We all ran over to the Pacific Ocean. While we were running there, out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody going into the locker room at the other end of the gym.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “It could be Mr. E!” shouted Neil.

  We all ran over to the locker room. Some guy was hiding behind the door. He was wearing a trench coat, a hat, and a pair of glasses with a fake nose under them.

  “Freeze, dirtbag!” I shouted. “You’re under arrest, Mr. E!”

  “On what charge?” he asked, putting his hands in the air.

  “Stealing millions of dollars’ worth of jewels,” Ryan said.

  “I’m innocent!” shouted Mr. E. “I didn’t steal a thing!”

  Michael pulled off Mr. E’s hat. Alexia pulled off his fake nose and glasses.

  And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who Mr. E turned out to be.

  I’m not going to tell you.

  Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.

  It was Mrs. Roopy, our librarian!

  “Gasp!” we all gasped.

  “Mrs. Roopy!” I shouted. “You’re Mr. E?”

  “Roopy?” said Mrs. Roopy, running out the doorway. “Never heard of her.”

  That was weird.

  “You kids did a great job finding Mr. E,” said Mrs. Barr. “See? You know more about geography than you think.”

  We walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom.

  “Bummer in the summer,” I said as we walked down the hall. “I thought Mr. E was going to be a real international jewel thief. He turned out to be Mrs. Roopy in one of her disguises.”

  “It was just a scavenger hunt, Arlo!” said Andrea. “Mrs. Barr made up all those clues as a way to teach us geography.”

  “I knew that,” I lied.

  I hate when grown-ups sneak in learning while we’re trying to have fun. They think we won’t notice. I can’t believe I fell for it.

  It’s not fair!

  I could hardly sleep that night. I kept thinking about how Mrs. Barr tricked us into learning geography. That makes me so mad! No way I’m gonna fall for that again.

  The next day, Mr. Cooper didn’t even try to teach us math. As soon as he saw Mrs. Barr come into the class with her suitcase, he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

  He sure rubs his forehead a lot. I guess he needs to moisturize.

  “Konnichiwa!” Mrs. Barr said as she went over and opened the window. “That means hello in Japanese.”

  “Have you visited Japan?” asked Andrea.

  “I’ve been there many times,” Mrs. Barr replied. “Japan is amazing!”

  “How about the United States?” asked Ryan. “Have you traveled around our country?”

  “Sure!” she replied. “I’ve been all over America. It is amazing!”

  “Did you go to the Grand Canyon?” asked Emily.

  “No,” replied Mrs. Barr.

  “How about Mount Rushmore?” asked Alexia.

  “Nope. But I went to the SPAM Museum in Minnesota.”

  WHAT?!

  “There’s a museum about SPAM?” Ryan asked.

  “Oh yes!” said Mrs. Barr. “It is amazing! Did you know that SPAM stands for spiced ham?* I also visited the largest ball of twine in the world. It’s in Kansas and it’s over ten feet tall! It is amazing!”

  Wait. Mrs. Barr has never been to the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore, but she’s visited the SPAM Museum and a giant ball of twine? That lady is weird.

  “Let’s talk about geography!” said Mrs. Barr.

  “I know something about geography,” said Little Miss Know-It-All. “The word ‘geography’ comes from ancient Greece. It means to write or describe the earth.”

  “I didn’t know that!” said Mrs. Barr.

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

  “Let’s talk about water,” said Mrs. Barr. “Did you know that water covers more than two-thirds of the earth blah blah blah blah . . .”

  She went on about water for a million hundred minutes. I was starting to feel sleepy again.

  “. . . blah blah blah blah the Nile is the longest river in the world blah blah blah blah over four thousand miles long and blah blah blah blah . . .”

  I felt like my eyelids had ten-pound weights on them.

  “. . . blah blah blah blah Antarctica is the coldest continent blah blah blah blah. It’s the only continent that gets larger and smaller as it freezes and melts and blah blah blah blah . . . Antarctica . . . Antarctica . . . Antarctica . . . Antarctica . . . Antarctica . . . Antarctica . . . Antarctica . . .”

  The next thing I knew, I was having a wild dream. . . .

  I’m in Antarctica. There are no schools here. Nobody has to learn stuff. Nobody has to wear a tie or go to tea parties. There are no bedtimes, and no Andrea. Nobody is making fun of me.

  I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do in Antarctica. I’m eating frozen pizza, because all the pizza is frozen here. I’m running around and playing freeze tag, because that’s the only kind of tag you can play in Antarctica. My friends are a family of penguins. Tag! You’re it!

  There are lots of water slides and theme parks and candy stores here. You don’t have to buy anything. Everything is free. All the toilet bowls are upside down in Antarc—

  “Wake up, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper.

  “Huh? What?”

  I picked my head up off my desk. Mrs. Barr was gone. So were all the kids.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked.

  “They went to the art room,” Mr. Cooper told me. “You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Mr. Cooper and I went to the art room. Our art teacher, Ms. Hannah, was in there with Mrs. Barr and all the kids. They were sitting at a big table and there were feathers, beads, glue, and other art stuff scattered around.

  “Did you have a nice nap, Arlo?” asked Andrea.

  I ignored her.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked.

  “We’re making masks!” said Ms. Hannah.

  “Different cultures in countries all over the world have worn masks,” said Mrs. Barr. “For example, in China, Africa, Austria, Mexico, Brazil . . .”

  Uh-oh. She was trying to teach us about geography again.

  “Masks have been used as disguises, or for protection, entertainment, or in religious ceremonies,” said Mrs. Barr.

  I wasn’t paying attention.

  “The oldest mask in the world dates back to 8300 BCE,” said Mrs. Barr.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “I’m not going to learn anything about masks!” I announced. “I’m not falling for that old trick again.”

  “You don’t have to learn anything,” Ms. Hannah told me. “You can just make a mask for the fun of it.”

  “I’m making a carnival mask,” said Alexia.

  “I’m making a surgical mask,” said Neil.

  “I’m making a hockey mask,” said Michael.

  “You can make any kind of mask you’d like,” said Ms. Hannah. “Be creative. Use your imaginations!”

  “The student who makes my favorite mask wins a prize,” said Mrs. Barr.

  “Oooooh, I love prizes!” said Andrea.

  “What’s the prize?” asked Ryan.

  “The prize is that I will wear your mask for the rest of the week,” said Mrs. Barr.

  That’s a weird prize. But everybody was hard at work on their masks.

  I didn’t know what kind of mask to make. Maybe I was still groggy from my nap. The other kids were almost finished. I didn’t want to make a dumb mask.

  “Five more minutes,” announced Ms. Hannah. “Then it’s clean-up time.”

  Finally, the time was up. All I had was a plain black cloth.

  “That’s your mask, dude?” asked Michael. “You didn’t put anything on it.”

  “A.J., your mask is lame,” said Neil.

  All the kids were laughing, like my mask was the funniest thing in the history of the world.

  “Well, I happen to like A.J.’s mask,” said Ms. Hannah. “It’s simple. Sometimes in art, less is more.”

  “I think A.J.’s mask is cool,” said Mrs. Barr. “You win the prize, A.J. May I wear your mask for the rest of the week?”

  “Sure!” I said.

  Everybody stopped laughing.

  Ha! In their face! I made the best mask. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on everybody.

  “Happy International Day!” Mrs. Barr said when I came to class the next morning. She was wearing the mask I made.

  “What’s International Day?” I asked.

  “Each of you is going to choose a country,” said Mrs. Barr. “Any country in the world. You’ll spend the morning learning about your country online. Then you’ll give a short presentation to the class, as if you were the leader of that country. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  “Yes!” said all the girls.

  “No!” said all the boys.

  “I think it’s a great idea!” said Mr. Cooper. “The kids will learn a lot, plus they can practice their research and public-speaking skills.”

  It sounded like a horrible idea to me. Learning? Research? Public speaking? I thought I was gonna die.

  Andrea was so excited, she could barely stay in her seat.

  “My country is going to be—”

  But Andrea didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence.

  “Shhhhhh!” said Mrs. Barr. “Don’t tell us the name of your country until it’s time for your presentation. Let’s make it a surprise.”

  “I love surprises!” said Andrea.

  “Me too!” said Emily.

  We walked a million hundred miles to the computer lab, where there was a computer set up for each of us. Mrs. Barr passed out pads and pencils so we could take notes about our country. Andrea got permission to use her smartphone, because she has to be a big show-off all the time.

  “What should we look up?” asked Ryan.

  “Search for interesting facts about your country,” said Mrs. Barr. “Where is it located? What do the people wear? What do they eat? What language to they speak? Things like that.”

  Everybody started looking stuff up. Well, everybody but me. I couldn’t think of a country I wanted to learn about. Ryan was sitting next to me. I leaned over to see what country he chose.

  “No peeking at other people’s computers,” said Mrs. Barr. “We want it to be a surprise when you give your presentation.”

  I was bored. I looked up a bunch of stuff about football. Did you know that a guy with only half a foot once kicked a sixty-three-yard field goal? It’s true! Go ahead, look it up if you don’t believe me.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” Mrs. Barr said as we were all looking up stuff. “Maybe someday all the nations of the world will work together like this so people can live in peace and harmony.”

  Everybody worked hard all the way to lunchtime. Well, everybody except me. But I learned a lot about football. After lunch, we went back to Mr. Cooper’s class.

  “Okay, who wants to give the first International Day presentation?” asked Mrs. Barr.

  “I do!” shouted Andrea, of course.

  “Go ahead, Andrea.”

  Andrea rushed up to the front of the room with her notes. She couldn’t wait to show how smart she was.

  “I am the queen of Norway,” Andrea said. “My country is in northern Europe. It’s a little bigger than New Mexico. We are one of the largest seafood producers in the world.”

  Why is everybody always talking about fish?

  “More than five million people live in my country,” Andrea continued. “We speak Norwegian and we have twenty-nine letters in our alphabet. Our capital city is Oslo. Our national animal is the moose, and blah blah blah blah . . .”

  What a snoozefest. They shouldn’t call that country Norway. They should call it Boreway! Andrea went on for a million hundred minutes. I wasn’t really listening. I just wanted Andrea to keep talking until dismissal so I wouldn’t have to give a presentation.

  “. . . and that’s why we eat reindeer meatballs in Norway.”

  “Very good, Andrea!” said Mr. Cooper. “You certainly taught us a lot about Norway. Who wants to go next?”

  We all stared at the floor.

  “How about you, A.J.?” said Mr. Cooper.

  Oh no. Not me.

  “A.J.! A.J.! A.J.!” everybody chanted.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast.

  “You did do research on a country, didn’t you?” asked Mrs. Barr.

  “Sure I did,” I lied.

  I went up to the front of the room. Everybody was staring at me. It was the worst moment of my life.

  “Don’t you have any notes, A.J.?” asked Mrs. Barr.

  “No, I, uh . . . memorized everything.”

  “Impressive!” said Mr. Cooper. “Please begin, A.J.”

  “I am the president of . . . Flurgenstan,” I said. It was the first thing I could think of.

  “Hmmm, I’ve never heard of Flurgenstan,” said Mrs. Barr. “And I’ve been all over the world.”

  “We are a brand-new country,” I explained. “We just started last week.”

  “Go on, Mr. President,” said Mr. Cooper.

  “Flurgenstan is a beautiful country,” I said, “with lots of trees and animals and, uh . . . food.”

  I made up a bunch of stuff about Flurgenstan. I told everybody the national bird is the hummingbird. The national food is chicken tacos. They have a lot of kangaroos and yaks. I just said whatever popped into my mind.

  “There are no nerds in Flurgenstan,” I said, looking at Andrea. “And you know how skate parks usually close at sundown? Well, in Flurgenstan they stay open all night.”

  “Fascinating!” said Mrs. Barr.

  “Would you like to see the Flurgenstan national dance?” I asked.

  “Yeah!” everybody shouted.

  I made up a totally dumb dance, jumping around and waving my arms in the air.

  Everybody was nodding their heads.* It looked like they were actually buying it! Well, everybody except Andrea.

  “Are we allowed to ask questions?” she said.

  “Certainly!” said Mrs. Barr. “That’s how we learn.”

  “Where is Flurgenstan located, Mr. President? Hmmmm?” Andrea asked. Then she smiled the smile she smiles when she knows somebody doesn’t know something.

  “Flurgenstan,” I said, “is a small island off the coast of . . . Maratooga.”

  I made that up too.

  “Oh, yeah?” asked Andrea. “And what language do you speak in Flurgenstan?”

  “It’s a very beautiful language,” I told her. “We speak Flurgenstanian.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Andrea. “Is there a Flurgenstan national anthem?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Would you be able to sing the Flurgenstan national anthem for us?” asked Mrs. Barr.

  “Oh gee, I don’t know . . .” I said.

  “Come on, Arlo!” said Andrea. “Sing the Flurgenstan national anthem for us.”

  “SING IT! SING IT! SING IT!” everybody chanted.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I had to think fast. So I sang the first thing that came into my mind. . . .

  Oh give me a home

  Where the kangaroos roam,

  and the yak and the hummingbirds play.

  Where seldom is heard

  from a dweeb or a nerd,

  And the skate parks stay open all day.

  Home, home on Flurgenstan—

  “That sounds a lot like ‘Home on the Range,’” said Mr. Cooper.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “Flurgenstan is such a new country, we haven’t had time to write our national anthem yet.”

  Andrea looked like she was about to explode.

  “There’s no country called Flurgenstan!” she yelled. “I just looked it up on my smartphone. Arlo is making all this stuff up!”

  “I am not!” I yelled.

  “Are too!”

  “R2D2!”

  We went on like that for a while.

  “Oh, yeah?” I finally said. “Well, as the president of Flurgenstan, I declare war on Norway!”

  “As the queen of Norway,” Andrea said, “I declare war on Flurgenstan!”

  “I’m on Norway’s side!” shouted Emily.

  “I’m on Flurgenstan’s side!” shouted Alexia.

  And that’s how World War III began.

  After school, the gang and I decided to hang around the playground for a while before going home. Andrea and Emily came over to bother us, of course. They couldn’t stop talking about Mrs. Barr.

  “Mrs. Barr is so cool,” said Andrea. “She’s traveled all over the world.”

  “When I grow up, I want to be a globetrotter like her,” said Emily.

  “No way,” I told her. “You don’t even play basketball.”

  “Very funny, Arlo,” said Andrea.*

  “It must be nice to have a job where you get to travel all the time,” said Ryan.

  “That’s not a job,” I said. “Mrs. Barr isn’t getting paid. If you don’t get paid, it’s not a job.”

  “Then how does she earn a living?” asked Michael.

  “Beats me,” said Neil.

  “I’m sad that tomorrow is Mrs. Barr’s last day at our school,” said Andrea.

  “Not me,” I said.

  “What do you have against Mrs. Barr?” asked Neil.

  “Yeah,” said Alexia. “She’s a nice lady.”

  I had given this a lot of thought. Ever since Mrs. Barr walked into our classroom, there was something about her that bothered me.

  “That lady is no geography teacher,” I announced. “She didn’t even know what the word ‘geography’ meant until Andrea told her.”

  “She never said she was a geography teacher, Arlo,” said Andrea. “She’s just somebody who Mr. Cooper met on his trip to Spain.”

  “That’s right,” I agreed. “She’s just a stranger. I’ll tell you what I think. Mrs. Barr is a phony. She’s probably a criminal.”