Man, Ms. Joni sure says “fabulous” a lot. Just about every other word from her mouth was “fabulous.”

  “Blah blah fabulous blah blah fabulous blah blah fabulous blah blah fabulous blah blah,” said Ms. Joni.

  See what I mean?

  “Ms. Joni is really famous!” Andrea whispered in my ear. “She takes pictures of all the supermodels.”

  “Models have superpowers?” I said. “That is cool.”

  I wondered which superpowers models have. It would be cool to have superheat vision. Then you wouldn’t need a microwave oven. You could just heat up your food by looking at it.

  “Supermodels don’t have superpowers, dumbhead!” Andrea told me. “They’re the most famous models in the world.”

  “I knew that,” I lied.

  What is Andrea’s problem? Why can’t a truck full of microwave ovens fall on her head?

  “I bet you could be a supermodel, Andrea,” whispered Emily.

  “People do tell me I have nice cheekbones,” Andrea whispered back.

  Cheekbones? What?! Cheeks have bones? That’s a new one on me. I felt my cheeks. They were all skin. I don’t have bones in my cheeks. How would you be able to eat if you had bones in your cheeks? Gross! The whole idea of cheekbones made me want to throw up.

  Ms. Joni set up a big camera on a tripod. She told us it was a special camera that would slowly move from left to right as it was taking the picture so it could get all five hundred of us in the shot. We would have to stay perfectly still for five seconds while the camera moved across all our faces.

  “Okay,” said Ms. Joni. “When I say ‘smile,’ everybody stay still for five seconds. Ready?”

  “Ready!” we all said.

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

  “Smile!” said Ms. Joni.

  The camera was pointing at my side of the bleachers. As soon as it started moving, I jumped down off the back of the bleachers.

  “One . . . ,” said Ms. Joni.

  I landed on the grass behind the right bleachers.

  “Two . . . ,” said Ms. Joni.

  I ran across the back of the bleachers to the other side, where my friends were.

  “Three . . . ,” said Ms. Joni.

  I climbed up the back of the bleachers.

  “Four . . . ,” said Ms. Joni.

  I stood up between Ryan and Michael.

  “Five . . . ,” said Ms. Joni.

  The camera was pointing right at my side of the bleachers.

  “Fabulous!” said Ms. Joni. “Nice job standing still, everybody.”

  “A.J., what are you doing here?” Ryan whispered in my ear right after the picture was finished.

  “I jumped down from the other side of the bleachers after the camera took my picture over there,” I explained. “Then I ran over here.”

  “Why did you do that?” asked Michael.

  “So I could be in the picture twice!” I told them. “Two heads are better than one!”

  “A.J., you’re a genius!” said Ryan.

  I should get the Nobel Prize for that idea. That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.

  After Ms. Joni took the school picture, we had to go back to our classroom and wait to be called for our class picture. Mr. Cooper said we could sit at our desks and talk to each other as long as we used our inside voices.

  That makes no sense at all. My voice is the same wherever I am.

  I took a sheet of paper from my desk and drew a picture of a rocket ship. Alexia read a book on skateboarding. Andrea and Emily took mirrors out of Andrea’s suitcase and started fussing with their hair.

  “Maybe Ms. Joni will notice me,” Andrea whispered as she put some girly gunk on her face. “It would be exciting to be a model.”

  Ugh. I really wanted to say something mean about Andrea’s face, but it’s hard to say mean stuff with an inside voice.

  Finally, after we sat there for a million hundred hours, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “Attention, Mr. Cooper’s class. Please report to the gym to have your class picture taken.”

  We lined up in size order and walked to the gym. A plain white background was on the wall in the corner, and there were seats in front of it for the class to sit on. Ms. Joni had two big umbrellas set on either side. That was weird.

  “Do you think it’s going to rain inside the gym?” Ryan asked her.

  “No, silly!” said Ms. Joni. “The umbrellas are here to bounce the lights on you and make you look fabulous.”

  Ms. Joni told us to sit down. There was a sign that said MR. COOPER’S THIRD-GRADE CLASS. We had to sit boy-girl-boy-girl so we couldn’t sit next to anybody we liked. Mr. Cooper stood next to the class.

  “This is going to be fabulous!” said Ms. Joni. “Are you kids ready?”

  “Yes!” said all the girls.

  “No!” said all the boys.

  Ms. Joni pushed a button, and a big flash went off. The light bounced off the umbrellas.

  Snap!

  “That’s fabulous!” Ms. Joni said. “Now tilt your heads to the right.”

  Snap!

  “A little to the left.”

  Snap!

  “Chins up.”

  Snap!

  “Not that far. Don’t squint.”

  Snap!

  “Keep your cheeks down.”

  Snap!

  “Hands to your sides.”

  Snap!

  “Cross your feet at the ankles.”

  Snap!

  “Look at me.”

  Snap!

  “Now look over my head.”

  Snap!

  “Keep your hands folded in front of you.”

  Snap!

  “Sit perfectly still.”

  Snap!

  “Fabulous!”

  Ms. Joni went on like that for a million hundred minutes. Finally, she put the camera down.

  “You were fabulous!” said Ms. Joni, who probably says that to everybody. “You can go back to class. We will shoot your personal pictures after all the class photos are done.”

  We lined up in single file to go back to our classroom. I was just about to walk out the door when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Ms. Joni came running over to me.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “What is your name, young man?”

  “Who? Me?” I asked. “My name is A.J.”

  “Not anymore,” said Ms. Joni. “From now on, your name is . . . Fabulo.”

  WHAT?!

  Ms. Joni was looking at me really weirdly.

  “You’re perfect!” she said, walking around me. “You have the look!”

  “Huh?” I asked. “What look?”

  Ms. Joni picked up her camera and started snapping pictures of me.

  “I’ve been waiting my whole life to find a young man who looks like you,” she said. “And here you are. You are Fabulo! I’m going to make you a star!”

  Andrea had on her mean face.

  “Star?” I asked. “W-what are you going to do to me?”

  “She’s gonna make you into a male model, dude,” Ryan told me.

  “Oh no, not just a model,” said Ms. Joni. “Fabulo will be the first male supermodel!”

  “But I don’t want to be a supermodel!” I told Ms. Joni.

  “You were born to be Fabulo,” she replied as she took more pictures of me. “There’s no point in fighting it. Just look at those cheekbones! They’re perfect!”

  I covered my cheeks with my hands.

  “B-but . . . but . . . but . . .”

  Everybody was giggling because I said “but,” which sounds just like “butt” even though it’s missing a “t.”

  “Dude, being the first male supermodel will probably pay big bucks,” Michael told me. “And all you have to do is pose for some dumb pictures. This could pay for your college education.”

  “But I don’t want to get a college education!” I protested.

  “You could build a skate park with the money,” Ryan told me, “or a video game arcade. You’ll be able to buy whatever you want, man!”

  “How much money are we talking about?” I asked.

  “Hundreds!” said Michael.

  “Thousands!” said Ryan.

  “Millions!” said Ms. Joni.

  “Bazillions!” said Neil.

  I don’t even know if bazillions is a real number. We never learned about bazillions in math.

  Andrea was standing there the whole time with her arms crossed.

  “That’s not fair!” she said. “Arlo doesn’t even want to be a model.”

  But Ms. Joni wasn’t paying any attention to Andrea. She couldn’t stop staring at me and taking pictures.

  “What do you say?” she asked me. “Do you want to be Fabulo, the first male supermodel, or do you just want to be some plain old boring kid?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast. This was the hardest decision of my life. I could go on being a normal kid, or I could become the first male supermodel in the history of the world. I was concentrating so hard that my brain hurt.

  Finally, I decided. I could make bazillions, and I could make Andrea jealous. All I had to do was let Ms. Joni take some dumb pictures of me.

  “I’ll do it!” I said. “I am Fabulo!”

  It was lunchtime, so we had to go to the vomitorium.

  “Welcome to Café LaGrange,” said our lunch lady, Ms. LaGrange. “What can I get you for lunch today?”

  “I’ll have spaghetti with lots of tomato sauce,” said Ryan.

  “I’ll have macaroni and cheese,” said Michael.

  “I’ll have a Sloppy Joe sandwich,” said Andrea.

  “How about you, A.J.?” said Ms. LaGrange. “Would you like some peas today?”

  “No thank you,” I told her. “I don’t like peas.”

  “Oh come on,” she said. “Give peas a chance.”

  Then she started singing that dumb song she always sings: “All we are saying is give peas a chance.”

  Ms. LaGrange is strange. One time she wrote a secret message in the mashed potatoes.

  I looked at the other dishes Ms. LaGrange had prepared. Beef-and-bean burritos. Sloppy Joe sandwiches. Chili Surprise. Chocolate pudding. Pickle chips. Applesauce. Tater Tots.

  It all looked disgusting. Luckily, my mom packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me. I just bought a carton of milk, and we found a table that was empty.

  “The guy who thought of putting peanut butter and jelly together was a genius,” I told everybody. “That guy should win the Nobel Prize.”

  “It could have been a lady, Arlo,” said Andrea, who still had on her mean face.

  Andrea was right. A lady could have invented the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But I wasn’t about to admit that Andrea was right about anything.

  “I’m so excited that you’re going to be the first male supermodel, A.J.” said Alexia. “You’ll get to walk down a runway and everything!”

  “While the planes are taking off?” I asked. “That sounds dangerous.”

  “Not that kind of a runway, dumbhead!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going to be a supermodel, and you don’t even know what a runway is.”

  “You’re just being mean to me because you’re jealous that Ms. Joni picked me to be a supermodel instead of you,” I told Andrea.

  “I am not jealous!” Andrea shouted.

  “Are too!”

  “R2-D2!”

  “C-3PO!”

  We went on like that for a while. Andrea knew I was right, but she just didn’t want to admit it.

  “Hey,” said Neil. “How about we play football in the playground during recess?”

  “Sure,” said Ryan.

  “Count me in,” said Alexia.

  “Great idea,” said Michael.

  “Uh, I’m not in the mood,” I said.

  Everybody looked at me.

  “What’s the matter, A.J.?” asked Alexia.

  “I just don’t want to play football today,” I told her.

  “But you love playing football,” Ryan said. “What’s the matter, dude?”

  “Okay, okay,” I admitted. “Ms. Joni is going to be doing a photo shoot with me this afternoon. I don’t want to get my hair messed up.”

  Everybody started laughing, even though I didn’t say anything funny.

  “Are you kidding, A.J.?” asked Neil. “You’re really afraid of messing up your hair?”

  “How about we play on the monkey bars instead?” suggested Alexia.

  “Yeah!” said Ryan and Michael. “The monkey bars are cool.”

  “You guys go ahead,” I said. “I’ll stay in here. If I fell off the monkey bars, I might damage my face. If I broke a cheekbone, my male modeling career would be over.”

  “Oh come on, A.J.!” said Michael. “You’re not going to break a cheekbone.”

  “Not today, guys,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Now Andrea wasn’t the only one who had on a mean face. Everybody was looking at me with mean faces.

  “You’ve changed, man,” said Ryan. “You’re not the same A.J. that I used to know.”

  “Yeah,” said Michael. “Ever since you became the first male supermodel, you’re no fun anymore.”

  “What?!” I said. “I’m not even a supermodel yet!”

  “It’s only a matter of time,” said Alexia. “You’re all full of yourself now.”

  Well, of course I was full of myself. I was entirely made up of me. I had to be full of myself. I couldn’t very well be full of somebody else.

  “I remember the good old days when you were cool, A.J.,” said Ryan. “You’re not cool anymore.”

  What!? Nobody says I’m not cool. I’m the coolest kid ever. It wasn’t fair. My best friends had suddenly turned against me. This was the worst thing to happen since TV Turnoff Week.

  I felt a sudden rage building up inside. I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t control myself. So I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances.

  I picked up Ryan’s plate of spaghetti and dumped it over his head.

  For a second, everybody was in shock. Tomato sauce was dripping down Ryan’s ears.

  “Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

  “You can’t do that to my friend!” Michael shouted. Then he took his macaroni and cheese and pushed it into my face.

  “There!” he said. “You don’t look like a supermodel now.”

  “That wasn’t very nice!” said Andrea. She threw her Sloppy Joe sandwich at Michael. But he ducked and it hit Emily instead. She started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out, of course.

  “Food fight!” somebody shouted.

  I’m not exactly sure what happened after that. Things got out of control. The next thing anyone knew, the air was filled with flying food. Some second grader chucked a plate full of Chili Surprise at the kid across the table from him. A beef-and-bean burrito whizzed past my head. Neil got hit in the face with chocolate pudding. It was raining Tater Tots. Pickle chips were flying around.

  Somebody took a pepper shaker and started hitting meatballs up in the air like they were baseballs. Kids were squirting ketchup packets at each other. You should have been there!*

  Eventually, we ran out of food. Café LaGrange was a mess. All four of the basic food groups were stuck to the wall, and to us.

  That’s when an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “Happy Picture Day, everyone! Recess has been canceled. We don’t want you boys and girls to get dirty before your pictures are taken. Mr. Cooper’s class, please report to the gym.”

  “Oh no!” shouted Andrea. “My face is a mess! And my hair is full of applesauce!”

  “This is the worst Picture Day ever!” said Emily.

  When our class arrived at the gym, it looked like we had been through a war. Food was dripping off everybody. My hair was all over the place. My shirt was untucked. My new suit was a mess.

  My career as the first male supermodel was over, for sure. But it was okay. I didn’t really want to be a supermodel anyway.

  “What happened?” asked Ms. Joni when she saw us come into the gym.

  “There was a food fight in the vomitorium,” whined Andrea. “And now I’m having a bad-hair day. Where’s a mirror? I need to fix my hair!”

  “Why, is your hair broken?” I asked her.

  “That’s not funny, Arlo!” Andrea yelled.

  “I have a cowlick,” complained Michael.

  “You licked a cow?” I asked him. “Gross!”

  “It’s not funny, A.J.!” Michael yelled.

  “My pants are full of chocolate pudding!” said Neil.

  “Who needs pants?” I told him. “The pictures are from the waist up anyway.”

  “This is no laughing matter, A.J.!” Neil yelled.

  Nobody was in the mood for jokes. Everybody was upset. Well, not everybody. Ms. Joni gathered us all around her.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “My team of photo flunkies is going to make you all look fabulous.”

  At that moment, a bunch of ladies came out of the locker room. They were carrying towels and spray bottles and brushes and all kinds of junk with them. They started cleaning everybody up and combing their hair. While they were working on the other kids, Ms. Joni came over and put her arm around me.

  “Fabulo, I have fabulous news!” she whispered in my ear. “Remember those pictures I took of you? Well, during lunch I emailed them to Sports America magazine, and they want to put you on the cover!”

  “WOW,” I said, which is “MOM” upside down. “Sports America? Cool! My dad reads Sports America.”

  “Yes,” said Ms. Joni. “You’re going to look fabulous on the cover of the Sports America swimsuit issue!”

  WHAT?!

  The swimsuit issue? That’s the issue of Sports America where they have a bunch of models running around in bathing suits! I know, because my dad hides it in the garage.