Mrs. Patty Is Batty! by Dan Gutman

1
Mischief Night
    My name is A.J. and I hate school.
    Well, I have to tell the truth. There is one thing about school that I really love .
    Dismissal! That’s when we get to go home!
    â€œDon’t forget to wear your Halloween costumes tomorrow,” Mrs. Patty cackledover the loudspeaker just before the three o’clock bell rang. “Halloween is my favorite holiday!”
    She’s not kidding. Mrs. Patty celebrates Halloween all year long. There are always cobwebs and spiders covering her desk. She wears earrings that look like little skeletons. And she always has candy in her office. Lots of candy.
    I like Mrs. Patty. She’s the secretary at Ella Mentry School. That means she sits in the front office all day and makes announcements over the loudspeaker. “Friday is pizza day!” she will say. Or “Miss Lazar, please mop up the throw up in the vomitorium.” Or “Will the childrenwho left their jackets in the playground please remove their clothes.”
    Being a school secretary is like being a DJ. That is a cool job.
    I grabbed a piece of candy and ran out the front door of Ella Mentry School with my friends Ryan and Michael. Free at last!
    â€œWhat should we do for mischief night tonight?” asked Ryan, who once ate a piece of the seat cushion on the school bus.
    â€œLet’s T.P. somebody’s house,” said Michael, who never ties his shoes.
    â€œYeah!”
    I don’t know if you know this or not, but the night before Halloween is mischiefnight. That’s the night you go out and do mischief, so it has the perfect name. And T.P. stands for toilet paper. On mischief night you go out and throw toilet paper all over people’s trees. That’s the first rule of being a kid.
    â€œWhose house should we T.P.?” I asked.
    â€œHow about Miss Daisy’s house?” Ryan suggested. (Miss Daisy is our teacher.)
    â€œNah,” Michael said, “we’d get in big trouble.”
    â€œHow about Mr. Klutz’s ho
use?” Ryan suggested. (Mr. Klutz is our principal.)
    â€œNah,” Michael said, “we’d get in even bigger trouble.”
    Speaking of trouble, guess who ran byus at that very moment? It was the most annoying person in the history of the world, little Miss Perfect Andrea Young. She is in our class and has curly brown hair. She thinks she is so smart.
    â€œWhat’s the rush, Andrea?” asked Ryan.
    â€œI have to finish my homework before ballet class,” Andrea said.
    â€œWhy don’t you do your homework after ballet class?” Michael asked.

    â€œAfter ballet class I have soccer and my cooking class.”
    Andrea takes classes in everything. If they gave a class in going to the bathroom, she would take that class so she could get better at it. I hate her.
    But seeing Andrea gave me the greatest idea in the history of the world.
    â€œLet’s T.P. Andrea’s house!” I told the guys.
    â€œA.J., you’re a genius!” said Ryan.

2
The T.P.ing of Andrea’s House
    After dinner I told my parents I was going down the street to Ryan’s house. Ryan told his parents he was going down the street to my house. But me and Ryan didn’t go over to each other’s houses at all. We both went to Andrea’s house. Our parents didn’t have to know we weregoing out for mischief night. But Michael couldn’t come. He was grounded for pulling the arms off his sister’s doll.
    Me and Ryan each brought a roll of toilet paper in our backpacks.
    â€œThis is gonna be great!” Ryan whispered as we hid behind a car across the street from Andrea’s house. “Andrea’s gonna wake up in the morning and find the trees in her yard are covered in toilet paper!”
    I couldn’t stop giggling.
    â€œIt will be the greatest day in the history of the world,” I said.

    It was starting to get dark out, but we still had to be careful because we didn’t want to