think of something I could do that would annoy her. So I picked up two straws and put them in my nostrils.

  “Look, I’m a walrus!” I announced. Everybody laughed, except for Andrea, of course.

  “That’s disgusting, Arlo,” she said.

  “So is your face,” I told her.

  “Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

  I was going to put two more straws into my ears, but you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who came over to our table at that moment.

  It was Mr. Klutz! He looked a little happier than before. But just to be on the safe side, I pulled the straws out of my nostrils and threw them under the table.*

  “Hi everybody!” said Mr. Klutz. “I just wanted to see how you were making out with Miss Kraft.”

  “Ewwwwww, gross!” I said. “We weren’t making out with Miss Kraft!”

  “Isn’t she a great teacher?” asked Mr. Klutz.

  “Miss Kraft is wonderful!” said Andrea. “She makes learning fun.”

  Mr. Klutz liked hearing that, and he went to ask the kids at the other tables how much they liked making out with Miss Kraft.

  “I was just thinking,” I told everybody after he left, “maybe Miss Kraft isn’t a real substitute teacher at all.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Alexia.

  “Well,” I said, “maybe she’s just a clown who ran away from the circus.”

  “People don’t run away from the circus,” Ryan told me. “They run away from home to join the circus.”

  “Well, what about this,” I suggested. “Maybe Miss Kraft murdered our real substitute teacher at the circus and came to our school so nobody would know what happened.”

  “Then she would get away with murder!” Neil said.

  “I saw that in a movie once,” said Michael. “A guy murdered somebody, and then he pretended to be the guy he murdered so nobody would know the guy was missing.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. “You’re just trying to scare Emily.”

  “I’m scared!” said Emily.

  “A.J. may be right,” said Alexia. “I don’t think Miss Kraft is a real substitute teacher.”

  “What if she didn’t murder our real sub,” I suggested. “What if she kidnapped our real substitute teacher and has her locked up at the circus, in a cage with a lion? Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”

  “Yeah,” said Michael, “and the lion is probably pacing back and forth right now, wondering why a substitute teacher is in its cage.”

  “I bet that lion is hungry,” said Ryan.

  “We’ve got to do something!” shouted Emily, and then she went running out of the vomitorium.

  Sheesh! That girl will fall for anything.

  After Emily left, Alexia told us that at her old school the kids used to play tricks on the substitute teachers.

  “What kind of tricks?” I asked, instantly interested.

  “Like, we would all drop our books on the floor at the same time,” she said. “The substitute teacher would be talking, and then suddenly, there was a loud boom. It was hilarious.”

  “We should do that!” said Ryan.

  “Yeah,” said Michael. “That would be cool!”

  “I’m not going to do that,” said Andrea. “You heard what Mr. Klutz said about behavior. You’re going to get in trouble. You might get suspended.”

  “Not if we all do it,” said Alexia. “They can’t punish all of us.”

  Everybody except for Andrea agreed that dropping our books at the same time was a great idea and that Alexia should get the No Bell Prize. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.

  “Let’s all drop our books on the floor at exactly one o’clock,” Alexia said.

  It was going to be hilarious. I couldn’t wait for one o’clock to come.

  8

  The Great Kraftini

  When we got back to class after lunch, Miss Kraft was wearing a top hat and a black cape. That was weird.

  I looked at the clock. It was twelve thirty—just a half an hour until the Big Book Drop.

  “Did you have a nice lunch, Miss Kraft?” asked Andrea, the big brownnoser.

  “Who’s Miss Kraft?” asked Miss Kraft. “I’m The Great Kraftini! Watch this!”

  She snapped her fingers. There was a big puff of smoke, and the empty desk in front of the room disappeared.

  “Cool!” we all yelled.

  “How did you do that?” asked Alexia.

  “Oh, a magician never reveals her secrets,” said Miss Kraft.

  “Can you make Andrea disappear?” I asked.

  “Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

  “That’s mean, Arlo!” said Andrea.

  “Kids learn fast when you combine teaching with magic,” Miss Kraft told us. “Here, I’ll show you. Grab this rope, A.J., and tie me up.”

  “Tie you up?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure,” said Miss Kraft. “Go ahead. Make it really tight.”

  I wrapped the thick rope around and around Miss Kraft until she was completely wrapped up from head to toe. Then I tied the ends together tightly. There was no way she could escape.

  “Excuse me,” said Andrea. “What could we possibly learn from this?”

  “A lot!” said Miss Kraft. “While I try to escape from the ropes, I want you kids to write down the fifty American states in ABC order. If I can’t escape in five minutes or you don’t have the states in order, a five-hundred-pound weight will fall on my head.”

  We all looked up at the ceiling. There was a big weight hanging over Miss Kraft’s head!*

  Miss Kraft is daft!

  “That’s crazy!” yelled Neil the nude kid.

  “Please don’t do this, Miss Kraft,” begged Emily. “It’s very dangerous.”

  “I must do it,” said Miss Kraft. “It’s the only way you will learn. Hurry! The clock is ticking!”

  “Alabama!” Ryan shouted. “The first state is Alabama! Somebody write it down!”

  Emily grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil. Everybody started yelling out states.

  “Alaska!” yelled Andrea. “It’s Alabama, Alaska … Arizona … Arkansas… . What’s next?”

  “Wyoming!” I yelled.

  “No, dumbhead,” said Andrea. “Wyoming comes last.”

  “I knew that,” I lied.

  “California!” shouted Michael. “The next state is California! And then comes Colorado and Connecticut!”

  Emily wrote the states down as fast as she could. Miss Kraft struggled to free herself from the ropes, but I had wrapped them pretty tightly.

  “Four minutes left!” shouted Alexia.

  We racked our brains to put the states in ABC order: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho. This was hard to do!

  “Hurry!” Emily shouted. “Three minutes left!”

  Everybody was freaking out. We got Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas. Miss Kraft couldn’t get free from the ropes. She was grunting and sweating.

  “Kentucky!” Andrea shouted. “Then comes Louisiana!”

  “Two minutes left!” shouted Neil.

  We got all the M states: Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Montana.

  “One minute left!” Ryan shouted. “Hurry!”

  “Nebraska and Nevada!” shouted Alexia.

  “And then all those “New” states!” shouted Neil. “New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York!”

  We were running out of time, and there were still a lot of states left. In a few seconds the five-hundred-pound weight was going to drop on Miss Kraft’s head!

  “North Carolina!” Andrea shouted. “North Dakota! Ohio! Oklahoma!”

  “Five seconds left!” shouted Ryan.

  “There’s no more time!” shouted Andrea.

  “Oh nooooooooooooooo!”

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the five-hundred-pound weight fall on Miss Kraft’s head.

  That’s when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. You’ll never believe who walked into the door at that moment.

  Nobody! It would hurt if you walked into a door.

  But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway. It was Mr. Klutz!

  “What’s going on in here?!” he hollered. “Why is Miss Kraft tied up with rope? Who did this to her?!”

  Everybody looked at me.

  “A.J.!” shouted Mr. Klutz. “Why would you tie up your teacher with ropes? Is that any way to show respect to a substitute? What did I tell you about behavior?”

  “B-b-b-but … ,” I said.

  Everybody started giggling because I said “but,” which sounds just like “butt” even though it has one less t.

  “I’m keeping an eye on you, young man!” yelled Mr. Klutz. “You are this close to being suspended.”

  I wanted to go to Antarctica and live with the penguins.

  9

  The Big Book Drop

  “Oh, don’t worry about him,” said Miss Kraft after Mr. Klutz left the room. “I know how to take care of principals.”

  She also told us the five-hundred-pound weight wasn’t really going to drop on her head, and it wasn’t five hundred pounds either. It was made out of cardboard. She said she knew we would put the states in ABC order faster if we thought a five-hundred-pound weight was about to drop on her head.

  Ryan and I untied the ropes around Miss Kraft.

  So she had played a little trick on us. That was okay, because we were about to play a little trick on her.

  I looked at the clock. It was 12:45. Fifteen minutes until the Big Book Drop.

  “Okay, everybody!” Miss Kraft said. “It’s D.E.A.R. time!”

  D.E.A.R. stands for Drop Everything and Read. We all have to read silently for half an hour. Ugh, I hate reading.

  We all took books out from our desks. I had a book about fighter planes that I got from the school library. Reading it wasn’t much fun, but the pictures of the fighter planes were cool.

  It was hard to concentrate on my book anyway, because all I could think about was the Big Book Drop. I checked the clock. Ten minutes to go.

  I turned around to look at Ryan, Michael, Neil, and all the other kids. Everybody was reading silently. Miss Kraft was sitting at Mr. Granite’s desk, reading a book called Magic Tricks for Dummies.

  I moved my pile of books to the edge of my desk so it would be easier to drop them on the floor. It was going to be hilarious when we all dropped our books at the same time.

  Five minutes to go.

  I could barely even look at my book about fighter planes. It was almost one o’clock. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ryan passing a note to Michael. I figured he was reminding Michael to drop his books at one o’clock.

  There were only a few minutes left. Kids were snickering and whispering and passing notes back and forth.

  I looked at the second hand on the clock. It was sweeping around the dial. This was going to be hilarious!

  The second hand was getting close to the top. Twelve seconds left!

  I got ready for the Big Book Drop.

  10 … 9 … 8 … 7 … 6 …

  It was so exciting!

  5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1!

  One o’clock! It was time! I pushed the pile of books off my desk.

  Boom!

  My books hit the floor. Miss Kraft jumped in her seat.

  Ahahahahahahaha!

  I looked around. Nobody else had dropped their books on the floor.

  WHAT?!

  Everybody was looking at me.

  I probably don’t need to tell you who walked into the doorway at that moment. It was Mr. Klutz, of course.