2
Smarty-pants and Dumbhead
âYippee!â I shouted.
âHooray!â shouted my friends Ryan and Michael. We all whooped and hollered and high-fived each other. Finally we could go to Fizz Ed and leave all that reading and writing and arithmetic behind for a change. Miss Daisy gave each of us aname tag so Miss Small, the Fizz Ed teacher, would know who we were.
âWhatâs Fizz Ed?â asked this girl who has red hair named Emily (well, actually the girl is named Emily, not her hair). âAre we going to learn about soda pop?â
Me and Ryan and Michael slapped our own heads. We couldnât believe it. Thatwas like the stupidest thing anybody ever said in the history of the world.
âFizz Ed is gym class, dumbhead!â I told Emily. âEverybody knows that.â
Emily looked all upset like she was going to start crying. That girl cries at any old thing.
âA.J.!â Miss Daisy said with her mean face. âHold your tongue!â
âOkay.â
So I stuck out my tongue and held onto it. Everybody laughed. Well, everybody but Emily and Miss Daisy.
The whole class lined up in size order so Miss Daisy could walk us over to the gym, which is all the way at the other end of the school. Ryan was the line leader.
âI bet Miss Small will let us play football and baseball and hockey and dodgeball,â Michael whispered to me as we walked. Michael and Ryan are really good at sports. Theyâre the best athletes in the second grade.
âSports are cool,â I said.
âExcept for curling,â said Michael. âThatâs just dumb.â
âThatâs not even a sport,â I said. âCurling is what girls do to their hair.â
This girl with curly brown hair namedAndrea Young must have heard me, because she laughed even though I didnât say anything funny.
âCurling is too a sport,â she said. âI saw it in a book about the Olympics. They take this big rock and slide it down the ice while somebody sweeps the ice in front of it with a broom.â
Andrea thinks she is so smart. She probably goes home after school and reads the dictionary for fun. That way she can brag about how much she knows.
âYou donât know anything about sports,â I told Andrea.
âDo too,â Andrea said back at me. âItake a dance class every day after school. Iâm learning ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, and clog dancing.â
Andrea is one of those kids who takes lessons in everything. All she has to do is sneeze and her mother probably signs her up for sneezing lessons.
âDancing is not a sport,â I said. âDancing is dumb.â
âA little less chitchatting in the hall, please,â said Miss Daisy as we walked to the gym.
âDo we really have to go to Fizz Ed, Miss Daisy?â asked Andrea. âIsnât it more important for us to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic?â
âStrong mind, strong body,â said Miss Daisy.
Ha-ha-ha! Smarty-pants Andrea Young was gonna to have to do something she didnât like for a change. She wouldnât be the best in the class for a change. Welcome to my world, Andrea!
I couldnât wait to beat Andrea at basketball. Beat her at baseball. Beat her at football. This was going to be the greatest day in my life!
Andrea Young probably doesnât even know the difference between a football and a footprint.
Finally, after walking about a hundred miles, we reached the gym. Itâs this giant room with a basketball hoop at each end.
âMiss Small?â called Miss Daisy. âAre you here?â
Nobody answered, but there was an echo in the gym so we could hear Miss Daisyâs words over and over again when they bounced off the walls.
âMiss Small?â¦Miss Small?â¦Miss Small?â¦Miss Small?â¦Are you here?â¦Are you here?â¦Are you here?â
It was cool.
âHello!â I yelled.
The gym yelled back,
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