What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Finding half a worm!
It’s not much fun telling jokes to yourself, so I got tired of that pretty fast. But as I looked in the mirror, I remembered how great I am at making funny faces.
So I practiced crossing my eyes and sticking my tongue out. I practiced pushing my nose up and making a pig face. I practiced puffing up my cheeks and pulling my eyelids out of shape. No doubt about it: I was a pretty funny kid.
But after a while my face got tired. And my eyes started to hurt from crossing them so much.
So I looked on my bookshelf until I found this book of jokes I got at a book fair. And I sat on my bed and I read the whole book. Then I lay down on my stomach and read it again. The whole book.
I guess being so funny had made me tired, because I fell asleep with my face in the joke book. And the next thing I knew, Mom was calling to me to come downstairs for dinner.
When I went into the kitchen, my dad smiled at me and said, “Hey, Jake! What’s new?”
And I said, “The moon.”
Dad said, “The moon?”
And I said, “Yup. There’s a new moon every month.”
Dad and Mom laughed, and Dad said, “That’s a good one, Jake.”
Abby said, “It’s not as funny as toodle.”
We all sat at the table and I looked at the food. Right away I said, “Hey, Mom, know what they make from lazy cows? Meatloaf! Get it? Loaf? Like lazy? I just made that up! Pretty funny, huh?”
Mom smiled and nodded as she passed the potatoes. “Yes, pretty funny, Jake.”
Then I said, “Hey, Dad, know how come the farmer ran a steamroller across his fields?”
Dad smiled and shook his head. So I said, “Because he wanted to grow some mashed potatoes!”
Dad laughed and said, “Mashed potatoes! That’s a good one!”
All during dinner the jokes just kept on coming. It was like anything I looked at turned into a joke. Sometimes I remembered jokes, and sometimes I made up new ones. I even made my fish face at Abby when she was drinking her milk. Which made a big mess. But that was funny too!
When we had dessert, I said, “Hey, Dad, do you use your right hand or your left hand when you eat ice cream?”
“I guess I use my right hand.”
And I said, “That’s funny—I always use a spoon!”
I was hilarious!
When I asked to be excused, Dad said, “You sure are Mr. Funny Bone tonight, Jake. How’d all this get started?”
And like a dope I said, “Oh, it started at school.”
Wrong thing to say.
Right away Dad frowned. He said, “Well, I hope you’re getting it all out of your system before tomorrow morning. Being funny like this at school isn’t a good idea, Jake. You understand that, right?”
And I nodded and I said, “Oh, I know that.” And that was true. Because I knew it wasn’t a good idea.
No, being funny at school on Tuesday wasn’t a good idea: It was a great idea!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Christmas in April
On Tuesday morning Miss Bruce piled on the work. All my practice being Mr. Funny Bone wasn’t any help at all. We had so much to do that I didn’t have a chance to tell a single joke.
Plus, Miss Bruce was acting grumpier and grumpier.
When we were doing some math work, Carlos got up and started walking to the back of the room.
Miss Bruce looked at him and said, “Carlos, please stay in your seat and keep working. Math time is almost over.”
He held up his pencil. “Gotta sharpen this.”
Miss Bruce said, “I’m sure it’s fine for now. Please keep working.”
Carlos said, “But my pencil has to be extra sharp when I do math. It helps me make good numbers.”
Miss Bruce said, “What did I tell you to do, Carlos?”
Carlos said, “You told me to sit down. But I need my pencil sharper. Honest.”
Miss Bruce said, “You’re wasting time, Carlos, and you have to finish all your math problems. So sit. Get back to work. Now.”
Carlos walked slowly back to his chair and sat down.
Right away Annie reached across the table and handed Carlos a pencil.
Miss Bruce looked at Annie and she said, “Annie! What are you doing?”
Annie froze. She couldn’t speak.
Miss Bruce said, “Annie, answer me!”
So Annie sort of hunched her shoulders and said, “I had an extra pencil. A sharp one.”
Miss Bruce frowned, and I thought she was going to start yelling. But she said, “Fine. That was very nice of you, Annie. Now, get back to work, both of you. Because anyone who does not finish all the math problems will have to stay in during recess.”
Miss Bruce was acting so grumpy that I kind of got scared again. It was like my dad had said: Trying to be funny at school didn’t seem like a good idea. I wanted to tell some jokes, but I didn’t want to run in front of a train. And at that moment Miss Bruce seemed a lot like a locomotive.
So I finished my math problems, and so did everyone else. Then Miss Bruce told us to take out our spelling workbooks. And we did. And then Miss Bruce told us to turn to page 62. And we did. And we got right to work.
The spelling work was easy. It’s the kind of work that leaves plenty of room inside your head for other stuff. So I started thinking about how funny I had been at dinner the night before.
And sitting there copying over words that end with “tch,” I remembered something I’d forgotten to practice at home. Something very funny. Something I’m great at: noises.
Like my mouth-pops. I can make this really loud POP by pulling my tongue off the roof of my mouth. It’s a great noise.
And I also make a good duck sound. I can quack by pushing air out of one side of my mouth. Plus I can laugh sort of like Donald Duck.
But my best sound is the one I always practice when Willie and I have sleepovers. And that’s burping. Willie’s a pretty good burper too, but I’m a better burper.
To make a big burp, all you have to do is gulp some air down into your stomach. And then you let it come back out as a burp. Simple.
So I was sitting there on that Tuesday morning doing my spelling work. Plus thinking about burping.
I wrote patch. And then I took a gulp of air.
I wrote catch. And I took a gulp of air.
I wrote latch. And I took a gulp of air.
I wrote pitch. Another gulp of air.
I wrote ditch. And I took one more gulp of air.
It wasn’t until I took that fifth gulp of air that I remembered something. I wasn’t at a sleepover at Willie’s house. I was at school.
I straightened up in my chair and leaned back a little. It felt like I had a balloon stuffed under my T-shirt. But it wasn’t a balloon. It was my stomach. I tapped on it with my pencil. It made a hollow sound, sort of like a tom-tom.
And that’s when Miss Bruce came right up behind me and said, “Are you all done with your work, Jake?”
I turned around real fast and looked up into her face. And I said, “Nope.”
That’s what I tried to say. But I actually said, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.”
It was the longest, loudest burp of my life!
The classroom was completely quiet. Everyone stared at me. Including Miss Bruce.
Don’t ask me how I got the idea to do what I did next, because I don’t know. There was Miss Bruce with her arms folded, looking down at me through her huge black glasses, and what did I do? I patted my chest, and I crossed my eyes, and I said, “Pardon me! It must have been that frog I ate for breakfast!”
Miss Bruce stood there. She was trying to get mad. She wanted to frown and yell and shake her finger at me and tell me that I had been terribly, terribly rude.
But she couldn’t. I was just too funny. Plus I was a cutie.
So what did Miss Bruce do? She smiled! And it wasn’t a little smile. It was a great big
smile with teeth and everything. It was almost a grin. Every kid in the class saw that smile. And they also heard her giggle.
Miss Bruce’s teacher at college had said, “Don’t smile until Christmas.” On that April morning, I was Santa Claus. Christmas had arrived!
After Miss Bruce smiled and giggled, everybody laughed a little. Then Miss Bruce covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head. And she tried to look serious again.
She said, “Let’s not get silly, class. Please keep working on your spelling.” And it almost worked. We all started to quiet down.
Then Willie burped almost as loud as I had and said, “I had two frogs for breakfast!”
All the kids laughed at that, much louder, and Susan Tuttle said, “Oooh! Gross!”
When a class starts laughing, it’s sort of like when a volcano begins to rumble. Because it doesn’t seem like much at first, but it’s still dangerous.
Miss Bruce clapped her hands twice and said, “Class, that’s enough!”
But the class didn’t think it was enough. We were just getting started.
Link Baxter stood up and put his hands up under his arms and started hopping around the back of the room. “Hey, look! Look! I’m a frog. Ribbet! Ribbet!”
Miss Bruce clapped again. “Link, sit down! All of you, be quiet!”
No one was listening. Willie was still burping. Link was still hopping around the back of the room.
Then Ted tossed a ball of paper at Ben, and Ben threw it back to him. Carlos waved his arms and called, “Hey, Ted! Ted! Over here!”
And they started to play keep-away while Annie and Meaghan called out, “Yay, Ben! Yay, Carlos! Hey, toss it to us, too!”
Miss Bruce shouted, “QUIET!”
But it kept getting louder and louder and louder. Our room had turned into an erupting volcano of laughing and shouting and goofing around.
And once that kind of volcano gets going, there’s usually only one thing that can stop it: a real teacher.
Except there is one other way to plug the volcano. I saw it happen that morning.
Because if a student teacher stamps her feet and screams, “Stop it! Stop it!” and then bursts out crying and runs out of the classroom and slams the door, the volcano shuts down. And the room gets quiet.
Very, very quiet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Judge Brattle
Mrs. Brattle walked into the room two minutes after Miss Bruce had run out.
Twenty-three kids were doing spelling work.
Silently.
No one even looked up at Mrs. Brattle. No one dared.
Mrs. Brattle sat down at the front of the room. She tapped a pencil on her desk and said, “Please stop working.”
When we were all looking at her, she said, “Now, who will tell me what happened in here? With Miss Bruce.”
Mrs. Brattle was wearing a white shirt and a black sweater. She looked like a lady judge on one of those TV shows. Judge Brattle. She tapped her pencil on her desk again and looked around the room. She said, “I’m waiting.…”
I wanted to stand up and say, “Your Honor, it was all my fault. I’m just too funny. And I knew that Miss Bruce was a secret giggler. And I didn’t mean to burp, but after I did, I said that thing about the frog. And that’s what got everything so crazy. And I’m sorry that I’m so hilarious.”
But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything.
Instead, Marsha McCall raised her hand. And when Mrs. Brattle called on her, Marsha started talking. And she talked in questions like she always does. She said, “Well, we were working on our spelling lessons? Because you know how it’s Tuesday? And you know Miss Bruce? How she started laughing after Jake burped? Well, you know how it’s hard to stop laughing sometimes? Don’t you think maybe that’s what happened? That everybody couldn’t stop laughing?”
Marsha said a lot of words, but Mrs. Brattle only heard three of them. Mrs. Brattle turned and looked at me. And she said, “‘After Jake burped?’ Did Marsha just say ‘after Jake burped’? Tell me a little more about that part of the story, Jake.”
So I said, “I didn’t mean to. But I did. Burp. And it was a big burp too. And then I said something funny.”
Mrs. Brattle raised her eyebrows. She said, “Something funny?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess it was funny. I said it must have been the frog I ate for breakfast.”
The corners of Mrs. Brattle’s mouth wiggled a little, but she didn’t smile. She said, “I see. And then what happened?”
“It just started to get silly. In the room. After Miss Bruce smiled. Because she never smiled at all until then. Not even once. And then she laughed a little too. And then… it got loud. That’s all.”
I guess I could have told Mrs. Brattle how Ted and Ben had been throwing stuff and how the girls had been yelling and how Willie had kept burping and Link kept hopping around.
But I didn’t. Because I knew none of that would have happened if I hadn’t been so funny. It was all my fault.
I guess that’s what Mrs. Brattle thought too. Because she stood up and said, “Class, Mrs. Reed is on her way here. While she’s here, I want you to finish your spelling and then you may do some silent reading. Silent reading.”
Then she turned and looked at me. She said, “Jake, stand up. You’re coming with me.”
As we walked out of the courtroom, Judge Brattle didn’t smile.
And neither did I.
CHAPTER NINE
No More Clowning
I thought Judge Brattle was taking me to jail. Which would have been the principal’s office.
So I was surprised when she marched right past the office. Instead, she stopped at a door marked TEACHERS’ ROOM. She opened the door and said, “In here, Jake.”
I’d never been in the teachers’ room before. It was pretty nice in there. There was a big couch and a refrigerator. There was a little table in front of the couch with some magazines on it. One wall was covered with a huge bulletin board. Which was kind of messy. There was a big bookcase. There was even a Coke machine. Definitely the best room in the whole school.
And sitting at the big table in the middle of the room was Miss Bruce. With a box of tissues. And a red nose.
Miss Bruce’s big glasses were next to the box of tissues. Without her glasses on, Miss Bruce looked like she was in high school. Just a girl with puffy eyes and a runny nose.
Mrs. Brattle pulled out a chair for me across from Miss Bruce. She walked around the table and sat down next to her student teacher.
Then Mrs. Brattle said, “Jake, is there something you want to say to Miss Bruce?”
I wanted to say, “Knock, knock.” Because Miss Bruce looked like she needed a joke to cheer her up. But I knew that wasn’t a good idea. So I said what Mrs. Brattle wanted me to. I said, “I’m sorry I was so funny in class. And I’m sorry I made you giggle. By being so funny.”
Miss Bruce dabbed at her eyes and said, “It’s okay, Jake. I’m sorry I got so upset. I didn’t want to. And I shouldn’t have. But it’s all over now. So it’s okay.”
Mrs. Brattle shook her head and said, “Actually, it’s not okay, Miss Bruce. Jake shouldn’t have been trying to do anything except be good and get his work done. Right, Jake?” I nodded. “And if you make a rude noise by mistake, then all you need to say is ‘Excuse me.’ Is that clear?” I nodded again. Mrs. Brattle narrowed her eyes and looked right into my face. “Jake, it was a mistake, right? When you burped?”
And I looked right back into Mrs. Brattle’s eyes. And I was so glad that I could tell the truth, because Judge Brattle would have been able to tell I was lying. I said, “Yes. I didn’t burp on purpose.”
Mrs. Brattle nodded. “I’m glad to know that, at least. But the silliness has got to stop. Now. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. No more silliness.”
Mrs. Brattle said, “All right, then. Miss Bruce, is there anything else you want to say?”
Miss Bruce shook her hea
d. She looked a lot better. But I could still tell she had been crying. She said, “No. Nothing else.”
Then Mrs. Brattle said, “Jake, how about you? Anything else?”
It was one of those times when I should have known to keep my mouth shut. I should have just shaken my head and sat there looking scared. Or maybe I should have whispered “No, thank you,” and folded my hands in my lap. But I didn’t.
I looked right at Miss Bruce and I said, “Miss Bruce, how come you never smiled until today? Was that because of what your teacher said? About Christmas?”
Oops. BIG oops! The second I said that I knew I had made a major goof.
Miss Bruce’s eyes opened wide. And so did Mrs. Brattle’s. They both looked at me. And then they looked at each other. And then back at me. Mrs. Brattle folded her arms.
And I knew they knew. They knew I had heard them talking that day in the library.
Miss Bruce sat up straight in her chair. Even without the big glasses, her eyes were plenty scary. She said, “Why… why you little sneak! You were spying on me!” I was glad she was over on the other side of the big table.
I gulped and said real fast, “No, really, I wasn’t spying! That day in the library? I didn’t mean to hear you talking. I didn’t do it on purpose. I was just sitting there reading Robin Hood, and you came to where I was, and I was afraid I’d get in trouble for sitting in the back, and then you started talking. You just started talking! I tried not to listen. But I heard you anyway. I didn’t mean to. And I didn’t tell anyone about it. Honest! And I’m sorry.” I was looking back and forth between their faces.
I could tell they believed me. But I still felt like Miss Bruce was going to jump over the table and come after me.
Mrs. Brattle took charge. She said, “Seems like you have quite a lot to be sorry about today, Jake. But I think Miss Bruce and I understand the situation. And, if Miss Bruce will accept your apology, then so will I, and we’ll just put all of this business behind us. All right, Miss Bruce?”