1
Little Miss Perfect
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
It was Monday morning. I had just walked into Mr. Granite’s third-grade class. Everybody was putting stuff into their cubbies. My friends Ryan and Michael were talking about a football game they watched over the weekend.Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair, was talking with her friend Emily about jewelry.
“Do you like my new necklace?” Andrea asked Emily. “It says ‘LOVE’ on the back.”
“It’s really shiny,” Emily said, “and it goes so nicely with your skirt.”
“I love to accessorize!” Andrea said.
Ugh. Girls are so annoying. I didn’t even know what “accessorize” meant, but it was obviously some girly thing that girls do.
“G’day, mates!” said Mr. Granite. “Take out your reading log.”
Reading log?
I don’t have a reading log. Who wants to read a log? How would you write on a log,anyway? I guess you’d have to carve into it with a knife. But how would I carry a log to school? My backpack is heavy enough without having to put a log in there.
“I don’t have a—” I started to say.
“He means your notebook, dumbhead,” Andrea whispered to me, rolling her eyes.
“I knew that,” I lied.
The Human Homework Machine thinks she is sooooooo smart. Me and the guys call her Little Miss Perfect. For fun, Andrea reads the dictionary.
What is her problem? Why can’t a reading log fall on her head?
Actually, I didn’t have to take out my reading log after all. Because at thatmoment, the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. There was a knock on the door.
Well, that’s not the amazing part, because doors get knocked on all the time. The amazing part was what happened next.
“A.J.,” Mr. Granite said, “will you please answer the door?”
“How can I answer the door?” I asked. “Doors don’t talk.”
“ I’ll do it,” said Andrea, rolling her eyes again.
Little Miss Perfect opened the door. The school secretary, Mrs. Patty, was standing there.
“Mr. Granite,” she said, “will you please send A.J. to Mr. Klutz’s office?”
“Oooooooooooooooooooooh!” everybody oooooohed.
“A.J.’s in trouble !” said Michael, who never ties his shoes.
“What did you do this time, A.J.?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food.
“Did you rob a bank?” asked Neil, whowe call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
“Maybe you’ll finally get kicked out of school, Arlo,” said Andrea, rubbing her hands together. *
Andrea calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.
“Your face should get kicked out of school,” I told her.
I thought about all the bad things I had done recently. Maybe it was the time I put a worm in Emily’s sneaker during recess. Maybe it was the time I wrote KICK ME on a piece of paper and taped it to Andrea’sback when she wasn’t paying attention. I must have done something really horrible to be sent to Mr. Klutz’s office.
Bummer in the summer! I wanted to run away to Antarctica and go live with the penguins. Penguins are cool. They never get sent to the principal’s office.
I walked really slowly down the hall. The slower you walk, the longer it takes to get anywhere. If you walk slow enough, by the time you get to the principal’s office, he might forget the bad thing that you did. So always walk to the principal’s office really slowly. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
Finally, after about a million hundredhours, I reached Mr. Klutz’s office.
I put my hand on the doorknob.
I turned the doorknob.
I pulled open the door.
And you’ll never believe the amazing thing I saw in there.
I’m not gonna tell you what it was.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to read the next chapter first. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you!
2
The Genius
I knew you’d keep reading!
When I opened the door to Mr. Klutz’s office, Mr. Klutz was in there. Well, duh! Who else would be in
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