library?â
âMaybe it just grew in here over the summer,â guessed Michael.
âTrees donât grow in libraries,â said Andrea, as if she knows anything about trees.
âThey must have built it,â said Emily.
âYou donât build trees, dumbhead,â I told Emily,and she looked all hurt like she was going to cry.
The tree wasreally cool. Some of us started to climb it, but Miss Daisy said we had to get off because it was time for library period to start.
âWhereâs the new librarian?â Ryanasked. We were all looking around, but we didnât see Mrs. Roopy anywhere.
Then, suddenly, that army guy with the wig poked his head out of the tree house. He came down the ladder. I think it was a he, anyway. He looked a little like a lady dressed like an army guy.
When he got to the bottom, the army guy with the wig stood all straight and proud at attention. He gave us a salute.
âAre you Mrs. Roopy?â I asked.
âCertainly not,â the army guy said. âMy name is George Washington. I am the first president of the United States and father of our country.â
3
George Washingtonâs Teeth
Iâm no dumbhead. My mom told me that George Washington had wooden teeth. So this army guy with the wig couldnât be George Washington unless he had wooden teeth.
âIf youâre really George Washington, letâs see your teeth,â I said. The army guy with the wig reached into his pocket andpulled out a set of teeth. Then he wound a little thing on it and the teeth started chattering up and down in his hand.
Emily took one look at the teeth and ran out of the room crying. That girl cries at anything.
âWow!â I said. âMaybe he is George Washington. Those teeth are cool! I wish I had wooden teeth.â
âYou canât fool me,â Andrea Young said. âYouâre not George Washington. Youâre Mrs. Roopy, the new librarian, dressed up to look like George Washington. Youâre supposed to read stories to us and help us use the computers.â
âComputers?â George Washington said, his forehead all wrinkly. âI donât knowwhat youâre talking about, young lady. This is the year 1790. Computers havenât been invented yet.â
No matter what we said, the army guy with the wig insisted that he was really George Washington. He read us a story about when he was a boy and he chopped down a cherry tree. Then he showed us a bunch of books about the United States. All through library period, the army guy with the wig said that he was GeorgeWashington. After a while, we started calling him George Washington.
âGeneral Washington,â I asked, âmay I go to the bathroom?â Everybody laughed even though I didnât say anything funny. Kids think anything to do with bathrooms is funny. If you want to make your friends laugh, all you have to do is stick your face in their face and say either âbathroomâ or âunderwear.â It works every time.
âIâm sorry,â George Washington said. âThis is the year 1790. Bathrooms have not been invented yet.â
It wasnât an emergency or anything, so I waited. We were allowed to check out any book we wanted from the library. I took out a book about jet fighter planesbecause it had cool pictures in it.
For a president, this George Washington guy seemed to know a lot about finding books in the library and checking them out.
It was time to go to lunch. We all had to salute George Washington as we left the library.
âHey, how come you chopped down that cherry tree, anyhow?â I asked him as we left the library.
âI cannot tell a lie,â he said. âI needed some wood for my wooden teeth.â Then he showed us his chattering teeth again. Iâm still not sure if that army guy with the wig was George Washington or not. But he was weird.
4
Dumbheads
I took a seat in the lunchroom next to Ryan
Justin Halpern
Bonnie Bryant
Dyanne Davis
Aditi Khorana
Jessie Keane
Ariel Tachna
Nathan Jones
Susannah McFarlane
Lois Peterson
Caitlin Ricci & Cari Z.