Free Ms. LaGrange Is Strange! by Dan Gutman

1
A Pretty Normal Lunch
    My name is A.J. and I hate school.
    â€œWhich do you hate more,” my friend Ryan asked me, “school or vegetables?”
    â€œHmmm, that’s a hard one,” I said. “I really hate them both.”
    â€œI hate school more than vegetables,” said our friend Michael, who never tieshis shoes, “because we don’t have to sit inside a vegetable all day and learn stuff.”
    â€œGood point,” I agreed.
    â€œI hate vegetables more than school,” Ryan said, “because we don’t have to eat the school.”
    That made perfect sense too. I couldn’t make up my mind.
    We were in the vomitorium. It was a pretty normal lunch at Ella Mentry School. Ryan stuck carrot sticks in his mouth and said, “Look, I’m a walrus!” Michael put a spoon on his nose, and it hung there. I dared Ryan to put pickle chips on his Tater Tots and eat them. Ryan will eat anything.
    Michael dared me to shoot a straw wrapper at Andrea Young, this girl at the next table who is really annoying. The wrapper hit Andrea in the head. She screamed and knocked her apple juice on the floor.
    Just at that moment, Andrea’s annoying friend Emily was walking by with her tray. Emily slipped on the juice and fell on her butt. As she was falling, she knocked over a whole rack of lunch trays. Crash!
    â€œOuch!” Emily shouted. “I bumped my mouth. My tooth is loose!”
    I don’t know why, but when people fall on their butt, it’s hilarious. Me and Ryanand Michael just about exploded trying not to laugh. Emily started crying. That big crybaby. She wasn’t even hurt, and her tooth was probably loose before she fell.
    Mrs. McGillicuddy, the lunch lady, came running out.

    â€œWhat’s going on?” she screamed. “Can’t you kids behave?”
    Mrs. McGillicuddy is the meanest lunch lady in the history of the world. She’s always yelling at us to clean off our table, be quiet, and stop throwing food. She’s no fun at all.
    Mrs. McGillicuddy must not have seen the apple juice on the floor when she came running out. She slipped on it and fell on her butt too.
    It’s even funnier when grown-ups fall on their butts, especially mean grown-ups like Mrs. McGillicuddy. Everybody was cracking up.
    â€œYou kids are driving me crazy!” Mrs.McGillicuddy shouted. “That’s the last straw! I quit!”
    She was totally wrong. There were plenty of straws right there on the lunch counter. But Mrs. McGillicuddy must not have noticed. She yanked off her plastic apron, ripped off her plastic gloves, and pulled off her lunch lady hairnet. She threw all that stuff on the floor and stomped out of the vomitorium.
    I’ll tell you, there are a lot of crazy grown-ups at Ella Mentry School. But this was the first time I ever saw one of them actually go crazy, live and in person. It was cool.
    Miss Lazar, our custodian, came overwith a mop. I feel sorry for her. Every time some kid spills something, she has to clean it up.

    â€œI love cleaning up messes!” Miss Lazar said, mopping the apple juice off the floor. Miss Lazar is bizarre!
    When all the excitement was over, Ryan put a carrot stick in his nose and ate it (the carrot stick, not his nose). Michael made a sculpture out of tuna salad. I threw a cookie to Ryan, and he caught it in his mouth.
    Like I said, it was a pretty normal lunch.

2
A Special Guest
    Finally it was time for recess. Mr. Klutz, our principal, says kids today don’t get enough exercise. There should be recess all day long, if you ask me. We should have school for half an hour, instead of the other way around. Then we’d get lots of exercise.
    â€œThat was cool when Mrs. McGillicuddy quit,” Ryan said as we climbed the monkey bars.
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I guess they’ll have to find a new lunch lady.”
    â€œWhere are they gonna find a new lunch lady?” asked