“I think you mean werewolves,” whispered Neil.

  “No, werewolves are people who turn into wolves,” whispered Alexia. “I think vampires eat the living.”

  “What’s the difference between a werewolf, a vampire, and a zombie?” whispered Ryan.

  “I heard that zombies only eat human brains,” I whispered.

  “Well, at least you’re safe, Arlo,” whispered Andrea. “You don’t have a brain!”

  Everybody laughed even though she didn’t say anything funny. I was going to say something mean to Andrea, but Mrs. Marge shushed me.

  “I hate zombies,” whispered Ryan.

  “‘Hate’ is a mean word,” whispered Andrea. “Maybe some zombies are nice.”

  “Zombies aren’t nice,” I told her. “They’re zombies!”

  “What did a zombie ever do to you?” asked Emily.

  “Shhhhh!” said Mrs. Marge. “Simmer down.”

  “I think zombies should be considered innocent until proven guilty,” whispered Andrea.

  “What do we do if we catch a zombie?” whispered Alexia. “Attack it? Tie it up?”

  Mrs. Marge took a big black garbage bag out of her pocket.

  “If we catch a zombie,” she whispered, “we’ll put it in this bag and bring it to the police station.”

  We looked all over. There were no zombies anywhere.

  “This is a waste of time,” Michael whispered. “We could be sitting on the couch at home watching TV right now.”

  “That’s right,” I agreed. “If I was a zombie, I wouldn’t go to a school anyway. I’d go to a graveyard or a cemetery.”

  “Graveyards and cemeteries are the same thing,” whispered Andrea, who thinks she knows everything.

  “They are not,” I whispered.

  “They are too,” whispered Andrea.

  “C-3PO,” I whispered.

  We kept looking. We looked in the gym. We looked in the music room. We looked in the supply closets. We looked all over the school. We didn’t see any zombies anywhere.

  That’s when I realized something. This wasn’t the Zombie Hunters Club. This was the Tire Out the Kids Club! Grown-ups always like to make us run around for hours during the day, so we’ll get tired and go to bed early. It’s the oldest trick in the book!

  But that’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. We were right outside the teachers’ lounge. Mrs. Marge opened the door a crack.

  “Look!” she whispered excitedly. “I think there’s a zombie in there!”

  We all jammed our heads near the door to peek through the crack.

  “I can’t see!” whispered Neil. “What does the zombie look like?”

  “That’s not a zombie!” said Ryan. “That’s just Mr. Docker.”

  Mr. Docker is our science teacher. He’s not a zombie. He’s just old.

  “What are you doing in here, Mr. Docker?” asked Neil.

  “I’m sitting on the couch watching TV,” Mr. Docker explained.

  What? How come the teachers get to sit on the couch and watch TV? It’s not fair!

  An hour went by, and we didn’t see a single zombie.* Mrs. Marge said it was time to get our backpacks and get ready to go home.

  “Maybe the zombies took the day off,” said Alexia.

  “Zombies don’t get days off,” said Ryan.

  “How do you know?” asked Alexia.

  “Because zombies don’t have jobs,” Ryan told her. “You don’t get a day off unless you have a job.”

  “Maybe they’re freelance zombies,” Neil suggested.

  “There’s no such thing as a freelance zombie!” I told them. “There’s no such thing as any zombie! Zombies aren’t real!”

  It was ridorkulous. I was so exhausted from all that zombie hunting that I thought I might go to bed early. Our parents were starting to arrive to pick us up.

  “Maybe next time we’ll see some zombies,” promised Mrs. Marge.

  Next time? No way I’m going back to the Zombie Hunters Club. I’d rather sit on the couch and watch TV.

  I signed up for the Video Game Players Club because I thought it would be cool to play video games at school. When I showed up for the club the next day, there was a sign on the door that said the club would meet at the playground. I figured we would be playing video games outside. I didn’t care where we did it, as long as I got to play video games.

  When I got to the playground, Mrs. Marge was there. So were all my classmates and some other kids too.

  “Welcome to the Cloud Watching Club,” she announced.*

  “Huh?” I said. “I thought this was the Video Game Players Club.”

  “I thought it was the Frisbee Club,” said Neil.

  “I thought it was the Guitar Club,” said Alexia.

  “I thought it was the Bunny Rabbit Lovers Club,” said Andrea.

  “Me too,” said Emily.

  “Too many kids signed up for all those clubs,” Mrs. Marge explained. “So I started the Cloud Watching Club to handle the overflow.”

  “But I want to throw Frisbees,” complained Neil.

  “Why would anybody want to throw a Frisbee when they could be watching clouds?” asked Mrs. Marge.

  A bunch of blankets were spread out on the grass. Mrs. Marge told us all to lie on our backs and look up at the sky. We were all grumbling, but we did what she told us to do.

  “See the lovely clouds floating overhead?” Mrs. Marge said. “What do they look like to you?”

  They looked like a bunch of clouds to me. What a snoozefest.

  “Ooooh,” oohed Andrea. “That cloud over there looks like a giant bunny rabbit floating in the sky!”

  “You’re right, Andrea!” said Emily, who always thinks Andrea is right.

  “Nah,” said Ryan. “I think it looks like a giraffe.”

  “It looks nothing like a giraffe,” insisted Andrea.

  “I think it looks like a big shoe,” said Alexia.

  “I think it looks like a toilet bowl,” said Neil.

  I looked up at the cloud Andrea was talking about. It didn’t look like a bunny or a giraffe or a big shoe or a toilet bowl. It just looked like a cloud! That’s it!

  “That cloud over there looks like a big guitar floating in the sky,” Alexia said as she pointed at a cloud. I didn’t see it.

  “And that cloud looks like a Frisbee,” said Neil.

  It did not. It didn’t look anything like a Frisbee. None of the clouds looked like anything but clouds! It was ridorkulous. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Look at that one,” I shouted. “That cloud over there looks like the evil Ganon from The Legend of Zelda video game. He was sent to Earth to wipe out all the humans.”

  “Stop trying to scare Emily,” warned Andrea.

  “I’m scared,” said Emily. “Does that mean we’re all going to die?”

  “Yes,” I told her.

  “You’re mean, Arlo!” said Andrea.

  “Look!” I shouted, pointing at the sky. “The evil Ganon has a sword! He’s attacking the other clouds with it! And look, he’s cutting the Frisbee in half. He’s breaking the guitar! And now he’s lopping off the bunny’s head!”

  I made all that stuff up. But Emily jumped off her blanket and ran out of the playground. That girl will fall for anything.

  Andrea was really mad at me.

  “Arlo, you shouldn’t have said those things to scare Emily,” she told me. “I don’t approve of violence.”

  “What do you have against violins?” I asked.

  “Not violins!” said Andrea. “Violence!”

  In the end, I kinda liked being part of the Cloud Watching Club. It was a lot more relaxing than playing hockey underwater or hunting for zombies.

  I love Batman.

  I saw all the Batman movies—Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Batman v Superman. I even watched reruns of the old Batman TV series. I have a collection of Batman action figures and a Batman poster on my bedroom wall. I’m obsessed with Batman!

  One Halloween, I dressed up as the Joker. He’s Batman’s archenemy and my favorite bad guy. So when I found out that Mrs. Marge was starting the Joker Club, I was the first to sign up. Ryan was the second. Like me, he loves everything to do with Batman.

  The first meeting of the Joker Club was in the basement of the school. I thought that was perfect. The Joker is a really weird and creepy guy, so he would probably live in a basement. Ryan and I wandered around for a long time down there until we saw a sign on a door that said THE JOKER CLUB on it. Ryan pulled open the door. Mrs. Marge was in there, of course.

  “Welcome to the Joker Club,” she told us. “The meeting will begin in a few minutes. Take a seat.”

  Nobody else was in there. I guess Ryan and I were the only kids who signed up to be in the Joker Club.

  “This is gonna be so cool!” said Ryan, rubbing his hands together as we sat down. “I love the Joker.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Mrs. Marge put two milk cartons on each of our desks.

  “I don’t want any milk,” I told her.

  “Sorry, there’s a two-drink minimum.”*

  I looked at Ryan, who shrugged. “That was weird,” I said. Suddenly, the lights went off. It was completely dark. And then a white spotlight lit up the brick wall.

  “Heeeerrre’s . . . the Joker!” announced Mrs. Marge.

  I was so excited. Mrs. Marge must have hired a guy dressed up like the Joker to kick off our first meeting. What a great idea!

  But you’ll never believe who walked into the door at that moment.

  Nobody! Doors are made out of wood. Why would you walk into one? I thought we went over that in Chapter One. But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway.

  It was Mrs. Stoker!

  “Good afternoon!” she said. “I just flew in from the coast and boy are my arms tired! Say, did you hear about the cake store that hired a pig? Yeah, it was really good at bacon. Get it? Bacon? Bakin’? But seriously, did you ever notice that crabs never give any money to charity? If you ask me, they are totally shellfish . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “This is the Joker Club. What are you doing here, Mrs. Stoker?”

  “Telling jokes, of course!” she replied. “That’s what the Joker Club is all about. You get to hear my new comedy routine.”

  WHAT?!

  “But I thought we were going to learn all about Batman,” said Ryan.

  “Why would you want to learn about Batman when you could listen to my jokes?” asked Mrs. Stoker.

  Ryan and I sat there while Mrs. Stoker told more jokes.

  “Did you know that bees are actually allergic to pollen?” she told us. “Yeah, it makes them break out in hives. It’s really sad. Speaking of sad, I have to tell you about my friend Bob. The other day, he just evaporated. It’s true! He will be mist. Get it? Missed? Mist?”

  Mrs. Stoker went on and on telling more of her terrible jokes, and we had to laugh at all of them. I thought I was gonna die.

  Note from the Author and Illustrator . . .

  We hope you’re enjoying Mrs. Marge Is in Charge! so far. We have been working very hard writing and illustrating My Weird School books for a long time, so we decided to take a vacation.

  But there was just one problem—who would finish writing this book and drawing the pictures?

  Well, it just so happens that in the last few years an amazing new technology has been developed—artificial intelligence, or “AI.” Now, using AI chatbot software, computers can think and express themselves just like people. All we had to do was tell the chatbot to create the rest of this book in our style. What could go wrong?

  Don’t worry. Nothing has changed. We think the rest of the book will be just like any other My Weird School book. You probably won’t even notice that the next four chapters were created using AI.

  To tell you the truth, artificial intelligence is way more intelligent than us anyway. But we’ll be back to create My Weirdtastic School #6.

  —Dan and Jim

  My name is A.J., and I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that computers are so much smarter than human beings. Because that is what I am thinking about. Computers can store unlimited gigabytes of data. But the tiny, pathetic human peabrain can only store a fraction of that. And the peabrain forgets most of it anyway.*

  I was thinking about such things, and you will never believe who slammed her head against the door at that moment.

  Nobody! Why would a human being slam their head against a door? You could ruin a perfectly good door with your rock-hard but useless peabrain skull. But you will never believe who walked through the doorway at that moment.

  It was Mrs. Marge, the human female who is in charge of extracurricular activities at Ella Mentry School!

  “Welcome to the Toast Club,” she announced in her human voice.

  “Wait a minute,” said the annoying human child Andrea Young. “I signed up for the Butterfly Lovers Club.”

  “Me too,” said her friend Emily, who has no mind of her own.

  “I am sorry,” said Mrs. Marge. “Not enough human children signed up to be in the Butterfly Lovers Club. So I started the Toast Club instead.”

  “But I want to learn about butterflies,” said Andrea.

  “Why would you want to learn about butterflies,” asked Mrs. Marge, “when you can learn about toast?”

  “Toast?” I asked. “What is there to learn about toast?”

  “There are plenty of things to learn about toast,” said Mrs. Marge.

  She informed us that bread was invented in ancient Egypt, but toast dates back to the Greeks.

  “They used toast to praise their gods in hopes for good health,” said Mrs. Marge. “The word ‘toast’ comes from the Latin word ‘tostum,’ which means ‘to burn,’ and blah blah blah blah the toaster was invented in blah blah blah blah and the toaster oven first appeared in blah blah blah blah . . .”

  She went on and on talking about the history of toast.

  “We can make toast with any kind of bread,” said Mrs. Marge. “White bread. Rye bread. Whole wheat bread. Gluten-free bread blah blah blah blah pumpernickel bread blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah . . .”

  She named every kind of bread that exists. What a festival of snooze! It was the most boring half hour in the history of the world.

  “Wow, toast is fascinating!” said Andrea, who was taking notes in a notebook so that if anybody ever mentions toast she can tell them something they do not know.

  “I agree,” said Emily. “I had no idea that toast had such an interesting history.”

  “Hey,” said Ryan, who likes to eat inedible things. “How come when you drop a piece of toast on the floor, it always seems to land with the buttered-side down?”

  “That is an excellent question, Ryan,” said Mrs. Marge.

  “I bet it is because the weight of the butter on one side of the toast pulls it toward the floor,” I guessed.

  “Most people think that,” said Mrs. Marge. “But the butter is spread evenly across the toast, so it really does not affect how it lands. The toast lands buttered-side down because you drop it at an angle, and it only has the chance to turn halfway around by the time it hits the floor blah blah blah blah . . .”

  “Fascinating!” Andrea said as she wrote in her notebook.

  I wish that a truck full of buttered toast would fall on Andrea’s head, but that is not likely to happen because trucks don’t carry toast. Humans make toast at home, and they are constantly dropping it on the floor because they are clumsy oafs.

  We spent a hundred million minutes learning all about toast. Then Mrs. Marge put some pieces of bread into the toaster oven. We toasted them until they were golden brown. Then we spread butter and jam on top of them.

  “I would like to propose a toast,” Mrs. Marge said as she picked up a piece of toast. “A toast . . . to toast.”

  I picked up a piece of toast. Ryan picked up a piece of toast. Michael picked up a piece of toast. Neil picked up a piece of toast. Andrea picked up a piece of toast. Emily picked up a piece of toast.

  In case you were wondering, each of us picked up a piece of toast.

  I tapped my toast against Ryan’s toast. Ryan tapped his toast against Michael’s toast. Michael tapped his toast against Neil’s toast. Neil tapped his toast against Andrea’s toast. Andrea tapped her toast against Emily’s toast. We were all tapping our toast against everybody else’s toast.

  Then we ate the toast.

  The Toast Club is a lot of fun. Perhaps I will go to another meeting, so I can eat more toast.

  Extracurricular Activity Week continued, and Mrs. Marge encouraged us to join the many clubs that small humans like myself can participate in at Ella Mentry School.

  I signed up for the Arm Wrestling Club because arm wrestling is cool. But Mrs. Marge told me that not enough kids signed up for the Arm Wrestling Club, so she put me in the Ant Lovers Club instead. It is a club for students who love ants.

  I signed up for the Bowling Club because bowling is cool. But Mrs. Marge told me that not enough kids signed up for the Bowling Club, so she put me in the Upside Down Club instead. It is a club for students who like to hang upside down.

  I signed up for the Fishing Club because fishing is cool. But Mrs. Marge told me that not enough kids signed up for the Fishing Club, so she put me in the Free Hugs Club instead. It is a club for students who like to go around hugging complete strangers. That was weird.

  I signed up for the Archery Club because shooting arrows at a target is cool. But Mrs. Marge told me that not enough kids signed up for the Archery Club, so she put me in the Squirrel Watching Club instead. It is a club for students who like to go outside and act like they have never seen a squirrel before.

  I signed up for the Kayaking Club because kayaking is cool. But Mrs. Marge told me that not enough kids signed up for the Kayaking Club, so she put me in the Waffle Eating Club instead. It is a club where you sit around eating waffles. Eating the first waffle was fun, but after two or three waffles, I didn’t want to see another waffle for the rest of my life.