Free Miss Mary Is Scary! by Dan Gutman

1
A Ghost in the Bathroom
    My name is A.J. and I hate school.
    It was a couple of weeks before Halloween, which is the coolest holiday of the year. We get to wear our costumes to school on Halloween and have a big candy party. At the end of the day we parade around the block with all the parents watching.Marching in a parade is way better than watching a parade, because you don’t have to stand in one place for a million hundred hours.
    â€œHang up your coats in the cloakroom,” said my teacher, Mr. Granite, who is from another planet.
    What a weird name for a room: “cloakroom.” Who wears a cloak ? I don’t even know what a cloak is.
    After we finished circle time and Word of the Day, Mr. Granite told us to take out our math books and turn to page twenty-three.
    â€œCan I go to the bathroom?” I asked.
    â€œDo you really need to, A.J.?” said Mr. Granite.
    â€œYes!”
    I didn’t really need to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I go to the bathroom even though I don’t have to. Like when Mr. Granite is teaching math. I hate math. Math is the perfect time to go to the bathroom.
    â€œArlo doesn’t need to go to the bathroom,” said Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.
    â€œI do too.”
    â€œDo not.”
    We went back and forth like that for a while. But the teachers have to let you go to the bathroom. It’s a law. If they don’tlet you go to the bathroom, they have to go to jail.
    â€œGo ahead, A.J.,” Mr. Granite grumbled.
    â€œThe boys’ bathroom is haunted, y’know,” whispered my friend Ryan. “I heard there’s a ghost in there.”
    â€œYeah, watch out for that ghost,” said my friend Michael. “He eats kids for lunch.”
    That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as a ghost. And even if there were ghosts, they wouldn’t go to the bathroom. They don’t have to.
    Even if ghosts did have to go to the bathroom, they wouldn’t haunt one. Ghosts haunt graveyards, basements, and old houses of people who died. Notbathrooms. Everybody knows that. I’m not afraid of ghosts.
    Still, I was going to be careful, just to be on the safe side. I walked down the hall and pushed open the door to the bathroom. *
    â€œAnybody in here?” I asked.
    Nobody answered.
    I sat down in one of the stalls. There was nothing to do, but it was better than learning math.
    That’s when something really weird happened. The toilet in the stall next to me flushed.
    â€œWho’s in there?” I asked, alarmed.

    Nobody answered.
    I peeked under the stall to see who was in there.
    Nobody.
    â€œAre you a…ghost?” I asked.
    The ghost didn’t answer. Maybe it was invisible.
    I picked up the extra roll of toilet paper in case I had to hit the invisible ghost overthe head with it.
    That’s when something even weirder happened. The toilet on the other side of me flushed!
    â€œWho is that?” I demanded.
    Nobody answered.
    I peeked under the stall.
    Nobody was there.
    This was really weird! Maybe there were two invisible ghosts! And they had me surrounded! I was scared. I wanted to run away to Antarctica and go live with the penguins.
    But that’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. The toilet I was sitting on suddenly flushed!
    â€œAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
    I got up and ran out of the stall. Then I ran past the sinks, and they turned on! Then I ran past the hand dryer, and it turned on!
    â€œHelp!” I screamed as I ran out the door. “There are ghosts in there!”
    I ran back to class and shouted, “There are ghosts in the bathroom! Help!”
    â€œCalm down, A.J.,” Mr. Granite told me. “What happened?”
    â€œI was in the stall,” I explained, “and the toilet on my left flushed all by itself! And then the toilet on my right flushed