****
âCould you possibly be any more boring?â I asked her.
âYouâll feel a lot better once you start eating less junk food,â Mrs. Cooney told us.
âHow about we give up vegetables instead?â I suggested.
âArlo, you probably never even tasted a vegetable,â said Andrea.
âI did too,â I told her. âI tasted one once. Then I spit it out.â
My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that if you eat too many vegetables, you get a disease called vegetitus. So I stay away from that stuff. Besides, green is a weird color. Itâs the same color as boogers. You shouldnât eat stuff thatâs green. Thatâs the first rule of being a kid.
I was so depressed about âSay Good-bye to Sugarâ that I could hardly payattention during social studies, math, reading, and science. I wasnât even excited when Miss Daisy announced that it was time to go to the computer lab to see Mrs. Yonkers. All I could think about was soda pop and junk food.
We had to walk a million hundred miles to the computer lab. Itâs in a trailer in the back of the parking lot, near the woods.
We walked up the ramp to the trailer.
We opened the door.
And youâll never believe what we saw in there.
3
Emily Is a Giant Hamster
There were a bunch of computers in the computer lab, of course! What did you expect to see in a computer lab? Man, are you dumb!
But there was something else in the computer lab, too. It was a wheel, like one of those wheels you see in a hamstercage. Except this one was six feet tall!
âHowdy, yâall!â Mrs. Yonkers said when we opened the door. She wasnât wearing her cheese head anymore. Instead, she was dressed in a jogging outfit and she had on a cowboy hat.
âWow!â I said. âThatâs a big wheel!â
âEverything is bigger in Texas,â said Mrs. Yonkers.
âWhat does it do?â asked Emily.
âIt generates electricity. When I run inside the wheel, it powers the computer.â
âWhy not just plug the computer into the wall socket?â asked Neil the nude kid.
âThis saves energy,â Mrs. Yonkersexplained. âYou burn less oil, and you have lower electric bills. Plus, I get exercise. Itâs a win-win!â
âItâs cool!â we all agreed.
Mrs. Yonkers told us that she likes to use technology to solve problems. She even started her own computer company called NERDâNew Electronic Research Development.
Mrs. Yonkers showed us a virtual reality helmet, night vision goggles, and some other cool stuff she invented.
âAnd here is a founding member of the company,â she said as she pulled a big turtle out of a cage. âThis is my friend Speedy.â
âHeâs adorable!â said Andrea, who never misses the chance to brownnose a grown-up.
âWhatâs that thing on his back?â asked Ryan.
âItâs a tiny camera,â said Mrs. Yonkers. âI call it Turtle Cam. While Speedy moves around the room, weâll be able to followhis progress on my website.â
âCan we see how it works?â asked Michael.
âIâm still ironing out the bugs,â said Mrs. Yonkers.
âPlease? Please? Please? Please?â everybody begged.
If you want anything from a grown-up, all you have to do is say âPleaseâ until they canât stand it anymore. Thatâs the first rule of being a kid.
âWellâ¦okay,â Mrs. Yonkers said, putting Speedy on the floor. âWho wants to run on the wheel to turn on the computer?â
âMe! Me! Me! Me!â everybody yelled.
Mrs. Yonkers did eenie meenie mineymoe. The last moe was Emily, the lucky stiff.
Emily climbed inside the wheel and started running. The wheel turned around, but the computer didnât turn on because Emily runs about as fast as Speedy the turtle.
âFaster, Emily! Faster!â we all yelled.
The computer screen
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