some orange stuff in his hair but left thin, dark lines in it so his head looked like a basketball. Andrea and Emily put colored ribbons and bows all over their hair.
Even Mr. Granite had crazy hair. He showed up with purple dreadlocks. It was hilarious. You should have been there!
After we put our backpacks away and pledged the allegiance, Mr. Granite said it was time for math. I hate math. Why do we have to learn math when there are calculators in the world? That’s like walking ten miles to a store when you can take a car.
It’s really hard to pay attention to math when your teacher has purple dreadlocks. In fact, it was hard to learn anything that morning because we were all looking at each other’s crazy hair. My mohawk was itching, too.
After a million hundred hours, it was time for lunch. And then, of course, it was the best time of the day.
Recess!
Recess rocks! It’s the only thing I like about school. We get to go out on the playground and do whatever we want. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that when you go to heaven, it’s like recess all the time.
I went to play on the swings with Ryan, Michael, and Neil the nude kid. Andrea and her girly friends hung around so they could annoy us, like always.
So there we were, minding our own business on the swings, when this lady walked over from across the street with yellow hair. Well, her hair was yellow, not the street. It would be weird if streets were yellow.
Anyway, the hair on both sides of her head was curled up into buns like Princess Leia from Star Wars . It looked like she was wearing earmuffs. Or maybe she taped dinner rolls to her head. She looked weird.
“Hi kids!” she said. “My name is Elizabeth. But you can call me Mrs. Lizzy.”
We told Mrs. Lizzy our names. Andreaand Emily said they liked her hairstyle.
“Are you Princess Leia?” asked Michael.
“Are those dinner rolls taped to your head?” I asked. “Or are you wearing earmuffs?”
“Goodness no!” Mrs. Lizzy said. “This is my real hair.”
“Did you do that for Crazy-Hair Day?” asked Ryan.
“No, I wear my hair like this every day,” said Mrs. Lizzy.
If you ask me, she should cut her hair and get earmuffs instead.
“Are you a new teacher?” asked Andrea, who never misses a chance to brownnose a teacher.
“In a way, yes,” Mrs. Lizzy told us. “The Board of Education decided that kids don’t learn enough in school. So they started the ‘Recess Enrichment Program.’ That means you kids will get to learn new things during recess. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“Yes!” said the girls.
“No!” said the boys.
What?! We have to learn stuff during recess? What’s the deal with that ?
Mrs. Lizzy told us boys to cheer up. She said that the Recess Enrichment Program will be fun and that she was going to teach us lots of cool things.
Bummer in the summer! It wasn’t fair, if you ask me. Recess is supposed to be forburning off energy and running around. Nobody told us anything about a Recess Enrichment Program.
This was the worst thing to happen in my life since TV Turnoff Week.
4
An Important Life Skill
Mother’s Day was coming up on Sunday. Mrs. Lizzy said that for our first recess enrichment project we should make something for our mothers.
“I’m going to cook my mom breakfast in bed,” said Andrea.
“How are you gonna do that?” I asked.“Do you have a stove in your bed?”
“No, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to make her breakfast on the stove and then bring it to her in bed.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s different.”
“My mom loves to eat breakfast in her pajamas,” Emily said.
“She should put her breakfast on a plate ,” I told Emily. “Your mom is weird.”
Emily looked all mad, like she was going to start crying. As usual.
“No, dumbhead!” Andrea said to me, rolling her eyes again. “Emily’s mom doesn’t put the breakfast in her pajamas! She eats it while she’s
Cathy Perkins
Bernard O'Mahoney
Ramsey Campbell
Seth Skorkowsky
PAMELA DEAN
Danielle Rose-West
D. P. Lyle
Don Keith
Lili Valente
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