1
All about Snot
My name is A.J. and I hate snot.
Isnât snot gross? Liquid gunk comes out of your nose ! How could it not be gross?
Last week my teacher, Mr. Granite, who is from another planet, came to school sneezing, wheezing, and coughing. His nose was red. He looked terrible.
âAre you sick, Mr. Granite?â asked this crybaby girl named Emily.
âMy head is all stuffed up,â said Mr. Granite, and then he blew his nose into a tissue.
Well, he didnât really blow his nose into the tissue. If he did that, he wouldnât have a nose anymore. He blew the snot from his nose into a tissue. Then he threw the tissue into the garbage can.
Ewwww! I thought I was gonna throw up. Thatâs almost as disgusting as blowing the snot straight into the garbage can! *
âExcuse me,â Mr. Granite said, âI need to go get more tissues.â
While Mr. Granite was out of the room, the class had a very interesting discussion.
âIf your head is all stuffed up,â asked Alexia, this girl who rides a skateboard all the time, âI guess that means your head is full of snot.â
âNo, itâs not,â I said. âGet it? No, itâs snot?â
Nobody laughed at my joke, so I pretended that I never made it. If you ever tell a joke and nobody laughs, just pretend that you never made the joke and keep talking. Thatâs the first rule of being a kid.
âA head canât be full of snot,â I explained, âbecause if it was full of snot, there would be no room for your brain.â
âThat wouldnât be a problem with you ,â said Andrea, this annoying girl with curly brown hair, âbecause you donât have a brain!â
âOh, snap!â said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isnât food.
âYour face doesnât have a brain,â I told Andrea.
I knew that didnât make any sense, but I couldnât think of anything else to say.
âMaybe our heads are always making more snot,â said Michael, who never ties his shoes.
âOr maybe our brain takes up half of our head, and the other half is made of snot,â said Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
âMaybe our brains turn into snot as we get older,â I suggested. âSo when we get really old, our heads are completely full of snot.â
We had to end this discussion because Mr. Granite came back into the class with a box of tissues. He was still sniffling as we pledged the allegiance and did Word of the Day.
âLetâs get to work,â said Mr. Granite. âTurn to page twenty-three in your math books.â
Ugh. I hate math. Iâll do anything to get out of math.
Mr. Granite made a big honking noise with his nose.
âMaybe you should go home, Mr. Granite,â I suggested. âYouâll feel a lot better.â
(And we wonât have to do math!)
âNice try, A.J.,â he replied. âPage twenty-three is my favorite math lesson. But every time I try to work on it with you kids, we get called to an assembly. Well, I checked, and thereâs no assembly today. Iâm not going to let a little cold stop me fromââ
He didnât get the chance to finish his sentence because an announcement came over the loudspeaker.
âAll classes, please report to the all-purpose room for a surprise assembly.â
âNot again!â shouted Mr. Granite.
He was so mad, I thought he might jump out the window.
2
No More Mr. Nice Guy
We had to walk a million hundred miles to the all-purpose room for the surprise assembly. I donât know why they call it the all -purpose room, because you canât use it for bungee jumping.
Our principal, Mr. Klutz, was up on the stage with our vice principal, Mrs. Jafee, and our school counselor, Dr. Brad. Theyâre usually smiling and giving us high fives when we walk in for an assembly. But not this time. All three of them had on
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